Yesterday (ish) I departed across the great Pacific for my first trip to Asia. A few months ago I found non-stop flights to Tokyo from Atlanta for $1200, which seemed too good a deal to pass up.

A few days ago I started checking into the weather and found that a “Mega-Typhoon” was headed towards Tokyo, and it was scheduled to make landfall right before the arrival of my flight. Awesome. I had the chance to change to a different flight, but decided to take my chances and stick with it. It turned out to be a non-issue, with only about 20 extra minutes added to the 14 hour flight as a result. I did get upgraded to Delta Comfort, so that was a nice bonus.

My first experience of Japan was all the nice, bowing people at the airport welcoming you and taking great pride in ensuring your passing through customs was effortless and easy. And it was. It was probably the best and smoothest customs experience I have ever had.

Once out into the airport, I had what turned out to be 2 hours of train travel to get from the airport to the Shinjuku area on the west side of  Tokyo.

I took the Narita express train into Tokyo. Everyone is very nice and helpful in Japan. On the train, before they would let us enter, they even took the time to turn all the seats in the train to face in the forward direction. And they straightened every info paper in the seat pockets and cleaned everything. The train ride was easy, as was the unexpected transfer that was required because of delays associated with the Typhoon. I got to see an amazing view of Mt. Fuji with the sunsetting, but didn’t get to take a picture.

Once I arrived in Shinjuku, I headed over to the Imano Tokyo Hostel, where I am staying for 4 nights. I met up with my friend and former CFA colleague Nate. We wondered around the area looking for some dinner.

The first thing I will say is that there are lots of lights and lots of color everywhere.

While searching for a restaurant we also ended up  checking out the 711, which is supposed to have really good, cheap food in Japan. We also wound up getting dinner and some drinks at a little restaurant that we happened to pass.

It was down a staircase off a side street. The environment was definitely festive and energetic. Everyone sat in small booths that were sectioned off with rustic wooden poles.

All ordering was done with a tablet, entirely in Japanese. We managed to order beers before a waiter came over to help. Much to our delight, two beers showed up seconds later!

A few learnings from day 1:

• Japanese toilets are complicated — there are a lot of options
• You’re allowed to smoke in most Japanese restuarants
• There are lots of stories that are for commercial space in every building, making things somewhat challenging to find.

That’s it for now. Day 2 coming soon.