Japan 2023 — part 1

Intro

Hello. I want to tell you about my first trip to Japan this year. Nastya and I have wanted to visit Japan together for a long time. She has already been there once, about 4 years ago. She likes the country and its culture, and she wanted to show me what it’s like. For me, it was just a good travel option since I’m not much of a traveler, and they say it should be a good experience.

Preparation

Our destination was quite far away; it isn’t the closest, simplest, or cheapest country, so the trip required some preparation on our part. Since both of us were born in non-first-world countries, we both needed visas. This is where our encounters with the Japanese consulate began.

We found the tourist visa requirements on their website, and they were no different from other countries. Just prove that you’re not an idiot and that you have money. Except for one document - it was a “Travel Itinerary” that we had to fill out. They asked for a list of places we wanted to visit and how much time we intended to spend in Japan. Mostly, they wanted to be sure that we knew where we were going, why we were going, and that we wouldn’t get lost in the midst of our stay as illegal immigrants.

Another interesting question was about money. Every tourist must show that they have enough funds for their travel period. Sounds logical, but not for us, haha. Actually, the main issue was that we had cash, and we needed to deposit it into my bank account. This was suspicious to them, as I didn’t have a proper account history at that time, but they later decided to give us a chance.

After we gathered all the necessary documents (passports with valid dates, documents from the Czech Republic allowing us to return, bank documents, and the travel plan + copies of all this and multiplied by two), we went to the consulate, handed over our foreign passports, and successfully applied. They said it would take approximately 2-3 weeks to get the results.

Two weeks later, they called us and asked us to come to the consulate, as the consul wanted to speak to us before making a final decision about the visa. We came for the second time and met him. He mainly asked general questions: why we wanted to visit Japan, and so on. Then he inquired if we knew Japanese and if we had any friends there. It was a bit scary because we thought they might decide we wanted to stay there illegally. The meeting was brief, only about 20 minutes, after which they said they would call us back.

However, our fears turned out to be unfounded. A couple of days later, they called and asked us to pick up our passports with visas.

Flying there

Speaking of the costs of this trip, tickets are expense #1 when flying to Japan from Europe. They’re not just expensive, they’re incredibly expensive. There were no direct flights from Prague to Tokyo, so we took ones via Helsinki.

The one-and-a-half-hour flight to Finland on Finnish airlines passed quickly. The flight was pleasant enough, and the landing was smooth. The airport itself was minimalist, with a lot of wood in the design, and the waiting areas were cool. We had a 3-hour layover, so I even managed to catch some sleep there.

For the flight to Japan itself, we flew with a Japanese airline. In essence, Japan started right from boarding. The onboard service was out of this world. No European airlines even came close in terms of in-flight service. The Japanese flight attendants seemed to just anticipate what you were thinking when you wanted to ask or request something. Heck, even the guys who placed and removed cones around the plane, at the end, when we began to taxi to the runway, bowed goodbye to us, bowing down to their waists!

However, the technical side of the flight was awful. The flight itself was long, about 12 hours. And our Boeing was apparently not in the best condition – it was super turbulent for the entire 12 hours. When they brought food, we could hardly eat because both the tray table and the food were shaking. In the end, we drank some wine to reduce the stress and try to get some sleep.

Tokyo

Day 1

We arrived in Tokyo around lunchtime. We were incredibly tired and wanted to sleep badly, but we made a promise to ourselves to stay awake until the evening so as not to suffer from jet lag.

Fortunately, we could get to the city center from the airport by metro, albeit with a few transfers. As we were boarding the metro, we experienced the Japanese culture of mutual assistance that we had heard about — an elderly woman was helping a foreigner buy a ticket from the machine. Unable to figure it out herself, she literally took the station worker by the hand to assist the man.

For our part, after purchasing our transit cards, we descended into the metro and headed for the center. Speaking of which, these are the local electronic cards for paying fares - Suica and Pasmo.

Upon arriving at the hotel for check-in, we were once again surprised. Indeed, this country is full of surprises. It turned out that robots, actual robots, managed the check-in/check-out process at the hotel in place of human employees. It was quite unexpected when, after a long silence, they suddenly began to speak to us. The system is automated: you scan your documents, pay for the accommodation, sign with an electronic pen, and receive a card for your room. The whole process took about 5-10 minutes.

After checking in, we dropped our bags and went out to have lunch. There are quite a few chain places like “running sushi” here, and not just sushi. You can have a quick and affordable meal in such places.

After lunch, we didn’t feel like walking too far, so we just wandered around the hotel area and downtown. What especially caught our eye was that amidst business centers and other massive buildings, you can easily find a park or temple, where once inside, you really can’t hear all the noise from outside.

Having walked up to the old Tokyo Tower, we grabbed some snacks for dinner. We then headed back to the hotel to get some rest. Hooray, we’re in Japan!

To be continued…