Our flight to Tokyo took off at 7 am, so we should be at Changi about 5 am for check in.
Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy to be ready at 4 am when you have a very active toddler who refuses to sleep early. We ended up only slept at 1 am, and woke up around 3 am.
We didn’t really plan to wake Zal up, but we really needed him to put on some extra clothes for the flight. Well, he ended up being awake anyway.. so off we went to Changi!
Changi!
We checked in quite early and we were told that we will be getting the bassinet later. The lady also said that we were not guaranteed bassinet on our way home. Eh. We would think about it later. We’re not even sure if we’re going to use the bassinet anyway.
Once we checked in everything, off we went to find some food! The only 24 hour around Terminal 1 is… Texas Chicken. It’s OK. Some chicken and some biscuits plus hot Milo.
And some wefie while waiting for Papa who went for Subuh.
When we were finally done with Subuh, we rushed to our gate. Oh, and I changed Zal’s diaper before we boarded the plane. We were kind of nervous on handling toddler with a 7 hours flight, but hopefully some of tricks we gathered earlier would work.
On The Plane
Our flight was tiring. We were lacking of sleep and sleeping on the plane was not really satisfying for both of us. The in-flight meal was also horrible I really wished I had brought food onboard. It was some sort of very very fried curry rice. Sounds weird but trust me it tasted that way.
Ah well. What we needed was some sleep anyway.
Good thing was, Zal was asleep most of the time! I guess the combination of white noise and being sleepy really helped. I got a pretty good sleep about 2 hours as well. Not sure about Husband but he didn’t look really tired when our plane finally landed.
Narita!
It hasn’t changed a lot since the last time I saw it back in 2011. Still looks old and cold.
(Please excuse my super tired face)
After a long immigration (should have had our embarkation card filled in the plane to save time), we waited for our baggage. I really can’t remember if Narita has signs near the belts to let us know which belts belongs to what airplane. After we waited for 15 minutes, our baggage is nowhere to be found. I became really suspicious that we were waiting at the wrong belt omg.
After a while, someone approached us and asked us which plane we came with. And apparently, our baggage was separated from others since we were not transit passengers! Oh, how should we know that? 🙁
The staff escorted us to the corner area and there we found our turquoise suitcase.
After saying thank you to the staff, off we go to our next stop!
Breakfast and Pocket Wi-Fi
We didn’t really eat anything on the plane, so of course we needed our breakfast. After did some research before going to Japan, we decided to head to halal Udon at Terminal 2! More on that on our separate Halal Food in Japan review!
After we were finished eating (omg, I am salivating thinking about the udon. It was so yummylicious!), we headed towards Post Office. And no, we weren’t going to send anything from Japan (yet). We were going there to pick up our pocket wifi!
Yes, people. Pocket wifi is a must when you are a foreigner in Japan who can’t read Kanji. You will be lost so many times. When I was in Japan, I relied a LOT on online route finder like Hyperdia cause really, you don’t want to spend your time figuring out train routes and where you have to change trains and etc and etc. Trust me, internet is your best friend.
By the way, we ordered ours from here. We chose standard 75 mb package that can connect up to 10 devices since we’re bringing our iPad as well.
The post office is located at the same level at the Halal Udon restaurant. So convenient! When talked to the lady in the counter, I used my very very veryyyy basic Japanese to let her know that I was there to pick up my pocket wifi. As instructed in my email, I gave her my passport to be checked. 10 minutes later, I was out with our package.
Prayer Room
Next stop was prayer room.
Oh this one was very tricky to be found 🙁 We thought it would be easy based on the map we saw earlier, but when we reached the level and place we thought it is, there was nothing!
Confused, Husband reached what looked like a tourist center (?). After 10 minutes, he was not back yet so I finally came and I saw a Japanese man tried his best to explain to Husband on where to find a prayer room. My very very veryyyy basic Japanese didn’t help either. Until the guy finally talked to a lady, and the lady said in broken English, “Please follow me”.
She escorted us to the elevator and brought us to… the same level where we ate and took our pocket wi-fi.
T___T
It’s very sweet of her but I really think we wouldn’t need to disturb her if Narita had a better map.
As I entered the prayer room, I suddenly remembered why this place felt so familiar. Then I thought, “Oh hey, I prayed here before!”.
Super clean ablution space!
And here’s Zal after he changed clothes. We put extra inner and legging and also flanel shirt. The journey to our airbnb place was going to be a long one.
Taking Direct Bus to Tokyo
We were discussing on how we should get to our rented place from Narita. It’s going to be something convenient and spacious since we’re bringing a toddler and one big luggage. I proposed taking a train, but it’s not convenient with our luggage. Taxi was definitely out of option. That left us with a bus.
Then, Husband found this website. One of its stops is Ginza, which is just a few stations from where we were going to stay. We still need to change trains, but it’s not going to take long and still manageable. And most importantly, the fee is quite reasonable! 1000 JPY per person, and since Zal was not going to get his own seats, he didn’t have to pay. So yay!
The stop for this bus for Terminal 2 is bus stop no.31. So after we finished praying, we went to look for the bus stop, and there it was, just outside the terminal!
It was only 5 pm, but it was already so dark! (sorry no picture of the bus cause we were quite busy making our selves warm, bbbr~)
We didn’t have to wait long for the bus. As expected from Japan service, the attendant helped us storing our luggage and our stroller to the compartment. So touched.
We paid the fee on the spot. Luckily we have small notes from buying food earlier (tip: always prepare small notes!)
Then, off we went to our home for the next 6 days!
Good night, Tokyo!
