Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Swami]

I have about 5 hours between flights in Tokyo. has anyone been in the same situation? Is it possible to head downtown and do anything worthwhile? Any experiences and advice would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[farrepatt]

You're likely going through Narita (Tokyo's main airport) and if that's the case then you don't really have time to go into Tokyo. It's about an hour train trip from Narita to Tokyo.

You might have time to go into Narita itself. There isn't a lot to do there, but there's a large temple and some nice areas.

[sugarloaf82]

I would recommend heading into Narita as well. A few months ago I had a 5/6 hour layover and really wanted to get out of the airport and this was a nice way to pass the time. Narita is only 10/15 minutes by train from the station in the basement of the airport. I spent a couple hours wandering around the area checking out the temple and shops, grabbed lunch at a restaurant and then headed back to the airport.

[farrepatt]

I think the temple we're referring to is Narita-san. Here's a link with a little more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narita-san

If you've never been to Japan before and you're at all interested in seeing a temple there it's worth the trip. I find the Buddhist temples in Japan to be quite a different experience than the Korean ones. They are very quite and reflective places (I might have just had unfortunate experiences in Korea, but they always seem very noisy and not very serene to me).

It's a decent sized temple, and if I remember it correctly it even has a large pagoda on the temple grounds.

[Swami]

[luffy]

Yeah, it would take forever to get to Tokyo. The fastest way to get there would probably be by train because the highway traffic is ridiculous. Stay in Narita and I'm sure if you just wander around, you'll find something because Japan's got all kinds of interesting hole-in-the-wall places.

[bbb0777]

Here are the one-way costs and times to Tokyo as written on Wikitravel (which are exactly what i saw when I visited a few months ago):

Fastest:
Narita Express to Tokyo Station, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Yokohama, 55 minutes, �2940 (Japan Rail Pass valid)

Cheapest:
Keisei Limited Express train to Nippori/Ueno, ~80 minutes, �1000

1000 JPY = ~13,000 Korean won.

Best case scenario you'd end up spending 80,000 Korean won to see something in Tokyo for < 60 minutes. That's assuming no confusion/time finding the high-speed trains/etc.

Narita looks interesting though, I'm sure very interesting for only a few hours: http://wikitravel.org/en/Narita#See