Wow, Jet Lag is So Real…

I know I do this to myself, but living on such a tight travel budget means booking the cheapest possible flight, which in turn means having the absolute worst possible travel schedule.

My flight to Japan started from New Orleans with a two-hour 7pm flight to Denver. My flight out of Denver got delayed about half an hour so it didn’t leave until 11:30pm. This means I didn’t arrive in San Francisco until close to 1:30am, which coming from central time zone was 3:30am for me…

Thankfully, I found an incredibly nice guy on CouchSurfing willing to pick me up that late and give me a bed to sleep on that night. His house was a bit of a drive, so I didn’t get to sleep until around 2:30. I am physically incapable of sleeping once the sun is up, so I was awake bright and early at 7am. I threw all the blankets on top of my head and literally forced myself back to sleep knowing I really needed it for the upcoming travel days.

My host, Abdel and I explored a bit around the city for most of the day until he graciously drove me back to the airport for my 5:20pm flight to Tokyo. I was hoping to get a nap in at my gate before my flight since I got there early enough but I had a blog post to finish and a few last minute things to get done before disembarking from this country.

The first two hours of the flight weren’t bad, I just did some journaling and reading. After the first meal service, they dimmed the cabin lights and windows to allow us to sleep.

I will never ever ever understand how people can fall asleep at the literal blink of an eye on a plane. Like how?! I tossed and turned and tossed and turned and tossed and turned for hours. I was in a three-seat row with the middle seat empty which I was hoping would allow me to spread out a bit and get a little more comfortable.

Didn’t help. I tried laying right and then left and then fully outstretched backwards and then leaning forwards on the tray table. Even tried with my butt on the middle seat, in fetal position, with my head on the arm rest. That one actually was the most comfortable until every single person walking through the aisle knocked me in the head. So yea, that one didn’t last long.

I continued to try to read, journal, write, watch movies, listen to my audiobook, literally anything to occupy myself and keep my brain from focusing on my utter restlessness.

Eleven hours and twenty five minutes on that plane and I maybe slept for fifteen minutes… Curse my inability to find comfort in a two x two tiny box.

It was around 8pm when we landed in Tokyo and thankfully it didn’t take terribly long to go through customs or border control. However though, Japan is absolutely freaking massive and it takes a zillion years to get literally anywhere. My couchsurfing host for the night lives in southern Tokyo near Ota city. I had to take an hour-long bus ride from the airport to Tokyo station and then a forty-minute train ride to a station about 20 minutes from Tomo’s house where he picked me up. He was gracious enough to not ask me to go to the station right near his house because I would have had to transfer trains again and I was way too sleep deprived to genuinely try to figure out the public train system here…

We made it back to his place around 11 and he wanted to know all about my life. What Louisiana is like, what the US is like, why I’m traveling, where I’ve been….. I so much appreciate couchsurfing for providing a platform to meet amazing people and share stories together, but I literally could not go anymore. Tomo sadly saw a pretty sleep-deprived, stressed, grumpy Meg. He totally understood though. Trans-Pacific flights are no joke.

I called it a night around 11:30 and fell asleep in about three and a half seconds. I was incredibly prepared to pass out so hard for the entire night due to how exhausted I was. I however, woke up in a panic about two hours later, not knowing where the heck I was or how long I had been there.

It took me a second, but I remembered where I was and reached for my phone to see what time it was. 1:27. 1:27?! I slept through the entire day?! Good, I needed it, I was so freaking tired. Wait, it’s dark outside. Tomo had to leave for work at 9:30. He wouldn’t have just let me stay sleeping all day. Looked at the clock again. 1:27 AM. Crap! Really?? Two hours? I slept so hard I thought it had been days.

But nope. Two hours. Two measly little hours. I laid back down with hopes of falling back into that deep rest. No luck. I tried and I tried and I tried. My eyes were painfully tired but my brain was completely awake. I mean, it was technically 11AM back home so my brain couldn’t possibly understand why I was still in bed with the day just passing by like that.

I spent the next seven hours doing everything I possibly could to force myself back to sleep. I tried reading, listening to an audiobook, meditating, watching Gilmore Girls, but nothing. Not one second more of sleep did I get. Until 8 freaking 40 when I FINALLY dozed back into sleep. To then be woken up not ten minutes later by Tomo getting ready for work, meaning I had to get up and get ready as well.

Really, brain? How frustrating can you be to keep me awake all night until seconds before I need to get up?!

Tomo isn’t much of a morning talker, which I appreciated because I was still grumpy and not particularly in the mood for small talk.

He walked me to the train station and showed me the route to get to the city center. I spent the next hour and a half on three different train lines to finally get to some of the spots I wanted to see.

I started off at the Imperial Palace but was incredibly let down when I realized it’s all gated off with crazy amounts of security and you can’t even really see much of anything. I walked a mile for that?? I disappointedly walked back to the train station to hopefully explore some more exciting places.

From that point, I had another two-transfer ride to get to the Senso-ji temple. This was significantly more impressive than the palace. Also more overwhelming and stimulating though. This incredible Buddhist temple is a massive tourist attraction, so the streets are lined with thousands and thousands of people from all over the world, dozens of shops with every souvenir you could think of and street food vendors of all kinds. Another thing a bit too much for my very sleep-deprived state. I walked around all the grounds though and thoroughly enjoyed it as much as my brain would allow.

I knew food would probably be well overpriced at a place like this, so I decided to walk over to the next neighborhood to find something to eat. It was a bizarre concept that literally the second you take one step away from the temple, the crowd disappears completely and it almost feels like a ghost town. Sadly, this did not help in my quest for lunch. Also, the dark clouds hanging above us finally tore apart and it started to downpour. I ran for cover in a parking garage seeing as it was basically my only option in these empty streets. I sat there, listened to the rain and journaled for a while, trying so hard not to fall asleep. I knew I needed to make it until nighttime to try to get over jet lag.

It was about an hour before the rain finally slowed enough to walk a few streets over to a small Chinese restaurant. I didn’t realize it was Chinese until I was already inside and seated at a table. So much for trying the local cuisine. Whelp, too late now.

I ate, then stepped back outside to continue exploring. I literally felt like I was just walking in my sleep. I was in such a daze that I could barely even tell you anything that I saw. I walked around so aimlessly just to pass the time. My couch host was at work until 7:30, so I needed to find things to do until then.

I had to stop to sit down and rest pretty regularly because my legs legitimately could not go anymore. I felt like I was just forcing myself to try and enjoy the city. But honestly, I wasn’t. I was way to freaking tired to enjoy anything. I honestly don’t even know how to enjoy this city even if I wasn’t sleep deprived. I’m not much of a city person to begin with and now I’m in the largest city in the entire world?! Yea, it would be overwhelming and exhausting no matter what.

I walked over to chill by the river and to get away from the hecticness of it all. I played some ukulele to hopefully give myself some energy and maybe make a few dollars in the process. It did neither. Apparently, playing music in the streets is illegal and every person passing me either blatantly ignored me or looked at me like I was completely insane. So no cash and no energy.

I figured since it would take a while anyway, I would start making my way to my host’s house and maybe find a cool spot along the way or something. He unfortunately texted me and said he would be about 20 minutes later than planned which killed my soul. I. Could. Not. Go. Any. More.

I arrived back at the train station where he had picked me up the night before and had to transfer to another line to get back to his place. However, I still had about two hours before he would be home, so it would have been pointless to get there so early. I looked up how far it was to walk and google maps told me it was about a mile and a half. I wasn’t particularly in the mood to walk, but I needed some way to keep myself awake and at least that would kill about an hour.

The first twenty minutes really weren’t bad. Until the exhaustion kicked in. Goodness gracious, I was so freaking tired…. I still arrived at his place about an hour early, so I found a park nearby to sit at for a bit. I watched a bit of Netflix but was completely uninterested. The only thing I wanted to do was sleep.

Finally it was 7:40, so I walked back to Tomo’s house to meet him there. He said he was cooking us dinner for the night and he refused my offer when I said I could help. So, I sat down on the couch to do some reading and I literally passed out. I have no idea how long he was cooking, but I felt like I slept an entire night with how deeply asleep I was. However long later, he sat next to me and called out my name I don’t know how many times to wake me up. I was in such a daze when I sat up and was again confused where I was.

Tomo cooked an amazing Japanese dish of dumplings, a soup and a veggie dish with noodles. He told me all the names of it, but I honestly couldn’t remember one single thing we said during that meal. I offered to help clean up, but again was rejected. I laid back down on the couch and I’m pretty sure I was asleep before the dishes even made it to the sink.

I think it was around 9:30 when I fell asleep. I know I woke up a handful of times throughout the night but was always able to fall almost instantly back to sleep. I slept like a rock I was out so hard. Unfortunately, I still was wide awake at 4:30am, but I still SLEPT! I feel so incredibly refreshed today and I’m finally ready to actually explore (and enjoy) Tokyo!