1.5 KiB
title, date, template, published, hero_image, lat, lng, location_city, location_country, weather_temp_c, weather_desc
| title | date | template | published | hero_image | lat | lng | location_city | location_country | weather_temp_c | weather_desc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheels Down at Narita | 2026-03-25 15:40 | entry | true | 35.7720 | 140.3929 | Tokyo | Japan | 16 | Sunny |
Eleven hours of flight time, two mediocre films, and one surprisingly good noodle dish from the trolley. Then the descent through scattered cloud, the first glimpse of grey-green patchwork below, and that particular feeling when the wheels finally touch down on a continent you have never stood on before.
Narita is large and orderly and very, very calm. Immigration moved faster than any airport I have ever been through. The officer looked at my passport, looked at me, stamped it once, and handed it back without a word. That was it. Entry to Japan.
The Narita Express runs direct to Shinjuku. I found a window seat and spent 90 minutes watching the city materialise from the outside in — rice fields giving way to low housing, then arterial roads, then the sudden verticality of central Tokyo rising up all at once as if someone just switched a setting.
The hotel is small but perfect. A room roughly the width of my arms outstretched, a window looking onto a grey concrete wall, and a bed that feels like sleeping on a cloud. I went out for ramen at a place around the corner where you order from a vending machine and sit at a counter alone with a small wooden partition between you and the next person. Nobody spoke. It was the best meal I have had in months.
Tomorrow: Ueno. The forecast says the cherry blossoms may finally be open.