A Day in Narita, Japan
I went to bed early last night since I had not slept much on the plane. It was almost 8pm local time when I turned off the lights and headed of to a dreamless sleep. I woke up at 1am but was able to get back to sleep after a couple of minutes. I woke up again at 4am and this time it took about 30 minutes to get back to sleep. At 6am, my internal clock was fed up and I awoke again. This time I did not try and fall back asleep, 10 hours of sleeps was enough. I took a shower, shaved, and got dressed. I headed down to the breakfast buffett. They buffet had both American and Japanese cuisine. I had scrambled eggs, bacon, and tator tots, oh and a cup of ministrone soup (not your normal breakfast fare). After I finished breakfast I headed to the computer to make my first post and send/reply to email.
Then it was time to decide what to do for the day. I looked at some pamphlets on Narita and decided to head to the Narita train station and walk around that area. I asked the hotel concierge how to get there and he pointed me to the “200 Bus” that looped around the city and stopped at most of the hotels and some of the major city areas. The bus was due in less than 30 minutes so I waited in the lobby.
An older American gentlemen had overheard my conversation and metnioned he was on his way to the train station with the idea of going to Tokyo. We chatted until the bus arrived and then jumped on. Another group of American gentlemen (seven of them) boarded just before us. They were Detla employees that missed their connection the day before while trying to return to Atlanta from Hong Kong. They decided to take the bus to pass time until going to the airport for their flight later in the day. They had decided to stop at the Aeon Shopping mall for the morning. I had been looking for a pain killer (asprin, Tylenol, etc) since of all the medication I packed it seems I overlooked that and I wanted some relief from a headache; So I decided to jump off at the mall as well.
I found a drug store right away ang bought some Tylenol, found a vending machine with Diet Coke and took two capsules. THen I decided to walk around the mall for about an hour. The mall is just like all of those back in the States with many of the same stores. I even ran across a “Hard Rock Cafe” where I stopped to grab lunch while I waited for the bus to come back by.
I paid my tabe and went out to the bus stop. I was looking at the route schedule and noticed it stopped by a temple so I decided I would get off there and walk around, maybe even take some photographs.
As the bus arrived the group of guys from Atlanta also got on to head back to the hotel. After leaving the stop before the temple I hit the next stop call button. The driver cleared the call almost immediately. I figured he thought it was still from the last stop so I waited a minute and hit again. When we got to the stop I did not see the temple so I asked the driver. He shoke his head no and closed the door and we drove on. Best we could figure out was the temple was closed on Saturday and that was why the driver had not planned to stop here and shoke his head when I asked about it. So I took the bus back to the hotel.
Plan to catach a short nap after I finish this journal entry. Then get on the internet for a few minutes to post this and make a hotel reservation for tomorrow night in Bangkok (complete) since I arrive at midnight and leave the next morning at 8am and don’t want to drive all the way into the city for such a short amount of time. I never got that nap, instead I walked around the hotel area, not much here.
Now I am going to read some, maybe catch a half hour nap, and then head down to dinner.
Hope is all well back home.