The weather was great again as predicted. My plan for today was to explore beyond the Asakusa area which meant travel by subway. My plan was to visit the Ueno Ameyoko Shopping Street (one of the largest street(s) market) and a part of Shinjuku City. Now, I've ridden the subway a lot in most of the world's biggest cities and the Tokyo subway is by far the most impressive. First, the population of Tokyo is almost twice that of NYC and yet the stations and trains are clean and completely devoid of graffiti AND extremely safe. Have you ever been on the NYC subways? Nuff said.
At the street market I first tried some octopus dumplings - very inexpensive and tasty! Then I wandered past stall after stall selling stuff that nobody really needs until I found a very small "Japanese Whiskey Bar". Now I don't drink whiskey but, as you know, I do favor me some of that Sake. Sure enough he had some good Sake and so I settled in (ie found a spot to stand) sipping of my sake and a draft beer. The inevitable happened to me again as and I "met" a Japanese guy "Casey" who was also a photographer and became old buddies after a short period. I can't speak any Japanese and he spoke very little English, but we made it work,
After the street market I took another subway to Shinjuku City. After having a bowl of soup noodles with kimchi I saw that Tokyo was once again under attack by Godzilla!
He was nice enough to maintain his pose so that I could get some good photos to share. I was also attacked by a lot of stairs in the subway system that my knee didn't like but, once again, I had to carry on.
Still having a great time here. I hope that you are as well.
Until next time, be safe, be kind and peace out people.