So I am able to take some video with my camera, this seems like a great opportunity to try it out.

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And walking is good for you. 

So I tried the internet connection in the room last night, and nothing. So I could not upload the 170 pictures I ended up taking. The wait until the next chance I get. Until then I'll need to take care of this blister onboth my feet, which are in the sae spot on both.

The reason for th blisters, got up, at 430am, just couldn't sleep. Force myself to fall back asleep for another hour eventually. Then it was 830. Shower and check out and since i had 2 hours to kill i decided to walk back to Ueno. No Problem, just a straight shot. Went to a coffee shop and bought what i thought was a danish, but it was more like a breakfast pizza, and the coffee was delicious. Stood in line to get my JR pass to use the train system and went to Customer Assisstance to find out how to get to the check in hotel.

They were very helpful in showing me where the hotel was, unfortunetly they directed me to the wrong hotel. I overshot the destination by 2 exits. So get more information on where the hotel was and kept moving, all this while dragging my suitcase with my backpack at the ready. The woman at the wrong hotel suggested i use the subway station, but I just wanted to keep with the trains, and I didn't know where the subway stations were, so I was off for what should have been a 15min walk, which turne out to be 45min of zig-zagging through Shingawa. And found the hotel, only the balls of my feet were hurting, and made it up to the room and it was around 2 o'clock, and I didn't just want to lay around and rest, of course not,that's not why I'm here. So I went to look around the temple next to the hotel and took a ride up to the very top of Tokyo Tower. Amazing, I could see until the clouds stopped me.

So after waiting in line at the Tower to get in and such, I treated myself to a rum and coke in the hotel bar. Quite, Nice. And then it was time to meet the group I'm with. Everyone is so very nice and friendly, and way more traveled than I an. Sarra has taken 6 months to just go travel th world with her husband and everyone else has seen their share of the world. My roommate Asim is a really cool guy, and he's from Canada.

After dinner a group of us decided to go wander around Rappongi to take a quick look a all the bright shiny lights. And get asked repeatedly if we want to go into the bar we were passing, definetly big on the hard sell tactics there. After about a couple hours we headed back. Feet had taked quite a toll through the day. But worth it reguardless.

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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Narita Airport, Japan



So tonight I prepare and tomorrow I depart. I head to Detroit and then to Narita Airport. Then an hour bullet train ride later I arrive in the heart of Tokyo. But now a week of excitiment and lack of sleep begin to catch up to me. My last intention is to contact everyone I can and let them know that I intend to keep track of what is going on while I'm here. What will I find? What will I see? Who will I meet? I don't know, yet.

I breath. And I keep breating. Then the realization kicks in. I will be thousands of miles away in less than 2 weeks. Alone, but I'll be there. It'll be a great time, a great adventure. But I am scared. So far from everyone I know. Everything I love. Yet I feel proud. Proud that I can do this. Nothing is in the way, except for receiving my passort, which is finally officially in the mail. So I take another deep breath and I feel a little better. The days are very long now. It feels like every day last another lifetime. I know the normal days that lay ahead. Go to work, go home, go to work, go home, go to work, go home, go to work, go home, go to work, go home, stay home, visit parents, repeat. I feel a comfort knowing that every week is the same, I seem to prefer it that way, I seem to thrive on repetition and structure. Now, in less that two weeks, I don't know what to expect. Where will I be exactly? What will I be doing exactly? Will I be myself or another person? Is this adverture worth taking? I take solice in the fact that I CAN answer the last of these questions. Of course it will be worth it. It's the other questions that scare me more and more as they trail back. I know I will be me, that's the only person I can be. But will anything be different about me. I've tried to make a vow to myself that I will be a little different. I cannot be afraid to be open, experience a new way of living and interaction with others. I will not be afraid to communicate even if I might only know someone for a few minutes. I will not fear. People have asked me why I've wanted to go and I have the usual answer, because I've always wanted to go. but maybe there is more to it. When I think about it, I want to go to prove to myself that I can. And each night, I sleep a little lighter and sleep a little heavier that my departure day is arriving. This is mostly a ramblings of a slightly drunked adventurer. When I think of it, the most I feel i excited. I wish the day was tomorrow, and not just any tomorrow, but the day I can begin this adventure, and experience something I have never experienced before. What will tomorrow bring? I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Until then, I will keep preparing. I only have 10 days left. And I have a funny feeling that it'll be over before I knew what hit me. But I also feel that this doesn't necissarily have to be a once in a lifetime event, there is much world out there to discover, and this could only be the first itch to scratch.

Saiyonara.

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I'll start this off the best way I can think of, with a story.

The little duckie,

My sister and I would go down to the river docks on days when the
weather is nice and sunny. And we are just sitting and eating when i
notice this little, and kind of beat up looking, duck waddling by. My
sis hadn't noticed it and i begin to say 'hey, look at that du..' then
BAM. It dives head first into the water and I shoot up and go up to the
docks edge. Sis runs up behind me and asks what I'm looking for. I tell
her that I was just watching this duck swim by and I just dove down
into the water. So we waited for it to return. We waited and waited,
but nothing appeared. No ripples in the water, no bubbles. We never
knew what happened to that duck. She doesn't even think it was really
there in the first place. But i was, i knew it was. And to this day,
I'll go look for the duck around lunchtime hoping for it to return.

I hope that little duckie is living a good life now.

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