I asked about the noise last night and they finally tried figuring out who it was who was moving around all night. They couldn’t, so they moved me to a room to sleep in and told me they’d be moving me to the 16th floor. The big room I slept in was really quiet but this new room on the 16th floor has someone stomping around upstairs. If I’m lucky, they won’t be stomping around all night.

I decided to head to Ueno today, and go wandering around the parks. On the way there I saw woman with a bag from a Eugene leather shop.

Another view of the Sky Tree.

In Ueno, there’s a giant park with a bunch of museums. Two of the largest exhibitions appear to be the last stop of the King Tut exhibit and one on chocolate. But I was just there to wander around outside.

There were quite a few people, but the park is huge. Lots and lots of foreigners (by that I mean round-eye foreigners) all over.

There was a large gate from one of the Tokugawa shoguns. I should have taken a picture of the plaque.

At the north end of the park is Kaneiji Temple.

There were a lot of people following some sort of path, and I saw a lot of them but just at the start of the day.

The temple itself.

This is probably not a good enough picture, but the cemetery was the biggest one I’ve seen here.

Somehow I found my way back to the mausoleum for one of the Tokugawa shoguns.

There’s a gate nearby with a better description.

But there’s also a mysterious sign about the mausoleums.

This is about where my plans started to unravel. My camera started giving me weird errors and my foot started to hurt, like I had a compression fracture from walking around so much. I found a friendly cab driver taking a break and I asked him to read the screen. We talked about how he wanted to see the Rockies and about how the level of research in Japanese Universities was high enough to get a guy a Nobel Prize. Anyway, he told me that the sign on my camera just said the memory card was full.

How do you fill a 8GB memory card? Take lots of bad pictures of temples around Tokyo.

I guess it’s a “thing” that drivers stop around the north end of the park for a rest. Lots of guys were asleep in these cars. Fortunately for me, some of them are friendly cab drivers.

On the way back to the park there was a line of smaller temples.

This second temple was right next door to the first.

Honestly I don’t know where I was as I was limping back towards the park. This temple was bigger than the last two.

The temple.

I got back to Ueno Station and decided I’d head to Akihabara to get a memory card.

I was starting to get hungry so I wandered around the area of Ueno Station looking for food. I decided I’d head towards Akihabara on the train and look for lunch there. Right outside the gate there’s a Donq bakery and I’d just seen them on a TV show. This is a coffee/croissant set plus an onion bun and a pumpkin sandwich.

The pumpkin sandwich had apple slices and was the best part of lunch. The coffee was pretty tasty as well.

I found a Class 10 8GB Toshiba memory card for sale on a back street for ¥730 (about $9.35 USD). Then I decided to walk back to Ueno though everyone thought it was too far. Back down some back streets.

I ran into the stores of Ameyoko where I bought a bag to take on my short trips in Japan so I won’t have to lug my suitcase around. The bag I got was only ¥1,050 so I’m not sure it’s going to last very long.

So, back to Ueno park. There were several temples and shrines I wanted to see because they were mentioned in the tourist guide books.

This is the gate for Toshogu shrine.

It’s known for the stone lanterns.

There’s also a pagoda by the shrine.

And one of the three largest stone lanterns in Japan.

But when I got to the shrine, it was being renovated.

There are gates to several side shrines.

One of two side shrines.

And a portable shrine as well.

After that it was onto the lake and a temple on the lake. The larger lake is filled with lotus plants.

And has Bentendo shrine.

The smaller boat lake has rowboats and paddle boats for rent.

So it was back out of the park to Yushima Tenmangu Shrine.

I guess I took the back way in, and this building is behind the main temple.

The side building

And the shrine, which is pretty big for being in the middle of Tokyo.

I even had a Chinese dude ask me to take his picture.

I was looking at some more iPhone gadgets so I decided to head back to Akihabara and take the train back from there.

I should have bought another SD card instead.

I got back to my new room with a completely different view towards the east and a nice view of the Sky Tree.

I was having a craving for tonkatsu, so I got it in a bento from the Tesco downstairs.

Looks like they turn off the Sky Tree at night.

I’m also hearing people stomping around upstairs in this new room. Hopefully they’ll stop by 11.