Matsumoto to Tokyo was simple: northeast to Nagano on the limited express, then southeast to Tokyo. After that…

I took the Yamanote line from Ueno station. It loops around the city, so I thought I could get a look at the different areas. All I got a look at was the people standing next to me, and occasionally some buildings and train tracks. And I might have seen Shibuya Crossing. Not sure. So I wasted about an hour looping back to Ueno station.

Now then. I have a membership with Toyoko Inn, which is a chain of inexpensive business hotels. They’re all over Japan. But in order to find one, I had to look them up online, and that meant that I had to find wifi. I hadn’t had wifi access since the fish & chips place in Matsumoto. Starbucks has free wifi, but you have to sign up for it first, which means you need an Internet connection first. If I had that, I wouldn’t need the wifi.

But I had signed up for it, just in case. Now I just needed access long enough to get to the confirmation email that they should have sent.

So I got off at Ueno to see if there was public wifi. Nothing. I walked a few blocks from the station to see if I could see a Toyoko Inn. Nothing. But I knew there was a Toyoko Inn near Akihabara, and that was just two more stops, so I got back on the train and went there.

I couldn’t see anything near the station, but I found really slow wifi in one area in front of the station, which enabled me to confirm my Starbucks registration. There was a Starbucks on the third floor of a department store adjacent to the station. So: upstairs, buy a latte, and…no place to sit. Found a bench in the department store and connected to Starbucks. “Cannot connect because you do not have an Internet connection.” Tried several times.

Back downstairs with all my stuff, including a latte I didn’t really want. Tried to put some of the stuff in a locker, but didn’t have enough coins. Carried everything back to the slow wifi area and got to the page with Toyoko Inn’s address and walked there. It’s not really that close.

They only had a vacancy for tonight. I still have to find a place for the rest of the nights, but at least I have wifi here.