August 07, 2010

A Walk

Plans today called for rest, studying and doing laundry.

It's 10:40 PM and none of those have been acomplished yet.

I went this afternoon to try to find an ATM machine that would work. My plan was to hit the big post office in Tokyo but on the way I noticed a huge post office outside , and, never having gotten off at this stop, I hopped off, ambled over to the post office and found that I am having some larger issue with my acount, which is worrisome, I may not have gotten my vacation pay on time. Nevertheless, the post office ATM machines do indeed seem to work with most US cards including my Visa and Cirrus. I did get 10,000 yen out ( about 83 dollars.....yes the exchange rate sucks this trip )and spent a fraction of my loot at a CoCo's Curry.

I dallied before returning to the station and wandered around the area near the station, getting quite thourougly lost, in part because I walked the wron way after hitting my head on an underpass for a road....yes the clearance was 1.4 meters for an underpass used by cars.

I bought a tomato from an old lady in an open air grocery and got directions back to the station. The directions took me to another, smaller station near Sekiya Station. I noted that there was no english on any of their schedules, indeed the stops were written in Kanji with no furigana so I decided to see where the line went, confident that I could get off again at the current station with no problem.

The second to last stop was within a thousand feet of the new Tokyo Tower construction site so I had to get off and get pictures. This is one impressive structure. It is already over 400 meters high (it will be 600m when finished).   I can't see at this stage of construction what precautions, if any are being taken to deal with the posibility of attack by collassal caterpillers, winged reptiles or giant apes (mechanical or otherwise). Still it is a supremly awesome site. From there I wandered down the creek that runs adjacent to the structure and eventually ended up on a bridge overlooking the Samuda RiverFrom there I followed the road signs to Ueno, taking a detour in Asakura to take pictures of a big temple and pagoda, where I was able to confirm via an area map that Ueno was only 1.7 more kilometers distant. "whew!" Anyway I'm in Ueno as I type this about to hit the train for home...where I still must do laundry.

 

...gotta leave before the trains shut down!

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