Narita City

Narita City, Japan

Our three-week odyssey started well. Our driver to Dulles was on time - and unlike many, he actually knew how to drive.  He had been an interpreter for the US in Afghanistan so it was an interesting ride to chat with him.  This trip was planned partly so that we could use the last of some US Air miles that I had accumulated over the working years.  I had just enough for two Business Class tickets from Dulles to Hong Kong and back, but free tickets come with a price. The routing was, shall be say, not direct – and you will read more about our routing on this trip as I continue to describe how we used additional free miles.

We took a US Air flight from Dulles to Charlotte and then to Chicago O’Hare. The flights were comfortable and staffed with very intelligent and helpful attendants but it took most of the day just to get to Chicago.  We spent the night at the ever-modern Hilton, (I think the Wright brothers stayed there after a flight from Dayton) whose only good feature is being connected to Terminal One without having to take any transportation other than your feet.  I never realized it was possible to spend $100 eating sandwiches at a bar, but with each glass of wine costing 12 bucks, things added up.

Our flight to Narita the next morning was with All Nippon Airways (ANA) and it was simply super.  The new configuration of their Boeing 777 has what is called staggered seating, 1-2-1, which means everyone has access to an aisle and no seats are aligned next to each other. (Compare that to 8 across on a United 777.) The seats are huge and there is a lot of storage space so you never feel cramped, a stark contrast to our more recent flights to and from Europe in coach. The service was flawless and the food, especially the Japanese meals, was spectacular and certainly something we could not afford once in Japan.  The seats lay flat which was a godsend on such a long fight (13 hours) and we both got some sleep after eating and watching the movie Chef.  It’s new this year and we are amazed we had never heard of it – it is a fabulous movie starring Jon Favreau (never had heard of him, but we have now – he also directed it).

We landed at 1 pm local time, which meant having to stay awake for another eight hours in order to try to force ourselves into Japanese time.  By about 8 pm we found this almost impossible to do but nevertheless managed to stay upright until 10 pm. When we finally hit the pillows we were out for the count and woke up to a beautiful sun-filled morning. We took our usual morning walk, had a nice breakfast, and then took the complimentary hotel bus to Narita City for a visit to the lovely Shinshoji temples and the grounds that surround them. It was an absolutely flawless day and perfect for our long walk.  The city is famous for things other than the temple, such as roasted sweet potatoes, macaroon cookies and above all, grilled eel, unagi. On the way to the temple we watched one of the chefs prepare the live fish for grilling, not something for the squeamish!  The other time we visited this temple (back in February 2013) it was a holiday in Japan and the grounds were thronged with people.  This visit was much simpler and in fact longer because we took our time to wander through the forest rather than taking the most direct route up to the main temple.  On the way out we passed a spectacular display of mums and dahlias in pots.  They were all labeled but we never figured out if it was a horticultural display of some sort or a contest; in any case, the flowers were beautiful, all lined up under long awnings erected to shelter the blooms.

For dinner that night we decided try a very small restaurant a few steps from the hotel that specialized in tappanyaki - including okonomiyaki, which is a cabbage omelet prepared at the hot grill in front of you, that we had tried on our last visit and wanted to try again.  We walked into the empty restaurant that looked like it could seat about 20 people and, as Cindy commented, the owner looked at us as if he thought he had locked the door and wondered how we got in!  He was flummoxed at first but recovered; most likely this isn’t a hot spot for tourists.  We sat at the grill, ordered a beer for me and wine for Cindy and then ordered our dinner and watched the show.  I had the sobayaki, noodles and vegetables grilled together, and Cindy had the okonomiyaki.  The food was almost as good as the experience of just being there. As we were preparing to leave, in came a very drunk party of about seven young Japanese, all but one of them men.  They ordered lots of beer and the owner – who expected them, unlike us - presented them with two very large bottles of sake.  On our way out, they greeted us with smiles and victory signs, which seems the thing all Japanese do when they have a picture taken.  It was grand fun and a perfect way to cap a lovely day in Japan.

Happy Halloween, Cindy and Wm