Lost in translation

I was anxious on the train ride from Narita to Ueno. I was seeing glimpses out the window of what was ahead but after emerging from the train station in Asakusa I looked at the area map and it hit me that I can't read Kanji. Luckily for me I found a friendly person who pointed at the tower that was my lodging for the night. Old town tokyo around Senso-ji temple was my favorite part of the city. It had a sense of old charm and although Tokyo is a post WW II city, it was most closely aligned with the image I had of Japan. It is nothing like I have seen before. Fast like manhattan and you get the sense that the culture is more advanced than most others on the planet. I needed to send an email and to my surprise discovered that internet cafes are open 24 hours and you are asigned a cubicle of sorts where you can spend the night, read magazines, drink coffee and rent accomodations on an hourly basis. It is a flat fee and includes all the services mentioned. The crowd was a mix up travellers, gamers, and students workin through the night and here is where I learned a thing or two about the cogs inside the Tokyo machine.

From Tokyo, Japan