Japan trip Spring 2008

Another wonderful trip back to Japan and this time it is just after 8 months since going back in July, that i go again in mid-March along with my good friend and co-worker Miguel. It was his first trip overseas and first time in Japan. Fortunately for us, i have been to Tokyo enough to get around ok, and even know the crazy train routes, destinations, areas, and some of the language to get by ok.

We got our Japan airlines flight#61 out of LAX going to Narita, Japan at 1:45pm, and arrived in Narita, Japan at 5:12pm(1:12am LA time). As usual, i stayed up the entire time, and it makes the adjustment much easier, as it is easy going to Asia, versus coming back when jet-lag hits more. After customs, we caught our limo-bus(just a greyhound type bus, nothing really special) to our hotel in Shinagawa Prince. I highly recommend staying while in Tokyo, at the Shinagawa Prince hotel in Shinagawa. The rates are reasonable, and the hotel is large, nice and right across the street from Shinagawa station, easy assess to the JR-Yamanote line in Tokyo, Shinkansen bullet trains to Kyoto and elsewhere in Japan, and other JR/Subway trains. We finally arrived at the hotel around 8:30pm, checked it, unloaded our baggage in the room, and then went out to grab a quick dinner at the local ramen(noodle and some rice) shop nearby. I had Japanese soba-buckwheat noodle, rice-ball(onigiri with dried fish), and curry and rice for 690 yen. At this one place, you obtain a ticket from the machine after putting your yen-coins in the machine, hand over the ticket to the cook, and soon after he brings you a tray of what you ordered. The water you serve from a cup, as cold water and ice come out at once from the machine. A cheap, fast, convenient way to have a meal, and i ate here again a week later, having the soba, and rice for dinner that day. We then after got some snacks at the local grocery store, some tasty snacks, and drink to bring back to the hotel settling in Tokyo. They close around 10pm so we got there just before 9:30pm and bought even some strawberries for 610yen, but some of the best ever that i have ever tried, some green tea haagen daus icecream which they do not have here in the states, and some ricecrackers-peanuts, and drinks.