It is 7.14am on Friday morning. I know this because we have the TV on. We are all enjoying an amusing and inane children's cartoon show. Alan has just made me half a cup of tea- dont ask me why.
It is definitely raining in Tokyo; we can tell from the televised pictures of intersections that appear intermittently. The view outside our window gives nothing away -as always, we are looking across an alley onto another building- boxes or something stacked against the windows. The weather maps seem to indicate it is only raining in Tokyo.
Yesterday was good - perhaps stressful at times although we were a bit too tired to really be fazed by things. Our taxi driver was correct when he said our initial flight would leave from the domestic terminal. It is surreal to be in the international terminal at 4.40 am contemplating a board that does not include your flight.
The plane trip was uneventful. Jim and I both slept quite a lot. Alan did some writing. I got together a timetable for today, working out trains etc for our planned activities.
It was lovely to arrive at Narita. It felt so familiar. The stressing thing was that our Travel Money card wouldn't work. In the end, we rang the Commonwealth Bank. We think the Internet connections were down. We hope it was as simple as that.
We made it to Shiba Park with no problems- just plain lovely to be walking up this street that feels like home. Lots of noodle shops I had not really considered before. I suspect I am just more brash now about the thought of going into Japanese places, trying to communicate and expecting it to kind of work.
