After I felt I almost broke my tail bone from continuously sitting down for more than 10 hours in our flight from Qatar to Japan (we took the Dubai – Doha, Doha – Narita flight), we arrived here Monday night. Instead of using the awesome service available at the airport to send our heavy luggages (72 kilos in total!) to our hotel in Tokyo with a cost of course, we decided to carry it all ourselves.

Result after dragging the heavy stuff around? I broke my back, like what stiff neck feels like as soon as we arrived at the hotel in central Tokyo. It was more than two hours from Narita airport. I hate how Narita is so far from Tokyo. The international airport in Dubai is just 15 minutes from our apartment!

The last time I was here was four years ago so I’m having a bit of what!? seriously?! you’ve got to be kidding me! moments every now and then.

Starting off with – Do Japanese trains shake this bad while moving?! It’s crazy because I never thought about this when I lived here before but I guess I got too used to the super smooth rail in Dubai. When you get on these trains here in Japan, be sure to hold on to something or else dance the Macarena!

Realization #2: You really need to walk, walk and walk a lot when in Japan.

There’s a pretty good reason why the people here can eat ramen (noodles), gyoza (dumplings) and drink a huge mug of beer at 10pm and stay slim. And most of them don’t just walk but run to catch trains, even if the trains come every 2 minutes or so.

There’s a lot more I want to share as soon as I can have my next bit of ‘free time’! I wish I can write as much as would want to. It stresses me out that I can’t!