Lost in Tokyo

gomezhome ♦ 12/08/2025 ♦ 1 Comment

The good news is that there are very few people smoking in public in Japan. Yeah! I can breathe again.

First the Toilet

The Japanese toilet seems to encapsulate the Japanese way. It is thorough, detailed and practical.

With English translation

These toilets are not just in hotels, but public ones are the same or similar. One last thing, for males only,

A Tough 28 Hours

Warning, long post, but you will be rewarded by a story of True Grit at the end.

So that this blog is not just a “highlights reel” and being truthful, we had a really rough 28 hours. Not every hour of that, but there were a number of “incidents” in that time.

Let me tell you something of three of these incidents (there were more). Last Wednesday we flew from Zagreb, Croatia to Vienna, changed planes, then onto Tokyo. From when we left Zagreb to check in at our Tokyo hotel was 28 hours.

The flight from Zagreb to Vienna was easy, although a little bit late and we only had an hour to get our connecting flight to Tokyo. There were no signs in Vienna airport for “in transit”. We asked for directions but they didn’t help. The information we had on the terminal we should go to and the boarding gate number were conflicting. Long story short, we were  in and out of security checks twice, passport control and more processes that I’ve blocked out of my memory, left us stressed and running for our plane – which we caught.

Secondly, after a twelve and a half hour flight with little sleep, we arrived in Tokyo. I thought that I was being clever (probably my first mistake) and got access to a “ride sharing” app. It showed me the fare.

3,390 yen, say 3,400 (about Au$35) to make it easier. Exchange rates are: 1 Au$ = 96 ¥; 1 GB£ = 199 ¥ and 1 US$ = 148 ¥

That seemed a reasonable fare.

On the way the taxi driver got pulled over for speeding and was ushered into the back of the police car – for a while!

The taxi driver was there for a while, although he did stop the meter.

Anyway, long story short again, the distance from the airport to our hotel was about 80 km (!) and took 2 hours (!!) – and the driver did not go a long way round. I watched the taxi meter go round and round. My heart rate went up and up.

In the Comments (or private message me), let me know how much you think the fare was. I’ll have to get another mortgage out to pay for it.

Remember that we are still in this 28 hour window, 2 plane flights (one 12 1/2 hours) and a taxi ride later we’re at our hotel.

We can leave our big cases at the hotel but can’t check in yet. No problem, we’ll go have a coffee and get a new Sim card.

Lost

Thirdly, the sim cards we bought in England are not working (mostly). So we don’t have full Google maps or the translation app. But how hard can it be to get a sim card in Tokyo? Mmm.

So we wandered and wandered. It’s around 35°c and humid. Four and a half hours later, we find our hotel (again) and are back with sim card. The Sim card is not working yet because we need WiFi to install it.

Are you still with me? Great!

Only this is not our hotel! It has the same name – but it’s not ours. You could say “that’s pretty dumb” – but you don’t know that there are over 300 of these hotels with the same name just in Tokyo! Did I mention our Google maps wasn’t working?!

True Grit!

It’s another 38 minute walk to our real hotel. Did I mention that we’ve already walked for 4 1/2 hours, we are drenched in sweat and exhausted? We start walking.

I say to Jeannie that I’m proud of her. She says “Why?”. I say that she is entitled to a hissy fit at this point. She said that she was too tired and kept on walking. That woman has true grit. ❤️

28 hours done.

Oh, as a bonus, on the Tokyo flight, someone opened the overhead locker and dropped a carry-on case on me. From 2 metres up. Hard, plastic case. 7-8 kg. Ouch! Landed on my shoulder and wrist. I was very blessed that no bones were broken and just got a minor graze. 🙏🏽

Thanks for getting this far. 😊

Until next time…