As promise, here goes...
01/11/2011
Our flight is at 1445, Malaysia time. I woke up pretty early that day. Probably was because I'm too excited for the trip or maybe I'm just too anxious knowing that it's gonna be only both of us for an entire week in a city that we're very unfamiliar with.
It was already 1200 went my mum drove me to the airport. Every one else was a lil bit freaked out cus of the thought that I'm probably gonna be late for my checked in. Well, fear not y'all. I've already checked in from my mobile and gladly can relax while waiting for boarding time.
At 1300, we had our meal at Oldtown Kopitiam and my last malaysian food for that week was Mee Curry. And it was good. Well, I remembered that it was. Or maybe the thought of 'I'm gonna miss this!' made it taste good. ;p
Half an hour later, it's time for us to drop off our luggage at the check in counter. Airasia was awesome I must say. I just need to scan the barcode from my mobile and walla! I got my boarding passes.
We board on the plane at 1445. No delay. Airasia, I'm impressed.
And to my surprise, the plane tune Arashi's Monster as soon as I got up on the flight. It feels like even Arashi can't wait to greet us to Japan.
Yes. I am a little bit excited if anything that's Malaysian, decided to put on anything from Arashi. ;p
During the whole trip, I kept bugging Nanu with "Nu, we're off to Japan!"
Our on flight meal was not that great. It was a tasteless Nasi Lemak. And honestly I regret purchasing it. ;<
Spend the first few hours of the flight playing PSP games and watching random Arashi's program that I transferred to PSP. PSP is my savior from boredomness. Thank you cuzzie for lending me your PSP. *wink*
Slept for a bit cus I was dead sleepy due to lack of sleep the night before. And when I woke up, it was already pitch black outside. Meaning we're almost there.
When the flight attendance announce that we're reaching Tokyo in 40 minutes time, Me and Nanu are like "HAMAGAD!!!" Finally, we're gonna be in Japan!!
Reached Haneda exactly at 2230 and honestly I was panicking a little. Knowing that my parents are not here with me to tell me where to go first. Luckily there's few English written signboard and we just follow where everybody goes.
Japanese people are very friendly. Even the Customs Officer was friendly. He even speaks some Engrish just to make us laugh. Gosh! I miss Japan.
See?? Arashi welcome me to Japan! Weeeeeee! XD
Anyway, after going pass thru customs, it is time for our true journey begins. We need to find Tokyo Monorail fast. Cus it's almost midnight and most subways are close by that time. If we're late, we're probably force to ride a taxi. And taxi's in Tokyo after midnight are damn expensive. Plus, most of the taxi driver doesn't speak English and me and my broken Japanese won't help much either.
Thank gawd to the English written signboard, we didn't take much time to find our way to Tokyo Monorail station. We managed to reached Hamamatsucho's Station in time too! But the horror starts right here. After switching trains to Nippori, we're supposed to switch one more train to Minami-senju station.
Being ignorance how switching trains in Japan works, I thought we need to checked out first and bought another ticket to get to Minami-senju. But truth is we didn't have to. We just need to go to the next station which is connected thru an escalator and ride the next train. But then again, we didn't. We checked out. And we wasted our money there.
We need to buy another ticket to get back into the station, and to our horror, the ticket purchasing machine was in Japanese and the only Roman written words were the train station. And there is NO MINAMISENJU written on it!! Honestly, I was dead panic during this time but force self to calm down so we won't broke down and cry. ;p
So what we did was, we just press the button that says Ueno
(cus it's the only station that I'm familiar with and I know that there's a line in Ueno called Hibiya Line that will direct us to Minamisenju) and ride the next train to that place. As soon as we reached Ueno, to our horror again, it's already pass midnight and all Tokyo Metro Subway Line is closed. GAAAAHH!!!
All the luggage dragging up and down the gazillion stairs from Ueno station to Hibiya Line station is useless. ORZ
Yes. Itu adalah dugaan sewaktu sampai ke Jepun. Horror tak?
And so yes. I last and final resort to get to our Inn is by hiring a Taxi. Thank God I'd copied Aizuya Inn's full address into my Blackberry. So it's easier for me to just show it to the Taxi driver than to talk to him with my broken Japanese.
Our panic mind soften a bit by the Tokyo scenery at night from inside the taxi. Honestly, it wasn't that bright and alive as back home but still looking at it makes me feel like I'm in some kind of J-dorama. Tee-hee! Berangan sekejap! ;p
Few minutes pass by, me and Nanu were really quite. Probably we were too tired to talk anyway. But I was wondering why we didn't reached to our place yet. Cus according to the map I googled before, Ueno station wasn't that very far from our Inn. The trip was supposed to take only 10-15 minutes. But I guess our taxi driver depends too much on the GPS that we're lost our way.
Sigh.
Yes. Tak habis habis dengan dugaan on the first day.
Nak tambah lagi? Ini lagi satu. During the search, our taxi driver asked for the Inn's phone number so that he could give them a call and ask for the right direction. Unfortunately, no one's picking up the phone. We were like, "Oh geez. Did Raoul forget about us checking in today?"
Finally, after asking from some police men, we managed to find our Inn. Thank God!
It's already 0100am and our Inn's reception is already closed. But I remembered telling Raoul about our late check in. *furious*
So Raoul wasn't in. It was some random guy filling his place for a night. Fine. Whatever. We're tired. Check us in please so that we can roll in our bed and sleep.
Yea~ Not that easy. Our Inn was actually a 4th floor apartment building without a lift. Just stairs. Yes people. Stairs. Again, I have to drag my 19kg luggage all the way up. FML.
As soon as we reached our dorm room, there's already a tenant next to our bunk bed. A handsome french guy names Leiu. Yes. Our roommate. That's the price to pay for renting a mix dorm room for money saving.
Whatever. We don't even have the energy to care anyway. We just sleep the night off. So yes. That's the whole journey of our first day in Tokyo. Horror? But we don't really care.
Cus the trip....get's better and better. :)
End of Day 1 report.