Day 2 - Don Quijote is Amazing

Day 2, still on the plane. Some sort of time travelling must be going on here. At least we were fed well.


Rice and teriyaki chicken, we must be getting close to Japan.

The flight was pretty uneventful, a little bit of chop towards the end but we made it in one piece (hence me writing this), the plane was pretty wonderful. Was the first time for both of us on a 777. My ears didn't pop like they normally do on planes and having the inflight entertainment system was pretty nice. Hundreds of videos on demand to choose from, games to play, and music to listen to. During the time I was awake it helped pass the time. Headphones were even free!

After landing we made it through customs and set off to the Keisei train line as our hotel was in Ueno.
$20 (or so) a ticket and we were off. It takes about an hour to get to the Ueno Keiei station, which is located here:


View Larger Map

After a 710¥ cab ride we arrived at Hotel Edoya and were taken to our room, a Japanese style Deluxe TWIN/DOUBLE. Before we wrecked the joint we took some pictures.



The room also came with a matching pair of yukata.




Don't we just look wonderful?

Sure.

Anyway, we were off to look around the rest of the hotel and then head out for a little while. Upstairs on the top floor we had our first encounter (up close) of the joy that are Japanese vending machines.

BEER! From a machine! Brilliant! We made our first purchase.

Sadly the beer would have to wait, as exhausted as we were from traveling it would destroy us, instead we got some cider drink and a coffee. The coffee from the vending machines in Japan is pretty good. You have dozens of choices and styles, we tried many but could never hope to hit them all.



An outside seating area and a little lounge to sit in.

Also upstairs was an onsen for men and one for women.



(ignore that sunlight there, just pretend like we took them on the first night and not the day before we left)

After that we headed out to futz around Ueno before we passed out from exhaustion. It's a pretty happening place there, lots of pachinko parlors, arcades, restaurants every other shop (which I noticed as the vacation went on was pretty much the norm in Tokyo, there were more food places there than anywhere else I had ever been). We also stumbled across Don Quijote, which quite possibly be the greatest store on earth.


Not my movie but it gets the point across. This chain sells everything you could imagine, a whole floor of food up to maid costumes, electronics and video games, furniture, clothes, movies, music, vacuum cleaners, makeup, medical supplies, "adult entertainment', it was insane. All while four different songs (including the theme song from that video) are playing on different sound systems and outside the store an announcer is yelling about all the wonderful things you can find inside. Visiting a Don Quijote store should be a requirement for Japanese sightseeing, something that everyone needs to experience once.

Back to the hotel and it was time to finally go to bed.

Day 3