Plane meals and vast amount of drinks out of the way following by literal 2 hours in customs due to the surge of tourists, then a 30 minute hike over to Ueno Station from Haneda Airport it was time.
It was the wrong time on my Digi-Ana Citizen watch and the right time was creeping up on 9:30pm – and I knew that one thing that did not change in a decade was the last trains towards Mito being at 10pm. After several unsuccessful attempts at finding the right blue colored platform (and not realizing that Google Maps have come an astronomical way in the past 10 years) lugging my 75 or so pounds worth of luggage up and down 2 flights of stairs in each direction, I decided it was time to ask a station manager where-the-heck the right platform was and not miss the last train. Miraculously this mission was a belly-pass level successful and being completely exhausted I was at least on the right track to my friend’s place.
Perhaps the best part about a 2 hour train ride after a 12 hour flight is keeping awake not to miss your stop since that could create a whole new, unwanted side-quest that no adventurer should want past midnight. Once again, I barely, but prevailed after dozing off a few times and keeping track of time almost solely using the music blasting into my ears from my earbuds. The long-awaited destination was finally announced, I dragged my bags of gold out of the train car, dealt with only having a Pasmo instead of a Suica since Haneda line can’t be bothered to sell those, and hopped on the station wifi to summon my knightess in her sort of shiny, white, unarmored pedestrian Nissan steed. Pheeeew! It was now time to partake in the finer things in life that only convenient stores can offer past midnight, and the answer that night was my friend’s local 7-Eleven.
Snacks, smokes, pretty damn good pre-made meals and snacks, and in many locations the true holy grail of Japan – 24 hourly sold booze. Lots of decent booze with a better Japanese version of my favorites – brewskis and whiskey. I decided to do the night in with sake and plenty of seasonal beers however much I missed the Suntory Whiskey (yellow label, honeycomb bottle, 2nd row from the top and 3rd bottle from the right, just like reading the finer literature of the land of rising sun). Speaking of the finer cultured literature, that was immediately acquired as well!
So booze the first night pretty much consisted of these-
And among the non-liquid snacks, some delicacies like this oyster sauce pork –
All in all many cans of that Asahi and a shower later it was time to drop dead since there was plenty of things to do that day.
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