Japan. I had been dreaming about going to Japan for 20 years. That dream came true upon our arrival at Tokyo’s Narita airport on August 5, 2013. We had boarded a plane in Bangkok the day before. A 5-hour flight from Bangkok is not too bad. After all, the stop in Bangkok is a nice rest to soften the 7-hour time lag from Paris.

We are at the other end of the world. At long last, the Far East I have been dreaming about.

Tokyo’s Narita is a big airport. We pass the immigration checkpoint, and then customs. Our first surprise is this fever detector: a remote sensor which scans you and measures your body temperature. I suppose if you are over 37°C, you might as well go back to where you come from. This is Japan, the land of hygiene and cleanliness.

We recover our luggage, and head downstairs to pick up the JR Pass we purchased in Paris. That JR Pass is the key to all-you-can-eat travel on Japan Railways trains all over the country, including the world-famous Shinkansen. Precious!

Exhausted yet excited, we get on board our first train, in the direction of the Shinjuku station in central Tokyo. As we ride towards Tokyo, the train fills up with people, in particular the famed salary men. Identical dark pants, white short-sleeve shirt, the same tired look on their faces. It is only 8:00 am and it is clearly the beginning of yet another long, exhausting day for Japan’s white collars.

The train is impeccably clean. We purchase an excellent coffee at a decent price from an efficient, very polite trolley service. As it happens, coffee is delicious in the land of the green tea.

It takes a good one-hour ride on a fast train to reach the center of Tokyo, and the Shinjuku district. The greater Tokyo area is just huge. If you think Los Angeles or Mexico City is big, wait! Look again! This is the home of 30 million people. The largest, most crowded city in the world.

Along the train ride, the scenery is made of cute, small houses with tiny yards, and every once in a while, tiny rice paddies scattered among the houses in the small towns. Every square foot is used.

We arrive at the Shinjuku train stop. It is a gigantic train station, with perhaps 20 or 30 different exits. Do not take the wrong exit, or you will get lost forever. Fortunately, there are clearly marked signs all over the station, both in Japanese and in English, and so it is actually easy to find your way. Our luggage weighs 50 tons, and the heat is grueling. At least 38°C.

We head upstairs and reach outside from the station. We get our first glimpse of Tokyo. More dense than Manhattan, bigger than Los Angeles! Yet Tokyo, bustling and overwhelming, is the opposite of chaos. Instantly you get a sense that everything is organized and runs like clockwork.

We get in line to cross the street at the traffic lights. Yes, in line! In Japan, one gets in line and waits patiently for one’s turn to cross the street, get in the metro, step in the elevator, get a taxi, etc. It is all very orderly and disciplined (what a change compared to Paris where everyone bumps into one another). It is extremely hot. Our girls pick up fans handed out to them, generously sponsored by Nikon. Harigato! (Thank you). We find our hotel rather easily, the Century Southern Tower, which occupies the upper half of a 40-story highrise. The lobby is on the 20^th floor. Surely the view will be breathtaking. As we find out, it is indeed.

Well, obviously, when travelling, things do not always turn out as planned. It is 10:00 am when we show up at the reception desk, but of course, check-in is at 2:00 pm. We settle in a corner of the lobby with our luggage. Our luggage….we are a family of 5, so we have 5 huge suitcases, plus a number of small bags because out of 5, there are 4 girls…so you can imagine the picture. Our daughters and I head for the girls’ room to freshen up. And we are in for a hilarious discovery: Japanese toilets are a complete experience, with music, a heated seat, a water stream to wash up your buns if you wish so! For newcomers like us, what a cultural experience! We chit-chat and giggle about it for quite a while.

Back to the lobby. Our luggage is stacked up in our corner territory, and we get a big laugh: hiding behind the coach, trying to look cool, we struggle to find our walking shoes tucked deep down in our luggage. We finally dig out our walking shoes, discreetly trade them for our city shoes, and leave the hotel. We decide to walk towards the Tokyo City Hall, which is nearby.

Atop the Tokyo City Hall building, we are rewarded with a very nice view of the city:

It is time for our first Japanese lunch. We decide to go for ramen, a dish of wide noodles in a broth flavored with vegetables or meat, and we haphazardly walk into a typical Japanese lunch joint. Inexpensive, busy, crowded with office workers eating rapidly and noisily before getting back to work. Our daughters get their first training in chopstick handling. A fun moment!

We go back to our hotel, check in, and at long last, enjoy a well-deserved nap. A couple of hours later, we decide to walk to Shibuya. Turns out to be a bit farther than we expected. We get lost along the way, but manage to find our way back onto Meiji Dori. We reach Harajuku, but keep going as we are running out of time. We decide we’d better come back tomorrow. We make sure to pinpoint the Forever 21 store – a critical and must-not-miss attraction point when you travel with teenage girls. We finally reach the famous Shibuya crossroads:

It is now time to head back to our hotel, but as we find out, it is not that simple. Why? Well, we are exhausted by now, we have walked a long way, and the jet lag is hitting us. A taxi will accommodate up to 4 passengers, but not 5. In Japan, one abides by the rules. No way around it, we will need 2 taxi cabs. That would be a bit much, however, and we decide to take the metro instead. But which line? A young, good-looking Japanese woman offers to help us. Take the Yamanote line, she says. Indeed, we find the station with a Yamanote line stop, and in no time we find ourselves back to the Yoyogi station, a 5-minute walk to our hotel. A busy first day!

Too tired to go out, we decide to have dinner at the hotel. Downstairs at the bar, we encounter a lost-in-translation moment. Our waitress, and the crew of waiters who come to the rescue one after the other, struggle a little bit with English. It is a fact that, in Japan, English is not widely spoken, and that is probably a euphemism! So be prepared for it. Anyway, we share a big laugh with our waiter crew, and finally we manage to understand each other. After a long while, we are served with the western dishes we had ordered just to play it safe for the night:

Before we hit our beds, we take a moment to enjoy the nightline. Then, it is bed time, and a much-needed rest.