I struck out with the payphone too. And sitting in the pub's garbage while trying to debug the connection wasn't particularly enjoyable, either. I gave up pretty quickly.
After a yummy and mostly identifiable breakfast, I hit the road (the subway, actually) for Akihabara, the high-tech mecca. I arrived without incident, sadly about an hour before anything was open. But I waited (what else could I do?), and eventually, things started spinning up.
The general atmosphere of Akihabara might best be described as a technology
bazaar. There are really two sides to the place. The first is the huge,
multi story stores like Laox that sell everything from DVD players to washing
machines. There are quite a few of these, with an exceptionally wide selection
of computers, CD, MD, and MP3 players, car audio, flat-panel televisions,
and just about anything else you can think about. When you walk down the
street, every other store has a hawker out in front, screaming (presumably)
the virtues of their merchandise. The stores that don't have hawkers blast
their music to attract attention. The resulting cacophony is unbelievable...
but fun.
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The second sort of business in Akihabara are the strings of tiny shops, some no larger than a closet, specializing in every electronic component from resistors to vacuum tubes. Say you want a blue LED? You just got to the blue LED guy. Well... that's an exaggeration... but not by much. Way up on the fourth floor of one building, I found an amazing collection of antique radios! All in all a real treat for a techie like myself. Though I certainly could have done it, I felt it would be a stretch to spend the entire day there, so I treated myself to a bowl of sukyaki, did a bit more looking around and hopped the subway to the Ginza area.
Perhaps it was my sore, aching feet that did me in, but looking at buildings
didn't seem to do it for me. I'm sure the walking tour got to some more
interesting stuff later, but I don't think I would have made it. Instead,
I opted to take a one-stop subway ride (did I tell you about my aching
feet?) to the Imperial Palace.
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Imagine, a city the size and modernness of Tokyo hosting a palace with
a moat around it. Well, at least it's my understanding that there was a
palace beyond it - due to bad planning I arrived at the entrance gate at
4:03, with nobody
being admitted after four. There was also the 'outer garden', which
I wandered through, winding up at the Ni-ju Bashi, an entrance gate not
open to the public, and guarded a'la Buckingham Palace (met an American
from Idaho there). Then, down to the subway, and another messed-up connection,
ultimately winding up back at Ueno station.
With some time on my hands, hunger in my belly, and sore feet, I decided the thing to do would be to buy some food and settle down quietly in the park for a leisurely dinner. Though edible, the food was not one of my better purchases of the week. Oh, well.
The park sits adjacent to the city, in what winds up being a pretty
stark contrast. The adjacent photos from an open area at the edge of the
park, show the view looking out at downtown Ueno, and another in the park.
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Once done with dinner (or at least the part I ate), I limped around the park for a while. I passed the entrance to the zoo, a fellow driving a radio-controlled motorcycle around the park's open concourse, a kid's amusement park, and a few other things that would bear detailed investigation should I wind up here again.
By now it was dusk, so I decided to wander around to the area just south
of the ryokan, a region chock full of vendors of all sorts of interesting
stuff. At night, the place really lights up, with hundreds of neon signs,
lots of loud music, more hawkers, and just generally frenetic activity.
The mix of business was truly surrealistic - A vendor selling hunks of
bright red octopus the length and thickness of your arm... next to a guy
selling cellphones. And across from them, a McDonalds. At all times it
felt safe; I suppose that could just be my naivete, but I figured that
anyplace judged safe by mothers with kids, couples on dates, and individual
women should be okay for one low-key gaijin.
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By now, I was pretty tired, so after touring a while longer, I limped
back to the ryokan, took a shower, and fell asleep while writing this.
I was planning to soak a while in the tub, but the water in the tub was
hotter than... well, it was hotter than the tea water in the thermos back
in my room. Actually, upon further thought, I'm not sure whether that's
a reflection on the tub or the the thermos... probably both.