The platforms at Shinjuku Station from above.

The doors on the Narita Express open, we collect our baggage and emerge onto the platform.  The wind from the other trains and the noise of it all assaults our senses as we try and get out of everyone’s way to find a sign to point our way out.

We do, and quickly realize we need to haul our bags up stairs.  Actually I’m not sure we did, but we didn’t see any other way.  We get up to the top JR level, and find the Southern Terrace Exit.  Our ticket disappears into the gate machine, and we walk out onto the Southern Terrace of Shinjuku station.

The Hotel Sunroute Shinjuku Plaza

Really this isn’t such a bad place.  Lined with shops and trees, our walk to the Hotel Sunroute isn’t all that bad at all.  We manage to find a pair of escalators to help us get our bags across the walkway over the street, and finally make our way in to the hotel.

I start walking purposefully towards what looks like a wall on the Sunroute.  The Mrs. is exclaiming, “I think we need to go around this way!” But I’ve done my homework on the net!  The wall gives way and we go in, get ourselves checked in with a minimum of language exchanged. (I don’t think she understood me either)

The view south from the Sunroute

Room card keys in hand we climb onto the elevator, and when the doors open we’re assaulted by the odor of a smoking floor.  Sigh, again.  We get in the room, and make arrangements to be moved to a non-smoking room for the rest of the day.

Outside the Sunroute Plaza

The room is decent, but you can read all about that in the review of the Hotel Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku.  Bottom line: Rooms here are small, but quite functional.  We didn’t have any problems, since we didn’t spend much time here other than to sleep.

Then we crashed.  It was about 5:30pm local time, and we’d been up since 4am *our* time, which was now the previous day thanks to crossing the international date line.  So (..does the math…) that means we’d been up for nearly 24 hours straight, and it was 3:30am to us…  Hell, yeah, we crashed.

Onigiri (お握り) and Inari-zushi (稲荷ずし)

We woke up a few hours later, and still being completely wiped, went across the street to the AM/PM store, grabbed some beer, some onigiri and inari and water, and went back…

…and crashed again.  Until morning this time.

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