Did I mention that Japan is freaky clean? And no trashcans? It’s a thing. NYC is going to burn my eyes with its filth when I get back.
So our legs are still sorta dead but we manage. We check out some Tokyo shrines and then bum around Nakamise Street, gazing at the colorful offerings of the small shops and grabbing some snacks.
After our window shopping, we train over to Ginza, where we have this fancy several course meal with extremely tasty beef and okay sake. Our chef was from China originally so we ended up conversing a bit and listening to his life tale and getting a sense of a life in Japan.
Akiba was next, and it blew my mind. I also learned from my friend (M)VP that it’s pronounced akiHAbara and not akihaBAra. I still don’t know where to put the emphasis on a lot of Japanese words RIP.
Yodobashi Camera was our first stop and it was actually insane. Signs in bright red and yellow and white with blue and black accents littered the ceiling and there were things flashing at you from twenty directions at once. It was like a Times Square. Our eyes and senses were immediately overstimulated.
We ended up hanging around the camera area, where high-end cameras of my past dreams were there to touch and play with. Every single model I’ve ever seen of any camera seemed to be represented. Nearby was a jungle of tripods and telescopes, and everywhere were things probably worth more than my house several times over.
We then went to Animate, where there were plenty of mangas (and a back area that I will probably refer to as the restricted section that had, well, a lot of graphics). I buy some Attack on Titan stationery and end up in another store where I buy art books for the first few episodes of Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, Code Geass, and Madoka something. They’re going to weigh the rest of my trip down but it’ll be worth it. There is a chance the art books will have more text than art and it’ll all be in Japanese, but I’ll deal with that when the time comes.
Dinner was monjayaki, which I first thought was okonomiyaki before I noticed the large absence of noodles. It was good though, especially the crispy parts.
The rest of our evening was spent gazing at the Tokyo night lights from the Tokyo Sky Deck. I may have been rather distracted by the ongoing Science of Pixar exhibit happening on the same floor, included in our admission. I missed out on seeing this exhibit when I visited Chicago as it’s a traveling exhibit, so I was thrilled to have the chance to catch it on the road, even though quite a few panels were in pure Japanese.
Yay Pixar! Yay Japan!
Adventures 