Bob’s Bullets … Back in Tokyo

TOKYO — Just returned to Tokyo from six weeks on the West Coast of the U.S. and I must say that this time it was much easier than a trip I took last fall. Returning from San Francisco then required a PCR test costing $225, filling out a form to go along with it, on top of answering a questionnaire on Health and Welfare Ministry app you had to download into your mobile phone.

It took two hours to get through all the various HWM lines that had been set up at Narita and then private transportation was required to get home. (Thanks to Kevin Novak for coming out to pick us up.) We then had to go through 10 days of quarantine, answering video and digital queries every day for 10 days. I had to sneak out of our apartment and do my morning run at 5 a.m, before the government watchdogs were up and on the job. It was a royal pain.

This time around it was much easier. No PCR test, just fill out the questionnaire on the SOS App, with vaccination docs downloaded, and you’re good to go. If you have a third vaccination certificate, then you only have to go through a one-day quarantine. We were boarding the bus an hour after touchdown.