If you have more than 8 hours in Tokyo, it is totally worth getting out of the airport! Haneda Airport is closer to the city but sometimes, flights arrive at Narita Airport and passengers have to make their connection to Haneda (with their suitcases) even though it is under the same airline!
First thing first, head straight to Ueno [上野] station that is perfectly situated in between both airports. You can easily get there within an hour by monorail from Haneda or Sky Liner from Narita. There are ample locker storages that costs around 300-900yen (Usd $2.80 – $8.30)/day.
Without suitcases, finding food is easy peasy but all we can think of is the adrenaline rush at the game arcades. Lucky for us, there are not one but two Taito Stations around Ueno.
Have you ever played a game and had so much fun waving vacuum cleaners in the air? Half the time we are not sure what we are doing but it sure is an amusing game involving Super Mario and Luigi “sucking” ghosts/spirits out of a haunted house!
Taito Stations are multi-levelled buildings bustling with digital sounds coming out of game machines that clashes into one and other. There are so many things happening at the same time and yet you want to be part of this crazy madness!
You wouldn’t believe there is a whole level dedicated to photobooths with photo-taking machines that could make your eyes pop! We don’t understand the Japanese instructions but this is what makes the whole experience exciting! Sometimes, at the end of the session, we click the right button and receive a video in our email!
Of course, if you are not the game arcade kind of person, you could do something more relaxing…
Public baths are very popular in Japanese culture. Infact, onsens (natural hot springs baths) are one of the main reasons why people travel to Japan. The bath houses in the city are mostly sentos which are less elaborate but perfect for travellers who have been flying for the last 10 to 13 hours.
For 510 yen (Usd $4.70), at Kotobukiyu sento, you could get pretty decent baths with towels included. There are several warm baths (outdoor/indoor/ herbal) and one cold indoor bath. With an extra 200 yen (Usd $1.80), you could use the sauna facility!
You would feel sooooo light when you walk out of the sento and the next part of the journey instantly seem much more manageable. We love our bath experiences so much that we wrote a story about it!
For the more adventurous or hungover, check out Jon’s denki-buro (electric bath) experience.
If you are staying overnight, do check yourself into any Dormy Inn hotel with in-house bath facilities (typically on the rooftop)! Although consisting only one outdoor and indoor warm bath, you could do this right before you head to bed. Oh yeah…
For the same price, and sometimes cheaper, a 25-hour flight from San Francisco to Singapore (via Tokyo) sounds way more attractive to us than a 17-hour direct flight these days.
Explore more of the world on our Someday Guide.
Someday, we will see the world 
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