Electric City Akihabara

Of course, last Saturday we woke up extremely early as usual, I think around 6AM. We still aren't over our jet lag, but I think we are getting better day by day. Anyway, we decided to head over to Akihabara because we wanted to buy an HD camera for the trip. I know buying electronics isn't exactly fitting with a minimal lifestyle, but we wanted to document our trip for y'all as well as our families and friends, plus we make youtube videos and things like that to document our art projects. The camera that we were looking for was reportedly around $200 USD but we couldn't find it at any of the big stores like Yodobashi or Bic Camera. Ah well, a similar model was more than a hundred more than we wanted to spend so we decided to pass for now and just use my camera phone, which seems to take unusually good pictures.

Nonetheless, Akihabara was a lot of fun. We first went the wrong way out of the station, and wondered where all the crazy anime and video game stuff was. After walking a bit, hitting up a combini and getting some natto, and sitting and people watching, we headed back into the station where we saw a sign for “Akihabara Electric Town”. Headed out of that exit, we saw the amazing sight that is Akihabara, complete with numerous small electronics shops. We did encounter an unusually fluent-in-english Japanese guy, but he was trying to collect money for some sort of trip so we kind of blew him off. Anyway, walking a bit into the main area, we saw a cute little toy shop that had all kinds of rilakkuma, video game, and other otaku type stuff. Even a mega man energy drink shaped like his energy tanks! We spotted a staircase that headed up, so we thought “oh lets check out the upstairs”. Little did we know we were in an otaku style department store that had 8 or so stories, and each floor had maybe a dozen shops!

We spent probably 2 or more hours there, just checking out all the merchandise. There were some interesting shops, like high end audio stores, and a really crazy model showcase, but mostly... porn! Lots and lots of porn, anime-style and regular. Laura was a bit weirded out, although I pretty much expected it. Even for me though, it was kind of shocking to see so many people just standing around browsing hentai manga and seeing the figures with like triple F cup breasts was a bit unnerving. Regardless, if you are open minded I recommend checking it out for the pure spectacle.

Afterwards, we went to a huge game center, and I got to play the new version of Beatmania IIDX. I used to be pretty obsessed with this game, but I hadn't really played in years, save for a few times right before we left for Japan. Everyone else there was amazing, though, I was pretty much shown up by a duo of highschool girls. Laura really liked this game called JuBeat, where there are 16 little screen placed inside buttons, and then these markers fly at you 3D style, and you tap them to the beat. Pretty dope.

We were pretty beat, so we headed back to the hostel, and hit up the 100 yen store for some food to cook. We ended up with maybe a pound of udon, a half pound of frozen veggies, and some fried tofu slices for 300円. Pretty decent, I put in some shoyu and some mirin for the broth. We checked for a dumpster, but they were inside a back area. Ah well! Afterwards, we went out for some beer with other people at the hostel, and then stopped at Mos Burger for a midnight snack of vegan Kinpira burgers and fries :)