In Vancouver I had to transfer to Japan Airlines. Having had an issue with my tickets, I more or less bluffed my way into the International departure lounge with my ticket for Air Canada. I bought some Yen there (the international symbol is ¥ but they use a different local symbol 円, conversion is about $1US=¥100) I got a new ticket from the nice people of Japan Airlines. after boarding I slept through most of the flight. I only woke up once or twice. My mistake was to eat the food offered on the flight, it was pretty bad, burnt noodles with burnt meat sauce, a small dish of mashed potatoes with radish (this is apparently the way to make mashed potatoes here) and ice cold noodles with a semi-sweet sauce for dessert.I arrived at 3:30pm on Thursday the 30th of July. It took about an hour or so to get through customs. When foreigners enter Japan, they must now put their index fingers on two electronic scanners which catalog and record your fingerprints, passport ID and take a picture of you at once. This is in case of any problems they can always figure out who the foreigners are. Being used to Big Brother, I was mildly surprised but the Japanese people here are really upset with this system (one of my roommates here even apologized to me for it).
I got the the luggage pickup zone and all the police dogs were coming to sniff me, maybe 5-6 dogs came up. After the first two I got a bit weireded out that I seemed to be such an interesting person to sniff. I guess I should have expected it though, with 4 cats and a dog back in Canada, my clothes must have smelled really interesting! None of the dogs seemed to be interested in my luggage, and one even came up wagging his(or maybe her?) tail to me to lick my hand, he was pulled back and reprimanded. After that they kept the dogs away from me.
After grabbing a cart and my luggage I wandered around and found an information kiosk. I asked the girl how to get to Yokohama where I was staying for a few nights. Ensued a long conversation between her and two other girls there trying to decide what to do with me. they finally gave me an itinerary which was much different form the one My girlfriend had given me. So I went to the public phones, fiddled around a bit with a phone card machine, and called her. Apparently the trip they had recommended would have cost 3 times what the other trip would cost, around $40. So I went down some pretty interesting escalators on which you can take your luggage carts and found the train station under the airport.
I gave the girl at the train ticket booth the method I wanted to take and she gave me a ticket and said that it would leave in an hour and a half. Unfortunatley the luggage cart had to stay there as I grabbed my two 40 pound bags in each hand, my backpack and walked to the platform to catch my train. I plopped myself down and sat there waiting. After a while a train employee started to walk around in my vicinity. I showed him my ticket and asked him if I was in the right spot, he said I was. After a long wait, the time for my train to arrive was getting closer, however there are 3 or 4 different trains there, with different markings and going different directions, all at the same platform. There is a local train and different express trains, which stop at larger and larger intervals.
Something must have happend because there was a stop in the trains and then they announced that all trains would be 10 minutes late. I kept an eye on the platform waiting for my train to arrive. When the time was a minute close, a train going the wrong direction stopped, I didn't get on it, it left within seconds of stopping. Then another came the right direction but an express, it too stopped for a second and left. Then some other different type of train stopped for a second and left. At this point I wasn't sure anymore which one I was supposed to get on. I saw two more trains go by one of which didn't actually stop so much as slow down to an almost stop, open the doors, then quickly closed then and took off. That was my train...
I went to another train employee asking when the next train was going to leave going my way, she answered in about and hour... Arrrg.... I had to call my girlfriend and tell her I was going to be a little late...
This time I was determined not to miss my train! I would dive through the doors like Neo if it was required! As I was waiting a New Zealand guy came up to me and we chatted, he directed me to another train employee who understood English and gave me specific instructions on how many trians to wait before getting on. Turns out the Guy from NZ was heading the same way for a part of the trip, he was going to Tokyo, so we waited together and chatted. He was on his way to see his sister for her birthday in Korea and decided to make a two day trip through Japan on his way there.
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