– April 12th 2023 –
I finally took this freaking flight and you know what I am not sure why I could not take it the first time. As I have never been asked for my Korean visa, however I would recommend doing it before you go, but they might have just checked online and did not ask me for a thing. Once that was done at Geneva airport, I started a 24h trip that went quite well I have to say. I watched stuff on the plane for the Harry Potter fans that did not see the reunion, a word : SPLENDID.
In the meantime I learn that for French people the ETA (Koraen visa) was not needed anymore since the April 1st 2023.
Anyhow we are not here to speak about that. The flight : the three flights that I have taken Geneva – Istanbul – Seoul – Tokyo were with a lot of turbulence, I honestly never took flight with so much turbulence. I ate on the plane, not that bad.
I slept from Istanbul to Seoul, not that bad but not enough. Arrived at 9:30am local time so 2 am french time : Rough! Once in Seoul, I had to pick up my bag and check in again with a new company. They did ask me for the PCR test or the 3 shots of vaccines (At the time, Japan is asking for three shots of vaccines and to have gotten covid is not considered as a shot), so PCR for myself.
Once my baggage check in and the security passed, I crashed in a corner of a seat for a couple of hours to wait for my next flight. Let me tell you it was way better than the plane.
Now the arrival at Tokyo, from the landing to the hostel IT WAS LONG! Are you ready? First the health check, First queue. Second, the Immigration, Second Queue. Third the custom, Third queue. Then the JR passes to get at the airport, an hour queue. You can count two big hours from the landing to take the train to go to the city center. The train took 1H30 to go from Narita Airport to Tokyo Train Station. Now we just have to find the hostel: Tokyo is huge and I was one hour from the hostel by walking so no way. I had to find a metro, I was exhausted, the GPS was not collaborating with me at the time. BUT I finally found my way : metro plus 20 min walk to the hostel.
I checked in, went to buy instant noodle soup, Pringles and lemon iced tea in the nearest shop. I know that is not the best first meal, but no worries I will get back at it. Then a well deserved shower and I crashed in my bunk bed to start visiting the next day.
