24 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
24 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: 'Wheels Down at Narita'
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date: '2026-03-25 15:40'
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template: entry
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published: true
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hero_image: ''
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lat: '35.7720'
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lng: '140.3929'
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location_city: 'Tokyo'
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location_country: 'Japan'
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weather_temp_c: 16
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weather_desc: 'Sunny'
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---
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Tomorrow: Ueno. The forecast says the cherry blossoms may finally be open.
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