Japan 2025: Arrival Day

Here’s the thing no one really explains about flying to Japan: thirteen hours in a glorified shoebox at 35,000 feet is less “romantic international travel” and more “slow torture with meals included”.

The seats are cramped. You can only watch so many movies. Only play so many games. Only pretend to sleep for so long before your body gives up and you start wandering the cabin. Eventually we found ourselves standing in the only place with actual breathing room: directly outside the airplane bathrooms. Nothing sells “seasoned world traveler” quite like loitering in front of desperate passengers while they conduct the fight of their lives on the other side of the door.

We landed. The relief was brief.

Japanese customs is a marvel of bureaucratic efficiency. Smooth. Polite. Organized. And still completely overwhelmed by the fact that apparently the entire planet decided to visit Japan that day. Immigration felt less like a warm welcome to the Land of the Rising Sun and more like a Disney World line with forms. Lots of standing. Lots of trying to figure out if you’re in the right line. Lots of time to feel your brain slowly dissolve under jet lag.

Somehow, we made it through. This was the moment my brain, marinated in exhaustion, chose to completely abandon the Japanese I’ve been studying for two years. Instead, I sounded like an unwell American tourist attempting to exchange euros while holding an American passport. This did not help. Long story. Don’t ask.

Then came the checklist. Pocket Wi-Fi. Currency exchange. Airport bus. All theoretically simple tasks, made infinitely harder when you’re operating at about 40 percent brain capacity and relying on a fragile grasp of the local language. At one point we walked the terminal convinced the airport bus was some mythical thing we’d never find, only to ask at the tourism desk and be told it was directly behind us. The entire time. Pro tip #1: assume the thing you’re panicking about is always right behind you while you spiral.

When I finally bought our airport bus tickets (Pro tip #2: skip the damn bus and take an Uber. They’re everywhere and maybe ten dollars more than two bus tickets. I digress), I was briefly reassured by the fact that the gentleman at the counter spoke excellent English. A small mercy. He informed me the next bus was in seven minutes. I asked if that was enough time. He nodded confidently and pointed, explaining it was just downstairs.

What he underestimated was my current level of incompetence.

We made it downstairs with time to spare and immediately did what comes naturally: calmly stood in the wrong bus line. Which, if you’re playing along at home, means yes, we missed the bus. The correct bus. The bus we were told about. The one leaving in seven minutes.

Thankfully, this happens all the time. Probably. That’s what I’m choosing to believe.

They rerouted us, gently, kindly, with quiet judgment, into the correct line. The next bus arrived thirty minutes later. It was 94 degrees outside. I remember this because I was actively melting. There might have been a breeze or that could’ve been a hallucination brought on by heat and hubris. Hard to say.

There’s a specific humility that comes with realizing how dependent you are on the kindness and bilingual patience of strangers. Travel has a way of stripping away confidence very quickly. One minute you’ve planned everything, the next you’re just hoping someone takes pity on you and points.

Eventually, mercifully, we arrived at the hotel. Small. Clean. Simple. Perfect. Exactly what we needed. We absolutely should have gone straight to bed.

We did not.

Instead, we decided to “soldier on” and find food. Translation: drag our half-dead bodies into Kabukichō and pretend this was still a good idea. Somewhere along the way, my jet-lagged brain managed to weaponize my camera bag, pushing a chair out from under me as I was sitting and sending me ungracefully onto the concrete. Just a full, committed sit. I can only imagine the locals clocking the scene: American. Camera. On the ground. Obviously drunk.

Nope. Just tired, hungry and deeply uncoordinated.

In peak Japanese politeness, no one even looked at me. No concern. No judgment. No acknowledgment. Bless them for that.

Food options presented themselves. Wagyu hamburgers. At 9 PM. In our condition. Absolutely not. So we made the correct and honorable decision: two beers, a quiet surrender, and Wendy’s. And listen, say what you want, but the Japanese teriyaki crispy chicken sandwich is a national treasure. Temples are great. Shrines are important. But I will defend that sandwich without hesitation.

We finally collapsed back at the hotel and fell asleep to Japanese television, which is…weird. Delightful but weird.

Verdict for Day 1: An immediate sense that this place already has its hooks in me. Japan, I love you already and honestly, we might not come back.