Where do I even begin? I ‘ve always wanted to travel to Japan since… I don’t even remember when I had the burning desire. I’ve stopped in Japan for connecting flights twice but never actually set foot outside of the airport or hotel. But this time, I finally get to explore for an entire week. This is a dream come true.
The plan is to be in Japan from September 1st to 8th. From the 1st to the 3rd, I was in Nagoya. Well today is the 3rd and I am currently taking a shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo. I am going to use “we” because I am traveling with my cousin.
Typing on this train is kind of hard because it’s moving at close to 200mph, some shaking is expected and I tend to get a bit of motion sickness.
Anyway I will try to recall the past few days to the best of my ability.
September 1st
We flew from Chongqing to Hefei for a flight connection. That flight took about 1 hour. After getting to Hefei, we stayed at the airport for about 50 minutes before taking another flight to Nagoya. That flight took roughly 2 and half hours. Upon arriving at the Chubu International airport, we went through customs and filled out the appropriate paper work. After we finished and went through the checkpoint, my cousin realized he had left his phone on the counter. We wasted 20 minutes while he went to look for his phone. After this little setback, we proceeded to find the train station that would take us to the hotel. Initially, buying the ticket was confusing. The language was in Japanese obviously and we had to quickly figure out our location relative to where we were supposed to go and how to get there. That took about 30 minutes because we were unsure and a bit nervous. How are we ever gonna survive in this foreign land???? Based on instinct and asking around for direction, we finally bought our tickets and hopped on the correct train for our hotel.
Upon reaching our final stop at the train station, we hopped out and were on our way to the hotel. My initial impression of Japan, or Nagoya at the very least was that it was very quiet. Not many cars on the street nor were there many pedestrians out and about either. Maybe because it was around 10pm when we got there. It seemed very clean and tidy, and everything seemed much smaller than in the US, and more efficient use of space. Navigating to our destination was easy. We had rented a pocket wifi device before arriving in Japan and activated it as soon as we got out of the airport. It was pretty cheap for a week of unlimited 4g mobile speeds. And since google services are available in Japan, google maps was the only navigator we needed. (Google is not available in China not are its services but that’s another story for another day). Anyway if you travel to Japan, the little pocket wifi device is the most CRUCIAL thing you cant rent. Trust me, this will help you a lot.
After arriving at the hotel, we checked in and found our room on the 9th floor. It was a small room but it had 2 beds. The bathroom was pretty small too but my cousin and I aren’t that big in stature either. The room was very tidy and just looked very appealing. As soon as we opened the door, I was on the hunt for the AC remote control. I was hot as hell and sweaty after the long journey and needed to cool down.
Moments later I was enjoying the breeze. But at this time it was already close to 11pm. We were too tired but we still didn’t have dinner yet. I suggested that we look for a 7/11 or some convenience store to grab small snack foods to survive for the night. Well we left the hotel and sought out the closest 7/11 but upon arriving we noticed they were already closed for the night. So we headed back in disappointment. As we were walking I noticed people standing outside of a Circle K So I told my cousin we should go there. Lo and behold, they were still open. I noticed a group of older Japanese Business men congregating outside smoking and chatting. I think Japanese people get off work very late, or at least these guys did. We hurried inside because my stomach was telling me to put some food in it pronto. I browsed around for snacks while my cousin looked for medicine. He had a bad headache and stomach problems and needed meds. Unfortunately, the Circle K didn’t have remedies for his problems. I immediately noticed that the prices in the Circle were insane. Insanely low that is. Some of the same products in the US would be 2–3 times the cost. The local goods that would be imports in the US were sooooooo much cheaper. Then again imported shit is always more expensive. 2 liters of waster was ¥90. That’s like 90¢ in the US. Pocky was ¥150 or close to $1.50. The candy that would normally be $3–4 was like $1 something here. I was soooo happy. I also saw the milk tea that had long stopped being imported to America here and I was ecstatic. Onigiri was also like $1.50. Cup ramen, $2. We had spent about $26 total for a haul that might have been close to $40 back in the states. We took the haul back to our room in the hotel and I scoffed down 2 onigiris and as soon as the cup ramen was done, that too. After dinner, we chilled for a bit and discussed plans for the next day. Then I took a shower, and soon went to sleep. It was a long and an exciting night and that concluded the first night in Nagoya, Japan.
I’ll get to writing Pt. I’ll sometime later today or this week.