We had a smooth and uneventful 10 hour direct flight from Seattle to Tokyo. The flight path took us north to Anchorage affording a surprise view of Denali then across the end of the Aleutian islands before turning south along and outside the Russian border.
Arrival at Narita was uneventful. The airport was big with lots of walking to get to and through customs and passport control, but the lines were short. We had our finger prints and face prints captured before presenting passports to an agent. The entire process was quick. We were through passport control and customs in 5-10 minutes. We then found our way to cash machines and the ticket machines to purchase Skyliner tickets. I had previously read that the lines would be long at the Skyliner travel center with people waiting to exchange pre-purchased vouchers for tickets, but there was no wait at travel center when we arrived (about 4:00 pm on a Tuesday), so we purchased tickets from an agent for the next available train. We waited about 25 minutes for the next train and then rode on a pretty full train for the 45 minutes to Ueno station. It was a very confusing walk through the station to our hotel. Google maps provided incomplete and inaccurate information, but we found the hotel after Angie wisely asked for help at a visitor information office we stumbled upon. We were in bed and a sleep around 7:00 pm.