Japan Day 2: Back on the Yamanote Line at Last

Today I woke up at about 8am, I turned on the TV and had a coffee and paracetamol to relieve my headache. I stayed watching TV for about an hour before having a shower. 

I left my hotel at around about 10am first going to the local Lawson’s convenience store to get some breakfast and then to the Yodabashi Camera in Akihabara. I loved how there were so many books about programming languages like C#. 

I then went around the corner to find a bookshop so that I could plan the trains that I will be taking on my holiday, it opened at 11 so I walked down the street I saw the Kanda River. When the bookshop opened I went up to the 5th floor, which was pretty much filled with books about trains and train merch. I bought the timetable book it was about $15AUD and contains all of the JR train times for my holiday it will be imperative. 

I got my first train of the day the Yamanote line from Akiba (Akihabara) to Tokyo Station. At Tokyo station I got on the Shinkansen (Toki-319) to Ueno. I spent about half an hour at Ueno just seeing Japanese trains made me happy. Ueno is my favourite terminal station in Tokyo and has quite a few memories dating back to my first trip (2018). I saw a  Shinkansen “Dr. Yellow” (maintenance train) called the “East i” seeing one of these trains is meant to give you good luck. 

I walked from Ueno park to Uguisudani the station on the Yamanote line after Ueno. While walking into the station I got a call from mum she was not surprised that I had already used the Shinkansen and was happy that I was having an amazing day. I got the train to Ikebukuro and had a chat to the person who was sitting next to me who was using english flash cards on their phone. 

Ikebukuro is the second busiest station in the world (after Shinjuku) and has a high volume of Tokyo Metro and third sector railway passengers as well as JR. At Ikebukuro I found a Starbucks to sit and have a coffee. 

After having my coffee I walked through Sunshine City a large shopping centre, and eventually made it to Nishi-Ikebukuro (West Ikebukuro) subway station. I found out there was a tram stop here and got the Sakura tram to Waseda, much of the exisiting subway lines in Tokyo are the legacy of the tram network and this line is one of the few that remain. 

Waseda is one of the main university areas in Japan and it was about a 2km walk to Takadanobaba Station. On the way there were many interesting signs and it was just nice to have a walk in the streets in Japan. 

I got to Takadanobaba at about 3pm at this time the wind had started to pick up and I needed to wear gloves whilst walking into the station. I then got the Yamanote line to Shibuya. 

Shibuya is where the famous cross is, since I have been there many times I did not take any photos of the crossing though I will definetly be going back. I went to my favourite McDonalds in the world for some lunch. The Loft department store (my favourite store in the world with a whole floor dedicated to stationary) and Muji were next stop they are just around the corner. 

I then went to the newly opened Shibuya Ikea. Ikea in densely populated areas of Japan is quite different from the Ikea we have in Australia there is no real circuit it feels more like a department store with escalators going up. I bought myself a yellow water bottle and coffee mug as the hotel I am staying in does not have large mugs. 

I got a rather busy peak hour yamanote line train back to Shinjuku, since it was peak hour I did not feel like getting on another train and the sun was still up. So I decided to go the free observation deck at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building (10 minutes walk away). I texted mum so she could guess where I was she guessed it first time. There was no queue to get up to the elevators. I got quite a few photos including this one that I put on my instagram. 

I got the Oedo subway line back to my hotel as it is only 1 train that takes about 20 minutes. Luckily I was able to get a seat. I got back to my hotel room at about 7pm and called my parents to talk about my day and posted my blog post from day 1. 

For dinner I went to a place in a Curry restaurant and had Chicken Curry it was nice. On the way home I went to the convenience store to get some milk. 

That was my day it was really amazing I am so happy to be in Japan again. 

To be continued…