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Greetings from the Narita Airport email newsletter editorial office.
I hope everyone is well as we move into the autumn season.
This month, we are featuring some of Narita's local sightseeing spots to enjoy in autumn. |
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Attractions Around Narita Airport! - Naritasan - |
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Event Report: Hugely Popular Aircraft Tug-of-War |
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Vote Now for World's Best Airport! |
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Kawatoyo Eel Restaurant Now Open in Terminal 1 at Narita Airport |
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Japan Food Hall, a Restaurant Floor Offering the Flavors of Japan Now Open on the Airside after Departure Passport Control in Terminal 2! |
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Availability of P-5 Parking Area Exclusively for Drivers with a Reservation or Parking Pass |
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Monthly Traffic Statistics (Aug 2023) |
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Neu Cargo Building in Narita Airport Cargo Terminal Area to Open in October 2024 |
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Attractions Around Narita Airport! - Naritasan - |
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| At the request of some of our readers, your editor has used their discretion to pick out some tourism spots in Narita, the home of Narita Airport. In and around Naritasan there is so much to see!If you are in Narita, this is one place that you definitely should visit. |
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| Let's start with a must-see for first-time visitors to Narita. |
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| <Naritasan Shinsho-ji and Naritasan Park> |
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| When it comes to Narita, you absolutely must see Naritasan Shinsho-ji. "Naritasan" often reminds people of "Naritaya", which is the stage name of the heads of the Ichikawa family in the Kabuki theater. Naritasan is the head temple of the Chizan school of the Shingon sect of Buddhism and one of the three major Buddhist temples in the Kanto region. It always ranks high in the nation for a temple visit at New Year, and perhaps some of our readers have been to Naritasan for that purpose. |
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| The grounds hold many nationally designated important cultural properties, including Niomon Gate, Komyodo Hall, and Shakado Hall and the temple offers such merits as good luck and warding of bad luck, as well as for romantic fulfillment. In the symbolic Daihondo Hall, Ogoma prayers have been offered every day for the fulfillment of wishes since it first opened. Since Narita is the home of the airport, many airport-related companies and worshippers come to pray for aviation safety and safe travel. Your editor also offers Ogoma prayers every year. The flames rise high above the fire altar and the chanting of the priests against the bellowing drums in the background are majestically powerful. Anyone can enter the hall and pay their respects so why not visit and make a wish? |
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Goshuin (stamps as evidence of having visited a shrine or temple) are also popular recently and at Naritasan you can get one at the Daihondo Hall, Shakudo Hall, Komyodo Hall, Shusse Inari Shrine, Shinsho-ji Temple and Great Peace Pagoda. They all have their own stamps which you can add to your collection if you have a Goshuin book. |
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Making a handwritten copy of sutra is said to relax the body and the mind.
This can be a great experience if time allows. Copying a sutra with a brush is said to be beneficial and stimulating to the brain. Writing one letter at a time with care and feeling boosts concentration ability. Visitors can participate in this experience daily at Naritasan in the Peace Tower's Reikoden Hall. You will need to ask, but the equipment and brushes will be provided for you to try. First timers will get help so there is no need to worry.
Naritasan's Famous Kachi Onmamori (Victory Amulet).
Naritasan has lots of amulets and good luck pieces, but the Shinsho-ji Temple is well-known for its Kachi Onmamori amulet, which bears the kanji character "Shin" from the name of the temple, which is also read as "Kachi" and means "victory". It is reputed to help the owner remain resolute in the face of any kind of difficulty, like the immovable Ofudo-sama, God of Fire. During the high school baseball season, local students are said to go there in droves to buy the amulet.
Recommended Autumn Walking Course |
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At New Year, Naritasan bustles with more than 3 million visitors, but now is a good time to visit the temple grounds cloaked in beautiful autumn colors.
For a leisurely stroll, we recommend Naritasan Park which stretches out behind Naritasan Shinsho-ji Temple. The 165,000 square meter park allows visitors to enjoy the displays of trees, plants and flowers in each of the four seasons. |
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In spring, the cherry blossoms are extremely beautiful, but in late November, the colorful maples, ginkgoes and sawtooth oak are at their brilliant best. This is particularly true near Ryuchi Pond where the colorful trees are reflected in the surface of the water, making for beautiful pictures and a great spot for photographing the autumn leaves.
The Naritasan Autumn Leaves Festival this year will be held from November 11 (Sat.) to 26 (Sun.).
It is a great time to visit during this period and enjoy koto, shakuhachi and erhu musical performances, as well as tea ceremonies.
For more information on Narita Shinsho-ji and Naritasan Park, please follow the links below.
*Naritasan website
*Narita City Tourism Association website |
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<Omotesando, as Busy Today as it was in the Past>
Let's now take a walk down Omotesando from Narita Station to Naritasan. The walk is about 800 meters. Omotesando has flourished as a temple town since the Edo period (1603 to 1867) and still retains the vestiges of those days.
There are more than 150 restaurants and souvenir stores, some have been established for generations and some offer cuisines from many different countries, and Omotesando is crowded with tourists at weekends. Recently, there have been a lot of foreign visitors to Japan, and many of them can be seen strolling down the elegant Omotesando wearing rental kimonos and taking souvenir snapshots. A lot of them stop by first on their arrival in Japan or before they fly home so that they have one more memory of Japan.
Narita loves festivals! A lot of people have probably heard about the extremely popular Narita Gion Festival in July but there are also festivals held in other months. The Narita String Instrument Festival will be held on October 14 (Sat.) and 15 (Sun.), which is not far away. There will be stage performances on the Naritasan Shinsho-ji Temple grounds and special event areas set up on Omotesando leading down to the temple.
Go here for more information on other festivals.
*Narita City Tourism Association website |
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Tantalize your taste buds with Narita's famous eel cuisine.
If you are planning on dining, you can't go past Narita's famous eel restaurants! Narita is somewhat distant from the sea, so people have traditionally cooked with freshwater fish from Inba Lake and Tone River, both of which are generously blessed by nature's bounty. In the Genroku period (1688 to 1704), inns in the temple town were well-known for their summer eel dishes, and pilgrims to Narita enjoyed eel as a way of relieving fatigue after their long journey. Today there are still many restaurants serving eel dishes in Narita city and in the Naritasan area in particular.
There are a number of eel restaurants established generations ago on Omotesando, and as you walk down the street, the delicious aroma of eel wafts through the air and will whet your appetite. Some restaurants allow passing visitors to stop in the street and watch the master chefs processing the eels in front of them. At times like the present when summer fatigue can set in, we recommend delicious eel. |
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One of the long-established names in eel cuisine at Narita, Kawatoyo, now has a restaurant at Narita Airport. This enables our customers to enjoy authentic, delicious eel dishes at the airport. For more details, check out this month's shop information. |
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How about some soft, sticky dumplings to relieve that hunger?
For those with a sweet tooth, we recommend Japanese and Western sweets. Omotesando has a variety of confectionery shops, cafes, ice cream shops and Japanese confectionery stores, etc. With so many different sweetshops, it might be hard to choose, but let us introduce you to a very special dumpling shop. |
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| Our editor's recommendation for this issue is Goto's Dango Sweets, a firm that was established 178 years ago in 1845. In recent years, more and more shops are making dumplings by machine, but Goto Dango Sweets begins preparing their dumplings early in the morning the traditional way using a mortar and pestle to pound the rice. The selection we recommend the most are the soft, sticky grilled dumplings. They are incredibly tender and the grilled aroma and glossy, sweet and spicy sauce are outstanding! Inside, the restaurant has a nostalgic, Showa-era atmosphere with table-and-chair and tatami room seating where you can relax and enjoy your dumplings. |
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Also, since the hot weather is still with us, we recommend some fluffy shaved ice. Each month, the shop offers one of a variety of types of shaved ice. There are several types of shaved ice available each month, and for October it is pumpkin, purple sweet potato, and black sesame! |
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Yokan is a great souvenir from Narita.
Did you know that chestnut yokan (red bean jelly), the most popular type, originated in Narita?
Rumor has it that chestnut yokan was inspired by a Buddhist vegetarian jelly at Naritasan Shinsho-ji Temple. There are several long-established Japanese confectionery shops on Omotesando but the term, "yokan", covers a variety of different types. In addition to chestnut, there are other types made with green tea, sweet potatoes and the colorful seasonal original yokan which you can choose from.
There are still many more interesting shops on Omotesando. Take a breather in a Japanese-style café, enjoy the retro atmosphere at an old-fashioned coffee shop, or you can walk down the street as you eat a soft ice cream. Narita's gourmet delights cannot be covered in just one sitting. Even repeat visitors will satisfy their autumn appetites on Omotesando.
Narita Station is the first station after Narita Airport (Airport Terminal 2 Station). Accessible in just 5 minutes, it makes for a fully enjoyable day trip. Why not visit with your family and friends and find your good luck spot! |
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Event Report: Hugely Popular Aircraft Tug-of-War |
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On September 17 (Sun.), elementary school students and their parents were challenged to a tug-of-war with a jet aircraft under clear autumn skies.
The event is held to commemorate Sky Day (September 20) to further understanding and interest in aviation and this year, there were four times more participants on the 25th annual tug-of-war tournament. About 250 lucky elementary school children and their parents from as far away as Kyushu and Kansai as well as Tokyo and Chiba participated in the event wearing matching red t-shirs.
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Their opponent in this tug-of-war was a formidable 161-tonne B787-8 from Japan Airlines (56.7 meters long, 60.1 meters wide and 16.9 meters high). The 141 students first tried as hard as they could on the three ropes connected to the front of the aircraft, but it would not budge. On the second attempt, the parents joined in. This time, slowly but surely, the aircraft began to move, and they were able to pull it 15 meters. One of the participating children expressed their delight at getting everybody to pull together to make the plane move, even though it was so heavy. |
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| After the tug-of-war, the group moved on to a hangar and to a work experience corner set up by the airline. The participants got the opportunity to enjoy a wide range of aviation experiences from trying on airline uniforms to riding on high-lift baggage loaders and in-flight meal food loaders and trying a simulated aircraft pushback exercise. |
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Many of the participating students commented about the scary height of the food loader and how chilly it was because it had to carry meals, as well as how interesting it was to see so many large vehicles that they don't usually see. |
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| Applications for the tug-of-war are usually accepted around August each year if you are interested in taking part next year. |
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Vote Now for World's Best Airport! |
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Voting for the "World Airport Awards 2024" conducted by SKYTRAX, an aviation service research company based in the United Kingdom, has started.
The World Airport Awards began in 1999, when SKYTRAX launched the world's first airport customer satisfaction survey, recognizing customer service and facilities as a quality standard for the global aviation industry, and referred to as "the Oscars of the aviation industry". |
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The results are decided by the vote of the passengers who actually used the Airport in the last 12 months, and passengers from over 100 nationalities have been voted for more than 500 airports. Narita Airport has been awarded in the "Best Airport staff", "Best Dining", "Best Immigration" and "Best Airport Security Processing", etc. in the past.
Why don't you vote for your best airport based on your experiences?
https://www.worldairportsurvey.com/
(Voting page is only available in English, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese) |
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Kawatoyo Eel Restaurant Now Open in Terminal 1 at Narita Airport |
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Kawatoyo is a long-established specialty eel restaurant with its main premises on Omotesando in Narita. It was first established as an eel wholesale firm and even today it offers that same eye for quality and careful selection of product.
One of the features of Kawatoyo is that each eel is carefully grilled on a skewer by a master chef with years of experience. The sauce used to soak the eels is made from a secret recipe that is rich in eel extract and has been continuously developed since the restaurant was first established in 1910. Even while the eels are being grilled, the aroma wafts through the restaurant, whetting the appetites of the diners.
Why not stop by when you are next in Terminal 1.
*Details |
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Japan Food Hall, a Restaurant Floor Offering the Flavors of Japan Now Open on the Airside after Departure Passport Control in Terminal 2! |
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| Japan Food Hall, a floor with ten restaurants offering the flavors of Japan opened on the 2nd floor of the main building in Terminal 2 (airside after departure passport control) on Friday, 1 September 2023. It offers a wide variety of specialty restaurants which emphasize quality in their choice of ingredients and their methods of preparation. These include Ginza Kagari and its popular and innovative Toripaitan Ramen (chicken broth noodles), and Unagi Yondaime Kikukawa, which has a long history as an eel wholesaler stretching back 90 years. |
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From the terrace seating, which is the first airside facility of its kind at an airport in Japan, customers can enjoy a panoramic view of aircraft on the apron.
If you are departing from Terminal 2, visit the Japan Food Hall to enjoy the delicious food and an outstanding view.
*Details |
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Availability of P-5 Parking Area Exclusively for Drivers with a Reservation or Parking Pass |
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During the busy summer season, the P-5 parking area has been managed as a parking area exclusively for drivers with a reservation or parking pass. As this measure has been welcomed among users, the P-5 parking area will continue to be available exclusively for drivers with a reservation or parking pass from September 1, 2023.
*Details |
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I hope you enjoyed our September edition.Even though I live in the Narita area, there are some places that I don't get to visit very often and that is why I thought I would go out and try to rediscover some of the great local place. I hope that our readers will also go out and experience the attractions to be found around Narita Airport.
Thanks for reading. See you next month! |
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