26 October 2026
Wet pass office
Yurakucho and Ueno
All day rain. Ring the bell. Even better, all day rain on a Monday when none of the museums are open. All I could do was sit in cafes and pontificate on if I should by a 3 day pass and activate it for tomorrow. I did. The Tokyo wide 3 day pass allows you to go far on trains for about $150 (AUD) for 3 consecutive days. It went up a lot in price a few years ago as all passes did, so ensuring it will deliver sufficient value requires commitment and planning. By purchasing this pass I have locked myself into travelling far for each of the next 3 days. The weather forecast had better be accurate or I shall be getting wet, on remote mountains.
Getting the pass means taking your passport (in the rain) to one of the larger stations, I chose Ueno because I know Tokyo station is always a shit show. Choosing Ueno paid dividends, 0 people in the line. They still made me take a number, a girl examined my number ticket, before letting me join the line of zero people, where another girl then dinged me to go to the counter, and took me to it, and then another girl helped me buy the pass. Standard Japan behaviour.
And with that out of the way, here are a few rain soaked pics. I complain but it was not really raining much, the true gauge of this is, did my socks get wet? They did not.
Behold, wet roads.
A good day if you like to hang out under bridges. Which I do.
Global headquarters of an orange pipe making company.
Familiar to most, Tokyo station. I avoided. At this stage I had still not committed to the pass purchase.
Instead I went into the Tokyo forum, I have walked through it before but never gone up the ramps, today a ramping I will go.
View from the top of the ramps, worth it.
At 11:30, I decided it was time for an early lunch. I went to girl business salad and had lunch with secretaries. This salad is designed to balance my oestrogen levels, which I probably need. Salads are actually more expensive than hot meals.
While consuming my girl salad, I committed to the pass, so off to Ueno I went. The streets around this part of the station, damp and abandoned.
A quick check on the swamp. Still green. Nice clouds.
No leaning, it will fall over.
The inside of the Ueno station, wretched hive of scum and villainy yadda yadda yadda. I think it has been done up in the last few years.
It took all of 2 minutes to buy my pass, I was prepared to wait in line for greater than an hour, so instead of line waiting, I shall do a rainy exploration of Ameyoko. Very quiet.
The rain adds to these sort of photos, even better at night and in colder weather when there is steam everywhere.
I had rolled the dice enough walking in the rain without getting wet, so I decided to board a train at Okachimachi, a station I regularly stay very near to, but will not be staying very near to on this trip. Well where I am staying is quite near, but not very near. Anyway I digress.
It is likely to keep raining until 5am tomorrow, so this evening, something underground, probably.