Slept through the entire flight and woke up only when we hit the runway... But to start at the beginning, let's go back to Taipei.
When I arrived at Taipei airport yesterday evening, I called Stanley right away to meet up with him. We took the bus together with a friend of his, Steven, and first checked in at the YCMA where I would stay that night. It was right opposite of the Taipei Main Station, and the room was quite a lot more luxurious than what I was used to from Singapore and surroundings! Seperate shower, air conditioning and all kinds of goodies. Pricetag accordingly, who would have guessed.
We then took a ride on the subway to oen of the night markets, where we met another friend of theirs, and had some steamed food. Unfortunately, I was already quite constipated from the lunch I had with Karla at Changi Airport before my flight, and then the meal on the plane... But the guys showed me one of Taiwan's original inventions: Original Milk Pearly Bubble Tea. It was quite something: Tea with Milk, iced, and inside it some pearls made of flour. The straw that came with it was big enough to slurp them right through - quite something!
Video tba...
It was only around 20 degrees that night... warm for the season, I was assured. So we walked to see the National Taiwan University, and it's pretty big! :) But then I already had to go home, so that I would at least catch some sleep before my flight.
Thanks again to Stanley, Steven and Victor for being such nice hosts!
The flight to Tokyo was rather uneventful, due to my above described sleepiness. But once at the airport, I got talking with a Japanese guy who had just spent a month in India traveling. Customs were quite curious as to all the things I had in my bag, and I had to unpack it and show them the goodies... they took away all my cocaine and weed and arrested me. I'm writing this from the Tokyo prison... NOT! Haha, gotcha.
After I had cleared customs and immigration, I tried to withdraw some money. Here's to the first of many linguistical difficulties! Besides, the ATM didn't want to accept my debit card, though my credit card was apparently fine.
Then I tried to find the right train. There are about 7 different services going from Tokyo Narita airport to Tokyo itself, and only a few of them take less than an hour... I opted to talk to the Tourist Information and have them write down the cheapest route for me, complete with the station's names in Kanji - which was helpful, but as it later turned out, not neccessary: most stations and trains are bilingual.
I can't really begin to describe the feeling of strangeness around here. Everything's in Japanese, duh! My first impression is rather positive though. I like it here! The hostel is cute as well, I'm sleeping in a 10 man dorm in the basement on a side street... nice and quiet!
Now I'm going to eat something with Atashi, the manager, and tomorrow I'll go and explore the city a little. Hopefully will be able to find a power adaptor, so as to upload some photos!
Stay tuned, beloved audience.
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