Japan - Day 1 - Getting There
Well, where to start with this one!
The day of travelling didn't quite go as smoothly as one would hope, there was so much panicking and anxiety involved, but weirdly enough, it all worked out fine in the end!
We got to the airport about three hours before our first flight - I know, a bit early, but we like to take our time and get something filling to eat before we head off on a long day of travelling. We dropped our bags of quickly - there wasn't even a queue, and headed through security, again no queue! And soon we were off on our way to pick up some snacks from WHSmith, play in the Namco arcade a little and then fill our faces at Burger King.
The wait started to fly over and we found ourselves waiting at the departure board 10min before our gate was announced for it to suddenly say delayed! Now, I may have already mentioned this when we first booked this trip, but Hays Travel messed up our flights - I have no idea how someone could book us onto a different flight when we gave her a sheet with the exact times and flight numbers on that we wanted to book! But, never mind, it meant we had 1 hour and 10minutes from landing (excluding taxi!) to our second flight taking off, so a delay, even just 15min would seriously push our chances of making that flight!
But, KLM came through, although the flight was delayed, we actually arrived in Amsterdam earlier than we should have in the first place! The feelings of relief, I can't even begin to try and express it in words.
Now, you'd think, all smooth sailing from here?
Nope. Our second flight ended up leaving late and arriving in Japan late, it wasn't bad though as it meant we'd only have to wait 15min to take the direct N'EX train rather than getting the Skyliner and switching lines at Nippori! It might have taken longer, but it was so much easier!
Rather than blend the two days into one, i'll continue on in the next post with what happened once we finally arrived in Tokyo!
As it was around 10:30 when we finally got to Sakura Hotel Ikebukuro we couldn't actually check in yet, so we dropped off our cases and headed over to Sunshine City to get something to eat and do some shopping (what? how can you resist the Pokémon Store, Disney Store and everything else they have in there?!).
By the time it hit around 2, we were exhausted and we couldn't check in until 3! So we sat by the fountains in Sunshine City and.. I may have had a few seconds of napping with every blink of an eye before we wandered back to the hotel at around 2:40 because, really, we just couldn't nap in the middle of a busy shopping centre!
All checked in, we ended up having a 30min nap - I don't think it was planned! before unpacking and heading back into Sunshine as there were a couple of shops we were just too tired to go into in the morning and quickly grabbed some dinner before having a quick shower and an early night ready for our first full day in Tokyo!
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