20251031 Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 27– Tokyo, Japan to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Viking Gems of China and Japan Day 27 – Disembarking in Tokyo and flying to Mongolia

We were up early today as it was disembarkation day. That meant we needed to get out of the room completely by 8:00. We grabbed breakfast as we were docking in Tokyo.

Sailing into Tokyo past the industrial berths

Tokyo has a huge port area

The port is right in the city, and that is very cool

Getting a little tug assistance

After clearing the room, we waited on deck #2 to disembark. Just like the Japanese Immigration fiasco, disembarkation was equally disorganized. Everyone was assigned luggage tags with a color and a number, based on the timing of their plans. Did they call people by luggage tag color/number? Of course not. It was another free-for-all. They did try to get some early departures in The Restaurant, but that line merged with the regular line that stretched from mid-ship to the Cruise Consultant's desk and down the stairs. Organization is not a strong suit on the Yi Dun.

Walking off the gangway and into Tokyo

Once off, grabbing our bags was easy. We zipped through Customs and found our bus for Narita Airport. Once loaded, we made the roughly one-hour drive northeast to Terminal 2 for our Mongolian Air flight later in the afternoon. Narita is a huge airport. We walked into the terminal near check-in counter A. We checked the board and saw that Mongolian Air worked out of counter P, all the way across the terminal. When we arrived there, there wasn't a soul anywhere. We looked at the screens over the counters, and they said that the counters would open at 12:30 for our 3:30 flight. Well, that's great when you arrive at the airport at 11:00. We wound up standing there for 90 minutes, waiting for the counters to open. It would have been much nicer if Viking, the company that arranged both the flight and the airport transportation, had just kept us on the ship for another couple of hours and then had taken us to the airport. Like I said, organization was not a strong suit on the Yi Dun.

Eventually, the counters opened, and we were able to check in for Mongolian Airlines flight 502 to Ulaanbaatar.

Security was amazingly smooth, especially when compared to the invasive security checks we endured on all the flights within China. Because we were flying Business Class, we had access to the Japan Airlines (JAL) lounge. We were able to grab a bite to eat and something to drink, and took advantage of the free Wi-Fi and comfy seats overlooking the tarmac. I grabbed a beer. The process for getting a beer was so cool, I had to get another one, just to film it. I didn't want to, I had to, just for you, dear readers.

The perfect beer pour, completely hands-free. How cool.

Our gate, gate 68, was at the opposite end of this wing of Terminal 2. Our boarding time was 2:50, so we departed the lounge at 2:30 and walked to the gate.

The flight to Ulaanbaatar departed a little late. 

They made up time in the air. We got lucky and scored Business Class seats, so it was relatively comfy for the five-hour flight.

It was pouring rain in Tokyo all afternoon. We felt bad for the folks who had booked Tokyo extensions and were dealing with the rain.

Lining up for runway 34 with a bunch of planes lined up behind us

Once in Mongolia, we cleared Customs quickly, got our checked bags, and met our Viking rep. 

It was brisk, in the 30s, but still comfy as we walked to our tiny bus. The 24 of us were divided between two buses. The buses were small and our luggage was piled in the bus with us for the 90-minute drive to the Shangri-La hotel. We were packed in like sardines. Mongolia has a population of around 3.5 million people, and half of them live in Ulaanbaatar. Most of them were on the road at 10:00 at night as we hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. It was crazy. We finally arrived at the Shangri-La Hotel just before 11:00.

We found out on the bus that we would be on the first of three 8-passenger flights tomorrow to the Gobi Desert, and we will need to be on the bus at 7:00! Get to the hotel at 11:00 at night, check out at 6:00 the next morning to get breakfast and go. Tomorrow will be a long day. But we're here in Mongolia, our 93rd U.N. member-state country, and 111th country overall.