river cutting through near asakusa station
Tokyo was a great experience and one that I’m glad that I did, even if it was for too short a period of time. It started off on a whim, as I had just been planning to spend about a week and a half in Bangkok. About six days into my stay there I was more or less ready to move on, and thought that since I was going to have to fly through Tokyo anyhow on my way back to Honolulu, that I might as well try and make a stop and check it out.
bacon noodle dish?
Making the arrangements wasn’t as easy as I had originally thought they’d be. While I had tickets which would bring me through Tokyo it turns out that making changes to the flights can be more complicated then just paying for the change fee. For starters, since my tickets were booked through United airlines, and the leg between Bangkok and Tokyo was scheduled on a Thai airways flight, Thai airways has a policy that there can be no refunds or changes to the ticket what so ever. That alone seemed a bit too restrictive personally, but was willing to deal with that. I figured that I’d simply book a ticket from Bangkok to Tokyo separately, one-way, and that I’d pick up the United flight that I was scheduled to be on the following Tuesday. This too proved to be somewhat more complicated then one would expect. At first the United representative was trying to sell me that in order to change the ticket as such would not only entail a change fee, but would also cost me and additional $1200 because it would be ticketed as a one-way ticket, essentially trying to sell me the very same ticket I already had purchased. Needless to say I deemed this unacceptable and persisted until a manager got on the phone and informed me that they could in fact just reissue me a ticket, forfeiting the Thai airways ticket from BKK to TYO and thereby allow me to check in and board at Tokyo. This too cost, but was just the standard United change fee of about $325.
Once in Tokyo I had an amazing time, as I’ve attempted to highlight in the previous set of posts . It was only about four days, and so I had an extremely limited timeframe to take things in, but the taste I got of the people, the variety of activities and of course the food was enough to make me come back and experience more.
Considering how unprepared I was for the trip, it is of great testament to the city that it was as easy to navigate and enjoy as it was. One exception to this ease though, which I had been warned about but I still underestimated, was just how important cash was around the city. Tip, take out plenty of cash when at the airport.
citibank in tokyo are a great find
There is a Citibank ATM machine at the airport which proves to be very important if you are coming from the United States at least, and are among the many people who have accounts in one of the banks whose card will not work in the many ATMs available at local banks and 7-11s. Basically, it appears that unless your ATM card is also a VISA (versus Mastercard or something else) or works on the Plus network (little logo on back of card), your card will NOT work at most ATMs. If this is the case, then your options will dwindle down to the few Citibank branches available around the city. Combine this with the fact that most credit cards will not work, and most locations do not accept credit cards, and you are essentially limited to cash on hand, so carry plenty.
Besides that, the only other issue that I ran into was time. Tokyo is a big city and to really grasp it without rushing through it takes time. At the same time there is so much more to Japan which is so easily accessible that much more time should be spent exploring. That being said, in my return trip I plan to; check out more of the temples and shrines, visit more of the popular bars as well as hidden hole in the walls places, try more exotic food and get to mingle with more of the locals and hopefully make a few last
ing friends. In addition to that, I want to browse around Tokyo station and board a high speed train out of the city to check out the more rural country as visit some of the more traditional cities such as Osaka.
Check out the post from this trip:
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