So everything went very smoothly, until I got to the Ueno train stations in tokyo. But lets start a little further back.
I got up at 545ish, trying to figure out why the lalrm was set on a Saturday morning, then I remembered, Vacation Time. The bestest friend in the world dropped me off at the airport with a heart felt goodbye and I was off. Got the bag checked,bording pass, going through security. and when they say take the paltop out of your bag, they mean it. I stopped the whole line for a bit when they had to do a through bag check cause the laptop was still in it. And it isn't in the best of shape so me and the security guy had a nice laugh about that.
The departure area were a piece of cake to find, i could say That's All Cake, and I will. That's All Cake. and the first plane, or I should say, the box of matches with wings went up without a hitch and landed perfectly, if only they could work out the bugs on attaching the walkway. I took them 30 min for it to connect.
Then the loooooong flight. The sun, never went down. It was very bizzarre and very hard to sleep, i think i got 30 min total, in 5 min spirts. And the leg pain, oh, the pain. 13 hours of sitting still but we made it. And customs, forget about it, all the other passanger except one family were just connecting in Narita to get to Shanghai, so there was no line.
The the confusion on a new country begins, luckily the signs are designed rather well and color coded everywhere. I didn't think the money exchange was open on sunday but it was so i was able to get some cash cause i could find an atm that took AMEX, it better not be that way for the rest of the trip or i could be a big problem.
Finding the train to Ueno, That's All Cake again. I was on my way to Tokyo, everything was going smooth, perhaps too smooth. Then I go to Ueno, and all I had to do was get 2 stations over to Akihabara and find my hotel. But Ueno station is a MAJOR statin and connects 8 or so different lines, I didn't know which one to start with to find Akihabara. And there is nothing like panic in a place you don't know anything about, not to mention all the help kiosks were closed cause it's sunday. So after walking around and around in the main terminal I decided to trust in the way finding. I knew the color line I needed so I kept following it. The more specific a place I found, the less crouded it was and the more confortable I started to feel. Then BAM found it. got my ticket from the machine and crossed my fingers. And I was finally in Akihabara.
JapanesePod101.com saved me from there. I didn't know where to start looking so after a few minutes I saw a group of police officer and asked one. Capsule Inn doko desu ka? and after just a couple minutes of going back and forth he took out a map he had and pointed me in the right direction. And I was there. And it was NOT what I expected. Ria told me to never go to a hostile but it has a very hostile feel to it. Just a bunch of hippy kids that won't or can pay too much for a hotel. But it's not scary at least. And the bed were So much bigger than I expected, I have no problem sitting up in them.
After all that, the exaustion started to slide in. I tried to go back out for a while, but the Capsule Inn is father from downtown Akihabara than I though it would be. On the way back i started to take some pictures again and totally overshot the hotel and was probubly half way back to Ueno station before i turned around. And now this blog is done for today, time to get some much needed rest, and I'll try to grab pictures of the capsule for tomorrow.
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Dude… I hope you are having an AMAZING time… you really deserve it. We are so proud of you back here in the States. Have one, or more for me! And keep the documentation going… please.