A wino in Ueno

After that second day of looking at apartments and checking into a second hotel, above, (for some reason they have me changing twice over a 6 day period), I was pretty exhausted. I ducked into a quiet noodle shop once I got back to the University area, but all I really wanted was a big glass of wine. I started walking back to my room in the rain when I noticed a little wine shop. I popped inside and almost broke into tears. For the first time in 3 days I was able to recognize and read things. I wandered back and forth through the 2 aisles of wine and settled on this Australian Shiraz and also grabbed the requisite accoutrements. I don't know if it was real or just the context, but this was one of the best wines I've ever had. 

The next day I made the arrangements to meet up with P, a friend of a friend in the states. She was visiting the museums so decided we should meet in Ueno Park by the big whale.

We wandered around Ueno, which is a dense area of shops with narrow streets weaving this way and that. We had sushi (only 408 yen) from a conveyor belt in a small shop down one of these narrow streets. After that, we had puff pastries filled on the spot with vanilla custard from a little hong kong-based shop. The shop has a funny name, anyone remember what it is?


There are also these funny shops with big hooks to grab toys, as well as domino sets, cologne, basically anything they can tie a loop to. That's P in the foreground. Rode my borrowed bike back to the hotel for more wine and listed to the Obama speech on youtube (amazing!)