The Journey Begins - I arrived on the other side of the world and ate food from 7-11
I woke at 6am, got to the airport for 10, waited at the gate from 10:20am - 12:45 and boarded the plane. I was already tired from the stress of the previous couple days, making sure I was ready.
The flight over was a bit rough for me. It was a peaceful flight with some patches of almost non-exsistant turbulence, but I couldn’t sleep for more than 10 minutes at a time. Not sure why, I was tired when I got on the flight.
When I got off the plane and picked up my suitcase (second bag off the plane), I picked up an IC card (PASMO/Suica) that allows travel and payment just about anywhere, and got on the train to Shinakawa station, and my first transfer onto the famed Yamanote line. White with green accents everywhere. It was busy… really busy! I had arrived around 3:30pm and by the time I made it onto the train, it was “rush hour”.
From the train you can see a tightly packed interweave of buildings. Tall ones next to short ones. Old Japanese style next to western-like style next to modern blocky styles. I’ll try to get some photos next time.
I got off the Yamamoto line in Ikebukuro, an entertainment district north west of Tokyo centre(?), pulled out my phone to the webpage that had my eSIM on it and found that Safari needed to refresh the page. Ughhh. Ok, well that eSIM is supposed to supply the data for my phone while I’m in Japan and without data I’m not going to be able to activate it. I walked around a bit, took a photo (the one at the top) and found a McDonalds with wifi, only to have the SIM card not activate.
Using that wifi was able to find my hotel, but I was exhausted.
I decided that it was going to be an early night, but I needed food. I went down the street to the 7-11 and found a few things, like an onigiri (rice ball), a chicken sriracha burger, and a Sprite in a big can.
This only cost ¥675 … that’s only $6.30 CAD. (I’m tempted to go check out the cost of a footlong at Subway.)
One thing that stood out was the cashier/attendant. Not sure what to call this. They scanned my items, then gestured at a screen to the side. It displayed my total and had buttons asking me how I would like to pay, cash acceptance trays, change dispensing buckets, etc. if you’ve ever been to a Walmart self-checkout state-side, I’m sure you can picture this. But those are self-checkouts. **You** scan the items. Not sure why they’ve gotten to a point where that’s the part that hasn’t been automated yet, but not a big deal.
That burger I grabbed was from the fridge. It was cold. The clerk(?) pointed to a microwave behind him and then to the burger. I said “yes, hai”, nodded my head, and gave a thumbs up… I will try to pick only one of those next time.
I walked away with a hot burger bag in my left hand, a drink in my right and the onigiri in my back pocket.
When I got back to the hotel, I turned on the TV, some show detailing some western owned restaurant in Japan was selling a serving platter worth of burgers. Around the edges of the screen, they had a PIP box that shifted between people who were reacting to, and commenting on the video. I wonder if Japan is the reason for all the reaction style videos we have now…?
Anyway,I was told to expect some culture shock, but I’m not feeling it too badly… yet. We’ll see.
