I ate lunch in an office building, so it was mostly people on a break from work.  It was a pork and mushroom stew over rice with a side of spaghetti, with salad, cabbage soup and orange juice included.  Not bad for Tokyo at $11 for everything.  A lot of starch though....

I was planning to go to the Imperial Gardens (someone at Breakfast recommended this) after I made my reservations for the next two days at the tourist office, but it is closed on Friday. So I walked around between the train station and the gardens for awhile.

So I managed to get the whole way to the Tokyo Main Station and back without getting lost this time, even with some guy trying to send me in the wrong direction, which I'm not sure was intentional or not.  I was able to book my next hostel in Kyoto for three nights beginning Monday and also a trip to Mt. Fuji tomorrow and Nikko on Sunday.  I had never heard of Nikko before but the lady at the tourist office said that I should go.  So, I'm going to Nikko for the day.  Part of the trip is on a bullet train, so that should be good.

​I also booked my flight to Seoul, South Korea yesterday for September 16-20, so now all I need to do is find a place to stay and figure out what there is to do in Seoul for four days.  I'm definitely going to visit the DMZ.

After an afternoon nap due to my jet-lag, I walked around Nishairai/Umejima neighborhood where my hostel is.  I ended up eating dinner at what I suppose is something between a fast food and fast casual Japanese restaurant.  It was affordable for Tokyo (around US$8) but I'm not sure what the meat in the dish was or what flavor the broth was exactly.  Other than the soft-boiled egg, it really wasn't really my thing (and I eat pretty much anything).  Guess I wasn't that hungry.  It was fun watching everyone else eat though.  They seemed to enjoy it.

This place was inexpensive (for sushi, in Tokyo, at less than US$8 including a salad) and they had the automated system that delivers your lunch on a conveyor belt to you from the kitchen.  There's a hot water faucet at each seat to make your own tea, but the green tea instant powder they had wasn't that good.  Sushi was good though...

Today I visited the Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa.  One of the things there involved a 100 yen ($1) donation where you shake a stick out of a cylinder, which has a number written in Japanese, and then you find a drawer with that number, get a fortune from the corresponding drawer, and then you tie the fortune up on a rack to leave your bad fortunes behind (I needed help from someone to figure this out). 

​Hoping that I'm able to buy the right subway tickets in the future.

This language barrier thing keeps costing me money.  I tried to buy a day ticket around Tokyo and I'm sure I heard the attendant say 'day ticket' when he had me select it from a machine, but it turned out to be a more expensive round trip ticket (to somewhere) - which I didn't realize until the machine swallowed it after using the subway twice.  I may need to hire a translator for the rest of my visit.

For Tokyo, this hostel is very inexpensive at $35 per night.  And they have a very basic breakfast included (toast, corn flakes, potato salad, coffee and juice).  From what I've read and hearing people as they check in, it's probably the best hostel I will stay in during this trip.

 They really do make a good cheeseburger at this hostel.  Shout out to Pittsburgh with the Heinz products.

I finally arrived at the hostel around 6pm after a 13 hour flight, three trains, a taxi, and a bus.

​I neglected to write down which train station this hostel was near and only wrote down the address before I left.  I figured, because I've taken so many things for granted the past several years, that everyone's fluent in English in Tokyo.  Not sure why I thought that, but...That's a mistake I hope not to repeat for the rest of the trip. 

So at the airport, I got one set of directions when I bought an express ticket to Tokyo Station.  When I got to Tokyo Station, I asked someone at information again and got another set of directions (which took me to the wrong train station).  When I got to that train station, I tried to find someone who spoke English and they referred me back to the previous station.  I was getting tired so I asked them to hail me a taxi, thinking it would be about a five minute ride.  I showed the taxi driver the address, and I'm not sure what he plugged into his GPS but I think I went even further away from the correct station.

​I walked around some neighborhood for a little while trying to find someone who spoke English.  I found a Police Station and they were able to point me to a bus back to the correct train station.  Then I found another person who spoke English to help me find the Hostel.

​So I'm here at last...and they are cooking me a hamburger.  I know, but this Hostel is supposedly well known for their hamburgers from what I've read.  I'll get something a little more authentic tomorrow but I don't have the energy to go out tonight in search of local food.