Lost in Tokyo Station

The perks of flying from Haneda Airport is it’s closer to Tokyo than Narita, and I can hop on a taxi and get there in 30 minutes.

Yesteday I flew through Narita. And my options were: take the airport shuttle bus, Narita Express or the rapid train.

I chose airport shuttle but it was an epic fail. With my Google Maps on hand I walked searching for the bus stop. I must have lost a good ten minutes in the process before it dawned to me to move on to option 2: Narita Express.

So, I moved on to my second option: Narita Express. I walked around in circles in Tokyo Station until I finally found the ticketing office. Narita Express takes a little less than an hour to reach the destination. It is more expensive than the Rapid train, which takes about an hour and a half to get to the airport.

Having bought my ticket, I faced the bigger hurdle of finding the platform. The Tokyo Station can be quite overwhelming as it is major connecting point of different lines. My eyes wide and head hastily looking for signages (that I could understand), I desperately looked for the platform to Narita Express. And lost a few minutes therefore missing my train by arriving to the platform 2 minutes late.

Lesson learned when taking the Narita Express from the Tokyo Station: give ample time (to get lost and find my way), and look for the red arrows on the floor with the worss Narita Express written on it.

Because the seats are reserved and the ticket cannot be refunded, I waited for the next train as a chance passenger. Good thing it was not full and I was able to get myself a comfortable seat while letting all the adrenaline die down.

As usual the ride was on time, smooth, and fast. They have free wifi and the view to Narita was refreshing.

Now I’m back to good old Manila. Til next time Tokyo!