Trip to Japan & The Tokyo Marathon 2025: Day 0 & Day 1

 

Prologue

    The best way I express myself is by writing. This self of mine is sometimes active but most times dormant just generating the ideas. But once I open up, its quite a smooth flow - my fingers working furiously on my keyboard. Our recent trip to Japan (as a result of the Tokyo marathon participation by RVS, my husband and Raju , my cousin, his running mate  for more than  decade now) appeared to be a good way to start blogging. We had travelled together including Suman, Raju's wife. 

    Since I am a travel bug and based on the wonderful experience this country has to offer , I was keen to capture all the moments and the sights and sounds and share the same with my family and friends. Initially I thought of blogging the entire travel blog in a single shot. But as I started writing I realized that there were so many aspects - logical, wonderful and emotional that I wanted to bring forth. So I have decided to publish this as a series - releasing a new experience/aspect of the trip once in every 2-3 days (as in OTT language : Season 1: Episode 1 !!!) . But rest assured, there will be only one season of this trip.

    Thanks in advance for your time and attention. Hope you have a good time reading this series. 

Day 0, 26^th February 2025 - Aboard the flight to ‘Nippon’ : The land of the Rising Sun

Planning and preparation

     This was a trip whose seeds were sown in June 2024 during a serendipitous conversation between my husband – RVS (as he is known in his runners circle) & his very dear friend, philosopher and guide (two way traffic : in all matters related to running and life !!!). Once RVS had collected all the relevant information from Arun regarding Tokyo Marathon (Arun had completed the same in Mar 2024), no surprises for guessing that Raju would be roped in and of course both would work in tandem in all aspects right from marathon participation, the bookings and of course the detailed training plan. I just casually suggested that I would love to join and there was an instant ‘Yes’ (Anupama Khush Hui !!!) and soon enough , Raju roped in Suman as well.

    The two of us, Anupama (yours truly) and Suman,  the travel bugs, were all ready not only with our baggage but also with eager, happy and curious mindsets - to accompany our respective husbands on a trip to Tokyo – the duo having registered for the Tokyo Marathon, an annual event that was scheduled to be held on the 02^nd of March 2025 for this year.

Anupama in the wonderland of Terminal 2 @ KIA

    The day finally arrived and we were all set to travel on the 26th of Feb, 2025. It being the day of Shivaratri, there was relatively less traffic on the roads in our Bengaluru. So our journey to the airport was  quite fast (an oxymoron of sorts as far as Bengaluru traffic is concerned). Our journey started  with an entry to the Terminal 2 of the Kempegowda International Airport.

    😍Wow, Wow, Wow…. !!! is all I could manage when I looked at its grand entrance. Filled with real plants, fountains, the ambient lighting, the aesthetics and bamboo dominating  the entire decor completely !!!  For me personally , the terminal-2 was an awesome and unforgettable experience – as I was visiting it for the first time. I can proudly say that it is A Definitive Symbol of ‘Vikasit Bharat’ – an announcement to the world that ‘we have arrived’  😊. We could but catch only a part of the airport based on our check-in counter. The airport terminal itself is something for a separate blog. The biodiversity of the real plants so carefully curated and planted is what fascinated me the most. I found it hard to believe that these were real plants. I could only imagine the extent of the related engineering that has been undertaken to nurture these.

   And this is just one portion of the entire airport and the interiors are only one aspect of an airport’s existence. One can check the below links if interested to know more

     https://www.tripadvisor.in/Attraction_Review-g297628-d27181308-Reviews-Terminal_2_Bangalore_Airport-Bengaluru_Bangalore_District_Karnataka.html

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epYGptLAaio

     There was of course no end to my wonder on each aspect of the airport terminal. We had a good time interval to reflect on the day and relax with a hot cuppa 'Kaapi' (Latte of course - the drink with the greatest affinity to the south Indian palate !!!) and finally ready to board the flight

The Flight, Our Arrival in Tokyo & the Hotel Check-in

    The flight was via Singapore and we had to focus on getting our connecting flight – so could not really enjoy the Changi Airport – which we more than compensated on our return journey. We were eagerly looking forward to having a hot meal on the flight since it was quite sometime we had started from our homes in Bengaluru. Due to some challenges, we had been unable to do a web check-in, hence the main portion of our meal was not readily available. Due to our diet restrictions – we had to a great deal of explaining to get a suitable meal. To be fair, the Singapore Airlines staff did really go that extra mile and we were given a hot and steaming veg pasta liberally tossed in Salsa. This main meal with the usual ‘side’ suspects – bun, ample butter, jam and a creamy yogurt provided us the much needed satiety. We were too glad to finish off the meal with a really strong coffee.

Arrival and Immigration clearance

    Our flight landed at the Haneda international airport on 27^th February, 2025 at 3:30 PM local time. The pilot made his cursory announcements and including about the weather – as being salubrious. We were only too glad to hear this since we were not too keen to be welcomed by a cold weather after a long journey.

    Thanks to Arun’s advice, we had been proactive enough to prefill the Japanese immigration website before we had started. So we had the details pulled out including the QR code to be scanned at the immigration desk. However we had slightly varied experiences as far as the speed of the clearance was concerned. At one of the counters, we had to fill the paper form due to some glitch. It appeared  as if the system had been rolled out newly. Despite the serpentine queue, it was generally smooth sailing despite having to rely on the pre-existing fall back options.       

    After clearing the mandatory immigration checks, We had a brief debate followed by a decision to take a taxi to the hotel to make the most of the time and considering that we were four of us (reach the hotel in the least possible time that would enable us to finish off the main agenda-item collecting the race bibs and related material).

Tokyo, the first impression

     As can be expected, most of the taxis are of Toyota make – the big varieties and so well maintained – one cannot find even a single car with the slightest scratch !!!! As expected , no traffic snarls/jams, no honking – a smooth sail to the hotel . Since Tokyo is a modern city, the skyline very much resembles that of any mega city in India – New Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru with tall buildings and multiple flyovers dotting the landscape. Except for the great orderliness and discipline, it’s a typical mega city. But the buildings do stand out for their highly stylized facades and quiet aesthetics. As far as the silhouette of Tokyo is concerned – I was quite pleased to draw parallels with our own cities 😊

    All signboards, directions, shop names are displayed both in Japanese and English. However, it does take a bit of mental effort to scan the boards for the English display. At all the public places, most of the signs are accompanied by a clear pictorial representation, if relevant – ‘A picture says more than a 1000 words’ – the Japanese have set a great benchmark with this. If one has any doubt/ambiguity, the picture clears it all.

 The APA Hotel and its rooms

    We landed at the APA Hotel (appears to be a major hotel chain in Japan with multiple branches in Tokyo alone) and entered its lobby . A decent landing area for cars and taxis followed by a neat & a compact lobby. The lobby was aptly decorated with the cherry blossom theme – the trees have just started sprouting and will be in full bloom by April.

    However, the check-In process was a bit lengthy – the staff is well versed in English – it still takes some time. I think it all has to do with language usage – though we speak in English, when we frame a question they may not understand it the same way. All of them do understand English but may not be proficient enough to reply back smoothly. They overcome this barrier quite smartly – thanks to the smartphone and the related Apps. Once they hear us out, while many do reply back in English immediately, many of them speak out the reply in Japanese into an App on their phone which then types out the same in English text – they then show the reply to us !!! I was quite impressed with this kind of usage. Since the Smartphone has become so ubiquitous, I suppose this may be the norm globally.  We found the staff at the Tokyo metro and the suburban rail stations also using this technique to answer our queries.

The room, a microcosm of all amenities 

    Well, the Japanese compactness and optimization was in full display in our hotel rooms. We had booked a ‘double bedroom’. There is a TV screen which is really disproportionate compared to the room size. However, it is a self-sufficient display with multiple windows for each aspect of the room and the hotel (a video that keeps playing all day long with important information – u think of a question and it is there in the video)  – right from the luggage storage, hotel food, guest activities, spa occupancy, the room cleaning schedule, usage of the various accessories in the room, the AC controls, the meal timings,  etc. There is a clear display that the luggage is to be stored under the bed. There is a small table that has one big and one small drawer. The big drawer has the following stacked – Yukata (some kind of a Japanese night dress), the belts and a hairdryer which is foldable. Everything stored as tight and neat as the pieces in  a completed jigsaw puzzle. The small drawer doubles up as a pull-out tray and contains all the stuff for us to make hot beverages – tea and coffee. And a mini-fridge under the table. A kettle rests on the table. Just  a small wire that connects it to the plug point so that the wire does not dangle all over the small area. For a room this compact, there are sufficient charging points. There is a small yet sophisticated  control panel just next to the bed for all the lights in the room including a bed lamp.

 The bathroom – Again very compact but needs quite an amount of effort to get into the deep bath tub !!! All the controls are very well depicted with crystal clear pictures. What I liked most was that the washbasin tap would rotate 270⁰ – so it could be used for the wash basin as well as turned around to face the bath tub for any other suitable use like filling water or wash up anything. There is literally no ‘room’ to say that something has not been provided for!!!

Proceed to the Bib-collection

 We quickly settled in, got refreshed and were ready to leave for the most important race pre-requisite, i.e., the bib collection (We were joined by Vinay, another runner friend). We had decided to take a cab to the bib-collection center and then explore the use of the Tokyo Metro on the way back to the hotel. It was important to finish this most important race pre-requisite as this would give us the mental peace to explore the city and other attractions over the next 2-3 days – especially to the runners.

    The Tokyo Marathon expo was being hosted at the Tokyo Big Sight South Exhibition Halls (South Halls 1-4).   This is a very big building and hosted the bib-collection as well as a sports related exhibition to rake in the moolah – enticing the runners tantalizingly to make that extra investment which would ease their training and cut a few minutes of their run-time (never mind the fact  that everybody gets the same medal !!!). At the entrance itself, there were clear markers to split the crowd into runners and non-runners so that the runners have it smooth sailing for them to collect their bib, important race related information and a few goodies (Every event is a showcase for the sponsors to offer a glimpse of their latest wares).

    Once neatly separated, we were on our own to explore the various stalls. A clear map of the place really made it smooth for me and Suman. The exhibition itself was a great spread of stalls by all the well known sports companies – shoes, sportswear, the latest wearable devices related to sports and many more.

    It was a great experience to see people from so many nationalities. It is just so humbling to think that irrespective of one’s nationality, its’ just the individual practice and relentless effort that determines your success – all in your hands, or rather legs in this case !!!  We were soon joined by the runners.

 The Plan International

    We duly visited the ‘Plan International’ stall – A charity organization that supports the development of girls in less privileged countries – themed ‘Run for the Girls’. Our runners had obtained their registration for the Tokyo marathon by contributing to this organization. Incidentally – all the three runners have only daughters  (hopefully the ‘betis’ will eventually run like their dads someday).  energy drinks including water, the various sponsors and the charity organizations.  

     On the whole, the bib-collection was a smooth sail with everything being organized so well- No crowd, no jostling. Since it was a Thursday – a full 4 days before the race and hence less crowded as the majority of runners would start pouring in on Friday and Saturday.  Yet full marks to the organizers.

    We could feel the nip in the air when we came out – around 8:30 PM. Since the main job was done, we did spend some time to capture a few pics braving the cold but mostly pleasant weather.  Since it was day-1 , we were all saving our roaming data to last for the entire trip. The torrent of photos would happen to all the relevant hapless Whatsapp groups and social media Accounts only after we reached our rooms and had access to the free Wi-Fi at the hotel. I just wonder how the world has changed with access to wi-fi / internet becoming as essential as water and being taken for granted.

Making sense of the Tokyo Metro

    Now we could feel the slight rumblings in our tummies  - the initial excitement having settled in. We were aware of an Indian Restaurant at a stone’s throw from our hotel and so were keen to get back. The first thing we familiarized ourselves was the metro station next to our hotel (it was bang opposite ) so that we could take the right metro line. Our friend Arun (who was our official Guru for this trip) had clearly told us to map the station name (Japanese names) to an associated number and remember the same . This was duly complied with. Thankfully Vinay had made his way to the hotel earlier in the day using a combo of airport bus and the metro line on his own. So he was the unopposed leader for our group (‘Andher Nagari, KaaNa Raaja’ 😆). 

    But despite our enquiries at the information desk at the bib collection center and heavy reliance on Google maps – it was quite a struggle to find the metro station. When we did manage to, the next task was to buy the ticket. Again, quite a bit of learning on the go – ‘learn as you buy’ ☹. We had to use the cash as the ticket dispensers did not have a place to swipe the cards (we were really surprised with this) and could not figure out the option to buy multiple tickets in one shot. We also had to learn the coin denominations as the machine spitted out the ticket and the change. We had to be clever to use the coins for the subsequent iterations of ticket buying else our pockets/purses would literally become ‘jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way’.

        We were quite exhausted by the whole experience as we had to be alert and mindful all the time. Having surmounted this challenge, we then turned to Vinay (Our 'Saarathi' for the day) who was able to figure out the right metro line and the right direction. Finally we landed at the metro next to the hotel – ‘NishiShinjuku-Gochome’  (a mouthful indeed)– that’s the name or E29 as we learnt to remember it as. Out comes the Google map to enable us to find the Indian restaurant by name 'Khana' (recommended by Arun 👍). We were aiming at to quell our gastronomic symphony which was quite a crescendo by now. By now we were quite used to everything being tiny yet compact and self-contained – This particular place is run by a Pakistani with Indian employees – we were soon speaking in Hindi which kind of set the rapport and added that extra taste to the food (opposition to NEP 3-language policy not withstanding 😆). Since it was quite late, it was not that crowded and we quickly  finished our orders – glad to dig into a pure vegetarian hot meal. It was then a quick walk to our hotel. All ready to hit the bed for a great sleep. And eagerly looking forward to covering Tokyo the next day.

   👉Next Blog In the Series : Day 2 : Exploring the city of Tokyo  (Coming Soon !!!)