Li's Blog: Goodbye HK, Hello Tokyo

Well now that the internet is working again, let's catch up!

I woke up very early on Saturday to take a taxi to the airport. I had one big luggage which I suspected was too heavy and a backpack which was probably also too heavy as a carry-on. It was raining very hard that morning. My colleague Barb was taking a flight to Bangkok at 9:30am so we went together. When I got to the airport, I called my uncle who was going to come and grab my phone and octopus card. I also went to weigh my luggage. Yup...too heavy. 22kg when the limit is 20kg. I had to shove some stuff into my backpack. I saw somewhere that it said the carry-on shouldn't be over 7kg. Mine was 10.4kg. Oh well...I don't remember any part of the process where they weighed your carry-on anyhow. Clearly, I got through ok. I checked and returning home I am on Air Canada. From Japan, they allow two checked baggages, 23kg EACH. So I think on the way home, I will have to check in my backpack too. I will just hug my laptop and take my purse or carry my canvas tote which is ripping at the seams.

So I checked in at around 7:45am for my 10:35am flight. It turns out that because of the rain, my flight was delayed until 11:30am! I really didn't have anything to do and since I didn't want to spend more HKD, I looked and saw that there was a flight to Tokyo at 9:10am. They let me on! I made it to the gate just as they called for boarding. Sadly, I gave up a really nice aisle seat on my original flight and had to sit in a middle seat. But it was only 4-5 hrs and the people next to me were nice. The Japanese guy on my right helped me put my backpack up in the bunker and I had to help translate for the Chinese guy on my left who didn't speak anything except Cantonese and just his luck, kept getting the flight attendant who only spoke English and Japanese.

There I am!

I was nervous about getting from the airport to the hostel with my luggage because one girl I knew who went to Tokyo had to lug her luggage up stairs in the subway and then my cousin Wynne said the same thing! Of course my cousin also told me to take a limo and buy a brand name bag so...who knows. Either way, I wasn't quite sure what was going to happen but I knew I had to buy a ticket at the counter that said "Keisei" and get to Nippori and then transfer for the JR Joban line to get to my stop at Minami-senju. So it turns out...IT'S ALL LIES! There were elevators and escalators everywhere! Actually I got a little lost only because I was lining up for one train and then just to make sure, I asked the lady in front of me and she told me to go the opposite way. I even pointed to my destination on the subway map! Bah...otherwise, I got around ok. The Keisei train was nice! I got to see some countryside.

Sighted on the train

I arrived at my hostel by following the instructions they had on their website. Since the instructions came with pictures of landmarks, I didn't look too stupid and made it. The lady at the front desk spoke English and was very nice. She gave me a map of the area and even pointed out a "secret sushi bar".