World According to Pete

Wacky random ramblings about wacky random trips


Touchdown Japan!

Giant dinosaur at Chicago O'Hare ORD
I love this big guy at Chicago O’Hare!

Woke up and grabbed the hotel shuttle to Terminal 1 ANA check-in. We felt very superior having only carry-on luggage, the airline employees kept asking where was the rest of our luggage 😀 We did see one poor person at the ANA ticket counter who was frantically trying to repack her bags–I guess one was over the weight limit? A monstrous piece of luggage was burst open on the floor, and it looked like she had an entire disassembled swiffer crammed into it, along with perhaps her entire household–it’s crazy how people pack!

ANA inflight view of the trip
Kind of a long flight….
Flying over Wisconsin on the way to Japan on ANA
Nearly flew right over Appleton! Both Grandma & Grandpa were down there somewhere at the time.
Almost there….

The flight honestly wasn’t too bad. Had a few meals, watched the first Dune movie, and finally saw ReadyPlayerOne. Thirteen short hours later, we landed!

Those QR codes we got a couple of weeks ago actually helped a ton!!

Tokyo subway map
There’s Robert in the blue backpack fearlessly battling the ticket machine!

The train ride was great, especially compared to the Chicago Els lol. We found our way to the Shinegawa Station, which was very close to our hotel. The subways were pretty crowded, and Robert remarked “There sure are a lot of business suits for a Sunday!” Neither of us registered it was actually Monday by now 😀 It took us a couple attempts to actually exit the train station lol

Shinegawa Station
This station is absolutely enormous
But we don’t look too jetlagged!

We’re staying a couple nights at the Tokyo Strings Intercontinental, it probably wasn’t much to Robert’s liking (being all Western & upscale) but I really like having a bit of pampering hotel-wise after a long journey like that. The Strings is a beautiful property, the hotel begins on the 26th floor and is reasonably posh.

We were feeling kind of beat so we just took the hotel’s advice for a place to eat close by. The restaurant was a little confusing (naturally) but was a pretty great way to start the trip!

Salad of mystery

Silver eel Tokyo Japan
I’m guessing this was the silver cod?

Crab Tokyo Japan
Either a mysterious crab or an unfortunate space alien
Uni Tokyo Japan
And the best part of all: two different kinds of uni!!!!!

On the way back, we swung by the hotel bar to try Japanese Whiskeys.

We settled back into our beds, watched some wacky Japanese TV, and were asleep by 9:30 after a pretty eventful day.



One response to “Touchdown Japan!”

  1. Sounds like you had a great time! I spent a year in Japan and loved it. It is very different now though compared to the 80s 😄

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