the Sumida River cruise

I just wanted you schmucks to know that, in true Postman style, I completed every single goddamn item on my Day-One-of-Tokyo to-do list...and then some. Let's start from the beginning.

I arrived in Tokyo in the late afternoon of July 30. I was delayed about 15 minutes getting off that big Boeing 777, 'cause there was some other plane at the gate having maintenance issues. Or talking to its mother and having an existential crisis and not wanting to fly again until it knew who it really was, an MD80 or a CRJ-700. One of the two. So. I got through immigration and customs without any trouble (but for the fact that the immigration guy stole my customs form and I had to fill out a second one). Then it was out into the steamy Tokyo air.

...yeah, right. Not really. It was down into the bowels of the steamy Narita train station. Narita, as it happens, is about as far from central Tokyo (48 miles) as Incheon Airport is from Seoul (43 miles). As such, you need to take a special train to get to and from there, and you have three or four choices. I thought 30 American dollars for the red-colored JR Narita Express was a bit much. So I took the blue Skyliner to Ueno (northeast Tokyo) for just over two thousand yen, or $20. I lugged everything down to the platform, loaded up, and enjoyed a cushy, air-conditioned, 39-minute ride through Chiba Prefecture and into town. But then I had to switch to the Tokyo Metro at Ueno, and ride seven or so stops to Kyobashi Station. This was the worst part of the trip. I was still in the pants and coat I had worn upon leaving Los Angeles, and everything was stuck fast to me by the time I lugged my 50-pound suitcase up the tiny station stairwell to street level. Man, it was hot and muggy. I began to have serious concerns about the remainder of the trip. I don't do humidity. Thankfully my capsule hotel was right around the corner.

Wait, what? You never heard of a capsule hotel?

Didn't think so. Here's what it looks like:

I'll explain the bottle of whisky later. Be patient.

Capsule hotels come in many shapes and sizes. Some of them are like mortuaries, with people climbing in headfirst and sleeping with their feet toward the hallway in tiny caskets arranged like honeycomb. Not me. My hotel, the First Inn Kyobashi (¥3000 per night), was sort of like enclosed bunk beds. It was very convenient. There were lockers for guests' luggage, a shared Japanese-style bathroom on the first floor, shower stalls and sinks in the basement, restrooms on every floor, and just to prevent anything weird from happening at nights, the floors were segregated by sex. The evens were female floors and the odds were male. In each capsule was a lamp, a radio, a coin-op television, an alarm clock, blankets, a pillow, and a pair of pajamas. Towels and washcloths were also provided for free. After I turned out the lights, I spent a very peaceful six hours clutching the handle of my unsecured suitcase and wondering if I was going to have to shank a sneak-thief in the middle of the night.

The only downside to a capsule hotel, to my mind, is that you can hear everything your fellow sleepers are doing. I heard people rolling over. Thankfully there were no snorers around (except for me). I must have driven my capsule-mates crazy at 6:30 a.m. when I woke up, banged open my locker, unzipped and repacked my suitcases, stumbled downstairs for a shower, and dragged everything out of there. (Sorry guys.)

I stowed my excess baggage in the coin lockers at Kyobashi Station and used the free Wi-Fi. Japanese stations are convenient, but more run-down and dingy than Seoul's. After I'd checked in with everybody important, I set off for my first goal: the Sumida River cruise. I rode the Ginza (orange) line all the way up to Asakusa, on the northeastern edge of the city center. A short walk around the corner brought me to the waterbus station.

What's a waterbus?

If you took a double-decker bus and flattened it out so it looked more like a flounder than a vehicle and gave it a hull and screws and a rudder, then you'd wind up with something that wasn't completely like a waterbus, but which people who saw these monstrosities gadding up and down the river would find disturbingly familiar. There's a reason behind these halibut-shaped contraptions, too: the twelve bridges on the lower Sumida River are close to the water. Like, really close. Some of 'em are as low as 15 feet. Nothing a canoe or a rowboat couldn't handle, but a waterbus? I felt like ducking as we went under.

Here's some of the pics I took while out on the cruise:

 

I apologize for the poor image composition, but I'm a budding photographer, not a greenhouse full of chrysanthemums (the national flower of Japan). Most of these images (and most of the ones I took in Japan, actually) were just me fooling around with different angles, settings, and lens adjustments. I haven't even opened the manual for my new Canon Rebel T3i yet...

Now, you'll notice that in the last two pictures, a whole lot of greenery starts to come into the picture. That's the HAMARIKYU ONSHI-TEIEN, the former Imperial falconry ground, now a public park and garden abutting Tokyo Bay, where the waterbus dumped me off. But that's a story for another day. As in, tomorrow.

Stay tuned...