I arrived in Tokyo around 21:00. What I didn’t knew at that time, is that Narita Airport is 80 km away from Tokyo or 1 hour away traveling with the Skyliner train.
And, of course, thanks to my not-so-smartphone, I lost the last train to Tokyo. My phone failed to update the time correctly, and the only way to get to the city after 23:45 was a taxi, which costs around 250 USD. Alright then, that settles it.
7-eleven. I think it was italian
though, but whatever.
A night in airport
The cool thing is the airport arranged a special space where you could sleep. Also there was a capsule hotel inside the hotel, a non-stop restaurant and a 7-Eleven.
I didn’t slept at all. I couldn’t. Mainly because I wasn’t going to lose the first train out at 6 AM.
For the few hours, I try to figure how to get as quickly as possible to Astro Statio Ho(s)tel, the place where I’m going to spend the next 3 2 nights. I don’t wanna waste any more time.
So I find a quick route via trains (because God knows they have a lots of those running around/under/above the city), that should get me to a train station right next to my accommodation.
Accommodation
Finally in Tokyo!
The first thing I see when I leave the train station: smog! “Holy cow! The smog problem is really a thing out here!” — I’m thinking.
I don’t give this another thought, and I continue following the Google Maps route towards my place.
As I approach the little street leading to my accommodation, I realize that that’s no regular smog… it’s smoke from a fire.
Also I realize that my hostel might be in fucking flames!
There were a few buildings on fire, and according to Google Maps, my hostel is somewhere around them. The street is locked and guarded by police.
I ask a police women and a local person if the hostel I have on my map is the one who’s burning or not. They didn’t spoke much of an English I could understand, but when I’ve shown them the address and the map, they did pointed towards burning houses.
So the good news, is that I found the accommodation really fast. The bad news is it may not have a roof and I haven’t sleep in more than 24 hours.
So I decide to go get a coffee somewhere, and roam the streets for a few hours, until they put out the fire and re-open the street.
Turns out the Astro Station hostel wasn’t affected by the fire, and later that day I finally get to check in.
The city
Having lost one day in the airport and with the whole fire thing, my “must visit in Tokyo” list suddenly become a lot shorter.
Departure
Even though these were 4 very short days, I kinda liked Tokyo and I know there’s a lot more to it, so I’ll probably be back someday.
Next — Seoul, South Korea!
