AT&T and Verizon Suck

The first full day in Japan I wanted us to start out slow, so I had the objective of seeing the Ueno Zoo and getting in some cherry blossom viewing. First, though we had a problem to fix, why were our phones not working? Furthermore, the people that had used our Airbnb before us had maxed out the free mobile Wi-Fi hotspot provided by the host and it would take 3 days for the data to reset. So internet access was a complete priority and the only place that I knew would be easy to find for data sims was Yodobaishi Camera Akiba.

Using the Wi-Fi provided by the 7-11 across the street I got directions to the Yodobaishi Camera Akiba in Akihabara which was on the way to Ueno. We all had figured that our Project Fi Data sims had a problem so we would just buy some of the data sims for travelers. After buying them, 2 of us still couldn't get any signal but my brothers actually starting working right away.

Massively irritated by this my friend and I downloaded a sketchy app that allowed VOIP calls for watching ads and dialed our cell phone providers. It was so fun to find out my iPhone was locked, even though I had called AT&T before the trip and specifically checked that my iPhone 6s was unlocked for international use! Thanks a lot for lying to me AT&T!

My friend was even worse off, Verizon claimed his phone was US only and was not compatible with international travel. I found that hard to believe because once again we had checked his specific model and it supported half of the Japanese​ LTE bands and all 3g bands. Verizon had neutered his phone so badly that he couldn't even connect to the free wi-fi landing pages in Japan but as soon as we got back to the US is was sure, no problem.

Pissed off at wasting 2 hours trying to get this sorted out, I dragged my brother away from his new found love of Gunpla but not before he bought $400 worth of them… Sigh.

Then I located the nearest mobile Wi-Fi hotspot rental place and marched over to it and bought one for 2 weeks, along the way to the rental I was struck by just how different Japan was so unable to resist the urge I took this picture of a canal.

Afterwards, we went to Ueno, traded in our JR Railpass vouchers for the actual JR Pass, incidentally even though we arrived 15 minutes after the JR Office opened, the line was very long and it took over an hour to get our pass.

Ueno, Cherry Blossoms, and Museums

Since it was noon we had a nice lunch and wandered over to Ueno Park to look at the cherry blossoms. Sadly I wasn't able to get the shot I wanted, it was very cloudy out, it was going to rain and there were so many people.

It was really neat seeing how the Japanese had these tarps set up and cordoned off alongside the path for hanami watching. Family's and I think business's had rented out Hanami Viewing area's and even though it wasn't a good day for viewings you could see groups of Japanese having a great time under the cherry trees.

One of the places I wanted to visit in this area was the Ueno Zoo. I have a bunch of pictures of the animals there but I did have a small discomfort with the zoo. It seemed like the animals were in way too small of enclosures for them and their cages needed to be at least twice the size that they were. The polar bear was especially pitiful, it looked like he was unwell and generally unhappy.

Afterwards, it started raining out, so we headed to the Tokyo National Museum. Along the way, I managed to snap a picture of the ladies putting on a kimono show, though sadly they were all fleeing the rain into their tent at the time.

The exhibits​ at the Museum were very nice, they had a lot of rare items on display but most of them prohibited pictures. They had some incredible wooden statues that were very old and depicted some sort of Buddhist Gods/Demons. It was also neat seeing real, Japanese Katana on display.

Afterwards, we were all tuckered out so we wandered back to our Airbnb, for supper we ate Coco Curry for the first time. Coco Curry is really good and it's actually one of the things I seriously miss about Japan. I WANT MORE COCO CURRY!!

Our next adventure in Japan was canceled due to more bad weather, originally we were supposed to go visit Nikko but due to the weather we went to Nakano Broadway instead and we were not disappointed​.