WARNING: A few kinda NSFW pics ahead, so be careful!
Day 9: Akihabara (the return continued)
Random anime spotted on the street: Murder Princess…
And a whole stack of Haruhi figures….
Check these out: both Game & Watch Collection and Mr Tingle’s Balloon Fight, both of which are Club Nintendo exclusives, meaning they aren’t sold in stores… or at least aren’t supposed to, that I found… in a store! Which I of course had to get…
Remember me mentioning some super colossal seven story arcade that I head about at Gaming Age (or Tokyopia, I forget where exactly) that I tried finding the first time I was there two days prior? Well I found it…
… And it really wasn’t anything special. At least compared to all the other multi-tier arcades throughout the city. They had all the same games you could elsewhere (I was hoping find a Senko No Ronde machine in my travels, and had pinned my hopes on this place… alas, nothing). Though the stairwell was lined with plenty of gorgeous flyer art…
The only real highlights was a Gradius 2 arcade unit and this broken, twin screen Darius machine…
Next stop was the anime museum…
The gift shop had without a doubt, some of the nicest Totoro stuff I had ever seen
… I would have gotten the ties, but they were pretty pricey.
… Howl’s Moving Castle?
The original plan was to be in Akihabara for just a few hours, three tops. But next thing you know, close to seven hours had flown by and I was running late. So I made my last stop Yodobashi Camera, to pick up a pre-birthday present for June. Though naturally, I had to check out the toy section as a whole in greater detail…
More of Konami’s mecha girls…
Remember when I first mentioned the series of “Kissing Transformers” a few months back. Well here’s one… Prowl with some girl that sits on the control stick, if you get my drift…
As for what I got June? A lesser panda, or course!
By this time, it was getting dark out, even though it was not evening time just yet. The skies which was previously clear and sunny was now filled with ominous looking dark clouds. It was going to rain, and the wind told you this, so I rushed back in Shinjuku. And…
I got lost again. Again, I was in a totally different part of town, and despite being immaculate in terms of keeping track of how I got there, I somehow made some wrong turn. I knew I was close, but just couldn’t get on the proper track. Making things worse was how I had a ton of stuff on me, which was soon going to get wet, and since it was the business district, and near the end of the day, virtually no one was on the street so there wasn’t even the chance to ask for help and get turned down. I also had a map, and it was no real help (it was mostly for taxi cabs, and there was none to be found). After crisscrossing a relatively small area of space, I finally found the street I was looking for, which at this point was starting to pour (it had been drizzling on and off for about half an hour, but nothing too bad). And when I was on the correct street, I couldn’t find the fucking hotel since it was again, somewhat hidden! By the time I reached the front lobby, I was soaked. And when I got to my room (thankfully, my luggage was already waiting for me inside, instead of asking for it from some spot where everything was collected till our rooms were ready), I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the light! It was another one of those fancy, high-tech rooms that most had been throughout the trip, where you have to place your key into some hole in the wall to activate the lights, and since I didn’t know where it was, plus it was dark… But yeah, I was pretty pissed.
Thankfully, Joe and June was next door, and June showed me how to illuminate the room. Here’s what room #7 looked like…
… I had just enough time to rest for about half an hour before heading out again. I had to go to Harajuku one last time to stop by Graniph, another design shirt store, before heading off to the aforementioned secret meeting (which I said I wouldn’t mention again, but since its somewhat relevant to the day’s report…). I couldn’t find it the day prior, but my contact, and the person who behind the meeting gave me proper directions, and I found it literally two minutes before they closed. Nabbed some shirts for myself, as well as a few for others, took another train to what shall be an undisclosed location, and made the meeting, which turned out to be lots of fun. But again, can’t go into details, and this particular post (and who am I kidding, these entire trip report) is WAY too long as. The only bummer is, even if I could share pictures from the thing, I can’t, since my camera’s battery died yet again (that day along I went through six pairs…), though it magically came back to life at the very end, and I don’t think I’m doing any great harm by sharing this, which is the designator for the super secret thing…
And that pretty much wraps it up for Tokyo! Next stop, Yokohama… the end of the trip, and the return of the angry, pissed-off punk rockers!
