Well, our plane got in about 3 hours late due to weather and congestion at Tokyo Narita. A large part of the cause was a snow storm. It's really weird seeing snow on the ground here.
I didn't sleep more than 30 minutes the whole way, so it was pretty easy to get to sleep and wake up at 6pm. The Boeing 777s with individual LCD screens at each seat are quite handy. I watched 3 movies on the trip here--none of them great, but they sure helped pass the time.
Posted by jzawodn at March 04, 2005 01:29 PM
Note that this record-breaking snowstorm that plunged Tokyo into chaos was a snowfall of only four fifths of an inch.
If you see Scarlett Johansson, can you give her my mail address?
I told you the weather would be shit (see my comment on your previous blog entry)
;-)
How was the plane food, as salty and rubbery as usual? When I went to Japan it was shit food. I went at the same time of year as it is just now. They go big on the cherry trees at this time of year. I don't know if you seen any evidence of that in down town Tokyo. Its a huge place though, and the culture difference knocks you back a little. Its hard to miss the big sex industry they have, and the many many brothels they have running along the man streets and the hot girls trying to lure you in. Great place. I'm going to visit it again. And oh, did you goto the Disney land they have in Toyko? I didn't even know they had one till I got there.
Respect to Japanese girls.
How was the plane food, as salty and rubbery as usual? When I went to Japan it was shit food. I went at the same time of year as it is just now. They go big on the cherry trees at this time of year. I don't know if you seen any evidence of that in down town Tokyo. Its a huge place though, and the culture difference knocks you back a little. Its hard to miss the big sex industry they have, and the many many brothels they have running along the main streets and the hot girls trying to lure you in. Great place. I'm going to visit it again. And oh, did you goto the Disney land they have in Toyko? I didn't even know they had one till I got there.
Respect to Japanese girls.
Oh and you can't leave without visiting the Sony tower! Great place for new technology that the west hasn't even heard of yet!
Japan is so far ahead of tech, its unreal.
Oh, and did you manage to find the only MC donalds they have in Toyko. Its ssmall, but it has all the usual food. I think tis the only Mc Donalds in Japan! They don't like Americans much or the food.
I could write about Japan all night, its such a great place!
I backpacked the whole country, so I got to see alot of the culture.
nt3dtv, what are you talking about?!? There are McDonalds everywhere in Japan, or at least there were when I was there from '87 to '89. There's almost as much 'foreign' food in Japan as there is native. How you can say 'they don't like American food much' I don't know. There's enough of it available in restaurants and supermarkets (admittedly, much of it with a Japanese twist). It may be true that the Japanese nation (to the extent that it makes any sense ascribing properties to a nation as if it were an individual) has a love-hate relationship with America, but then I think it's fair to say that it does with the rest of the world as well.
You sure when you were trekking around that you were in Japan and not some place else?
Roger
I lived in Kobe, Japan from the late 70's to 1990. I remember at least three McDonald's locations in Kobe, Japan. At least.
Somehow I doubt nt3dtv was visiting a well-represented part of Tokyo, let alone Japan.
I think you can consider yourself lucky. About 10,000 people were left stranded overnight at Narita Airport on Saturday night trying to get to Sydney. The Management at the Airport was DISCRACEFUL. They did their best to keep us in the dark by Lying and keeping information from us. We were not given blankets, food or water and were not told when our flight was to be rescheduled. Our original flight was due to leave at 21:00 on Saturday, no announcement was made to say that it was delayed and then at 8:00 am in the morning we noticed that it was listed on one monitor for 18:30 on Sunday. They did not list a gate number and a large group of passengers managed to get some information (reluctantly) from Airport staff that it might leave from gate 62. At 18:00 when the JL plane parked at this gate was being pushed away, it became obvious that the plane was not going to leave from this gate. One of the passengers managed to locate a sign that indicated the plane was leaving from another gate and we all made our way to this gate which was some distance away. This proved to be the correct gate, but at 18:30 it looked like there might not be any plane there either and we all felt we were being lied to again. A riot almost started, security guards arrived and it was all very distressing. The problem was that the crowd did not believe their stories and we all felt that they were telling lies to buy more time. I personally think if we had not kicked up a fuss they would have made us stay another night. As it was we were put onto the plane at 22:00 and left waiting another 2 hours while they tried to locate 50 missing passengers at the Airport. They probably made no announcements, and did not display any information on any monitors to say that the plane was leaving. As it was 18 people were left behind and are probably still there now. I think the management at Narita Airport are to blame, they were inconspicuous and left it to the poor girls at the counters to lie to us on their behalf.
I went to Tokyo last year on Sept and I have a terrible memory.
First of all, Tokyo is very crowded.
Tokyo is composed of many short buildings and are placed irregularly. It was really inconvenient.
If you want to go to sightseeing in Japan I recommend not to visit Tokyo. I have been there last year and stayed there for 25 days, and I was gloomy all day. I hated there. I was there in business trip, and I can't forget chaotic surroundings over there.
Tokyo is unarguably ugly city of all. Tokyo is never like New York, Chicago, L.A, San Fransisco, Sydney or etc.
Those cities I mentioned are really beautiful.
However, Tokyo is not like those cities.
In tokyo there are too many short buildings irregulary built, and the traffic makes it horrible and even worse.
Plus, the whoe city is really ugly and covered with smog.
In tokyo, you definitely need a mask for smogproof.
Air in Tokyo is really contaminated with chemical susbtances and make you hard to breath.
Another nauseating thing about tokyo is that, subway in Tokyo is very crowded.
In the morning, people push others to get in the train.People get squeezed when they pass to another station. Also, you frequently notice some perverts touching a young teenagers sexually assaulting, such as putting hand upskirt and touching private part etc.... However they never get caught. I saw some girls reacting furiously but I noticed that nobody was helping that poor young girl. In NY, LA, Chicago, or San Fransisco, they are scary because people carry guns, but in Tokyo many people look down at young girls skirt peeping and even touching..
Everything in Japan was so abnormal and lunatic.
