Travel Japan - Day 2

My plan once we landed on Japan was to get through Customs worst case 2 hours.  Claim our JR Pass from our exchange order that we purchased through Klook, grab an hour train ride from Narita to our Hotel in Shinagawa.  Well, let say that ended up as a seven hours ordeal.

We were seated near the rear of the plane.  The air stewards were trying to clear the exit one section at a time.  With so many people, it took a long while before we got out.  Next we were hustled by the airport quarantine folks in a circuitous route to finally someone that can check our covid status.  My phone had data roaming turned on, but the signal was weak and had to rely on the airport WiFi instead.  However, it was painfully sluggish and the connection kept dropping and had to be reloaded.  Lessons learned, download the QR code ahead of time before leaving home.  Next we headed to customs, again, WiFi was spotty to load up all the QR codes.  Finally made to customs, but then I didn't know we have to do the same for each child in the family.  *Facepalmed*  We ended doing paper form for the kids.

Got our luggage and headed to the JR office downstairs while Daisy got in line to purchase the SUICA cards.  After getting our JR pass, I went back up the 2nd floor to withdraw cash from the ATM machine and rent a pocket WiFi (which I wouldn't recommend if you already have data roaming on your phone).  At least for us, the SUICA/ICC machines didn't accept our credit cards.

By the time we figured out how to operate the subway ticket machines, it was already night time.  The train ride was another two hours before we arrived at our final train stop and another 1000 meters walk to the hotel.

Shinagawa-ku at night taken with iPhone 14 Pro Max

 

Hopefully Day 3 would be less stressful...