Goodbye China, Hello Japan

Saturday... time to leave China and head East for Japan. I managed to have one last breakfast (my last free meal :-() before catching the airport shuttle at 9 am.

I was leaving from the new terminal, Terminal 2, so I was pretty excited about that. It was a gorgeous airport with lots to fill my time. I chose to pick up some more souvenirs, some handpainted Chinese characters of names and then quick grabbed some lunch. I passed the rest of the time before my flight sitting at the gate reading and watching all the planes pass by (and a lot of planes it was!).

My flight left at 13.10 and was about 2 hrs 50 minutes... with an arrival time in Tokyo of 17.00 (Tokyo is one-hour ahead of Shanghai). Luckily Paul had agreed to meet me in the Arrivals Hall so that we could figure out together the complicated adventure to get to our lodging in Tokyo.

I landed at 13.15 and miraculously made it through immigration, collected my bags, and breezed through customs, all in about 15-20 minutes. And there was Paul to greet me! I exchanged my money, and we bought tickets for the "Downtown Luxury Bus" that would drop us off at the ever-glitzy ANA Intercontinental (NOT where we were staying). We got off the bus after about an hour... looked at the beautiful hotel, turned around, and started walking. We first had to cross the street by an underground... so down two flights of stairs and up two flights... dragging like 75 pounds. As if that wasn't bad enough... the remaining five blocks to the lodging... UPHILL! I felt like a packmule or sled-dog or something.

After I was thoroughly soaked I arrived. The lodging... well the pictures will explain that. Paul and I went out to a grocery story and picked up some staples (pictures will explain that!). Then after eating dinner (Cup of Noodles) and visiting with buddies and talking to home I went to bed and slept until about 9 am this morning!

So far Tokyo... so good. But not quite as architecturally stunning as Shanghai. But looking for to the adventures.