Helsinki to Tokyo (by Patrick)

The flight over was great – just under 10 hours. Finnair flights, in my experience and humble opinion, are nearly always good. It was an afternoon flight so we already knew with the time difference that the jet-lag was going to be tough, so the first bit of advice is to try and get some sleep on the plane – advice I did not take myself, so arrived to Tokyo with heavy eye-lids and a somewhat tired expression on my face :-D

The passport control took a while and initially we were concerned there was a problem but what in fact was happening was the boarder control officers were making our residency cards as we would need these because of the length of our stay. This was a pleasant surprise as we thought we might need to find an office somewhere to get these done. By the time we got to the baggage claim our bags were possibly on the 2nd or 3rd lap of the airport. Before exiting through customs be sure to complete a declaration card/form which you should have got on the plane.

We decided to take the Access Narita shuttle bus from the airport into Tokyo city centre as this seemed, from our research before we left, the most convenient way primarily because of the amount of luggage we were hauling (4 big suitcases, 3 smaller ones and 4 rucksacks) not to mention it was also one of the cheaper choices. It was pretty easy to locate the stop outside the airport, as this too was information you can acquire online before you leave on your journey. There was a small queue at the stop and an attendant who indicated where we wanted to go (as there are a few stops in the city) – we managed to communicate where we wanted to go and he labelled our suitcases and gave us little tags. The bus arrived, we got on, paid the driver and sat back taking in all the sites on the hour-long trip into Tokyo city centre.

We arrived at our stop and the first thing that hit me was the heat – it must have been over 30 degrees and anyone who lives in a large built up city can attest to, the heat is always stifling in the city. However the excitement and jetlag were controlling me, so once we got our bearings we headed off in the direction of our hotel, found it and after checking-in just crashed in our rooms.