“Give me the peace of silence, the moments of solitude so I might share that when we next meet.” – Old Sean
Layover Allowance
After a full month of lingering in Texas, it’s time to get moving once again.
be honest, my energy is at a difficult low. This has been an extremely active travel year, with time spent cruising the Caribbean, driving through Europe, marching through America, traversing the Middle East and taking forays into other offshoot pockets and regions.
Now, I’m due to take another segment journey, this time visiting various portions of Asia. In the coming weeks, I’ll be spending my hours somewhere in the Pacific. That first stop for me was a twenty hour layover in Japan.
Now, generally when I buy tickets where I’m not in a hurry anywhere, I purposefully opt for the extended layovers. I’ve managed to sneak in a LOT of mini vacations this way over the years. Ghostly walks through Hungary, cultural meanders through Qatar, lucky hikes in Iceland, interesting lounges in Norway and coffee shop crawls through Seattle.
However, this strategy requires a couple of preparational features. Firstly, figuring out the visa situation generally requires an extra few minutes of research. Flight check ins can be finicky. And, most importantly, traveling light is vital. Since there’s a lot of rapid motion from the airport to the same airport, having minimal luggage is an absolute. There are times when getting a hotel isn’t practical and it’s wiser to put luggage in airport lockers. However, space is limited in these cases, making light luggage paramount once more.
So when I landed in Tokyo for my layover, it was with my usual single bag. I often wonder how long an object has to fulfil its role before it’s given a soul. I have an almost spiritual fondness from my old Osprey backpack. It’s been with me on more journeys than I can easily count over the last decade. While some wear and tear has gradually appeared, that bag has been the key to an incredible series of journeys.
The Best of Airlines
Not all airlines are created equal. Japanese airlines, most especially Japan Airlines, is among the best and most comfortable in the world. The seats are larger and more comfortable with rising headrests that can be shaped to hold up heads. The entertainment systems are grand and the flight staff is extremely accommodating. The food is higher quality and the leg space is wonderful.
Where most airlines make me feel like companies are experimenting with how tightly they can pack humans together before it becomes a civil rights lawsuit, Japan Airlines takes the concept of comfort into account. It shouldn’t be a revelation, but with how poorly other airlines perform, it’s a drastic step up, even in economy seating.
So I enjoyed my flight, stretching, snoozing and watching movies in intervals. I finally got a chance to see the Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent staring Nicolas Cage, which proved just as entertaining as meme culture portrayed it. Additional contenders included Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Fall Guy, Furiosa (Mad Max) and The Intern.
If I have one major critique of modern airlines, it’s the audio systems. Those poor headphones are some of the worst in the world, full stop. They can’t transmit sound at any quality level, even over the mild engines systems. As a result, dialogue heavy movies like The Godfather are basically just expression studies.
I hope that the future standard for aviation entertainment includes subtitles for ALL films. It’s a lot easier to follow events and action with clarifying text. And, for myself, sometimes I zone out and like watching other people’s screens while I’m daydreaming or napping. It would be cool to glance over and see my favorite part of a Deadpool movie with subtitles, instead of committing to watching the entire thing on my own screen.
Tokyo Tales
After landing, I was quickly ushered through customs upon landing in Japan. As always, Japan is one of those countries that has mastered the ungainly aspects of bureaucracy, making airport visitations somewhat painless. This is a special aspect that relatively few countries master. The richer nations in the Middle East have a stellar airport system, as does Singapore and Iceland. But I suspect the US and Europe’s terribly inefficient, cumbersome systems are by design. In order to get people to arrive to airports sooner, lounge longer and waste energy stressing while they buy snacks.
Sad, really.
Regardless, once I was in Tokyo, I quickly caught a train heading into the city center. It took a minute to get a ticket, since I had to transfer cash (the ticket machines are unkind to credit and debit cards) but it was painless enough. I briefly downloaded a map of Tokyo, since I wouldn’t be moving around with any WIFI or data. Finally, I caught the metro leading into town, reading quietly and blinking away the admittedly mild jet lag.
When I finally found myself on Tokyo’s streets, the weather was crisp and brushing with an autumn chill. A bright moon had already claimed dominance in the sky despite the lingering glow of sunset coloring the west-facing sides of skyscrapers.
Silence and Steps
Japanese cities, by a vast degree, are some of the grandest supercities in the world to walk through. They’re planned intuitively and meticulously. There are wide streets and sidewalks available for walking. Green spaces are prevalent. Coffee shops and walk-in convenience stores (a famed feature of Japanese culture) are everywhere.
But perhaps most interestingly is Japan’s dedication to the minor details in life which lend itself to a better existing experience. Japanese cities, including supercities like Tokyo, are quiet. Blessedly, wondrously quiet. The major areas which create noise, namely traffic hubs and night clubs are purposely centered around Metro stops, pooling noise in a single area. Walk a block away in any direction, and the city turns back to quiet.
Even in one of the largest supercities in the world, a person can walk through the streets during rush hour and still hear the scuff of their feet on pavement. It’s an entirely amazing, appreciated sense of peace that isn’t really matched by scale anywhere else I know of.
So I enjoyed my peaceful walk through Tokyo immensely. There were numerous trees decorating roads and plaza spaces, their leaves a vivid, eye-catching autumn yellow. They fluttered in the breeze and moonlight, shedding a dusting of leaves on the ground. Many were also outlined with Christmas lights, allowing other pedestrians to hold phones up and snap photo after photo. Skyscrapers pumped out kilowatts of light in all directions, heralding defiance against natural night.
My walk didn’t have any specific direction. I mostly followed the waterway underneath the C1 Metropolitan Expressway Inner Circular Route, which took me past a few small temples, museums and shopping areas. I mostly intended to continue walking until I got hungry, which I figured wouldn’t take long.
Lightway Right Way
There were plenty of interesting, subtle little attractions scattered around during my walk. I enjoyed visiting the well-appointed Marunouchi Square to view the numerous lights in the area. The Tokyo Station Gallery was an enjoyable walkthrough, as was the strange Crab Fossil embedded in a white stone wall.
I angled towards the Wadakura Fountain National Park, stopping to gaze into the reflective waters while snapping photos of the skyline. If daylight had reigned, I would’ve liked to see the site of the Honmaru Edo Castle and the Imperial Palace, but that’ll need to wait for another time. I eventually reached Hibiya Park before hunger started to heckle my stomach.
If there’s one meal that I’m especially obsessed with inside Japan, it’s ramen. There’s nothing better than sitting down with a full bowl and whittling an evening away one a warm bowl. I’m a glutton where ramen is concerned and I usually spend a lot of time sipping up the broth and eventually draining the bowl. I stopped twice for ramen meals during my slow walk. It gave my feet a nice chance for some rest, as the aches were adding up as the step count increased.
Icon
On a whim, I decided to hike towards Tokyo Tower. There are plenty of landmarks in Tokyo I’ve missed during previous visits, so I wanted to make a point of seeing some of the more predominant ones. I started walking to Shibakoen, following open streets toward the orange-glowing spire to the south. While I made a few detours to photograph temples and munch on snacks from convenience stores, the quiet walk went easily enough. It was especially amusing to see people in Mario-Kart style Go-Karts zooming through the streets, dressed up in the classic red-and-blue outfits with M hats included.
Tokyo Tower has a status roughly equivalent to the Eiffel Tower of Paris. It’s a central icon with a strong cultural following that helps identify a major feature of the city. In fact, the Eiffel Tower’s design inspired the shape and style of the Tokyo Tower. Unlike the Eiffel Tower, Tokyo Tower is a communication tower and is painted bright orange and white to comply with air safety regulations. It’s especially eye-catching at night, a warm orange glow spearing the night sky from between skyscrapers. The Tokyo Tower was the tallest tower in Japan until the construction of the Tokyo Skytree over in Sumida.
It’s a fun walk and the city of Tokyo looks amazing sprawled out beneath. I was especially impressed with the small garden space below, which had winding trails past an artificial creek. Even next to a modern superstructure, Japan takes a moment to integrate naturalistic peace in the same setting.
I eventually veered into Azabudai Hills, a small business park area with plenty of Christmas decorations and interesting architecture. Last time I was in town, my friend briefly mentioned the site as a point of architectural interest.
Wind Down Fly Around
That essentially included my time in Tokyo. I wandered to Hamamatsucho next, trying to put myself near the metro so I could make a quick trip back to the airport later that night.
One of the wild cards traveling in Asia is the nighttime shutdown of public transit. It’s different for different cities and countries, but usually from 11 PM to around 4 AM there’s a dead zone where public transit doesn’t run. Since my flight out of Tokyo was at 2 AM, I needed to make sure I arrived at Haneda Airport before running into that particular obstacle.
Thankfully, the metro staff was very helpful, telling me I could catch the last train at 11 PM sharp. This let me lounge in various restaurants for a chunk of time until around 10:30, at which point I zoomed back to the airport.
From here, it was a few hours of loitering. I edited some photos to offset the darkness in my pictures. I read a little, talked with some strangers, bought an ice cream, browsed souvenirs and listened to music. When it was finally time to board, I fumbled into my seat and fell asleep snoring before the plane took off.
By seven AM, I had finally landed in Manila, in the Philippines. My last major trip, through Spain, Andorra and France with my friend Thor was a stellar journey, but I did very little recording and writing in real-time, preferring to save the work until after the trip. While this was fine, it meant that my impressions had settled and my memories were slightly blurred. This time, I intend to write much more frequent updates.
So I’m now on my first day in Manila after a layover vacation in Tokyo.
As ever, life is good.
Best regards and excellent trails,
Old Sean
Written December 12th, 2024
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