Greetings, dear ones. Yes, Wilf and I are in Japan. And yes, we’ve been uncommonly silent. Usually when we get to Japan we hit the ground running and do all the things. This time around – we’re tired! Jet lag has been a thing. But, we’ve been out and about between the eating and the sleeping and the napping.
We flew from Vancouver to Tokyo – as usual Japan Airlines was wonderful. When we were here in 2012 we went to the city of Fukuoka. Our goal was to go to a sumo wrestling tournament, which we did. And it was great. It was, however, November and the weather was wet and chilly. We agreed that we had not seen the city that well and decided a do-over was in order.
Most international flights (especially from North America) arrive at Narita airport, north of Tokyo. Domestic flights in Japan usually fly from Haneda airport, south of Tokyo. Usually we take a train into the city, but the instructions for the transfer from Narita to Haneda seemed a bit confusing, so we took the Expressway bus. It was fabulous. Straight there in less than an hour, passed by Disney and other things to see along the way. We were dropped at Terminal 2, which turned out to be a small oops, as our hotel was at Terminal 3. No problem, the airport shuttle had us over to the other terminal right quick and it was a shortish walk to our hotel in the adjacent building.
This was our first experience at a hotel right at the airport and it was great. The Villa Fontaine Premier was very new and very luxe. In addition to restaurants in the hotel there was a shopping complex below with every kind of food. And on the top floor – a spa!
The spa was lovely with multiple baths at different temperatures. There was even an outdoor bath. I gave that a try, but…. Let’s say Haneda is one of the windiest places I’ve been. I got out the door and across the decking and into the bath. Sitting there amidst the whitecaps I thought ‘why am I doing this? This is not fun.’ As I was getting out, the door flew open and a tiny elderly Japanese woman popped out. I believe I heard the Japanese version of ‘Oh, hell no’ and the two of us wrest the door back open and retreated to the calm indoors.
In the morning we returned to terminal 2 and flew to Fukuoka, which is on the island of Kyushu, directly south of Honshu, the main Japanese island. The airport is two stops on the subway from the main train station for the city. And our hotel was across the street from the train station.
I have mentioned before about the wonders, and terrors, of Japanese train stations. How you can take the wrong exit and literally be hundreds of meters from where you want to be (I’m looking at you, Shinjuku station). Or, you can inadvertently take the west exit rather than the east exit and have a devil of a time finding your way to where you want to be. The station is built around the regular train and Shinkansen tracks, and has all these department stores accreted to it around the edges. Poor old Google maps has a hard time giving directions in the maze that is the area.
Once we got to the east side of the station there was our hotel big as day – in fact if we had taken the correct exit from the subway we would have wound up in the basement level of our hotel.
The Miyako Hotel is another beautiful hotel. We were on the 10th floor with view west over the train station. On the top floor as an indoor bath as well as an outdoor swimming pool and lounge area. We enjoyed the baths before bed time and sat in the lounge area in the afternoons.
Being near the train station there were lots of places to eat – lots of breakfast places ranging from the homey to the uber hip.
So – we left home on a Thursday and it was Sunday by the time we arrived at Fukuoka. All our connections worked and that was a relief.
Next up I’ll tell you what we did in Fukuoka… (here’s a sneak preview..)
Where I'm At 