Part 1, Seattle to Tokyo

3/23/2017 and 3/24/2017.  42F, high overcast in Seattle; 50F, filtered sun and haze in Tokyo

So, after two months of full-time planning, compiling costs, endless reading of hotel reviews, shopping for the best flights, getting visas, checking climate data and all the rest, it was time to let go of the planning, get on a plane and go do our world trip.  To be completely candid, I woke up the morning of our departure with a definite feeling of reluctance about this trip. I just didn’t feel like I wanted to go … it felt like it was all just too much.  The scale of this trip, being away for so long, and in such strange places unlike where we have ever gone before, and doing it with no formal support like we had on the 2005 China trip where we were met at every plane with a guide and driver … we would have none of that support at all on this trip. We would have to make it all work as we went. It was daunting.

On our All Nippon Airways flight from Sea-Tac, they closed the aircraft door within 5 minutes of our scheduled 1:20 p.m. departure time. As they pushed the aircraft away from the gate, ANA ground crew stood together in an organized row on the tarmac, and all waved to us in unison. That seemed like a very Japanese touch that you would never see on an American airline.

The flight from Seattle to Tokyo was our first experience on a new Boeing 787. With a couple of exceptions, it was not all that much different than any other airliner. The windows definitely are bigger as noted in the press. To me the most interesting feature was the electronic shading on the windows. You could increase or decrease the shading of your own window progressively from very dark to practically clear with a button below the window. And they can also control the window shading mode for the whole plane centrally. Later in the flight, they changed to a “dark cabin” mode, where all the windows on the left side (i.e. the sunny side) were set to black and semi-transparent on our side of the plane, the shady side. In the “dark cabin” mode they created the illusion of night-time with the cabin mostly dark, and most of the passengers actually slept. With the window at “half-dark” the scene outside looked just like moonlight even though it was broad daylight outside which was a cool effect. I’ll also give ANA (All Nippon Airlines) credit for providing better-than-average legroom in coach, which was helpful for the nearly 10-hour flight. There is quite a selection of various forms of entertainment on the seat-back monitors at every seat: movies, games, news, maps, plus a plug for each seat for laptops and such.  Armed with our phone-Kindles though, we hardly used the monitors provided.

Photo 1300, flying out over downtown Seattle on our way to Tokyo

In terms of vistas from the plane, there was not that much to be seen for several hours due to a solid overcast, but later the overcast cleared for a while and we got some arctic scenery, some of it quite dramatic. Flying over the Gulf of Alaska, a big snow-covered mountain range appeared in the distance to our right, with things like Augustine Island, a totally snow-covered volcano sitting out in Cook Inlet.

Photo 9722, over Alaska: Katmai National Park, volcanic Augustine Island, and Mt. Iliamna on mainland

We could clearly see the Kenai Peninsula and where Homer would be.  And we also passed directly over Kodiak Island, and past the glaciated valleys and alluvial plains of the Katmai National Park … no sign of civilization or settlement for hours.

Photo 1318.  Flying directly over Kodiak, Alaska

Photo 9733.  Arctic scene, Bristol Bay, Alaska

Don’t despair, there’s still lots of waterfront property to be had out there with no apparent traffic problems.

Approaching Asia, we never did see any land until we were almost to Tokyo. The pilot circled out over the ocean way to the east then made a big right turn and landed straight in to the west at Tokyo Narita Airport.

Photo 1335, crossing the coast near Tokyo

There was a new twist arriving at Narita: they parked the plane WAY out on the tarmac about a half mile from the terminal, then bussed us in to customs at the terminal. It’s not clear to me why that was necessary. What with the mass of people arriving, it took a good hour to wind through the serpentine line to pass through customs, where they photograph you and take fingerprints.

To get from Narita to downtown Tokyo, we took the NEX (Narita Express) train, which proved to be a great way to go. It rolled along at 60-70 mph much of the way through a lot of countryside, past towns, fields, suburbs, train stations, backs of houses, some nice an some not so nice … but all fascinating for our first glimpse of the Japanese scene. It is about 35 miles from the Narita to downtown Tokyo, and with the fast train, it still took a full hour to get there with only one stop and no traffic interference. I can’t imagine how long that trip would take for a bus or taxi with all the traffic out there to contend with.

Photo 1367, There’s actually some farmland between Narita and downtown Tokyo

When we arrived at Tokyo Station (i.e. the main rail station in central Tokyo) it was a total mad-house!! I never saw such a huge confusing complex jammed with so many people in such a big hurry. It was like: get out of the way or get run over by a mass of people who are practically running to get away from work as fast as humanly possible on a Friday night!

Photo 1368, the mad rush of Tokyo Station on Friday night

The next question soon became: how in the heck do we get out of this train station?? It is a huge underground complex there were wide walkways going in every direction with all kinds of stores lining both sides like a mall. Escalators go up here and down there, mostly leading to other rail lines … turns out that this is a huge rail hub for rail lines coming from all over Japan. Unfortunately, the signs did not help much for finding our way out … after a bit we asked a man in a uniform, who pointed is in a direction, which we tried for a while, until it still remained unclear how to get out of there! Went into another shop to ask directions again. The ordinary working folks that we talked to for directions spoke very little English … and after a few tries we finally we came onto the operational query: “taxi?” That would get us a pointed direction this way or that taking us a bit farther toward the exit. At a control gate, they took our NEX tickets to let us through, and gave us yet another pointer to the “taxis”. Around some more corners and … voila! … outside! And a taxi queue was right there! Cheryl asked a nice young lady standing ahead of us in line (who also didn’t speak much English) if the taxis would take credit cards (we still had had no opportunity to get Japanese cash for making purchases! So if the taxis were only taking cash … we were going to have to go back into that damn madhouse train station again to find a money exchange place. Not a fun prospect! When we came to the head of the taxi queue, that nice young lady ran down to the next taxi in line (behind the one she was taking), and asked the driver for us in Japanese if he would take credit cards … which he said he would … thank goodness.   Our friend signaled us to go down to that next cab and we were on our way. It was one of those random acts of kindness that occasionally reaffirms your faith in humanity.

And as you have no doubt heard, the Tokyo cab drivers are a highly respectable lot … coats and ties, white gloves, white lace seat covers. Our guy was very friendly … helped us with the luggage, then away we went out into the madness of Friday night rush-hour traffic … driving on the left like in the UK. I’d call the taxi ride someplace between harrowing and exciting … certainly not boring! The ride took a solid half hour … cutting back and forth this way and that through traffic. There were several times that I thought we would collide with vehicles coming in soo close to us, but this guy obviously knew what he was doing. I can’t even imagine a non-native trying to navigate these streets … I don’t think it could be done.

So it was around 7 pm Tokyo time by the time we got registered at the hotel and up to our room. At last … a place to relax and flop down! After getting things organized and checking our stuff, by 8 o’clock (4 a.m. Seattle time), we were totally exhausted and out for the night. Good night, Chet! Dropping into a culture we had heard about all our lives, now we were getting a first-hand look and every little detail seemed completely fascinating. But for this day we were tapped out!