A Crazy Man's Weekend - Tokyo in One Day
 

Ok to start I'd like to thank everyone in the Japan section of this forum for all their assistance and advice is helping me set up this crazy trip, without them I wouldn't have been able to see or do what I did!

Now for some short info about me before you read through the report. I'm a 19 year old college student attending the University of South Florida in Tampa. Both my parents work for Delta Air Lines, previously Northwest. I've been interested in aviation since I was very small so flying is always an excitement, making the flying part of this long trip fun. A couple years ago I use to write up trip reports for every time I'd fly. It got to the point though that I would just continually go to the same places (Boise, Detroit, Atlanta, Boston, etc) so I stopped. Now that I'm a freshman in college I'm going to take advantage of my pass travel capabilities as much as I can until I turn 23 and no longer am allowed to fly such as I am now. So, I promise that every time I go somewhere new I'll be posting a trip report here. Some of you the hang out in the Asia and Europe forums prepare to see me somewhat often as I'll be planning trips such as this one in the future and hopefully will be able to get some great advise again. Enough about me personally, time to get to the interesting part.

I returned from a weekend trip to Boston after seeing the Red Sox on Sunday September 23. That day I returned I told myself it's time to go somewhere new. I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't seen before. So, I began searching through all the flight loads until I found Tokyo. I had been to Narita twice before but only to connect, so I knew I needed to see the city. So the decision was made, I'm going to Tokyo for the weekend. Luckily the dates worked out great. I happened to have no class that Friday I wanted leave and would return Sunday morning in Tampa. The planning began there, I had to make sure every minute was perfectly planned for the trip as this was my first international travel by myself. I needed to assure my parents and family that something like this can be done, especially if I want to do this for other destinations in the future. So now that we know how this all came up, how it was all planned, and why I even went, let's get on to the trip!

Tampa International Airport (TPA), Tampa, Florida
Friday, September 28, 2012 at 6:00AM

A buddy of mine dropped me off at TPA at about 6:00AM for my flight to New York's LaGuardia Airport. I quickly checked in and grabbed my boarding pass, spoke with some friends at the Starbucks in the terminal (tells you how often I'm there...), then made my way to the gate where my flight was going to depart from.


This flight was just what I expected. I was on the same exact flight exactly one week prior when I went to Boston with a friend. Only difference was I got first class on this one. Immediately after takeoff we were told we'd be landing early, which we did by about 20 minutes. We were then served breakfast which consisted of Cheerios and some fruit, then I fell asleep. Upon waking up the plane had begun descending into the rainy New York area. After landing the plane taxied to the Delta Terminal where my next step in the Tokyo adventure began.

New York LaGuardia International Airport (LGA), Flushing, New York
September 28, 2012 at 9:45AM

Landing in LGA was quite similar to every other time. I was hoping it wouldn't be raining when I going to transfer to JFK, but being my luck it was pouring. I was originally going to take a bus, subway, airtrain combo to get to JFK for $9, but for $10 I decided to take the shuttle straight there. LaGuardia was busy as usual so I was in a hurry to get out of there. It took us about 35 minutes to get to JFK due to traffic but I made it. The driver dropped me off at T3 and proceeded in.

New York John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), Jamaica, New York
September 28, 2012 at 11:00AM

After checking in for my flight I decided to walk around Terminal 3. I had never been to JFK so it was something new for me, not that I was very impressed haha. I took a quick look around but decided to settle for lunch at Chilis Too. I had myself some soup and salad while I did some final research and double checking before leaving. After lunch I headed over to gate 6 where I saw Delta #173 for Tokyo-Narita.


This is definitely going down as one of my favorite flights. For one, I was able to get Business Elite, which I enjoy every time. Not only that, I was given a seat upstairs which, to me, is even better. I'm only going to say a little about the flight since the pictures will explain most of it. Before pushback the captain came on and detailed every small bit of the flight, literally. He gave us info of what runways we were going to use, where we'd fly over, how long it would be til we got food, etc. After takeoff we were quickly served the first course, and after about an hour we had dessert coming our way. I quickly fell asleep for a couple hours at that point. Around the time we got to Alaska I woke up, watched Prometheus, which was a terrific movie by the way, then fell asleep again not waking up until we began our descent into Narita. I had some great views of the area while landing but, I had one problem. This would come to be my only complaint of Delta's Business Elite seating on the 747. Instead of having your legs angled towards the aisle, they were angled towards the window which made it very hard to see out of. Overall, I had an excellent flight that I can assure you, didn't feel like 14 hours!

Tokyo Narita International Airport (NRT), Narita, Japan
September 29, 2012 at 5:00PM

After landing in Narita I made my way to customs and immigration. knew that this could be one of my potential problems of the trip, getting in and out of customs. But, all they did was look at the passport, make me scan my fingerprints then said "Enjoy your stay". I headed downstairs and changed then found where to buy my Suica and N'EX ticket to Tokyo. She told me the train was leaving in 10 minutes so to head downstairs quickly and get on, which I did.


The night of course, had to begin with me getting there. I started with taking the Narita Express from the terminal to Tokyo Station. Following that I took the JR line to Hamamatsucho Station where I stored my luggage and made sure I knew where to find the monorail. That's when the touristy part began. I'm not going to bother typing this all out since the pictures will explain what I saw. Enjoy!

Overall I had an awesome time in Tokyo. I'd definitely like to go back with more money and time so I've convinced my dad and sister to come along during Christmas or Spring break for a couple days. Some of you might think it wasn't worth my time to go over there but I thought it was a unique experience. How many people can say they went to Tokyo over the weekend!? Haha. Regardless, now it's time to show the return trip to Tampa, which consisted of the last Delta flight from Haneda to Detroit.


Today, which I hadn't known about before until that day, is the last day Delta would be operating from Haneda to Detroit indefinitely. It was kinda cool knowing I was on the last flight and seeing all the gate crew and ground crew waving as we departed. Overall the flight was great, we took off to the north right over the city allowing for some great pictures. Directly following that was breakfast of which I was watching Big Bang Theory. I immediately fell asleep from the lack of sleep I had in the past couple days and woke up over Minnesota. We quickly were served breakfast then landed in Detroit quite early. I gotta say though, the old Northwest seats weren't anywhere near as comfortable as I remembered but that's probably because I had been in the new herringbone seats.

Detroit Metro International Airport (DTW), Michigan
September 30, 2012 at 5:30AM

After landing in Detroit I had to proceed through customs which was easy. They did choose me for extra screening since I was only gone for a day but they understood and I was back in the airport in no time.


I was a little angry with what happened on this flight. Only people that fly nonrev will understand, but they cleared the other 5 standbys on the list (below me) in aisles and windows in Economy Comfort, yet I was in a center in standard Economy. I wasn't in the mood so I didn't argue. I slept this entire flight to pass the time so there isn't much to tell.



Overall, I'd say the trip was a successful one. I'd definitely do something similar in the future. Anyone that's never been to Tokyo, I highly suggest you find time or money to go, I can already tell it's a great city and there's tons to do there, and I was only there for 14 hours. Hope you guys enjoyed this report. Next time I go somewhere new I'll be doing the same thing.

Wow. Quite a trip.

This was a great report. Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading it.

Nice TR. Interesting read. I just PM'd you, as I am planning on doing a very similar nonrev trip in early January and am also trying to milk these bennies before they devalue at 23.

Nice TR! My daughter just got back from Japan and she loved it there. You took some great shots.

Great report!
 

Phenomenal report, and great photography! Just excellent.

Loved the pictures and the report. Thanks for sharing.

Nice trip report. Glad you enjoyed Tokyo. Looking forward to the others.

Brilliant tr. Loved all the photos. Glad you enjoyed Tokyo.

Nice report! Glad that the N'EX+Suica helped in getting you into Tokyo. Getting around Tokyo using mass transit wasn't that hard like I said, no? :)

Hopefully you have time to visit Japan again and again. Just seeing Tokyo for a night isn't enough, and you haven't seen all of Japan unless you venture out to other cities and towns.


BTW, those seats on the N'EX (and pretty much most intercity trains in Japan) can be flipped 360 degrees so that 4 people can sit facing each other. The next time you come with your father and sister, that would be an option.

Welcome to my world. :D

Going to Japan might be a bit more easier to do when you from the West Coast. Next time, I suggest taking DL LAX-HND if you can. If you depart TPA in the afternoon, you'll arrive at LAX at night, just in time to make the midnight flight to HND. When you wake up and arrive at HND it'll be 5AM, pretty much the whole day available for you to see Tokyo.