It's been a long time since I posted anything, but I will try and start posting again when I go back to aus! 

Anyway. Time to get on with the blog post about Japan. 

We flew into Narita, Tokyo with Jetstar - I was pleasantly surprised with the comfort of travelling so many hours on jetstar. I think the seats are bigger on these planes than the ones I usually have on domestic. The plane wasn't really that full, many empty seats. Despite many peoples warnings about taking a budget airline, I thought it was good! Personally though, I hate plane food so having no food service wasn't an issue for me (we did bring sandwiches on board to eat though). They also had complimentary headsets and in flight entertainment which may not sound like much but I really didn't expect to find that on my budget airline flight! 

We arrived in Narita around 8pm, got out of customs fast, not many people. When we got out of customs, it was time to decide how to get to our hotel in Shinjuku - two options: Airport limousine bus or NEX train. Bus would drop us at the door but the NEX train was half the price (1500¥) so we went with the cheaper option. Got a bit confused trying to find our reserved car seats though! There are a lot of carriages, you have to look on the floor of the platform to find where your carriage is. Also they had 3 trains arrive on the same platform within a few minutes, we almost hopped on the wrong one - I guess it's kinda like central! (I still don't know my way around central too well -.-")

1 hour later, we were at Shinjuku Station. Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to get to the hotel from the station. Random thing but some guy on YouTube had posted a video on how to get from shinjuku station to our hotel. Awesome video, so helpful! 

We're staying at the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku. It's really nice and so close to the station. The room is average, smaller than an aus hotel room, but that's what I expected from somewhere in Japan! At the hotel there is free wi fi (which I am typing on!) but we also purchased a Globalcomm wireless portable wifi, will report back on that later when we use it. 

By the time we had dropped off our bags, was pretty tired, almost 10pm. We asked the hotel reception where to eat and they gave us a list of nearby places. Decided that we would start our japan food adventure with a bowl of ramen as we were both starving and wanted something quick to eat. 

We decided to eat at Yesube Ramen. We ordered bowls of Tsukemen (apparently this place is famous for that after a quick google.. I didn't even realise it wasn't ramen! Wink did comment the noodles were a lot thicker than normal ramen we had eaten at home). We had to order the ramen from a vending machine.. We derped it hard, and the guy behind the counter had to help us because I think we were taking too long to work out how to use the machine and a line was building up behind us. There weren't many seats at this place, maybe about 15? All in a row along a bench (kinda like the bar/ bench area at Yebisu Izakaya in Syd CBD)... It was quite squishy to sit. A few moments after getting our seats, a hot bowl of steaming noodles arrived... YUM! The broth was tasty, full of flavour, large portion was the same price as medium so I ordered the large, but be aware that there is a lot of noodles! (95% noodle, 5% meat + vege) 

Ramen toppings - dumplings, egg, veges, pork meat

Wink eating ramen (*^_^*)

Rolls of pork meat ready to be cut and served with ramen

So that was our first day of our japan trip. I am looking forward to eating so much more jap food over the next few days!! ^o^