Off once again on another Japanese adventure! While it was been less than 12 months since we were last here, we it did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm; remembering just how much fun we had last time only heightened our excitement! And between the lessons learned from last trip and a further twelve months of planning, we were even more ready*

* Other than leaving our JR Pass vouchers at home. We discovered in the next few days that, despite having all of the receipts and email trails, we could not get our JR passes without the physical vouchers, they could not be re-issued, and we were just out of luck. They did say we could return the vouchers after the trip for a full refund, which is something, but meant we had to do a little on the fly prioritisation and re-routing during the trip.

10:30am flight from Brisbane airport, flying Jetstar direct to Narita, Tokyo.

The flight itself was pretty uneventful – good legroom, in-flight meal was pretty good, everyone in our section was very chill and kind, flight attendants were awesome. Nothing to write about here, thanks Jetstar!

Landing in Narita, we had no issues disembarking, getting through immigration/security/etc (although my wife was taken solo for a discussion about her medication, on previous trips I’d been able to go with her. Few nervous moments, but she had all the approvals paperwork from the Japanese government pre-organised, so it went very smoothly). No issues getting our bags, getting the shuttle bus to the main terminal, buying tickets or getting onto the Keisei Skyliner towards Ueno. So far, so good!

I’d also decided to swap over my normal SIM for our Japanese SIM cards on the flight, and thankfully it all worked painlessly (we’d had some issues with dual-SIMs last trip, so didn’t try that again this time). Only challenge was getting off the Skyliner in Ueno and finding that the heavens had opened and the rain was beating down very hard! Fortunately, we’d both packed our winter coats in more accessible places in our luggage than the previous trip (I’d gotten caught out in the snow without my coat last time, which I’d thoughtfully put at the very bottom of my suitcase). Also fortunately, our hotel was a short walk from the station, and it was along the same road our first Ueno-based hotel was last trip, so finding it was extremely painless. Less fortunately, the nearest kombini had sold out of umbrellas, so we were both soaked through by the time we checked in. We hung everything up to dry, unpacked dry clothes for the night, did a quick kombini run to find some dinner essentials, then crashed for the day. Big travel days are always exhausting, which makes zero sense.

Woke up pre-dawn on the 7th, feeling healthy (thankfully, was worried that getting drenched and immediately going to bed the previous night might have been a mistake) and ready to go out! Leaving MBW to have a little more sleep, I went out on my first solo photo walk of the trip. Weapon of choice was my go-to main camera, the OM System OM-1, which is my preferred do everything option. In the early pre-sunrise hours, my (relatively) new 50mm f/1.2 PRO lens did the bulk of the work, although the 7-17mm 2/2.8 PRO, 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO and 8mm f/1.8 fisheye PRO lenses also came for the stroll around Ameyoko. (as with most photos, please click for a la

Heading back to the hotel via a kombini for some breakfast, we got ready for the day. Todays goal – reconnect with Tokyo, spending the day exploring our spiritual home in Japan, the Ueno area of Tokyo. Highlights included MBW’s first purchase of this trip, a limited edition Kuromi Baby-G watch, spotting a rainbow over a karaoke parlour, visiting Yamashiroya for toys, degashi stores for sweets, drug stores for a bulk order of toothpaste, spending some more time at ,our favourite dried insect vending machine (still too chicken to try anything, but it was a much harder decision to skip than last time!) and generally enjoying being back in a place that brings both of us so much joy, every single time.

Post-dinner, I finished out the night with a quick solo run to nearby Akihabara to check out camera lens prices while MBW finished unpacking. A relatively early night, bigger days to come!