The Far East: Day 11

After a long chat on Saturday evening, Sunday started early at 0515 Chinese time. Having said goodbye to Catherine and Martyn, I got the Airport Express to the airport. This is nominally part of the subway, but costs Y25 single rather than Y2, and it is unusual in using a linear induction motor - which looks like a fourth rail - to propel the train. It took just 16 minutes from Sanyuanqiao to the airport. I was in fact getting the first train of the day, at 0604. I arrived at the airport, checked in, went through security (via the inter-terminal train again) ready for:

Flight NH956: 0830 Beijing T3 to Tokyo Narita T1, arr 1300
Operated by All Nippon Airways using a Boeing 767-300
Push-back 0821, wheels-up 0924, wheels-down 1317, on stand 1325

We taxied on time, but there were severe ATC delays at Beijing this morning so we spent nearly a whole hour in a queue waiting for clearance. It was evident that this runway - which I think was 36R - was being used for both takeoffs and landings; moreover, the separation between planes seemed wider than at, say, Heathrow. We eventually got away, and were treated to superb views of Beijing and the surrounding area in the climb-out. Once we were cruising, though, haze and then cloud prevented us having much of a view.

The meal was, effectively, brunch: too late for a Chinese breakfast, but too early for a Japanese lunch. I got the western option, which consisted of an omelette with vegetables, a croissant, a salad, and some melon. The omelette was surprisingly good, and was just what I needed after not getting much breakfast. The croissant was nice enough but there was no butter, while the melon was quite nice. The salad, however, was a bit odd and I didn't really eat any of it: it appeared to contain coleslaw, some pork, a prawn, some unspecified vegetables - possibly turnip - and a single sprig of green. Green what, however, I'm not entirely sure. Pretty good overall, and I can't complain.

We landed only 20 minutes behind schedule, and I made my way through arrivals and immigration to meet Jonathan. He happened to be running late too, and arrived about 30 seconds after I walked out of the arrivals hall. The tricky bit was that our phones simply don't work in Japan - 3G phones work but ordinary GSM phones don't simply because there is no GSM network any more - Japan has moved on from the west.

Having found each other, we went down to the JR (Japan Railways) station. I exchanged my pass order for my Japan Rail Pass, which cost ¥45,100 (about £347) and gives unlimited travel on the entire JR system for two weeks, excluding the very fastest Shinkansen (bullet trains). This isn't quite equivalent to an All-Line Rover, for two reasons. One, the JR pass is only available to foreigners entering under temporary visitor status. Two, there are a good number of privately owned systems which are not included in the JR pass.

Having redeemed my pass, we obtained seat reservations for the Narita Express:

Narita Express: 1415 Narita T1 to Tokyo, arr 1514

As soon as I got on the train, I felt at home: it felt just like the Heathrow Express, but with legroom. The legroom and headroom is particularly impressive given that most of the Japanese network - excluding the Shinkansen - uses narrow guage track, with the rails being 3ft 6in (1067mm) apart, rather than the standard 4ft 8.5in (1435mm) used on the Shinkansen and most of Europe and North America (excluding Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Finland and Russia).

But more than that, the railway network felt just like being in the UK, not least because they drive on the left, both on the rails and the roads. (Pub quiz question: name the only country in Europe in which they drive on the right on the roads, but on the left on the rails.)

Okay, the script may be a bit unreadable - though it's not nearly as bad as Chinese - but Japan really feels a lot like the UK. With bowing. And mountains.

Anyway, Jonathan had booked us a hostel for the night near Ueno in north central Tokyo; however, they'd had a computer mixup and were actually full, so they arranged for us to stay in a nearby hotel. We took a couple of suburban trains to get to Minami-Senju:

Yamanote line, c1536 Tokyo to Ueno

The Yamanote line is basically Tokyo's answer to the circle line. Being a bigger city, however, the circle line is also bigger at 22 miles long. It's pretty useful, connecting Tokyo's main station to a number of other stations used for suburban services, including Ueno, just 8 minutes from Tokyo and the terminus for the Joban line:  

Joban line, 1552 Ueno to Minami-Senju

Just three stops on this suburban line took us to the station for our hotel, where we dumped our stuff before heading back to Ueno to get some food. 

Joban line, c1650 Minami-Senju to Ueno

We found a soba vendor on the street outside Ueno, basically frying noodles like a burger vendor would fry burgers. After that, we gave Jonathan's brother Nick a ring. Nick is out in Japan as part of his course at Oxford Brookes. He and his girlfriend Tomoe joined us in Ueno at about 1830 and we wandered around the market, in awe of the lights.

After looking around, we got some dinner in a place selling ramen, a kind of noodle soup originally from China but very popular in Japan. Eating noodles with chopsticks is definitely an acquired skill: fortunately this being a noodle soup meant that I had a spoon to help me out. All this for only about ¥800 (£7) per person: Japan is only expensive if you don't know where to get things cheaply. 

By this stage I was quite tired, so we parted with Nick and Tomoe and went back to the hotel.     

Joban line, 2052 Ueno to Minami-Senju

All five trains we used were very punctual, and all were much longer than they would have been in the UK - the shortest was 10 carriages long. Moreover, the entire network seems well-signposted - in Japanese and English - and everything is laid out just where you'd expect it to be. Elevated stations and underground concourses are the norm, much like Birmingham New Street or London Bridge. Tokyo main station in particular is like very like Birmingham New Street - only bigger and with 23 platforms, 10 of which are exclusively for Shinkansen trains, of which more tomorrow.

We spent the evening relaxing in the hotel. Back in March, I jokingly said to Jonathan that I'd see him in Japan, not really believing it would end up being true. But it did, and it was nice to catch up with him: this will be the longest I've seen him since we lived together in third year at Warwick.

We went to sleep on Japanese-style beds: the floor is covered with tatami mats, and the beds consist of a mattress which you unfold. After being used to a hard mattress at Catherine's it wasn't too bad at all, and we both slept well, ready to head to Hiroshima on Monday morning.