Pages

Thursday 9 April 2015

Layover: Narita in 7 Hrs - Japan

Indonesian Trip BONUS!

Sometimes Joy and I will scout for cheap tickets for our trips, and the usual down side with that, is the amount of transferring one has to do in order to get to the destination. This, however, was not something we dread, as we simply get the opportunity to stopover in other countries without needing to buy a separate ticket. Depending on how long the stopover is, we may decide to explore the airport or venture into the city. For our Indonesia Trip, we were given the opportunity to stopover in the Narita Airport near Tokyo for about 7 hours on our way home.

Our luggage was checked directly from Jakarta to Calgary, which made it much easier for us to get around when we landed in Japan (otherwise we would've utilized some coin lockers or try to check our bags in super early). We got there around 8am and had to fly again at 4pm. We figured we had at least 6-7 hours to spend and decided to go to Narita. (Last time, we stopped over in Japan on our way to Taiwan and we went to into Tokyo overnight)

The Train To Narita

We went to the train, and bought the tickets without any problem. But as we headed down to the platforms, we weren't sure if all the trains departing from that platform stopped at Narita or if there were more than one kind of trains. Joy tried asking some of the passengers in the train but it seemed like none of them understood English, so we decided to just take our chances.

Naritasan Shinshoji

Surely enough, the train did go to Narita and we got there about 20 minutes later. We went to MacDonald's for breakfast (oh yeah, so authentically Japanese!) then headed down Omotesando towards the Naritasan Shinshoji Temple. It was still pretty early (around 10am) and many of the shops were just about to open.  The weather was overcast but warm, we walked around the temple grounds and snapped a few pictures.  It was Sunday, and many happy families visited the temple. Many people were dressed up, including little girls that were fully dressed in kimonos. They were adorable.

Omikuji (Lucky Draws) Tied To Strings

Time flew by quickly and we had to start making our way back to the airport for our flight.We leisurely walked back through Omotesando towards the train station and saw that shops now were fully open for business. Seems like there are a lot of grilled eel shops. There was one shop that were skinning and grilling eels on the street and a huge crowd of people gathered there to watch. We went into a few souvenir shops.

Narita Omotesando

Joy bought a square wooden sake cup and a pair of chopstick holders that look like disposable chopsticks.

Our Chopstick Holders that Look Like Chopsticks

There was a dairy store that sold milk products from a local farm, we got a Hokkaido soft ice cream cone and a bottle of milk. It was very creamy, rich, and delicious. Joy is a huge fan of Japanese milk, and think it's what "real milk" should taste like, but I just think they contain a lot more fat than then milk we have here in Canada. The other strange thing is, that although both Joy and I are lactose intolerant, we have no problem with dairy products from Asia. Not sure why, just thought it's interesting.

Our Conquests: Masks, Sakura Kit Kat, Taro Pocky...etc.

We could've stayed a while longer, but we didn't want to rush in the airport and headed back shortly after 13:00. We bought a bunch of snacks at the airport, and hopped on the last leg of our journey back home.

No comments:

Post a Comment