Day 1 was quite the adventure, things are great here overall plus i've started to keep a travel diary which is completely separate from the blog. I think the format for the future will be that blog entries will be summaries of the travel diary - although there's no guarantee that i'll be doing either. Planes, public transport, and bumbling around the city was the order of the day. Much to laugh about.
First i'll start off with planes and technology. I've always mentioned that there should be external cameras on commercial planes, but it appears that Japan airlines is way ahead of me. Obviously i've been watching too much Air Crash Investigation. Anyway, all off the passengers aboard the flight (Sydney - Tokyo) had access to two external cameras - one facing forward and one facing below. Novel!
Takeoff was quite the thrill, considering that there was more to see. Not only did I have a partial view out the window (just forward of the right wing), there were also the external cameras to look at. Flying has become that much better. Truly. I would highly recommend that other carriers provide the same external camera service for their passengers - it would also lessen the appeal of a window seat. Slightly.
Take off was 10:50am Sydney time and touchdown was 6:00pm Tokyo time. Slightly ahead of schedule. After touching down at Narita International Airport we had to make our way to the hotel via train - which leads me to my second point, public transport.
Getting around in Tokyo is quite simple, everything is in English as well as in Japanese! Even though there are masses of train/subway lines cris-crossing Tokyo it's still dead easy to get around... and quickly too. Everything is intuitive, and it is difficult to remian lost for long. A plethora of signs leading to stations, graphical displays of upcoming stations with approximate timings on the stations, and status indicators on the trains themselves (along with automated voice confirmations) makes travelling around in Tokyo a real treat. Truly a standard for City Rail should adopt, or attempt to adopt.
Sitting on the train also leads me to my little Lonely Planet joke. Although it sounds much worse written down (I promise). It's one of those random comments that seem to come out of my mouth from time to time. The situation is that i'm reading through some phrases out of the Lonely Planet book helpfully donated to me by Kieu... common phrases such as "Arigato gozaimasu", meaning "Thank you, sir/madam". Suddenly I flick the page and spot some odd phrases and start to laugh. This page contains the Japanese translation for the phrase - "I have diarrhoea". Seriously, I can see why it can be a Lonely Planet - with people using phrases like that I can see why it would be hard to make friends!
I've split this entry up into two, as there's lots to read and you probably want to see some photos!
First i'll start off with planes and technology. I've always mentioned that there should be external cameras on commercial planes, but it appears that Japan airlines is way ahead of me. Obviously i've been watching too much Air Crash Investigation. Anyway, all off the passengers aboard the flight (Sydney - Tokyo) had access to two external cameras - one facing forward and one facing below. Novel!
Takeoff was quite the thrill, considering that there was more to see. Not only did I have a partial view out the window (just forward of the right wing), there were also the external cameras to look at. Flying has become that much better. Truly. I would highly recommend that other carriers provide the same external camera service for their passengers - it would also lessen the appeal of a window seat. Slightly.
Take off was 10:50am Sydney time and touchdown was 6:00pm Tokyo time. Slightly ahead of schedule. After touching down at Narita International Airport we had to make our way to the hotel via train - which leads me to my second point, public transport.
Getting around in Tokyo is quite simple, everything is in English as well as in Japanese! Even though there are masses of train/subway lines cris-crossing Tokyo it's still dead easy to get around... and quickly too. Everything is intuitive, and it is difficult to remian lost for long. A plethora of signs leading to stations, graphical displays of upcoming stations with approximate timings on the stations, and status indicators on the trains themselves (along with automated voice confirmations) makes travelling around in Tokyo a real treat. Truly a standard for City Rail should adopt, or attempt to adopt.
Sitting on the train also leads me to my little Lonely Planet joke. Although it sounds much worse written down (I promise). It's one of those random comments that seem to come out of my mouth from time to time. The situation is that i'm reading through some phrases out of the Lonely Planet book helpfully donated to me by Kieu... common phrases such as "Arigato gozaimasu", meaning "Thank you, sir/madam". Suddenly I flick the page and spot some odd phrases and start to laugh. This page contains the Japanese translation for the phrase - "I have diarrhoea". Seriously, I can see why it can be a Lonely Planet - with people using phrases like that I can see why it would be hard to make friends!
I've split this entry up into two, as there's lots to read and you probably want to see some photos!
-- Apologies for the poor use of past and present tense (if there are any errors), i'm sitting in the business centre of the Shiba Park Hotel but some retard is playing really annoying dance music... trying to concentrate damn it!!!
2 comments:
awesome - i'm so jealous! Hope you guys have a great time. I bet Dave is enjoying staring over everyone's heads :-D
*And the macca's picture says "hamburger" - I'm so proud :)*
Even I feel tall around here - it's great!
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