I woke up at 6:15am to finish some packing and prepare the house for the bunny to be home alone for two weeks. We left to drive to the airport at 8:30am ish, driving to the Park n Fly just east of Toronto. We waited quite awhile for a bus to pick us up to take us to the airport. We met a couple going to Washington who were dreaming of going to Japan. 

We arrived at terminal 1 at about 10am, easily going through customs and security. We met Harith at our boarding gate and got ourselves a tea and coffee and a breakfast sandwich. We talked about what we were most excited for and then walked to a different area to try to get water for Harith and order our traditional pre-flight beer (this time a pineapple flavour). We went to board at about 12:15pm, a bit earlier than scheduled. Both Jives and my name were called to have our passports checked. We were not seated together, but at least Jives and I both had an aisle seat, one in front of the other. 

I watched a lovely film called Kanaval about Haitian immigrants to Canada, then I watched a show called “Sugar” with Colin Farrell, about a private investigator. The food on the flight was horrendous, worst I have ever had with Air Canada, and that is saying something. 

We arrived in Tokyo Haneda at 3:45pm ish with no issues. We disembarked and went through customs which took about two hours of waiting in a never ending queue. Haneda is still by far my favourite Tokyo airport, and we have since gone through customs and immigration here twice with no wait at all. Despite filling out our information ahead of time and having the QR code, we still had to go to a machine to confirm our QR code and it did not work for Jives. The man there told us we would have to go through the line with “One family one QR code”. We had no problem after this. We met up with Harith on the other side of the gates and proceeded to the Tokyo Haneda monorail line. 

We stopped to top up our Suica cards with more money and then we boarded the monorail line that would take us into Tokyo. There are two trains to get from Haneda to Tokyo, but I prefer the monorail because being above ground is always preferable to me as you can see more. My favourite train, the Yamanote circle line around Tokyo, is all above ground as well. We took the monorail train to its terminal station and then transferred to the Asakusa line to Ningyocho station , the closest station to our hotel “9h Ningyocho”. Between the transfers we popped up at the street level for a glimpse of Tokyo Tower, all lit up in orange against the darkened sky. 

It was a short walk to our capsule hotel and we did the self check-in thing, paying 4800 yen each (or about $40 CAD). My capsule was on the seventh floor and Jives and Harith were on the fifth floor, as the men’s and women’s floors were separate. We briefly stopped in our respective rooms to drop our backs off in our lockers and capsules. The pods were pretty cool and a lot sleeker than I imagined. I had a top bunk, and found it tricky to climb up the ladder with the slippery steps. 

We then met up in the common area in the lobby before heading to the Family Mart close by to get some snacks, sort of a quasi dinner. I got a plain rice onigiri (riceball) and a salmon onigiri as well. I also got a grapefruit Strong Zero (but the not strong version). We then went back to the common area to eat our loot. After eating, Harith retreated to his capsule and Jives and I went to the Lawson, also nearby to get some more snacks and a beverage which we ate in a park nearby. There were lots of people walking their dogs and some girls were filming tiktoks with sparklers. 

Back at the room I got together some stuff and had a lovely hot shower before bed at around 9:30pm. 

Oct 15th 

I woke up at 4:30am with one of the worst headaches of my life. The capsule was so hot and dry and I think that was the issue. If you stay in a capsule, make sure to bring some water to bed with you. I must have managed to fall back asleep as I woke up again at 6:30am with an even worse headache. I went down to the shower room floor to take painkiller and brush my teeth before heading down to the lobby to meet up with the boys. We walked to a vending machine to get water and coffee and then to a Lawson store to get onigiri which we ate in the same park as the night before. 

We then went back to the hotel to checkout around 8am. We then walked to the Asakusa line to take the train to Tokyo station, stopping to transfer. At Tokyo station Harith activated his JR pass at a booth and we walked to the railway cafe to activate our JR passes. We waited about ten minutes for a man to help us with our passes. He activated our passes, exchanging our vouchers for the JR pass. He then helped us all to book tickets and reserve seats on the Hikari shinkansen to Nagoya at 10:33am. We then went to a Newdays shop to get snacks for the train ride to Nagoya. After getting supplies we headed to the platform through the south shinkansen gate. Our train left from platform number seventeen. We sat and waited at the platform waiting area. The waiting area was super full, but eventually we were able to get seats. Once on the train we waited for our third seat mate (in a three- two configuration) to arrive, but they never did. Harith was a row behind us and over one row. The trip was very quick, less than the expected two and a half hours. We ate some bentos, onigiri and coffees. I was feeling a bit queasy, so I struggled with my food. 

We arrived at Nagoya station around 12:30 and tried to find a locker to stash our bags in.