KON’NICHIWA

Day One: 8/25-26-27/2018 (Int’l Dateline)   It’s been a looong time since I’ve made any substantive post.  Lots of reasons, but mainly poor health and massive sloth.  The health thing turned around after a rather extensive 5 1/2 hour operation back in February, and with feeling better came the urge to get cracking on travel.  Once I was confident the improvements were here to stay for the foreseeable future, we started looking for places to go.  Japan has always been on our list, so we took a look at the latest Colette Tours brochure for their offerings.  We’ve done three with them (Australia-NZ, Spain, and Portugal), all documented on the Blog, and had good luck each time.  Sure enough, they had space on one departing in late August for two weeks.  Hmmm.  August in Tokyo?  Heat and humidity for sure, but we couldn’t go any later in the year due to other commitments, so decided to pull the trigger.  Just before doing so, we called Chuck and Alice (see the Scotland-Ireland posts) to see if they were interested and, wahooo, they were.  Just like that.  We made reservations with Colette for 4 and set about sourcing flights.  Unfortunately, the best option had only three seats available.  We snagged those, along with Alice, and Chuck heroically took alternate flights (first, to Dallas, then from there to Tokyo; somehow, American sold that routing far cheaper than a seat on our flight; go figure, I sure can’t) hopefully to arrive within an hour or so of us.  Unfortunately, Chuck’s flight was at 6-something, so I had to get up at 4am to run him to the airport.  At least no LA traffic at that hour, and I was back home and in bed by 5:00.  Our flight, leaving just after noon, was on American, long on my avoid-at-all-costs list for unending consumer-unfriendly policies, but all turned out well.  We had a direct flight from LAX to Narita, the only international airport for Tokyo, or so we thought.  Turns out you can also fly nonstop to Haneda, a much closer-in one, but that option didn’t show up in our searches.  Must have been more expensive.  Narita is about an hour and a half or so from Tokyo proper, requiring ground transportation arrangements as well.  Back to LAX.  After hassling with a balky check-in kiosk, our TSA precheck got us through in a flash and we were at the gate only an hour and 15 minutes after leaving home.  For LAX, with allegedly full remote parking (we drove around the cones and got the absolute last available spot, our first good omen), and the terminal shuttle, and the drive from home, that was pretty remarkable.  Our flight left at noon, and we flew with the sun all across the Pacific.  But our plane was a 787, and it sported those nifty windows where the glass can be darkened to almost total opacity, allowing the lights to be turned off for sleeping even during daylight.  While neither Loni nor I slept at all, it was nice for watching movies and giving the sense of a night passing.  As we got close to Japan, the windows were slowly cleared and it felt like we were starting the day.  Whatever, neither of us had much problem with jet lag.  The flight was smooth and long (just under 12 hours) and we got there at 3:30 in the afternoon the next day (crossing the Date Line).  Food was pretty good (those pastas were better than they looked), as we opted for the economy Plus status, which was almost worth the extra $.  Almost, because despite the welcome leg room, the seats had zero lumbar support.  Who designs these things for long flights?  I used my inflatable back support, and it was tolerable.  We got to sit up front in the “Economy Plus” section with only 21 seats, with easy access to 2 bathrooms and dibs on first service amongst the hoi polloi.  The extra legroom was much appreciated.  I watched four movies (Molly’s Game good, Book club bleah), read some, tried to sleep but failed, and generally just tried to Zen my way along.  I’ll credit American with friendly staff, adequate bathrooms, plenty of food and drink, and an excellent selection of movies and tv stuff.  If only they would apply the same care to domestic flights.

At Narita, we had a very long hike to the baggage claim from the most remote terminal possible, where ours were virtually the first off.  Our second good omen!  We had a quick and easy passage through customs and security and exited to the lobby to find the bus shuttle.  I had researched this before leaving, and had a map of the terminal so it was an easy find.  The friendly staff spoke just enough English, and we bought our tickets for a bus leaving in an hour, and sat down to hope that Chuck would get there in time to join us.  Alas, he got there just minutes after we left.  While there, I tried out an ATM to make sure my card worked.  No sweat, with easy English instructions on the screen.  Unfortunately, I got a 10,000 yen note, about the equivalent of a C-note in USD.  As we were to find later, that’s not a problem even for the smallest vendors.  They happily take it and empty their till to give you change.

The bus ride in was not scenic.  It travels almost entirely through an industrial/commercial byway, with almost nothing of interest to see.  Lots of sound walls abutting the highway, so we couldn’t see anything much of the time.  Not until we got into downtown Tokyo did things start to get interesting, mostly nifty buildings, a giant Ferris Wheel ala the London Eye, the Tokyo Tower and such.  Ours was about the sixth stop the bus made at various hotels, so we got an idea what the hotel competition looked like.  Having done so, we can say “Kudos!” to Collette, as the Tokyo Prince was far and away the best situated of any of them.  Its vaguely Soviet architecture was unremarkable on the outside (inside was quite nice), but the winning element was its setting within the largest swath of greenery we were to encounter within Tokyo proper.  And, it was literally in the shadow of the iconic Tokyo Tower, which we were to visit in a couple of days.  To show you what I mean by its splendid location, here’s a shot I took from the tower (through less than clear windows) looking down on our hotel (white buildings in foreground).  Check out the rest of the city and look in vain for anything green. It also

was a great walking area, with lots of restaurants over towards the blue square at upper right. When we first checked in, our room was fourth floor from the top, at the far right of the wing facing this way.  The room was fine, and had a terrific view of the Tower (from where I’m taking this photo).  However, about 5 minutes after we got in to it, I started hearing these faint drum sounds.  As there is a big park at the lower right of this photo, I thought sure that they were setting up for a rock concert or some festival for the evening, somewhere back in the trees.  Having been up for 27 hours or more, that was going to drive me nuts.  I went down to the desk and began a completely unfathomable and otherwise comical conversation with the severely English-challenged desk crew, trying to explain about the drum noise and asking to be moved.  It took forever, but a lot of bowing later I was told to go back and wait.  About 15 minutes later, we were led up two floors to our new room, right above our former room, with . . . (drumroll, literally and figuratively) the faint drum poundings still permeating.  We gave up, accepted the room and settled in.  About an hour later, the drum sounds faded away.  Oh, bliss.  We would be moved the next day anyway, as this night was on our own, not Collette, since we had arrived a day early, ahead of the tour, just to be safe.  The TV had only two channels we could understand:  Angels baseball (they have a Japanese pitcher, so this channel was on everywhere we went, endlessly replaying the games) and a channel showing cat videos.  The rest were incomprehensible game shows with people dressed weirdly.  Neither of us slept well, despite exhaustion. Some time that evening Chuck arrived, having survived his solo travels, but we didn’t connect until morning.

The next morning, we got up early at 6:45 local, and tried to call C&A at the room number Loni thought she heard Alice tell her the night before.  I got some guy who said nothing, but sighed heavily repeatedly.  Oops, sorry fella.  Loni’s hearing loss strikes again. She heard 1016, and it was 1060. We finally connected down in the lobby and had the $28 /person breakfast buffet.  I have to say, it was pretty good (even the danish were tasty), although no breakfast is worth that price.  Today marks the official first day of the Colette tour, so we will have to re-check in to the block of rooms they have reserved.  Too early for that, so we decided to explore the nifty looking building to the right of the hotel in the photo above from the Tower.  This turned out to be the Zojoji Buddhist Temple, a major one in Tokyo, and right next door.  It was hot and humid already, so we went inside to sit down and cool off.  There were only a few people inside.  After a couple of minutes of silence, four monks entered from behind a screen and took positions around the altar.  They began to chant.  Way coool!  This went on for a while, acapella, and then they started adding . . . (wait for it) . . . DRUMS!  That’s what we had been hearing the previous evening.  Why couldn’t the desk staff have figured that out and told us?  Didn’t understand the word “drums,” I suppose.  They also had gongs, chimes, and beat on wood items.  Anyway, it was a nifty experience.

Chuck visited the temple late afternoon that same day and caught another ceremony, but this time involving a couple dozen novitiates (he surmised).  Even more impressive with more bodies moving about and chanting.  Outside the temple, to the right as you face it, is an extensive array of figurines, thousands.

The sign explains all.  It was quite sobering and touching.  The above lineup stretched out to the left for hundreds of feet.  The heat rising, we strolled back to the hotel where we flaked out in the lobby waiting for the room assignment.  After an hour or so, they called us over and we were taken to out new digs.  We now are on the front side of the hotel, still up high, overlooking the pool area and the beer garden.  Both were just fine, but I preferred the serenity of the pool area.

Dinner tonite was to be on Colette as it is their custom to host a welcome dinner the first night for all the group.  There were several restaurants in the hotel and we ate in the Simizu.  It was kaiseki style, with lots of little dishes on a tray.  It was quite nice, although Alice, who doesn’t eat chicken, suffered thru a couple of dishes with a tofu substitute, which she likes even less.  No round of introductions tonight, which I missed.  Found out later that our guide was saving that for another day.  We seem to be mostly U.S. folk, with a handful of Aussies including Bruce and Liz, from Melbourne, who sat opposite us.  Nice people.  Our guide, Yoshiko, seems to be a very sweet lady with a very strong accent to her English.  I’m thinking this is going to be a challenge.  I pegged her at about 35 years old, but we later found out she’s an amazingly young 55.  We were glad we stayed at the hotel for dinner, as we were treated to a tremendous thunder and lightning storm which we viewed through the giant plate-glass windows in the restaurant.  Leisurely start tomorrow (9:30) so we’ll have plenty of time for breakfast.  A good first day!