Narita Airport

We arrived at Narita airport via Japan Airlines (JAL). I must say that everything I heard about JAL's excellent food and service were all true. Eating Japanese style food on the plane ride over helped to get us all in the mood. We were already starting to experience the difference in cultures during the plane ride as all of the flight attendants changed from their blazers into aprons while serving us our food and drink. Prior to arrival a flight attendant walked around with a large JAL picture frame asking us if we would like a picture taken. (My wife Nadine and I obliged - see picture above.) With the exception of the travel time (about nine hours) the plane ride was quite pleasurable.

Narita airport was huge and a little intimidating. You know the airport is big when it takes the plane about fifteen minutes to taxi from the runway to the terminal. We arrived in the early evening and the weather was cloudy but not rainy. Once we got off the plane it was a mad rush to Customs and Immigration. Luckily none of us had any trouble getting through. Luggage was next and again we were lucky that all of our stuff made it to Japan safely.

After retrieving all of our luggage it was off to our hotel via Limousine Bus. http://www.limousinebus.co.jp/e/index.html It turns out that the Limousine Bus is just a regular bus but it was still the best way for us to get to our hotel. This was the first time I had rode a bus that had a standard transmission as opposed to automatic. It was impressive to see the Japanese driver smoothly navigate this huge "standard" bus through Tokyo. The ride was about an hour and a half. There was some unexpected traffic but our bus driver expertly took us through some side streets and back roads to keep us on time.