Our flight arrived 4.5 hours later in Narita, as a row of beautiful rice fields greeted me. Too bad I was slow to take a photo as I enjoyed the noon skyline. Everything was nicely arranged. It was such an adorable sight to see rice fields neatly laid out. Photo below was a little too late, just see for yourself when you land in Narita airport.
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| Narita |
Pass cards and how to get around Tokyo
That's how good their systems are! Exceptionally well thought of and extremely convenient. During my travel, I used my Pasmo card in Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, and Osaka without any fuss of problems! God, I hope the idiots in Manila get hit with a hammer on the head until they start thinking like the Japanese.
I also bought a Tokyo Subway 2-Day Ticket at 1,200 Yen. This provides great value at around 240 pesos/day as the subway reaches almost all tourists spots you need to visit in Tokyo. Compare this to the JR 7-day pass which will cost you around 1,500 pesos/day. I will write a separate post on how to be cheapo and smart on Japan's transportation system as you could really save a lot of money if you plan and study it well. JR pass is not always the best option, it still depends on your travel plans.
How to get to Tokyo from Narita Airport
To save money, I took the slower Keisei Red Line for only 1,040 yen (P416, $9). This takes around 1.4 hrs to get to Ueno Station. From Ueno station you have connections to all the trains in Tokyo.
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| Keisei Line Platform (Narita) |
I reached the station closest to my host around 2:30pm. But it took me another hour or so before we met since I could not find any free wifi nearby. I even went to the police station but they had limited English skills so that didn't work either. With a little bit of tinkering around I was able to get free wifi by calling an automated answering machine which gave me the code using Softbank carrier. Here's a more detailed post on free wifi in Japan.
Couchsurfing Tokyo
Finally I meet my host who picked me up at the station. They are a lovely couple who cooked delicious Omu rice for me. It was my first time to couch surf ever and I was very fortunate that I had such generous hosts.
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| Sampling the Japanese grocery |
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| Omurice |
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| Gochisousama deshita! |
If you have never tried couchsurfing I highly suggest that you do. I'm an introvert by heart but this really has opened a whole new world for me and it had been making my travels so much for meaningful. There's no better way to understand a place better than through its people.
Just to give context on how kind my hosts were, they were about to get married in a week's time yet chose to host me! I mean in the Philippines that would be unheard of! Despite their hectic preparations they took good care of me. Least I could do was bring them a small gift from Manila. I was happy they liked it, they said it was "kawaii!". :)
The extremely prim and quiet neighborhood around my hosts' area. Such serenity and beauty in its simplicity and order.
To top of how much I envy the Japanese, their internet runs at 30Mbps with the amount we pay for out 3Mbps in Manila. Imposhiburuuu!!!
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