TOKYO! - Arrival

I bought my ticket to Tokyo early in the morning of March 11th, just a couple of hours before the earthquake and following Tsunami devastated parts of Japan and lead to the problems at TEPCO's Fukushima plant. It seems for ever ago, and despite nervous comments by my grandma I never had the intention to dismiss this trip for the sake of ｆｅｅｌｉｎｇ safer. Which, and that as a side note, would have been ridiculous cause I still feel very safe here.

The trip really already started Friday morning (German time), when I finished the packing and left my apartment for work. Luckily, I was invited to a friend's good-bye party, which turned out to be a real blast with lots of people I have never met before. I literally partied through the night and started the final journey after 30min of light sleep and a long　shower. I was insanely tired, but that exactly was the plan: Sleeping　through the flight, so that when I get to Tokyo at 7am local time, I'd be awake, well rested, and not jet-lagged.
Well... the plan was really good, until I arrived in Frankfurt only to be told that the plane had a defected door and thus we would have to wait for the plane coming from Tokyo. It lead to good four hours of delay, which for me ment a 7 hour layover instead of 2.5 ... and no comfy bench in sight anywhere...

I was happy again, as soon as the plane arrived. The (not so) little geek in me was fascinated by the giant Airbus A380 that would bring us to Tokyo, and I spent the entire hour and a half they needed to get the plane ready and set up again at the giant windows of the (otherwise extremely boring) new Terminal 1 C.

Finally, boarding started. I quickly found my seat (81A), just behind the humongous left wing. Around me, and in the plane overall, were mainly Japanese people, most of them slightly drunk from all the German beer they had at the one and only restaurant / cafe at the terminal... I remembered the last time I sat in a plane in between a Japanese travel group: It was somewhere between Vancouver and Minneapolis, back in the days when I was still scared of flying, and I remember them all laughing and taking pictures in the by thunderstorm shaken plane. No good memories. Luckily though, the A380 flew like a magic carpet. And there was more than enough space for my short legs, and a tiny screen for me to finally watch Midnight in Paris (which I adored by the way, you should go see it!). And then I slept. Finally slept and slept and didn't even wake up for breakfast.

Getting into Japan was really easy. Although they had a mere 6 officers at immigration, there was no line. Take that Brazil! And they even take fingerprints and pictures, not just give out stamps... I managed to get onto the right train as well and quickly found the hostel after I had pulled my suitcase up what felt like 7 flights of stairs at Asakusa Metro Station.

The hostel is clean and nice, and I had time to take another nap and shower to get all ready for the real Tokyo exoerience with Kaoru. She picked me up at 17h and we went to a more traditional area of Tokyo, whos name I forgot. She managed to find the cutest small little restaurant somewhere in the middle of narrow alleys that no car could pass. We had to take off the shoes at the restaurant (smart me was wearing Chucks and taking very long... oopsie) and sat on the floor. As the menu was only in Japanese, Kaoru just ordered what she liked and I ate it. It was amazing food. So yummy. Next to the tuna sashimi I loved the little rolls made of tofu paper filled with I don't know what and topped with roe and sauce. To top off the awesome dinner, Kaoru took me to a tiny tiny bar, that basically just consisted of a small bar with　eight seats, lots of booze, and an old man that mixed what ever you ordered. We had Gin Tonic. It felt like back in the days in Madrid.

Back at the hostel I fell asleep directly and slept through like a baby.