2 June

Well, after a night of fitful sleep, I woke to find I hadn’t been sick, so something worked.
Breakfast was served at about 11 Tokyo time, and again, while the meal didn’t have fish, it had some strange concoctions which I wasn’t about to try and so much fruit is was literally crawling with sugar. So, unusual to my form, I left about half of it. With two small rolls, it was still quite filling.
We had a fairly good flight into Tokyo, though as normal, on going through clouds there was a bit of turbulence. We landed before time and only taxied for about eight minutes before coming to a halt. It was a long time unloading because the plane was full, and then a reasonable wait for luggage. However, the immigration and customs formalities took so little time I wondered whether I could have done them while still walking. I was fingerprinted again (á la the US) and photographed again (should I charge copyright fees?) but it took so little time. Then in the Arrivals Hall and there was my name, so I met (albeit very briefly) my first English-speaking guide and was presented with my ticket to get to the hotel.
The first thing I should say is that the Airport Limousines is a bus line, and therefore you catch a bus. The luggage is put in for you and you MUST wait until you are told to enter the bus. Mine was at 3, so I had a few minutes to wait and watch the system in operation.
Once on the bus (with a Frenchman who had come from Paris for work – business class seat and posh hotel – on electrical distribution, especially underground cables) we headed into Tokyo and the hotels we were at (there are about six hotels served by each bus). The first thing that got me was how far out of the city we were – it took over an hour to reach the outskirts and another hour to tour all the hotels. The second thing was all the rice paddies – small, not deep, but so close to the city. In that respect, Europe and Japan are similar and very different from Australia and the US (although one of the largest cattle stations in Australia, in terms of numbers, is less than half an hour from the centre of Melbourne). The third thing was the speed. Despite signs for 60 and 80, the traffic was generally moving at 110. There wasn’t too much of it, but that may have been the time, the day or the fact that it was a toll road.
Once in the city area, I was amazed by the open spaces and the lack of pedestrians. It may just have been our route, but despite having many tall buildings, there were parks, lakes, rivers(canals?), and plenty of plantings around, so it looked far greener than I expected.
We got to the hotels, and I got to mine, to be looked after by three people – the bellboy with the luggage, the girl on the desk and her assistant. I booked in, got my three breakfast vouchers (no, I am not adventurous enough to have a Japanese-style breakfast at this stage ane end up missing any of my time here), found out where I was having breakfast and then went up to my room. After the formalities, I unpacked, set up the laptop (first problem – only two pins, so I had to get an adaptor out I had bought in the US and was nearly curing for being a useless burden; second problem – only wired Internet; third problem – only a 100 Mb/s server, so I don’t know how I will go to upload photos, but I will try tomorrow), checked emails and sent some out, then had a bath. Now I’m recovering from the high temperature (memo to self: don’t have a deep bath if the temperature of the water is high), finishing this and uploading this and then going to get some sleep.
Presently my itinerary gives me sightseeing in Tokyo tomorrow morning, so I have the afternoon free and the next day. I will get a map of the trains and the city centre and see how much I can see by myself in the time I have. Fortunately most of the signs are repeated in English (except on some roads – glad I didn’t arrange a rental here) and the subway stations (that’s railway, not the food stores) are clearly marked. Riding them may be a different experience.
So farewell from the far east and we’ll see how tomorrow goes.