We’re here! The A380 was awesome. Gus had a good sleep and some delicious French toast for breakfast. I stole his croissant while he was still sleeping.

Immigration was a bit of a nightmare. It was about 90mins. I had to use an app to answer to fill out an electronic landing card. It in turn gives you a QR code immigration scan to speed things up. After having my fingerprints and photo taken (but not Gus) I moved back to the line and eventually got to a guy. On the QR code app there was a question about bringing in stimulants. I said we were (Concerta). Drama #1. I answer the question truthfully, but no one knew what to do as I would not be allowed in if I said yes. After some iPhone translation apping back and forth the guy just said to re answer the question and put no and just pretend nothing happened. 👍

We picked up our back and were sent to a customs kiosk. It scanned our passports and a big ❌ comes up. A very official custom man comes up and takes our suitcase (very polite though). Apparently the immigration and customs systems don’t sync quickly so the fact I changed the answer to no don’t get to customs. All they see is I am bringing in horse, mary jane or molly. Again, a bit of iPhone translation back and forth (I had to explain what ADHD was via text) he looked and the bottles and my Webster packs along with scripts and Dr’s letters and had a bit of a think. He just ended up saying “I think it’ll be fine. Where are you visiting? … That will be nice. It’ll be quiet at the moment. etc etc.” and out we went.

So that was at about 9am. Next issue was the fact nothing takes card (I knew this before we left but it’s still a surprise). You need to have an IC Card. It’s pretty much the same thing as a MyWay/Opal card but you can only recharge it with cash. So, you go to an ATM take out ¥10,000 in cash. Walk 10 meters put your IC Card in the recharge machine and feed in your cash. The IC Card is primarily for public transport, but you can use it in a heap of other places as well. Vending machines, 7 Eleven, food courts and even the Pokémon store.

After getting our PASMO Passport IC card and charging it up the next mission was to choose which train company to use to get to the city. I just went with Apple Maps and the cheapest option. I think I should have splurged as it’s taken us almost 2.5 hrs to get to the hotel. We’re all good. Just happy to ditch our stuff and can start to explore!