15 November 2026
Too dangerous for photos
Ikebukuro station area
My hotel is a bit of a walk away from the station, it is just past the main entrance to the sun city shopping centre, which many will be familiar with. I probably should have gone to that shopping centre, but because I went to a shopping centre last night in Nagoya, I decided to ignore the rain and umbrellas. My original plan was to walk to Shinjuku, but I gave up pretty quickly, big puddles had formed, and the umbrella danger was high, I got hit in the forehead twice.
So my next request of the emperor (there will never be an empress), please ban umbrellas as well as eating on trains.
Because of all this, only a small number of photos.
Tomorrow I am going far away, and the map and previous hiking reports tell me it should take 7 hours plus, so I have to get up early, which means it is a good thing there are not too many photos so I can go to bed early.
Ikebukuro is a big, busy area, on both sides of the station.
The horror! A few times I just stood away from everyone in the rain and waited for the dangerous umbrellas to subside.
There are a lot of colourful buildings around to create wet road reflections.
As mentioned, the far side of the station was also busy.
I crossed back under the station using this colourful underpass and looked in department store upper levels for my dinner, but everywhere had lines. Then at street level, also lines, and I got turned away from two places for being on my own.
So I had hamburg and omurice, not what I wanted, but cheap, and available. The photo makes it look terrible.
Now to make sure my maps are downloaded and my train connections are feasible.