Japan Day 7
Oh man, was I excited for today. As a giant nerd who’s always loved anime, manga, and video games, exploring Akihabara, the electronic entertainment district of Tokyo, had always been a dream of mine. Despite being exhausted from the previous day, my excitement kept me awake in bed around 6:00 a.m. With a full day of walking ahead, I needed to relax a little before starting my day. I tried the provided slippers but soon realized my size 13 feet weren’t going to fit. So I grabbed my own sandals and made my way to the third floor, where the men’s bath was located. The bath’s quality and cleanliness pleasantly surprised me. Though…
Japan Day 6
Another full day of travel today. I woke up very early and decided I would just walk around a bit in the morning. I didn’t know what time the first bus ran, but I did know that where I left my luggage would not be open until 8am. I gathered up all my stuff and headed out to the lobby to hang out for a minute and get a little bit of stretching in. The lobby of the hostel was pleasantly peaceful at 5:30am. I’m finding that I’m fond of waking up early and watching the world come to life. I was going to stop by Lawsons and grab some Monster to wake…
Japan Day 5
Today was a trip to Hakone, and I may have bit off a little too much for 1 day. Honestly, with all the traveling I did in Hakone I should have scheduled two days to see everything. Despite wracking up 15 miles of walking today, I had a great time seeing all the sights. Traveling in Hakone presented some of its own challenges that I’ll get into, and I missed out on some things that originally I had planned. I woke up early and grabbed a taxi to Kyoto Station. This was my first time managing to communicate my intent fully in Japanese. No need to use a phone or map to show…
Japan Day 4
Another early start to the day. My goal for today was to make it out to Nara park in the morning, take a look around and get to see the “cute” deer out there. Spoiler alert, the deer were not cute and I would go so far as to call them assholes, but we’ll get to that soon. I had my days crossed and my train mishap was actually today, not on the trip to Osaka, but the outcome was the same and I made it out to Nara well before things were open and all was quiet. In fact, today was full of new public transportation challenges. The subway station right outside…
Japan Day 3
Today had a day trip to Osaka planned. The train ride did not go as planned by any means. I’m still learning how the train system works in Japan and the JR Line that I boarded this morning was the correct line to get to Osaka, but the particular train I boarded only went as far as Uji! I didn’t realize my mistake until we stopped at the Uji station for about 10 minutes, afterwards we started heading back to Kyoto! I hopped off at the next train stop, caught the next train and double checked it was bound for Osaka, I lost about 20 minutes on that one. Thankfully, my jet lag…