Day 2

After spending 5 hours waiting through the morning, 7am finally rolled around and we checked out of Nikko Hotel. With a swift trip back to the wrong end of Narita Airport, we followed the bottom half of the signs to navigate to the lower levels, where we had a nice young lady convince the very Japanese ticket machine to allow us passage to tokyo.

For about 2700 yen (28$), we spent the next hour and 40 minutes on one of the most comfortable train rides I've ever been on. The scenery was great, even the trolley food was oishii! (delicious for you westerners) Everything seemed to be going our way, ... until we arrive at Tokyo station.

It was my belief at this time that it was a short, 30 minute subway to kikukawa station, which meant we would arrive 30 minutes before our landlord at the meeting spot. And I may have been correct, but what I did not (seriously) account for was the massive confusion that comes with navigating one of the most intricate subway systems in the world with nothing but a pdf and a rudimentary understanding of the dominant language.

By looking at the map, it was apparent we had to ride the red "m" line north, then transfer over and take the green line east to kikukawa. It was not apparent however that there are also railway lines in the mix of the madness I thought I had conquered. So we walked for about 20 minutes to what felt like the other side of the city and arrived at the red "m" line. This was the railway, not the subway. oops. So by this point time had become an issue and I was ready to swallow what pride I had left and ask for directions. I had a very exciting game of charades with a tokyo transit officer and managed to get broken English directions as my prize for winning. Simon and I frantically followed them to another corner of the city to the boarding platform aimed at Narita Airport. Shit. Wrong again.

By this point it was almost 10am, and we knew we would be late, so with no more knowledge of how the subway system works, we thought we should cut our loses and head to the surface, where the taxis could guide us to our presumably upset landlord.

Turns out surfacing is a feat in itself, and after several turmoils (including, but not limited to arriving at a train platform and pleading to a toll booth operator to let us leave) we managed to finally arrive at the taxi section of Tokyo station, where we patiently waited in line (for a taxi?) for 10 minutes. The pleasant surprise about our failure of a trip was that the cabs were really cheap, and kikukawa was fairly close, so we were only about 30 minutes late and 2000 yen poorer (20$), which according to our confirmed chuckling landlord was not even close to the record times he's had to wait in the past.

After that everything went really well. We chatted a lot with the landlord and went through all the paperwork, and after all was said and done, Simon even attempted his first solo mission to the atm, which also ended in failure but hey, we live and we learn.

Tomorrow, we go shopping in akihabara for some serious shit, not just hangers and spatulas like we did today.

Ganbarimasu!