I got up early today (isn't jet lag great?!) and made my way back to Narita Airport to catch the Narita Express train to Tokyo. It takes about an hour to get from Narita to Tokyo Station so I settled in for a ride. Luckily, at 10am the Narita Express wasn't very busy. There were only a handful of us on the train. I spent most of the ride looking at the passing scenery and chatting with my old friend Jason Armitage.
Upon arrival at Tokyo Station I made my way up several floors to the main staging area in order to buy a ticket on the incredibly efficient and utterly reliable JR Yamanote Line. This is bar none my favourite public transport system. Trains running constantly, air conditioned, and cheap. No stinky old buses that are caught in commuter traffic! Just awesome.
It has been five years since I was last in Kanda. Would I remember how to use the ticketing system? No problem. I've been to Tokyo a few times now by myself and more or less know what I'm doing. I got on the train and made my way to Kanda district. This is the same part of Tokyo where I stayed when I was here back in 2018. Hopefully I would remember how to get to my hotel. After consulting Google Maps, I had no problem getting from Kanda Station to the hotel.
Unfortunately, I arrived at around noon - way before the official check-in time of 3pm. The hotel was nice enough to hang onto my suitcase while I went out to explore. I decided to hop back on the Yamanote line and make my way up to Ikebukuro. I hadn't been to Ikebukuro for many years - perhaps around six or seven. I can't actually remember the last time I was there.
My trip was part nostalgia and part mission. Nostalgia in that Ikeburkuro is the district in which my wife and I always used to stay - this was the first part of Tokyo which I became familiar with the first time that I came here back in 2000. A mission in that a co-worker of mine asked me to track down something for him - a specialized leather pen holder made by a Japanese company called Superior Labor. I decided to head to the Ikebukuro Seibu and Loft department stores to see if they might have this product. Unfortunately, no such luck! So, it's back to the drawing board. I'll try some other stores later this week. I was actually kind of glad to get out of Ikebukuro - it's just as busy as I remember it and it was nice to get back to relatively laid-back Kanda.
I checked into the hotel, grabbed some food and settled in to rest my legs a bit. Sadly, I fell asleep around 4:30pm and when I woke up it was 1:00am! Jet lag has still got me in its grip...
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