For some reason when we travel we always pick a 6.00am flight out of Canberra, which means a wake up time of about 4.00am. Which then means a bloody long day, and getting to Japan was a long day. Canberra to Melbourne was easy and on time. Our flight out of Melbourne was delayed by about 90 minutes due to a broken light somewhere on the aircraft.
Once we were on our way the flight was smooth and uneventful. We made up,some time and landed st Narita Airport a Tokyo about ten hours later at 7.30pm local time.
Customs and immigration were a breeze and we quickly located where we needed to get our rail pass from for the 1 hour 15 train ride to Shinjuku near where we were staying. We had about an hours wait for the train. Mardi wandered around looking for an ATM, to no avail and we eventually left the airport with no cash.
We arrived at Shinjuku and got off the train with the simple instructions of go to the west exit and follow signs to the hotel, Kain Plaza.
Now Shinjuku station is, well to put it simply, an underground metropolis. There is no such thing as simply find the west exit. There are about 764 exits, some south, some south east, some west, some south west. Then there are others, A4, C8, A14 etc. anyway being the intrepid travelers we are we followed our noses and walked the labyrinth.
Check a map out here: https://www.shinjukustation.com/shinjuku-station-map-finding-your-way/
Add in the miles of subterranean tunnels on top of 18 hours of travel and it’s a miracle we found above ground again let alone our hotel.
But we did. We finally emerged from the tunnels and happened across a little sign pointing up a dark staircase which led to the hotel lobby.
We checked in and were shown to our room, 39 stories up with a birds eye view of the smokey city below. We did some unpacking and hit the sack.
