The first order of business after we arrived was exchanging money. Our bank charges a foreign ATM fee and I wasn’t sure if they charge a currency exchange fee as well, so I just decided to bring cash (in USD). Japan is the only country I can think of that I feel pretty comfortable doing this. The day before we left, I had checked xe.com and the rate was 110 JPY to 1 USD. I had read online that the exchange rate at the airport wasn’t bad, so I was a little disappointed to see around 106.8. I walked around a bit more (DH and the kids sat) and the third exchange counter I saw was 107.13. The difference worked out to <$2, but it was the psychology, LOL – like why stores use $9.99 instead of $10. I decided not to exchange all my USD like I had planned – a decision that would come back to haunt me….
Since I’m on the topic of exchange rates – I just want to mention that the rate at Sheraton Tokyo Bay is truly awful – 98 JPY to 1 USD (when it should have been around 105-106), a real rip off. The rate at TDR was actually very good. I exchanged money at guest services in DisneySea and checked the rate on my phone while I was in line. Their rate was only about 0.5 JPY less than the xe.com rate. It could be the timing of when they set their rates, but I was impressed.
I didn’t have any problems using my Barclay’s MasterCard (no foreign transaction fee) anywhere that accepted credit cards. Some places would take a little longer to go through, but everywhere in TDR was super-fast. TDR seems to process their transactions in bulk though because everything in the parks didn’t hit my credit card until about 3 weeks later – all the transactions over 4 days at the same time. The hotel transactions (hotel rooms, dinner at Oceano) all hit a few days after that. Unfortunately, it didn’t work to my favor exchange rate wise. 
The second order of business at the airport was recharging our Suica cards (amazingly I could still find them after 8 years!) and getting DS his (DD was free on the trains since she’s under 5). I couldn’t just get DS’s Suica at a machine since he qualified for the half off kids’ rate and I needed to show his passport. We saw the JR office and got in the long line – I assume with all the people who need to exchange their JR pass vouchers. An employee was going down the line answering questions and we waited a bit until she got to us. We then found out that we could go to another ticket window where the line was shorter. It was in the same area, but at the other end, red sign, near some fare gates.
We took the Keisei Narita Sky Access Express train and I made sure to check that the final destination was Haneda Airport since I knew that train would get us straight to Asakusa with no transfers. There’s no reserved seating, so it was easy to just use our Suica cards and get on. It’s a commuter train and definitely not as nice as the Narita Express (N’Ex) we took to Shinjuku last trip. But it was cheaper and we managed to find seats, so can’t complain. 
Asakusa Station is an older station and the elevators aren’t that convenient. When we got off the train, there was an elevator, but it only went one level up. From there we saw a sign pointing to an elevator at exit A2b in one direction and another sign pointing to the Kaminarimon exit in the opposite direction. From my research, I knew that exit A2b was the only one that had an elevator to ground level and that it would be a longer walk to the hotel. But I didn’t know exactly how much longer or how hard it would be to find our way. We decided to follow the signs for Kaminarimon. It’s a good thing we travel light – one 25 inch checked luggage, one 21 inch carry-on, plus backpacks. The luggage wasn’t full either. I could have fit everything in the checked luggage, but bought the carry-on just for stuff we would buy. We went up a flight of stairs broken up by a landing in the middle, a short escalator, a long escalator, and then a long flight of stairs.
When we finally got out of the station, we found a tourist map nearby with a “You Are Here” dot. DH compared it to the Google map I had printed out and figured out the general direction we should go (because I can’t find my way out of a paper bag, LOL). He wasn’t positive he was right though, so I was very happy when I saw the huge Sushi Zanmai sign. I had done Google Street View beforehand and knew that restaurant was directly opposite the Gate Hotel Asakusa. Thank goodness for technology!
Travels with 2 Kids 