Arriving in Tokyo and our first night

Landing at Narita:

After getting through customs and on to Japanese land we started looking at options to get to the hotel.

The cheapest seemed to be ¥1000 per personfor a bus to get us to Tokyo station and then either walk 2.3km to get to the hotel or catch a taxi.

This would take us the better part of two hours.

With Muhsina not feeling well, we opted for a van to take us directly to the hotel. This cost us ¥24,500 after a bit of haggling which is expensive but saved us an hour and some inconvenience.

Toyota Alphard

Our Toyota Alphard van driver was Shiba (tel 090-3232-6006, fax 03-5950-2903) who was quite pleasant and had basic English skills. He usually does the airport trips as well as day trips to outside Tokyo (eg Mt Fuji). His rate was reasonable from the research I had done.

The hotel (Smile Hotel Nihonbashi) is pleasant but the rooms are very small. At about $120/night per room I shouldn't complain.

The first thing we (Jumanah and I) did was to go to the nearest Family Mart (2 minute walk) and get some noodles for dinner.  The girl at the checkout was very helpful. After asking her if there was meat in a couple of products, during the checkout she read the ingredients of every product to check for meat.

Then  we settled down for the night.

Daybreak is quite early in summer in Japan. Fully daylight by 4:40am. So it will be early starts for us when we stay with the motorhome.

Tokyo at 4:47am

To Tokyo

Our flight (MH140) from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo (Narita) was very pleasant and quite a contrast to the Sydney-Kuala Lumpur leg (MH070).

The plane was newer, the toilets were cleaner, the staff were more attentive and pleasant, the entertainment system was more responsive, the screen bigger and . . . the food was so much nicer.

Sweet and sour fish

Chicken teriyaki

Sama Sama Lounge at KL International Airport

At the Sama Sama lounge. About AUD20 per person for 3 hours includes lounge, buffet and shower.

Got to get in early though to get the comfy seats.

Tourist Refund Scheme

Today the TRS (not The Reject Shop, Afzal) gave me an indication of what it must have been like living under the Stasi in East Germany before the wall went down.

First you have to be lucky to see the sign of where it is. When you reach there it is a grungy room with a huge line.

The room only seems to have air conditioning where the officials sit and generally they have to be both grumpy and super suspicious of any poor soul who enters the room to get a job here.

By the way, the tax refund is processed by the Australian Border Force.

You quietly stay in line as it progresses ever so slowly (over 45 minutes for us) towards the desks as you start sweating in the hot room, overhearing the interrogation the others are going through.

One poor guy was told off for not taking the receipts out of the envelope whilst he was waiting in line.

All the while we're comforting ourselves because we have followed the instructions exactly.

So when we get there, no howdy do here I'm afraid. Just a lady wearing what seemed to be blue cavity searching gloves putting out her hand. No indication of what she wants first.

After presenting her the tax invoice, she puts it down and sticks out her hand again. No words.

Are they trained a particular way to be so unpleasant?

Then the interrogation started:
Was there a credit card receipt? No it was purchased online through eBay.
Then why is there a tear at the top of the tax invoice? No idea that's how it came in the mail.
Can you show me the receipt in the email? We showed the the eBay order.

Etc, etc.

Anyway my daughter calmly answered all the questions and explained the process, she (seemingly reluctantly) processed the refund.

I wonder if their KPIs include a target number of rejections per day??

I don't speak Japanese

. . . So we'll depend on English, or my daughter Muhsina or my VoiceTra app (Thanks AndrewX).