I'm in Tokyo!

Checked out perfectly on time and with a lovely clean room. I was going to just go to the subway but it was impossible to get my huge heavy bag down so many stairs so I walked the half hour in the fog (it wasn't quite raining) with all my luggage and went to Osaka then Shin-Osaka station. Got a ticket and left of the bullet train at 11.40am. Got into Tokyo station exactly 3 hours later. To the minute.

Tokyo station is huge and confusing. Probably because this is the first time where I wasn't headed to a main station. I was just going one stop North. Thankfully I found the Ueno line and jumped on that one.

There are no elevators at Kanda Station and the escalators only went up to the platforms, not down to the ticket gates/ exits. So I had to thunk my luggage down the stairs a couple of times. I did my best to figure out which way was which and set out to find my hotel. Went the two blocks that should have taken me there, realised I was wrong. Went back to the train station and started out again after studying the map. Got it wrong went back to the train station and started again. Got it wrong. Found a street map that said I was half way between Kanda and Akihabara. Went back to the train station, now with a fair idea of what was wrong. I kept starting from the North exit, thinking it was the South exit and believeing it because the maps had been turned around to make more sense to the people who actually were going that way.

But by then it was coming up to twilight (only around 4pm but still dreary)I'd been walking around for about an hour in the rain and it was slowly soaking through everything so I gave up and got a cab. It was about a three minute ride. The driver went to the place I got to on the second attempt and then drove South about a block and a half. The fare was only 710yen.

I am made of such fail.

But I've got my bearings now and this place is lovely. Smaller than the last but by far nicer. And they have utensils and a decent knife and hotel bathroom things like soaps and shower gel and complimentary hairbrushes that would really only work on babies and balding men but it's the thought that counts.

Oh, and when you get into the room you have to put your key card in this little slot so the lights will work, meaning you can't waste power by leaving the lights on when you go out. It's kinda nifty.

And I have a big bed and two sets of towels (and slippers and dressing gowns and mugs and stuff - apparently they thought there were two of me despite it definitely saying 1 on the application).

Tee hee a real hotel room all to myself :D I feel like a grown up.