The long, lonely ride back...

Well, I was all alone again - but instead of being excited to explore around Japan on my own when I first arrived in this country, I felt miserable. I had no friends to talk to anymore, and it was back to "anti-social" life. It really made me aware about the importance of good friends.

	A map of the Tokyo Subway system. Next destination: Asakusa.
	I had to get some sleep on the 3 hour train ride back to Tokyo because I could not sleep well last night. During the time of sleep, the Super Bowl would have been playing, but I really didn't care that much. I'm already missing my friends and I need to recover some major sleep time.
	I'm back in the madness that is Tokyo. I am in the district of Asakusa. You need to ride the subway - the Yamanote Line does NOT stop here! Anyways, Asakusa is where you can explore "old" Tokyo. This is the Grand Kaminarimon Gate.
	Swords... lots and lots of swords...
	There are a lot of street shops in Asakusa selling inexpensive items - it reminded me of Hong Kong's Mongkok district.
	The main gate to Senso-ji. This is probably the most well-known temple in Tokyo.
	A pagoda in Senso-ji.
	Another view of the pagoda in Senso-ji.
	The front view of the Senso-ji haiden.
	My room at the Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu. This place offers better quality than the Kimi Ryokan in Ikebukuro, but it's still moderately cheap compared to other places. It has a Japanese-style public bath on the top floor (which is split to two baths - one for males and one for females) - taking a bath in it was pretty cool. Also, it had a laptop; however, the laptop was INFESTED with spyware and pop-ups... I HATE spyware.
	One of the alleyways in Asakusa.
	Eventually, I had to go back to one of my first hangouts in Ikebukuro - Kinko's. I couldn't live without one good internet session.

Well, since it was my last night in Japan, I went to do some of the old things, such as look around the happiest place on Earth for guys - Akihabara - and get my last beef bowl from Yoshinoya. But I was just too lonely - even Akihabara did not lift my spirits; I had to call Yoshiko, Ly, and Mie and talk to them one more time. Therefore, I called each of them up at night. Did I ever tell you that phone cards in Japan are SO MUCH BETTER than the cheap-ass Canadian quality? If not, well... Japanese phone cards are SO MUCH BETTER than the cheap-ass Canadian quality! Anyways, I was REALLY happy to hear from each friend one more time, and I tried to use up as much time as possible on the phone cards - however, I apologize to Mie for taking up a lot of her time when she just returned from work and she had a late dinner waiting for her.

I told my friends that I am really going to miss them, but they told me that I need to focus on the POSITIVES of this trip. All the fun times I spent with my friends and on my own for nearly 2 weeks - it was such a blast that I really made the right choice of picking Japan for my vacation! Also, I will not allow the last end of the trip overtake all the great things I've experienced - unfortunately, it would take a little bit of recovery time before I got over it. :P

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