Another day in the lovely Ueno (上野) dawned and both my upper left thigh and back were in the oh-so-familiar pain. I quickly got up to sit and started procrastinating until around 11:00. I had decided to go to the Imperial Palace the day prior, so I went for it after I got off my lazy arse.

I walked all the way to the Ueno station (上野駅) before I stopped by a small pizza place to eat breakfast at. I got a small-ish pizza with salami and what I think were meat balls. After having satisfied my hungry stomach, I started walking down towards Akihabara (秋葉原) to reach my destination.

On my way there, a woman was offering me a leaflet. I had ignored so many others before that I decided to bite, but she then of course guided me inside the store she was advertising for. In the store they tried to sell me overpriced holographic post cards, and they were willing to give me four at the price of two just because I was a nice guy. The offer was nice, but they were still way overpriced for post cards. I told them that there’d be no sales and continued onwards.

Continue reading →

I woke up with the familiar back ache around 08:00. I was meant to leave the hotel today, but I didn’t really have another place in my mind, and I didn’t want to start spending stupid amounts of money to stay at another place, so I asked if I could stay for another couple of nights – the guy at the desk didn’t have anything against it. Having received confirmation, I got out to get myself some breakfast and to break a 10,000 円 bill to pay for my stay.

I got myself some pork curry from Sukiya (すき屋) and came back. After having eaten my pork curry, I got my laptop out and checked out how far Akihabara (秋葉原) was; it was a mere two kilometre walk from the Ueno station (上野駅). When I felt like moving again, I got going, taking my umbrella with me.

The walk towards Akihabara (秋葉原) went fairly slowly due to the rain and slippery everything, but I got there after some fourty minutes of walking. On my way there a random Japanese guy drove towards me with his bicycle and suddenly started staring at me and then struck a pose with his hands creating a triangle before just passing me by. I wish I had gotten a picture of that.

Continue reading →

I woke up well rested and with my back hurting like hell. I looked at the clock on my laptop: it was 08:00. I got up – I was still lying on my side, though – and started procrastinating for a while before I got around to thinking about what I should do for the day.

After being done with my bad habit, I started looking at my options here in Ueno (上野). A lot of the things that were listed in the top things lists were in the Ueno Park (上野公園), so I decided to head there. Besides, parks are always pretty nice.

I got myself some breakfast from an Indian place called Sewa (世話). The staff were friendly, the bread was free and the prices were quite decent; I think that I’ve not had Indian food as good as this before. From there I kept walking towards the Ueno station (上野駅).

Continue reading →

I woke up with my laptop right at my face at around 06:00, shrugged and got back to sleep. I got up at around 07:00 to check up on train departures and procrastinated a little bit before preparing to release another day on my blog. After being done with all that, I decided to head out.

I walked aimlessly down up the river, taking pictures of the beautiful cherry trees. After having slowly walked around for a while, I found myself at the beginning of a mountain trekking path. Not having eaten anything since 18:00 the previous days and not having anything to drink with me, I decided to start following it.

Continue reading →

I woke up at around six for the first time, but I couldn’t be bothered to get up. I got up again a bit before 7:30 and soon started hearing someone’s alarm ringing; I decided to get out of bed. Having gotten out of bed, I got my stuff and prepared to leave.

The TV room

They had a nice garden in the courtyard

Before I got out with my stuff, I was greeted by the owner; the owner spoke with an interesting Japanese American accent. He reminded me that I could leave my stuff at their storage room until I had to leave town. Thanks to his reminder, I went ahead and put myself stuff in to their storage room and headed off.

Continue reading →

I woke up fairly early in the morning, at 06:45, to the sound of the alarm I had set, but I didn’t get up. The next alarm, this time from my laptop, brought about Catastrophe (by MuryokuP) at 7:30; I finally got up and started planning.

At first I was planning to go to the islands to the north, but that plan was soon crushed as I realised that I had missed the earliest trip there, and the next one would be coming in too late for my schedule – had I not procrastinated the night prior, I would have known this.

I then started looking at train schedules through a mountain route, through Tottori station (鳥取駅), Kinosakionsen station (城崎温泉駅) and Fukuchiyama station (福知山駅) before reaching Kyoto (京都); to my disappointment, I would have to leave pretty much immediately should I want to use the route I wanted to and reach Kyoto (京都) before too late. Disappointed in not having any time to see anything in the much awaited Matsue (松江), I walked to the station.

Continue reading →

Of course the alarm that I put on the previous day didn’t wake me up; I didn’t have my earphones on in the morning – damn hindsight. The clock was around 8:30. I got my stuff and left the hotel to go to see the Morioka Castle ruins (盛岡城), now the Iwate Park (岩手公園).

Hotel Pearl City

The walk there was fairly short with a couple of photo worthy things. The sky was nice and cloudless, but it was nowhere near as warm as it had been a few prefectures back; it was clear that I had gone northwards. Then I reached one of the park entrances.

A phonebooth

An entrance to the park

The park entrance was a fairly long ramp to the walls of the then castle. Upon reaching the top, I was met with a wonderful sight of a snow capped mountain in the distance. After taking a couple of shots, I moved on the go around the castle, taking pictures of whatever signs there were to translate at a later date, while looking at the great sights and reading whatever English some of the signs had. After having spent an hour or so at it, I was met by a Japanese lady walking her dogs; she was interested in talking to me.

Continue reading →