A Short Stop in Japan

When I came over to China I used a company called STA to book the ticket. I've used STA in the past and while they haven't necessarily gotten me a ticket cheaper than what I could have gotten myself they do tend to be able to get as good a price on a better airline. That's how I ended up flying the Japanese airline ANA instead of one of the usual Delta or United types. ANA was a really nice airline. It was sort of like flying back before they took out everything even resembling an amenity. The food was pretty good, the stewardesses were helpful and pretty, they even gave everyone a cup of Häagen-Dazs for desert. Oddly though on the way back from China I had to stop in Japan for one day. Now it wasn't a problem as Japan doesn't require a Visa for people from the US but it was just weird. I was hoping when I heard this that I would be able to go into Tokyo. I was thinking that I could go into Tokyo and spend all night wandering around then just come back out the next morning for the plane. The problem with this was that by the time I got into Japan and cleared customs it was already getting late and there were limited trains in and out of the city. Japan isn't like most places in Asia the costs were high even for the first world and a taxi into Tokyo would cost more than a hundred dollars.

So with the trains how they were even if I didn't sleep I would only get three or four hours in Tokyo at a pretty high cost.I decided instead just to skip it and stay at the hotel they brought us to which was not far from the airport in an area with a small forest that ironically looked like a lot of stuff outside of Dulles. The hotel was nice, the toilet had so many buttons on it that I was afraid to use it least I get sucked in or some such thing. The hotel had a nice little restaurant also and while I'm sure the Japanese food there was good to me the most exotic thing on the menu was the turkey club which was good. Even though I didn't get to see Tokyo the stopover was nice because since I basically just woke up and went to the plane I wasn't really very tired for the flight which works out better for me since I can't sleep in planes anyways.