We shuffled through customs, nabbed our luggage and debated how
to get into town as Narita Airport is a good 50 minutes by car outside of Tokyo.
While it was well served by a web of train lines, various bus services and of
course cabs, it wasn’t exactly clear to us how we would get to our capsule
hotel by public transport without multiple confusing transfers. With the evening starting to drag, we settled
on hiring a taxi. Our lack of forward planning had cost us – the final fare exceeded
low 3 figures (in pounds!). Hey ho, we’re on vacation. Make it rain.
Lauren’s childhood friend Karen along with her boyfriend Craig
had spent the last year or so traveling through South America, ending up with
work/holiday visa in Australia. 6 months
of living in Perth had driven them close to edge of crazyville and so when
Karen heard Lauren would be in the “neighborhood” they jumped at the chance to
get out of dodge and see some old pals.
They’d arrived a day earlier and were already in the capsule
hotel when we arrived. After the usual hugs, “how ya doins”, the “wow this
is so crazy were all, like, in Japan” banter, we decided to grab a quick meal
at a nearby soup style restaurant.
Admittedly we struggled, all the menus were in Japanese and
so much pointing and gesticulating carried us through the dinner. At one point
a seriously inebriated Japanese business man poked his head through the door of
the tiny restaurant, made eye contact with us, cracked a huge smile and waved.
Returning to the hotel we inspected our sleeping
situation. 2 layers of capsules ran the
length of a short hallway, shoes neatly aligned in pairs sat outside occupied capsules.
The capsules themselves were not as claustrophobic as I would imagine and they
were in fact quite comfortable. Each came kited out with a small television,
interior light and other buttons and knobs that did god knows what. The ‘door’
to each capsule was a collapsible/accordion style bamboo job. It didn’t offer
much in the way of privacy however. We fell asleep to the labored snoring of
our neighbors.
Next morning I would awake to find a very unusual showering situation.
Quick observations about Japan to date –bowing is common,
people wear facemasks like it ain’t no thing, vending machines everywhere (and
they’re cheap too). People are friendly, courteous and if they’re able to speak
English – inquisitive.
