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Thursday and Friday in Tokyo
Aug. 13th, 2012 01:45 pmWhere was I? Oizumi Gakuen, having a mental debate with myself over whether or not to just wander into the administrative offices and either (a) ask for any character goods they had lying around they didn't want, particularly any older stuff, or (b) ask for a job. In the end I turned my ID badge in at the guard station and we walked back to the train station. We did stop off at MOS Burger for our MOS Burger fix.
From there it was back to Ikebukuro for cold showers and a change of clothes. And then it was off to Akihabara for our fix of modern "cool Japan" electro-maid idol technofetishism. Akiba is huge and we didn't get to see even a quarter of what's there - we did visit Golden Age, your stop for vintage toys in Akiba; we went to the Tokyo Anime Center which is closed for renovations (thanks for NOT telling us, Tokyo Anime Center website), we bought some junk in the TAC's gift shop. Then on to Mandarake, floors and floors of great stuff, where we bought shojo manga and more old anime mags.
Being tired and thirsty we stopped at The Idolm@ster Cafe - a theme cafe atop Akiba Zone, which is a building full of Akiba-type stores, cube stores, clothes, cosplay, models, toys, etc. Anyway you could either order from the Cardfight Vanguard menu or the Idolm@ster menu. Cardfight Vanguard is the latest "kids collect cards and throw them at each other" game, and Idolm@ster is a idol singer managing simulation video game. That's right, you take time off from your difficult job managing idol singers to play a game where you manage the career of one of five idol singers. Apparently this is entertaining. The cafe was full of regular Japanese teens and young adults all having fun ordering fruity drinks based on card-fighters or idol singers, wandering around looking at the production art and figures, or checking their smart phones.
On the other hand we could have stopped at the Gundam Cafe:
Sorry for the blur, that's caused by Minofsky particle interference, of course.
This is right next to the AKB48 Theater, which only confirms my suspicion that Akihabara is turning into Branson Missouri.
Anyway after refreshing ourselves we went out and did some more shopping, particularly at Comic Zin, a doujinshi shop on the main drag with a great selection of offbeat manga and doujin - not just the adult stuff that makes the headlines, but alternative doujin, including some aggressively independent self-published stuff that was refreshing to see.
Soon enough it was 9pm and everything was closing, so we went on home.
Friday was the 27th and that's our 10th wedding anniversary! And I can't think of a better thing to celebrate than doing laundry. Seriously though it was definitely laundry time. The Sakura has a laundry room behind the main building. The dryers, I might add, need at least an hour to get the job done, particularly when things are as humid as they were in Tokyo and the laundry facilities are just out back, under a roof but not in an air-conditioned room whatsoever. So I put loads in and we sat out on the patio reading and fanning ourselves, and every so often I'd go over and put another 100 yen in the machine.
That night we went over to Shibuya, home of the Hachiko statue, one of the busier train stations in the area, lots of crowds, hills, twisty little alleys, and me getting lost.
Eventually we found our destination, Mandarake, which is in the basement of the BEAM building. Apparently there's a TV studio in BEAM which explains why both times we've been there, the building has been surrounded by girls waiting for some sort of star to emerge from a taping of something. However, what I'm interested in at Mandarake is under glass:
That last one is some kind of Prince Planet bank, shaped like a 12 sided die. It was priced a little higher than I was ready to shell out for, so it's still there under glass in Shibuya if you're interested. So we did some prowling around in the basement and then it was time for dinner.
Since it was our anniversary I can't think of a more romantic place than Shakey's. Shakey's, the American all-you-can-eat pizza phenomenon that now has more restaurants in Asia than in the United States. I can reassure our readers that Shakey's hasn't changed a bit; the pizza is remarkably similar to what we remember eating as children. Of course in Japan the toppings sometimes get a little unusual. In other American chain restaurant news, the Outback in Shibuya has a TWO HOUR WAIT. No way, man.
After dinner we visited the Shibuya Book-Off for another round of used-manga searching - and boy, was that place crowded - and then it was back down to the train station and home. Tomorrow: Setagaya and Ultraman Street!
From there it was back to Ikebukuro for cold showers and a change of clothes. And then it was off to Akihabara for our fix of modern "cool Japan" electro-maid idol technofetishism. Akiba is huge and we didn't get to see even a quarter of what's there - we did visit Golden Age, your stop for vintage toys in Akiba; we went to the Tokyo Anime Center which is closed for renovations (thanks for NOT telling us, Tokyo Anime Center website), we bought some junk in the TAC's gift shop. Then on to Mandarake, floors and floors of great stuff, where we bought shojo manga and more old anime mags.
Being tired and thirsty we stopped at The Idolm@ster Cafe - a theme cafe atop Akiba Zone, which is a building full of Akiba-type stores, cube stores, clothes, cosplay, models, toys, etc. Anyway you could either order from the Cardfight Vanguard menu or the Idolm@ster menu. Cardfight Vanguard is the latest "kids collect cards and throw them at each other" game, and Idolm@ster is a idol singer managing simulation video game. That's right, you take time off from your difficult job managing idol singers to play a game where you manage the career of one of five idol singers. Apparently this is entertaining. The cafe was full of regular Japanese teens and young adults all having fun ordering fruity drinks based on card-fighters or idol singers, wandering around looking at the production art and figures, or checking their smart phones.
On the other hand we could have stopped at the Gundam Cafe:
Sorry for the blur, that's caused by Minofsky particle interference, of course.
This is right next to the AKB48 Theater, which only confirms my suspicion that Akihabara is turning into Branson Missouri.
Anyway after refreshing ourselves we went out and did some more shopping, particularly at Comic Zin, a doujinshi shop on the main drag with a great selection of offbeat manga and doujin - not just the adult stuff that makes the headlines, but alternative doujin, including some aggressively independent self-published stuff that was refreshing to see.
Soon enough it was 9pm and everything was closing, so we went on home.
Friday was the 27th and that's our 10th wedding anniversary! And I can't think of a better thing to celebrate than doing laundry. Seriously though it was definitely laundry time. The Sakura has a laundry room behind the main building. The dryers, I might add, need at least an hour to get the job done, particularly when things are as humid as they were in Tokyo and the laundry facilities are just out back, under a roof but not in an air-conditioned room whatsoever. So I put loads in and we sat out on the patio reading and fanning ourselves, and every so often I'd go over and put another 100 yen in the machine.
That night we went over to Shibuya, home of the Hachiko statue, one of the busier train stations in the area, lots of crowds, hills, twisty little alleys, and me getting lost.
Eventually we found our destination, Mandarake, which is in the basement of the BEAM building. Apparently there's a TV studio in BEAM which explains why both times we've been there, the building has been surrounded by girls waiting for some sort of star to emerge from a taping of something. However, what I'm interested in at Mandarake is under glass:
That last one is some kind of Prince Planet bank, shaped like a 12 sided die. It was priced a little higher than I was ready to shell out for, so it's still there under glass in Shibuya if you're interested. So we did some prowling around in the basement and then it was time for dinner.
Since it was our anniversary I can't think of a more romantic place than Shakey's. Shakey's, the American all-you-can-eat pizza phenomenon that now has more restaurants in Asia than in the United States. I can reassure our readers that Shakey's hasn't changed a bit; the pizza is remarkably similar to what we remember eating as children. Of course in Japan the toppings sometimes get a little unusual. In other American chain restaurant news, the Outback in Shibuya has a TWO HOUR WAIT. No way, man.
After dinner we visited the Shibuya Book-Off for another round of used-manga searching - and boy, was that place crowded - and then it was back down to the train station and home. Tomorrow: Setagaya and Ultraman Street!
