On the flight out of Incheon I tried having my meals vegetarian. Western vegetarian on the way over, Asian vegetarian on the way back.. the reason being that the meat that goes into a regular in-flight meal is inevitably low quality..

western vegetarian

But maybe it’s because the ingredients are good — it tastes great. The nutritional balance seems better too.. I hadn’t been eating in-flight meals for a while (and only picked at parts of them when I did), but I think I’ll keep going vegetarian from here on.

the sky over Narita..

I’d been flying the Gimpo/Haneda route all this time, so I never imagined a day would come when I’d be back at Narita.. life really is impossible to predict..

the sky over Narita

the sky over Narita

the queue for testing

Once you land at the airport you have to wait for a PCR test. It didn’t take as long as I’d expected..

the bus waiting area

Once the test is done, you decide whether to take a bus to a quarantine hotel or go home. I chose the hotel, so I was shown over here.

the handouts

The bananas were ripened just right, which really made it sink in that I was in Japan.. the white boxes in the photo have all sorts of things inside — onigiri, snacks and so on. I didn’t realize it at the time, but once you’re quarantined in the hotel you can’t even go to a convenience store.. I should have taken the snacks they handed out here with me..

inside the bus

I have no idea why everything was sealed off. Whether opening a window would cause a problem or what.. hmm.. anyway, we took the bus to the hotel, and I’d assumed it would obviously be a hotel near the airport, but it turned out we were going all the way to a Tokyu hotel in Urayasu. Practically right on the doorstep of Tokyo.

arriving at the hotel

I think it took about 3-4 hours to actually get to the room. The room is really nice — to think I could just stay at a hotel of this standard in Japan.. I was a bit surprised..

even a message card..

Proper hotel-grade service. Which is only natural, it being a hotel..

the view outside

The view over Tokyo Bay is wonderful. Live long enough and you even end up staying at a hotel in Urayasu.. truly unpredictable..

dinner

The bento is so good. Just take the buta shogayaki — the seasoning goes right through it, so you can tell a serious cook made this. I never expected food at this level to come out of a quarantine facility the government provides for free.

the bathroom

For a Japanese hotel this counts as roomy. I washed off the day’s fatigue and slept well.

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