Bags are packed, I'm ready to go...
Customs tells ya on the website: "Get a form filled out listing your expensive items/electronics so we don't give you shit when you get back." So, I head off to find the Customs office upon arriving at Pearson. Customs Agent updates this advice: "Yeah, folks were getting us to fill the forms out and then using the 'temporary' exemption to try and import items back into the country or export for resale. No one at the counter, here or there, gives a shit if you have it anymore - they prefer to see receipts of purchase for the items from here - but I'll do it for ya and you take your chances"
Check in and wander my way through the joy that is security clearance. At least they didn't make me take my shoes off this time. Grab a doughy sandwich from the Pearson's Casey's before flight then settle in to wait for boarding 'cause there's really nothing else to do in this dump once you've been funnelled down here. How one designs a modern airport building with so little attention to hospitality management I've no idea.
Finally board the plane and learn upon take-off that, if you're going to fly in a 777, actually pick your seat and get yourself close to the front/middle of the plane. Finding yourself sitting near the tail is like scrambling for the last 'coaster car at Wonderland: you're gonna feel everything... The course of the flight will see 3 meals, bunched into the middle 10 hours of a 12 hour airtime, all of them microwavable != yum. Especially the "eggs" and some sort of tomato paste omlet. Want more Cranberry Digestibles though. Note: when you've 6 hours to blow on a flight there's still very little that compares to Civilization for making hours evaporate. We land and the young Japanese kid who got the window seat on my row and got up once in 12 hours - the last hour to be exact - to use the bathroom waves to his girlfriend 2 rows ahead who also wanted a window seat on a half empty plane with lots of loose seats to cuddle in. He "didn't want to inconvenience me". I'm inwardly face-palming while feeling like an ass for not saying something far sooner...
Narita is surrounded by Farms. Rice paddies from the looks of it. It's also a preposterously bad place to be when more than one International Flight comes in at the same time. One hour later - 50 minutes of which spent standing in line - I'm past the security guy who decides I'm due for some baggage inspection because of the lock dangling from my bag I've already taken off the lockable zipper just in case and exchanging currency.
Redeem my Japan Rail Pass and the attendant gets me ticket on the next Express from Narita to Tokyo station. It's an interesting ride through a mix of farming and small urban areas until you're within Tokyo proper. Sometimes on the trip you get the feeling that there's no urban planning going on here at all as brand new large houses shoot up next to dilapidated buildings or shanties; giving the lingering impression that once you've the deed anything goes. Also: just from looking I'm never driving here. I hate narrow streets. Especially two way ones exactly one car wide.
If you're coming from someplace where you're used to just dropping your fare in and going, you're probably gonna bone yourself at least once. The Subway/Train system here uses "tickets" but the way they work is that you feed the machine when you enter the gate for the station where you're getting on, the machine stamps it, gives it back to you, and then you have to remember (or know... ), to get it back before leaving the gate machine so you can use it to get out at your next stop. Leave your ticket where you got on and you've gotta pay again to get off. The fees also adjust based on how many lines/stops you hit so there's another machine near the gate where you exit that "adjusts" your ticket (ie: charges you more), if necessary so you can get out of the station. It's nowhere near as crowded at the moment as it's reputation but it's also 6:30 PM on a Sunday now. I'm not looking to test the rush hour crowds, but we'll have to see how a weekday goes. The Toei lines have the best ticket machines 'cause you can punch in your destination at many of them and it'll kick back exact fare - including transfers.
People say the Hotel rooms are small: I'd say they're functional. The bathroom on the otherhand... well, if there's an award for fitting all functionallity into a minimum of space, these guys are in line for it.
The downside to no longer being able to take scissors/knives/general sharp objects in carry-on baggage: remembering you need a groundless plug adapter for your laptop, picking it up at the Terminal, and dropping down into your Hotel Bed just in time to be reminded exactly how hard it is to open this god damned form-fit plastic packaging they use now. Off to try and scrounge from the front desk...
One PPV Japanese movie channel, two ad pamphlets for PPV porn, about ten free local TV channels in addition... no mechanism to get alternative audio feeds even if there were any. Suddenly very happy I preloaded my computer with stuff to watch in downtime and CBC Radio 3 comes through the Internet firewall at the Hotel...
Forgot to pack iPod cable... Lists are only as good as what you put on them sooooo, trip to Apple Store Tokyo tomorrow. Nap now.
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