TRANSFER FROM TOKYO TO THE AIRPORT

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Day 18: TOKYO - ISTANBUL - BARCELONA

Monday, January 6, 2014

If we woke up yesterday with a little low mood, because it was the last full day of our trip to Japan, today has been no less. In a few hours we will begin the transfer from Tokyo to the airport and that always causes us a feeling of "abandonment" of the trip.
We have started the day at 6.15 in the morning, getting up early as we usually do on our trips, but this time it is time to pack and collect everything we carry, which as usual, in the end they are more “memories” of those initially planned, but that they have become part of the trip for us and that we will take with us on this transfer from Tokyo to the airport.

At 7.30 in the morning, we left Hotel Horidome Villa for breakfast at our usual Starbucks, our cinnamon rolls and coffees, for 1260 yen.
Our street is different from these days ago ... it is full of life, of people who are going to work with their briefcases and suits and we realize that the shops begin to open at 7.30 in the morning.
How the city has changed to how we had seen it so far. It is clear that holidays, in some areas of Japan and especially in Tokyo, as we are staying in, the city is paralyzed.
The day we arrived in Tokyo, the truth is that we are a bit overwhelmed by the change of “landscape” compared to the previous days of our travel to Japan for free, but as the days go by, we can say that we say goodbye to Tokyo With a great taste in your mouth.
We return to our hotel in Tokyo after 8 in the morning and after checking out and picking up our bags, we go straight to the JR Shin Nihombashi station from where we want to take the Narita Express, included in the 14-day JRP, to take us from Tokyo to the Airport in 58 exact minutes! 😉

Touch pick up and say goodbye to Tokyo. Transfer from Tokyo to the airport

Touch pick up and start the transfer from Tokyo to the airport

The journey from the hotel to the subway, which is 600 meters long, makes us heavy, think that we are going with our luggage, it is rush hour and there are many people running down the street and above it is our last day in Japan, so it must be said that we are not right now, precisely, the joy of the garden.
And what are we going to tell when we get to the subway, go down the stairs and find ourselves in the corridors to access the platforms: we find an image that we had not seen so far in Tokyo, people do not stop, go their way as automatons ... they see you want to pass and make attempts "to sneak between them", you go with a bag but not even for that, they make a hole.
The truth is that I have a moment of mental breakdown, in which I would have started pushing people to let me pass, but Roger, much calmer in these cases than me, excuses this behavior by saying that people are going to work and that as we have already verified since we arrived, a minute here, means for them to miss a train.
The explanation may be very coherent, but the truth is that I find no excuse for it 😉 It is that I still do not want to end our trip to Japan for free and I am paying with whom I should not? Possibly…
It's amazing how you see a hundred people without looking into each other's eyes, pending each of their mobile.
I note that they don't talk to each other. They do not maintain any type of communication.
I see it very differently to these days that we have spent in this country, it will be because when it is festive people change?
Although if we think about it, that also happens to us here, most of the time we go as automatons, we miss those relationships that are established without further ado and that in the end are what make us feel like people.
After a good time waiting on the platform, we do not see any express coming, so we take the normal line that will also take us from Tokyo to the Airport, at 9.19h, although it takes a little longer to arrive.

Waiting for the train to take us to Narita. Transfer from Tokyo to the airport

At 10.50 in the morning we arrive at Terminal 1 of Narita Airport, a couple of hours before the departure of our first Tokyo-Istanbul flight that leaves at 12.55h.

Just arrived at Narita. Transfer from Tokyo to the airport

Now we can say that it is our last hours in Japan.
After walking around the terminal, we will go through the controls and we have to say that it is one of the best we have experienced, without a doubt, after this Trip to Japan, we understand the concept of "Japanese efficiency"!

Shops in Narita. Transfer from Tokyo to the airport

Without queues, a person to push the tray of belongings, they do not force you to take off your boots or jackets, or scarves ... they have another person to help you take out what you have left on the trays, we are going to do it.
Immigration is exactly as fast and efficient.
That's how nice it is to go through an airport, to be in that "no man's land" that is often a bit awkward for us, especially when it comes to returning home.
We take advantage of the 45 minutes we have left to get rid of the yen that we have left over in the stores that we find and 15 minutes before they open the boarding gate we go to the access door which will be our first flight back home: Tokyo-Istanbul.
This is one of the occasions we travel with less time to spare and the truth is that it is appreciated not to spend unnecessary minutes at an airport.
This "no man's land" is not too pleasant, much less when we head back home.
We are already on the plane that will take us back home: Wifi on the plane, wide spaces between the seats, some operators say goodbye as we go along the runway.

Planes that can be seen in Narita while we run the runway 😉

Sneakers, case with accessories, a more than pleasant staff, blue and red lights inside the plane.

Tokyo to Istanbul plane

A great fight, which allows us to make a flight of almost 12 hours in the most pleasant way we have ever done.

And if we start to "kill time" eating?

We have to say that the onboard wifi service is something that should be implemented already in all airplanes!

Road to Istanbul ...

There's still a lot?

Road to Istanbul ...

At 6 in the afternoon we arrived in Istanbul, although our “real” time, that of

Lights in Istanbul

We are k.o, but we want to sleep tonight because tomorrow we work, so we have to endure like champions.
We disembarked and just through the access door to the Istanbul Airport ... heating slap, which makes us stay in short sleeve in the middle of January!
And how could it be otherwise chaos. Everything is a chaos around us, people who run, push ... scream ...
Being without sleep does not help much either, but we cannot deny that we have moved from one extreme to another and from a totally different culture to another in just a few hours and we are noticing that much.
At 9 pm our flight leaves from Istanbul to Barcelona, so we have to wait a couple of hours in the “sauna” that looks little like the Istanbul we met years ago.

From Istanbul to Barcelona ...

We do the flight much more uncomfortably than the previous one, since the spaces between seats are much smaller and the accumulated fatigue begins to be noticed ...
5 minutes before midnight we landed at Prat Airport. We are at home after one of the most amazing trips we have ever made, our trip to Japan in 18 days.
We return with a more than pleasant feeling of the country, with some images recorded on fire in our retinas and especially with a very firm idea in our heads: someday we will return ...