Chapter 3: When train journey turned into adventure...

We had two options for reaching to National Olympics Memorial Youth Centre (NYC), the place where we had to stay for the conference. One, easier but expensive, was travelling through Limousine Bus Service and the other was comparitively cheaper but very difficult i.e. changing 3 trains. We decided to save money and go for the harder one, through trains at a totally unfamiliar place.

Changing 3 trains seems easy :) but its not. Three tourists, alien and loaded with heavy luggage, and travel of trains.

From Narita Airport, we got into Keisei Line for Nippori Station, then Nippori to Shinjuku Station. Then from Shinjuku station, Odakyu Line to Sangubashi station thats near out destination.

Japan has a wonderful and highly advanced trains network, the hi-tech local trains were more than a fantasy for us. Absolutely amazing structure and remarkable interior. Everything was so systematic! We were thinking if the local trains are so advanced, how the bullet trains would be. We were told that the bullet train travels from city to city only and its one-way fare is around 18,000 Pakistani rupees.

One more surprising fact about the trains, there was a separate partition reserved for old, heart-patients and pregnant. Impressed.

The train journey could'nt be possible without the help of locals. Their impressive helping behaviour made us reach at NYC. They guided us from directions to ticket machine operation. We had to walk a lot with our luggage and without their help we could've lost or late. I'll later write about the cooperative nature of Japanese people.

On our way, we gone through Japan's countryside as Narita Airport is beyond the city range. ASTONISHED!!! What a beautiful green countryside!!! Suddenly the scene changed, we entered in Tokyo. Everything advanced, colorful and automatic.

Tired and striving, we finally reached to Sangubashi station, 15-mins away from our destination. We had food from McDonalds and walked towards NYC.

Wow, what an adventure. We finally made it.

Chapter 2: The Japanese Airports

What a dilemma...
you're stuck at an alien airport and its being shut down...

The next, we see some policemen towards us...
We still couldnt figure out what was heppening with us.

Policemen told us that the airport closes at 11:00 PM. Surprising for us!!!
Such a mega city of a hi-tech country and a big airport closes at 11? .Tokyo has 2 airports - Narita and Hanida Airport. Narita Airport was opened in 1978 as a replacement for the over-crowded Haneda Airport. In 1998, Narita recieved 24,441,365 passengers, while Haneda Airport recieved 51,240,704. We wondered why such over-crowded airport closes down so earlier and it was later answered by Asif, a Pakistani living in Japan for the last 21 years and our host for last 2 days in Tokyo.

Asif told that all the airports in Japan close down exactly at 11:00 which was again very surprising for us. He told that people here complained that they get disturbed by the noise of overnight flights and it ended up with them raising the issue in court that they won. Wow!!! This is what I call 'Citizen rights'. Are we same empowered? I never knew that a Citizen could be that much stronger.

Anyway,
We had missed the opportunity to avail the hostel as the last they could recieve us was 10:30, so we had to stay at the airport that night. We were sleepy, spent night with gossips and slept one after other. The next morning, we woke up as the silence turned into noise of people.

Sleeping at airport was something new and extraordinary to us, but the 'real' adventure was just ahead and we were thrilled for that.

Find out the adventure in the next post.
[to be continued]

Chapter 1: Stepped at Narita Airport, Tokyo.

Asian Youth Forum called us, so we had to be there at Tokyo, Japan. We had to participate in a week-long conference with other Asian students. We left Karachi with hopes, excitement and ambitions. Thanks to Ms. Fiza Choudhry (OCS courier) and my brother Furqan T. Siddiqui for the financials.

We flew to a new world.
The plane landed at Narita Airport Tokyo on 27 Oct 2008.

I, alongwith Farhan and Ryzwan, stepped into a new world. Narita was a busy and crowdy airport to us, so started exploring the airport before we could leave airport to a place for night stay. Bathroom, the first place we had to explore after landing. Automatic flush? :D where everything happens with a button-press, thats what I call technology. The next we started calling people through phone booths to arrange a place to stay for a night.

11:00 P.M. 'exact' the airport suddently gets dark, lights off, people disappear, flights end, shops closed.....
WHAT HAPPENED?
We're scared....
afraid!!!

What if we're trapped into some trouble? We know no one here....

[to be continued]