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Day 10 – the last day! Time to leave Japan at last. Our flight wasn't
until 15:35, but getting to Narita Airport takes a while, and we wanted
time for lunch at the airport. So we slept in, had breakfast at the
hotel, checked out, and headed straight to Shinjuku station to catch the
JR Narita Express (N'EX) to the airport. |
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Our room rate didn't include breakfast, so we paid separately. At the
Gracery Lounge reception we were told breakfast is only for hotel guests
and you need a breakfast ticket, which you buy at the front desk. It's
JP¥2,200 per person. By current Japanese prices that isn't exactly
cheap, but compared with UK it's acceptable. |
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Breakfast in the Gracery Lounge is a temporary setup. It used to be a
buffet at Sakura Café & Bar on the 1st floor, but Sakura closed at the
end of 2024. Since then it's moved to the lounge and changed to a
Western-style set meal. The lounge isn't big enough for a buffet,
presumably. The price hasn't dropped though, so it feels a bit poor
value. |
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Unlimited refills of coffee or tea |
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Main breakfast plate (one plate per person) |
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Bake is also unlimited refillable; there's also
sweetcorn soup, yoghurt and juice |
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Breakfast includes tea or coffee, sweetcorn soup, a main plate, bake,
yoghurt and juice. Everyone gets the same, the only choice is tea or
coffee and the bake selection. We both had coffee – a whole pot of
filter coffee with refills. The sweetcorn soup was typical Japanese
style: sweet and very smooth. |
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The main plate was an omelette, two small bits of bacon, a little
sausage, a slice of roast potato, a scoop of potato-squash salad, plus
some sweetcorn, broccoli and a cherry tomato. To be honest the portion
was on the small side – maybe I'm just used to a full English! |
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Bake was mainly brioche (the Japanese really do love sweet bake). Once
the main plate arrived, staff came round with a basket for you to pick
whatever you fancy, no limit. I chose a pain au chocolat and a muffin.
Some people call pain au chocolat a 'chocolate croissant', but any
French person would roll their eyes – 'croissant' (like 'crescent')
refers to the crescent shape. |
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N'EX train: JR East fleet Series E259 |
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After breakfast we packed up, checked out and wheeled our cases to
Shinjuku station. Since the Keisei Narita Kûkô Line (京成成田空港線,
shown on maps as the 'Narita SKY ACCESS Line') opened, the Skyliner and
Access Express have been the fastest links between central Tokyo
and Narita Airport, taking about 41 minutes from Keisei Ueno (京成上野)
station (JP¥2,580). The drawback is the lack of central stops – it
mainly suits the east side of Tokyo. |
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If you're staying in the western part of central Tokyo –Shinjuku,
Shibuya, Ikebukuro and so on – you have to take other trains first to
change to Keisei Railway, which is a pain with luggage. People say JR's
N'EX takes twice as long as Keisei so it's not competitive. But if that
were true, why does JR East still run it every 30 minutes?
Competitiveness depends on the area served: for western Tokyo, Yokohama
and Ôfuna, N'EX is the most direct and convenient way to Narita. |
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From Shinjuku to Narita Airport Terminal 2 on the N'EX took about 1 hour
20 minutes. The fare was JP¥3,250, made up of the basic fare (JP¥1,520)
and the express surcharge (JP¥1,730). You can tap Suica for the basic
fare, but you still need to buy the express surcharge ticket – and Suica
only saves you a grand total JP¥2 (not a typo!). To keep it simple we
just bought combined tickets from the machine. |
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Narita Airport Terminal 2 |
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Shinshû Soba-dokoro Sojibô (信州そば処
そじ坊) |
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Set meal: deluxe tempura rice bowl, small cold
soba, and onsen egg |
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Narita International Airport is Japan's second airport for Tokyo. In the
1960s, with rapid economic growth, Tokyo International Airport (Haneda)
hit capacity. Offshore reclamation tech wasn't yet up to expanding into
the deep-water bay, so a second airport was planned on Tokyo's
outskirts. The final site was Sanrizuka (三里塚)
in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, but locals protested fiercely, with violent
clashes and even deaths. Opening slipped from 1971 to 1978 – rare in
Japan for major projects to run so late. |
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Petrol-bomb attacks and other clashes continued even after opening, so
for years everyone entering the airport (not just passengers) had to
pass security checks. The violence faded in the 1990s, and the extra
security was finally lifted in March 2015. Narita's biggest 'feature'
isn't its architecture, but the 'hold-outs' inside the airport boundary:
there are still a few homes and plots that refused to move. The airport
has to build walls and access tunnels around them, and some taxiways
bend to avoid them. |
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After check-in we had a wander, then looked for lunch. As it was my
first time at Narita, I wasn't sure about post-security dining, so we
decided to eat landside – we had plenty of time. We picked a soba noodle
restaurant, Shinshû Soba-dokoro Sojibô. I went for the deluxe tempura
rice bowl with cold soba set, plus burdock crisps and marinated fried
aubergine. They've got branches in Terminal 1 and other airports too. |
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Marinated fried aubergine |
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As its' the last gate at the satellite, this
was the only angle to see our aircraft |
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Narita has three terminals: Terminal 1 North Wing mainly for Sky Team,
South Wing for Star Alliance; Terminal 2 for Oneworld; Terminal 3 for
low-cost carriers. Although HK Express is a low-cost airline, it uses
Oneworld's Terminal 2 with its parent Cathay Pacific, and JAL handles
ground services. Our flight left from Gate 98 at the far end of Terminal
2's satellite, so it was a fair walk. And of course we popped into
duty-free for souvenirs before boarding. |
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After Narita opened, it took over Tokyo's international flights and Haneda
became domestic/government. Narita was first called 'New Tokyo
International Airport', then renamed 'Narita International Airport' in
2004 to avoid confusion with Haneda. Business travellers often moaned
about the travel time to Narita. With Haneda's fourth runway out over
the bay (far enough from homes) opening in 2010 and allowing 24-hour
ops, many key business routes – London, New York, Paris and so on –
moved wholly or partly back to Haneda to keep Japan competitive. |
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With Haneda's international flight restored, the two airports have
settled into a new split of roles. Haneda is now the hub for domestic,
international business and government flights; Narita leans towards
international leisure, low-cost carriers and international transfers,
keeping Japan a key Northeast Asia hub. On this trip I used both. No
question, Haneda is much more convenient and feels larger-scale – very
Japan: 'the best for domestic use first!' |
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I don't recommend this SIM card, personally |
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Finally, a thumbs-down for the SIM card above (I won't buy it again).
Todd got it from a SIM shop in Hong Kong: HK$188 for 10 days, 2 Gb
full-speed per day then throttled to 128 kbps. The packaging says it
uses NTT docomo, KDDI and Softbank – three of Japan's four networks.
Sounds impressive, but that only speaks to coverage, not actual speed. |
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The pack doesn't name the issuer, but from the APN settings it's almost
certainly from SmarTone (Hong Kong's No. 2 mobile operator). APN often
flags which Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) you're on, and
different MVNO can have different limits. For example, you can have full
bars on NTT docomo: a native docomo user might see 200 Mbps, while an
MVNO or roaming SIM might only get 20 Mbps. |
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Put simply: under the same family, the 'biological child' and the
'adopted child' don't always get the same share – and different 'adopted
children' may get different shares too. This SIM felt slow, even in the
mornings (definitely before using up the 2 Gb), like it was being
throttled – and it wasn't cheap. If you're not worried about data
privacy or network monitoring, China Unicom's Japan data SIMs are better
value. There are other options at similar prices too – I'll try
something else next time. |
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