おはよう東京

Yass! I've finally stepped my feet onto the soils of Tokyo! This is going to be some crazy-ass long travelogue to share! It's in fact my first time travelling out of my country of residence with friends! I departed from Paris to join my old school friends— old like super old friends whom I knew since I was 7 to 13 years old. I booked my tickets from Skyscanner.fr, Paris to Tokyo Narita by Qatar Airways. One way; ~475€, 17hours of travel, 1hour of transit.

So here comes my YOLO journey for ~hum 48hours.

I departed on Thursday while my friends would only reach on Saturday noon. Paris Charles de Gaule to Doha International, then to Tokyo Narita. It was my virgin flight on board Qatar Airways and I'm so sold. Their A380 airbus was so spacious. Unfortunately, I had a grumpy woman a seat a way from me on my row. I was hoping to get a row empty and transform it into a bed :D But too bad, ha. So first flight was like some 6hours to reach Doha. Hell— the transit time was tooo short! The Doha international was so huge, when I reached my boarding gate, people were already boarding T_T

Second flight wasn't an airbus A380. To my wonderful tummy, flight meals were so tasty. I literally licked the plates clean. I reached Narita in the evening. Grabbed my luggage and off I went to get myself train tickets to Tokyo, because taxis to the city would cost you 300€ or something. I could buy another air ticket to somewhere else. I'm not a very well organized and planned person, I like to plan on the go, so I kinda made a mistake (meaning I spent more money). My original plan was to grab Tokyo Express to Tokyo Station, drag my extra heavy luggages to the nearest taxi stand to grab a taxi to my Airbnb. Except my Airbnb apartment was nearer to Shinjuku Station (which was just 1 station away) and that would save my taxi fares. Well on the good side, I had a peaceful view of the night streets and lights. It was Christmas time, and the lightings were up!

Tokyo Express cost 3020¥(~24€) and the taxi to my Airbnb cost 3740¥ (~30€) / wooops!

I know some people who saves every single penny by refusing taking taxis. But I prefer to travel to and flo from airports with ease, especially when my luggage weighs a "ton". Yep, traveling light do not work well with me, because I brought back lotsa stuffs from Paris to my friends, plus I packed for 3 weeks of holiday. 1 week for Winter Japan and 2 weeks for hot and humid Singapore. Which equals to 28kg checked in luggage + 9kg cabin luggage and a handbag which's probably some 5kg. So yeah, not bothered to squeeze my way through the crowd and figuring rail directions during peak time. So luckily, with my anime-knowledge of japanese, I managed to communicate with the taxi uncle (still can't believe I did it though, it was quite funny). I reached at 9.30pm— dragged all my luggages up 3rd floor before being able to settle down.

After a long hot shower, I changed into comfortable clothes, and ready to hunt for food. Except I couldn't lock my doorrrr. Damn, I didn't know what to do really, other than just leaving all the lights on, and lock up my luggage. I was quite pissed in the beginning and contacted the landlord. He agreed that the lock was faulty but it still worked. After somewhat 20minutes of trying, I gave up and just left. I just bought my most valuable stuffs with me...

The neighborhood was so wonderful, straight out of animes indeed. So peaceful and quiet. It was late, but there's couple of people walking around too, and thankfully, 24hour convenience stores exist in asian dictionary! I'm not sure if I got it right, all those yummy food found in convenience store, their price would reduce as soon as the clock strikes midnight. I didn't have a lot of choices either, the shelves were almost empty/ I took a chocolate croissant, some kaarages and tried out their Green Tea Haagen Dazs— and all that for 991¥ (~8€)

A good night's rest, I was ready to explore the neighborhood again in bright day light. There's so many cute little cafes or restaurants which I didn't try out much in the end. But the weather was perfect, the people were friendly, the japanese greet you with smiles. I had a wonderful 48hours of traveling alone and visiting the neighborhood. It's quite funny now that I've realized, like— I lived near Yoyogi Park, BUT I ACTUALLY DIDN'T VISIT THE PARK. Dang!!! I think if I were to stay there longer alone myself. I'd be wandering around, but as soon as I saw my friends, I think I forgot about everything else. Just like I forgot to take photos of the apartment. When I got there first, it was nice and clean, but when the 6 of us settled in, it was a hell to navigate through, and I didn't bother to take photos!!

4 days 3 nights seemed like a lot of time, but in reality it wasn’t. Mostly because it rained. We got lazy much and tried to hide indoors as much as possible when it rained heavily. But because it was Golden week, everywhere was so crowded! Like everyone, we purchased an extra transparent umbrella and roam the city.