Japan 2023: Day 0 / Tokyo Landing

After a failed attempt in February due to being hospitalized, today marked our successful flight to Japan! We had to adjust our itinerary to account for my mom’s knee, but I think we did really well all things considered.

We had a pretty easygoing departure time, so we got everything ready and called a rideshare van. There was a little bit of traffic, but we accounted for 3 whole hours before our flight in case anything happened during check-in. The way over was chill otherwise, and our driver had the most jamming playlist – which I saved some songs from.

He was super kind and wished us a safe flight, which not everyone does.

One of our hours was eaten up by an insanely long check-in line because of only two agents at the bag drop-off. It turned out, after an hour of snaking through the stanchions in the hot Sea-Tac airport, that we didn’t even have to wait if we’d already taken cared of our paperwork. Thanks, I guess!

While we were making our way through TSA, my mom noticed many were being unusually courteous to her. Even moreso than they usually are when she’s using her cane. Then it hit her. Last night, my mom had bent her glasses and had to switch to using her sunglasses to see. The combination of her sunglasses and cane must have made people think that she was blind… I felt really embarrassed about the misunderstanding.

In true Seattle fashion, the rain and clouds sent us off.

They ran out of the chicken set right as they got to our row, so I got the ravioli and cheese. The lemon blondie was amazing! I wonder if I can buy it in stores, like the biscoff cookies…

I slept here and there a bit, but for the most part stayed awake watching Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (which I didn’t even know existed), occasionally glancing at the clouds changing shape over time. I miss musicals so much, I need to check more out…

Breakfast was… unremarkable. Part of me wishes I had just eaten the fruit (which was delicious!) and left the english muffin sandwich alone.

As we began our descent, we could see Mt. Fuji in the distance! The clouds framed him perfectly, like snow gently piled on his broad shoulders straight out of a @sattou0 illustration.

The full view was especially beautiful with the sun rays peeking through the clouds.

There was quite a bit of turbulance the closer we got to Japan, but otherwise our landing was smooth as butter. We didn’t taxi for too long, too! So that was really nice. However, the real trek began as soon as we exited the gates.

If you’ve ever taken what my friends and I “lovingly” call the Denver Mile (DEN), I feel like it doesn’t even hold a candle to the international terminal of Haneda Airport (HND). We were able to get wheelchair assistance for my mom, but while making the very long, arduous walk through the many gates (of which our agent was zooming down with a breeze!) I thought I was going to pass out from exhaustion and heat.

After getting through customs, we were able to drop off our luggage at Yamato Transport for our Kyoto hotel. Due to a slight mishap in coordinating our flight (which we bought earlier this year) and our hotels, we had accidentally booked our Kyoto hotel the day we landed at HND! We managed to shuffle our reservations around for one night and then check-in the day after we land. Yamato Transport allowed us to ship our luggage from the airport directly to our hotel, although it would be overnight and not same-day. In total for our two luggages it came to $30 USD, but prices vary on your luggage’s weight. I highly recommend them!!

Our next step on our to-do list was to pick up my Suica card. After learning about the impending and excruciating price hike for the JR Rail Pass, I looked up alternative IC cards to use for the trains and subways. At first I was dismayed to hear that, not only was the production of physical suica cards experiencing a global semiconductor/chip shortage but that the iPhone apple wallet version of Suica did not take Visa card payments due to an ongoing error. Thankfully, it was still possible to order one through Klook. There also seems to be Welcome Suica (for tourists) cards available, but I didn’t pick one up and wasn’t sure if that would be a more temporary card than the usual Suica. (Supposedly Welcome Suica and PASMO Passport are only valid for about 28 days, but I’m not 100% sure). Luckily enough the kiosk to pick them up was right by the luggage transport services (thanks to the listing that directed me to the pick-up location!)

Our last thing to do was to figure out how to get to the hotel. My mom’s knee and the long flight made it difficult to imagine taking the trains with our two sets of suitcases, so I went to buy airport limousine tickets before exiting the airport. While I understand that everyone recommends the train, we realized by the long, long stretches of walkways that it could potentially hurt my mom’s knee even further if we strained it by trying to penny pinch. It was a little daunting at first to figure out the process, but the bus ticket kiosks had an english translation option that made it much easier to follow. As a bonus, it was possible to select our hotel as a direct stop!

The lineup for the airport limousine bus was easy to find and signage was great. Having our luggage stored underneath provided us a lot of relief, and we were able to enjoy the night drive through the city, which was something we didn’t experience on our last trip in the early 2000s.

Thanks to my mom’s points, our entire Japan stay at Hyatt Regency Tokyo and Hyatt Place Kyoto was free! The beds are much firmer than what I am usually used to, but the comforters are sooooo plush and comfy. The pillows, though, were even firmer and it was a little hard to get comfortable the first few nights.

Having been exhausted from the flight and airport run-around, we decided to order room service for the night. We got spaghetti bolognese and beef curry! The curry was amazing, though I prefer the spaghetti we make at home more (isn’t that just the way with our favorite comfort foods?)

When my head hit the pillow for the night, I was surprised by a rather violent case of vertigo. It was only happening on one side, so I chalked it up to the long flight and tried to sleep on my right side and hoped it would go away after a good night’s sleep. Thanks for reading!