More catchup, Japan

Here we are in the Bangkok airport about to leave Thailand for Japan. Lorien and I both still had ear infections, and we decided before boarding the plane was a good time to administer ear drops. It also gave us an excuse to lie down for a bit before the long plane ride.

We didn't really have a lot of time in Japan. Narita is not really very close by to Tokyo. Which I can understand in a crowded country like Japan, but I can't understand for example why the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia is so far from the city. So with all of the time in transit, we only really had about 5 or 6 hours I think.

Usually we're accustomed to having guidebooks, maps, and stuff like that. This time we had none of that, our only main preparation was about an hour the previous day in Bangkok where we scanned the web, and managed to get some useful information off of wikitravel.org. It helped that we had limited goals -- our one main goal was to get some good sushi. Which we did, by going as close to the source as possible, one of two places recommended that's located right in the fish market. The fish comes in in the early morning hours, and people start queuing for sushi for breakfast. We weren't there quite that early (more like 10ish AM), but we still had to wait about an hour. But it was worth it. Quite good.

Our endeavors were also helped by a few things that I remembered from my previous trip to Japan. One, that the public transit system is amazing. It really makes it clear how horrible all American public transit systems are when you see just how good it can be. The other is that so many Japanese people are so helpful, to the point sometimes of being absurd. If you're in a big city, where most of the people can speak decent English, even if you think like you look a little confused, and are staring at a map or looking around for a sign, chances are that someone will come up and ask you if you need any help, before you even have the chance to think about asking someone for help. One time we entered a subway line by heading into a stairwell that, in an unusual example of something not being organized well, put us on the wrong side of the station (with the tracks going the other way than we wanted), with us having had no other choice. Not really that big of a deal, we just had to walk down the platform, head up some stairs there, cross over the tracks, and down the other side. And we were pretty certain that we knew exactly what we were doing and I don't really think we looked confused at all. So as we're heading out of sight and climbing the stairs to get to the other side, this guy is running after us trying to catch up to us. I can't imagine what's going on, and he just wants to make sure we know what we're doing and that we're going where we want to go. And even when we get to the other side he's similing at us and pointing and making sure that we're all set.

We had wanted to walk around the gardens of the Imperial Palace, but they're closed on Mondays (and Fridays). Nevertheless, we headed to the area instead, and wandered around some other nearby gardens. By that time it was getting close to us having to head back in the direction of the airport anyway, and we were also starting to get a little bit weary, our first stage of jetlag beginning to catch up to us.

I'm glad we took the time to head in to Tokyo. It would have been nice to have more time, although you can easily spend as much in a very short amount of time in Tokyo as you can live on for probably a whole month in Southeast Asia.