Distractions, reflections

On my third visit to Tokyo, I’ve become comfortable with navigating from Narita International Airport to my hotel near Tamachi station.  Arrving around 5 p.m. in the evening, here’s what the trip looks like into Terminal 1 (for the Star Alliance carriers).

As with most huge airports, passengers debark from the aircraft to face a long walk to the terminal.

Speedwalks in the terminal make the walk easier.  I passed by thermal monitors on the lookout for fevers, right before the lineups at immigration and luggage carousels.

Exiting the baggage area, my first stop takes me on a turn right.  Since my mobile phone from Canada hasn’t worked in Japan, I order a local mobile phone via ANA Skyweb for pickup, a week before the scheduled flight.

At the end of the terminal, the Ana sky porter had a mobile phone with my name on a list.

Turning around to come back through the centre of the terminal, I passed by the main escalator down to the trains.

There’s another wing of the terminal farther along, but my destination was the ATMs just to the left. Read the rest of this entry →

Like many travellers, I’ve taken the Heathrow Express from the airport to Paddington Station in central London.  However, Paddington is in the north side of London, and I was visiting on the south side.  Starting out from Purley Station, I decided to experiment with another route.

I took the train north towards Victoria Station.

The northbound rail tracks pass over some east-west lines.

The route goes by a power station.

Approaching Victoria Station, tracks began to converge. Read the rest of this entry →