(2015/04/10-11) Flying.. Perth/Melbourne/Singapore/Tokyo
…almost 24 hours flying is on todays schedule until i will reach Tokyo. Time to relax, time to watch a movie in the plane and wondering how good the plane meals are actually. Small problem at Melbourne airport when i tried to checkin, because Singapore Airlines was now the first airline who also measured the weight of the cabin luggage, which allowance is 7kg but mine had 11kg. I tried to talk a lot and maybe to get around the check, but they are very good trained and i couldn’t cheat. After some talk and repacking stuff from the cabin to my travel backpack which was now from 23kg to 27kg packed, i wondered that now everything was okay, and i even didn’t had to pay for my exceeding of 23kg by 4kg. I didn’t checked which kind of airplane i had, but this had also two different options to connect your pad/phone to the seat and use the video input features to look your own movies. Arrival in Singapore was pretty nice, we approached the airport with the skyline of Singapore in far distance, with rain and lightnings far away. Arrival was at about 1:00am and the departure of my flight to Tokyo at 5:50am, so i really didn’t had the chance to get of the airport for a short walk in the city. I chose to stay in a sports bar, drinking an long missed Erdinger Weißbier (Wheatbeer) for “only” 22 Singapore Dollars / 15 Euros and take the time to write an post.
Spilled out at the Tokyo Airport the first strange feelings come over me, to be in a country where you couldn’t read and understand the letters. It took a while to orientate myself and make a plan how to get to my hostel. First downloading some travel and metro apps, then look out or the correct counter to buy my sim card. Already on my last stop i read about getting SIM cards in Japan, that usually they offer you a rental service for a phone or a mobile Wifi hotspot which you can drop at the airport after leaving. These selling counters wasn’t located at one place so i had to walk around, full loaded with my luggage, to find the best option. Finally i choose a 7 day SIM card, with 140MB per day, which should work and my last 8th day i will survive without internet. The challenge to setup all your phone details wasn’t that complicated as the nice lady behind the desk said, you just had to follow the english setup manual. Oh, yes you had to have internet for this setup, but at the airport it wasn’t that kind of big problem. With the working data on my phone and the corresponding GPS and maps the way to my hostel was mastered. The metro and train app said where to exchange and the additional displays in english on signs and screens made it easy to get to my hostel.
Already for this first night, Ryoji a friend of my burner friend Max asked me if we should met us to get some food an drinks. He told me that we should meet us at the Shinjuku South Entrance. South? Sounds easy, but it was not. Why? Shinjuku Station is a combination about the Japan Railways (JR) and Tokyo Metro stations, a huge complex with the size of Munich Centeral Station but with more ways, exits, over bridges and tunnel. The Metro had already there about 18 exits and none of these was labeled with “south” in english. I was happy about that Ryoji send me a picture as reference who the exit looks like from outside. With GPS to find south and the picture in the hand i circled the station till i was at the right place. Even the south exit, which belongs to the JR lines, is huge and it took a while till i found Ryoji and his friends before we headed to Roppongi to eat dinner in a good looking ramen restaurant. Ramen noodles, i only had known before as these instant noodles with strange artificial taste, was the first choice. I never thought that they taste so good. To settle down the food, we walked around Roppongi before i went home to get some sleep i missed at the flights…