I made it.

It’s Saturday morning and I couldn’t sleep. I generally can’t sleep but today I’ll finally make it to TGM.

So I was up early. This shot is time stamped 5:48 AM. I saw a few people fishing – and what I think is called microfishing. Otherwise, no one was around. I sat by the bay for a few minutes and finished whatever I had just bought at the conbini.

I’ve seen shots of Tokyo Big Sight and the queue to get in for years, but I was not prepared for how awe inspiring the complex is in person. The section with the four upside pyramids is the conference center, and represents about 55,000 square feet of the complex’s 1.1 million square feet. That’s not where TGM is, but you pass under it to get to the exhibit halls. In one of the photos below, you can see that they appear to be growing a replica of the conference center out of trees on the plaza.

I’m generally a constant low-level anxiety person, and one of the ways it manifests itself is that I plan a lot for things. I like to know what I’m getting myself into.

That’s another reason I’m up at 6 AM walking the complex. I want to experience the space.

I’d arranged to help one booth with their setup – both to be kind and help where I can, but also it would allow me to get into the space early. Any type of picking up games would be strictly forbidden until the halls opened, but that was fine. I just wanted to be able to walk around and take it all in before it was time to start. I’d been warned by several people that it is strongly frowned upon to abuse exhibitor badges for general attendance, so when we were finished setting up, I left, put that badge in my pocket, and waited until I could pick up my press badge which would grant me 90 minute early admittance and some photo privileges.

But we’re still 2 hours early for even the exhibitors. Soon I’ll head back to my hotel for the breakfast buffet – but wait. What’s this. Folks were queued to enter later – 11 AM at the earliest – we’re still 5 hours before that! And it warmed my heart. Each TGM when I post an “anticipation” article and schedule it to post around 7 AM Tokyo time…I always say that it’s for people to read while they are waiting in line, and there’s certainly still language and exposure variables which mean they aren’t necessarily, but it could be true! These were my people.

Breakfast complete, we headed over to set up. You can see the queue growing behind the barrier in the lower left, and behind me on the right, that red arrow points to another show going on at the same time – a reptile show. I’ve rolled my checked bag over to the Sight, still unclear if I’ve prepared enough for the task ahead. My wife says I look like a kindergartener, ready for their first day of school, who hasn’t grown into their backpack.

I went to Tokyo! After years of importing and licensing games from half a world a way, I was able to visit in person. I’ll talk about my time at Tokyo Game Market itself tomorrow, but today I’m going to ramble for a while about all of the other parts of the trip.

I chose to fly into Haneda airport, as it was closer to the city, and I could easily take a train to my hotel. I say “train” here, but I want to call out that I’m not being specific enough. There’ll be a lot to discuss about when language went well and when it didn’t, but the one which didn’t stop surprising me was my casual and insufficiently specific use of the word “train”.

The train system in Tokyo is extensive and convenient and delightful and addicting. But locally, I think, more of a distinction is made between when you’re on the subway versus the monorail versus a train. To me, a person who lives in a much smaller and less dense city with limited public transit or regional rail access, they are all “trains”.

I expected this trip would be an ideal use for the app Citymapper, a Google Maps’ type competitor which does a stellar job of integrating different public transit options, but Tokyo seemed to be on some sort of premium plan, and all of my prep pointed me to Google Maps -and that turned out to be correct. There was one small hiccup in getting to my hotel, when I accidentally got on an express train and missed my transfer, but the clarity of subway signage and app information made it seamless afterwards.

Each subway stop tends to have a letter or two and a number, encircled by a color. It took me just a bit to figure out the best way to determine which direction to get on the train – but it was there in Maps’ all along: it shows you the platform number. For the over-planner, it also has information on ideal cars to board for future exits and transfers, as well as station exits for walking to your eventual destination.

An example of the kind of signage which was on every car – showing which car you’re on, where you’re headed, where doors will open, and the exit infrastructure at the next stop and which one to use for which exit.

These digital signs in the train cards would rotate, and here’s an example of one which caused a moment of panic a few times. As I said, train stations are numbered. I got on this train thinking I was headed to G-13, but couldn’t figure out why it was going to stop 1 and then 3, 5, 7…but that row is how many minutes until the stop listed below it.

My hotel was in the bay, and a 500m walk to the entrance of Tokyo Big Sight, where Game Market is traditionally held, but it wasn’t the most convenient location for general Tokyo adventures. The city keeps…unexpected hours. Many things, such as coffee shops, may not open until 10 or 11 AM, and the trains stop around midnight. So staying in the bay meant that if I was going to rely on the trains, my curfew was going to be a bit earlier than I might otherwise make it. (Though walking back from Big Sight would be a huge help on Saturday and Sunday – both days I also went back part way through the day to drop things off and take a quick rest.) My hotel choice meant an extra transfer and extra time. There wasn’t much walkable from the hotel other than the train station, a handful of convenience stores (“conbini”), and Big Sight, but those first two seemed to be walkable from any location in Tokyo. I’m in the midst of planning where I’ll stay in May, and optimizing hotel location as it comes to accessibility to different train lines is the current puzzle.