We left on Saturday from LAX at 3:45 p.m. and arrived at 7:15 p.m. on Sunday @ Narita Int’l. We were able to go through Customs, pick up our luggage, exchange our Traveler’s checks, exchange our rail passes, make all of our seat reservations on the shinkansen (bullet train) and buy a Suica card (subway pass) by 8:15 p.m. It helped that Narita seemed pretty empty and that there was a person who spoke very good English in the Japan Rail (“JR”) office. Tip: don’t forget to fill out the back of the Customs cards…oops.

D used the bathroom at Narita and was confused by the setup. I didn’t see the facilities, but apparently he almost went in the sink!

The Narita Express was only running about once an hour, and only in the morning and night in order to conserve power. Luckily, there was a train that left at 8:45.

You can use the JR Pass to get on the Narita Express. We were told all the seats were reserved (make the reservations in the JR office) but I’m not sure why, considering we almost had a whole car to ourselves! The train feels very new, and was a conveient way to get to the city.

We arrived at Tokyo station and had to transfer to the subway. We tried to swipe our subway card at the turnstile, not realizing that we just had to show our JR pass to exit. The subway card wouldn’t let us out (since it didn’t let us in) and we each tried to swipe it about five times before we figured it out. After that, it was smooth sailing, transportation-wise, which I was worried about. Even though the stations are huge, there is good signage everywhere (in English). The hyperdia website really helped us in planning all of our transportation routes.

We found our hotel in Akasaka and checked in around 10:15 p.m.



The room was small, but clean and in a good location. However, we can’t recommend it, for a reason which we will discuss later.

D had a hard time sleeping due to the time change. I managed a little more sleep, but we both felt an aftershock around 2 a.m. It was very small, but a bit unnerving at the same time. (We felt another small aftershock the next night at around the same time).

We received breakfast coupons for the Excelsior Cafe attached to the hotel. The breakfast options were interesting, more like lunch to us. Sandwiches, or soup or hardboiled egg/toast, all accompanied by a green salad and coffee, tea or juice.

D and I both chose the first option, a sandwich with egg salad, tuna salad and shrimp…yes, all three! We observed many men in suits drop by the cafe for their breakfast on their way to work. Also, we inadvertently sat in the smoking section and had to move to get some fresh air. Living in CA, we forget that people still smoke while they eat–gross. Fueled up, we were ready for our first full day by 7:15 a.m.!

D and I had been talking about visiting Japan ever since my sister and her family moved to Hiroshima last year. We decided it would be best to leave the kids with my parents, and we booked two plane tickets on Singapore Airlines. We started doing our research and booked hotels rooms. Then, in March, the earthquake/tsunami/radiation triple whammy hit Japan and our plans were up in the air. Most people we talked to advised us not to go, and we went back and forth. In the end, we decided to go forth with our plans and the U.S. government even lifted its advisory against non-essential travel two days before our departure date!

I was excited to fly Singapore Airlines since they’re always ranked high in consumer satisfaction surveys. D had flown them multiple times on his previous trips to Singapore, but it had been a while. After flying United, where the only meal time choice is a $5 box of junk, it was nice to eat real food on a plane. Walking past the first class seats, one cannot help feel jealous…those seats are huge! We settled into our economy seats, and grabbed a few newspapers on the way (free!): LA Times for me, Financial Times and (on the way back I got The Straits Times) for D. We were also given hot towels by the courteous stewardesses.

The flight was over ten hours, but it didn’t feel like it. I was able to watch The King’s Speech and D watched Little Fockers (yes, really). For the rest of the trip, D did “knuckles” whenever we reached a goal, something he learned from his movie, I guess.

Nice video setup. I also liked tracking our trip on-screen.

D started out with their signature Singapore Sling. I had the Fruit Spritzer, which turned out to be apple juice with 7-Up (ha-ha!)

For dinner, there was a choice between the Japanese meal and International (which was pretty much American). We chose the Japanese meal…chunk of seared tuna, tamago, cold noodles with dipping sauce, teriyaki chicken, rice, roll, senbei, green tea.

Dessert was Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Out of all the flavors, this is probably my least favorite, oh well. On the way home it was Haagen Dazs vanilla.

Snack: Curry bun or Turkey wrap. The curry bun was too heavy…like a pie crust with curry inside. The wrap was OK, a little dry.

They also came along with a choice of potato chips and Hershey’s chocolate bars.

Our flight happened to be partially on April 17th, our wedding anniversary. 7 years! For the first time I can really remember, D surprised me by e-mailing the airline beforehand to ask if they did anything for special occasions. (Usually D is very bad at keeping secrets and always hints at things so I usually figure out something is going on). I was half asleep when the crew came by with a little mocha cake. They even put orchids and dry ice to make it all fancy.


Of course, by this time, we were pretty full, but we had a few bites.

Finally, we also had breakfast! We had shrimp fried rice, ham with potato salad, carrot cake, and a roll.

Overall, I enjoyed the flight experience. It felt very decadent to not have to worry about the kids and just eat/sleep/read/watch tv whenever I wanted.