How easy is travelling in Tokyo after arriving at the airport in Japan as a tourist? I am arriving at Narita Airport in Tokyo during summer 2024. It always feels a little stressful when I arrive in a different country. I’ve travelled a lot, visited almost 50 countries, mainly in Europe and Asia. It doesn’t feel that much of a culture shock when I arrive in a new Asian country nowadays. It’s just that initial confusion of immediately needing cash and having to withdraw money from the ATM hoping that my card will be accepted. Well, I have a number of cards now. You need a few backups as one of the might not work or be blocked. A couple of my bank cards only work with a bank app, so need wifi to use them.

Most airports nowadays have free wifi you can use on arrival. You can also buy a sim for that country at the airport, although generally sims are more expensive at airports and you don’t always get the best deal. So I try and purchase a sim in a city store the following day, as long as I’m able to navigate my way to my hotel without needing the internet. I mean c’mon we managed 20 years ago easily enough, so why not now?

On my first trip in 2007, Chiho my Japanese flatmate who I’d lived with in London softened my arrival in Japan by meeting me at the airport with her father and took me back to their house just outside Tokyo.

But this time on my arrival I need to find my own way into Tokyo CITY.
I’m staying at a hotel in Nippori for one night. Then the following day I’m moving into an apartment that I’ve booked online for a month. I chose the hotel in Nippori as it’s close to the Tokyo station which the train from the airport goes directly to and also close to Shinjuku where I need to go the following day to the Sakura House agency who’re renting out the apartment.

So I’ve made screenshots of the train lines I need to use to take me to Nippori station and also of the route to my hotel in Nippori which I’d booked for a night on Agoda.

I’ve always had an interest in Japan. In my late teens and twenties I was really into music, listening to punk, new wave and mod bands. Popular subcultures were a big thing in the 70’s and 80s and I dressed accordingly, kept in touch with my favourite groups and musicians by reading the New Musical Express and Sounds weekly music newspapers, plus The Face AND SMASH HITS magazines. Fashion styles were constantly changing.

Groups were now creating music videos which were showcased on the the MTV channel. The Face magazine would publish a lot of Japanese influences. David Bowie, my idol was big in Japan. One of my favourite new wave groups were called Japan. Be Bop Deluxe another one of my favourite groups also had a song called er you guessed it……. Japan.

So Japan was very much on my radar. But also very out of my reach as it was considered a very expensive country to visit. Unlike India which was the first southeast Asian country I visited in 1987. So I bought The Lonely Planet guide to Japan which I placed on my bookshelf and left it there gathering dust for 2 decades.

In 2007 I was living in London. I’d been working in a library for 6 years. Both my parents had recently died and I came into some inheritance. Over the past 30 years the yen has fluctuated between 120 260 yen to the British pound. During summer 2007 it was hovering around 240. The highest it had been against the £ for almost 10 years. So this was the time for me to go and I made plans to stop work, give up my flat and travel to Japan for the first time. I arrived on New Year’s Eve, not realising just how cold Tokyo gets during winter. I hate the cold, so this was a bit of a schoolboy error on my part.

But I rented an apartment and stayed in Tokyo for 5 months at the start of 2008 before travelling to other neighbouring Asian countries. Over the years I’ve yearned to return to experience Japan during the summer. But I can’t believe It’s taken me 16 years to go back there. Having gone to the Beijing Olympics in China in 2008, I proposed that I’d return to Japan in 2020 to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics. But covid scuppered those plans. The Olympics was put back a year to 2021, but sadly no spectators were allowed.

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