I joked when I knew I was going to have 4 hours at Narita Airport that I’d have to find a hot chocolate to tell you about in Japan. I have never been to Japan before but have always wanted to visit so I was so excited to have a sneak peak at the airport. The airport is full of little stores selling beautifully packaged sweet treats made of red beans and green tea. I bought a few for my family and then proceeded to the lounge.
I was so lucky to have access to the Japan Airlines Lounge on this trip for a few reasons. First, the women at the front desk are so nice and so sweet and really make you feel like you are the most important person there. Second, they give people with lounge access free 10 minute massages which are surprisingly good. Third, even though the lounge, and many people in the lounge look the same as any lounge anywhere in the world, all the little details are so different. They were actually showing sumo wrestling on tv which I watched, intrigued. If you are hungry they have an area filled with tiny bits of food places on tiny little plates. I wasn’t and still am not sure what most of it was, but it was all very good. They have miso soup and rice and several little packages or Japanese snacks including the most delicious green tea muffins (the muffins are actually green in colour as well which makes them even more fun to eat).
While exploring to see what kind of interesting food and drinks they had to offer, I saw a little bowl filled with two different kinds of chocolate chips. Half the chocolate chips were a very dark brown and the other half looked more like milk chocolate. Next to the bowl was a sign, all in Japanese, about the chocolate. Could it be that I will actually get a hot chocolate in Japan?
I ask one of the women working there if these chocolate chips can indeed be made into a hot chocolate. Of course they can, and she proceeds to ask me to put into a bowl the chocolate chips that I want and the quantity. I put a few into a bowl not knowing how many I should put in but she keeps telling me to take more. She takes my little bowl of dark chocolate chips and disappeared into the kitchen.
Five minutes later I was presented with my hot chocolate. I don’t know whether it was because I was exhausted from just getting off an overnight flight from Vietnam or whether it was just the hot chocolate but this drink was incredible. It was dangerously rich and creamy (I think it had twice as many chocolate chips as it is supposed to have). It was chocolatey but not too sweet and this magical drink brought me back to life. I was so happy to be in Japan before this but after this I had completely fallen in love. I was in the best mood all day and am now trying to figure out how I can do all my trips with Japan Airlines via Narita Airport…as inconvenient as that may seem.
Verdict: If you are at Narita Airport and are a lover of hot chocolate, do what you can to get into the lounge. At that moment and in the state I was in, it was definitely the perfect hot chocolate. Japan Airlines Lounge, Narita Airport, Tokyo, Japan
