Tokyo - Day 1

Our flight left early morning from HK and got into Tokyo about 3 pm. We took a airport express train into what we thought was Shinjuku where we would then have a simple 2 stop subway to take to get to where we were staying in Akabonibashi. We stopped in Tokyo station to drop off passengers and about half the train got off. The other half of the train was full of people going further down the line. We sat there for 5 minutes when the conductor walked through and informed us that for some reason we had to get off as the train would not be continuing onward. So we had to figure out how to get from Tokyo station to Shinjuku which is half way across the city. The Tokyo subway is fairly easy to navigate once you get the hang of it…however, one thing that makes it slightly confusing is that the subway system is privatized so there are about 5 companies that own sections of the subway system which all overlap with each other. Since the subway companies are for profit, they don’t like to advertise the other company’s subway lines…so it was hard at first to figure out which subways connect where because you had to take multiple subway maps and layer them on top of each other like a puzzle. In certain instances connections had to be made by walking outside and down the block in order to get to another subway station. We also realized that some of the older stations don’t have English posted on the walls indicating which direction the train was going. We spent about half an hour going in the wrong direction on one train before we got off and switched trains in the opposite direction. After finally spending 2 hours navigating the extremely crowded subways with our heavy luggage we finally arrive exhausted at the hostel where we walked around, grabbed some sushi, got money from an ATM, and collapsed from our exhausting day of traveling.

Pictures from Tokyo Day 1 -

Japan - Day 1