Day 2: Akihabara

The day started by waking up at 4 am Tokyo time. We both woke up excited and ready for a day of sightseeing.

Taking a shower:

The shower and bath are all in one room. There is a stool and a small pail in there but we just act like they are not there. Very important: Turn the hot water on in the kitchen BEFORE bathing.

Pros: The bathing room is heated. You can brush your teeth and wash your face all in one go because the sink is also in the bathing room.

Cons: The hot water is in another room.

Finding sustenance:

The property managers for the apartment are awesome!  They stocked the fridge with some essentials and left us some little cookies that are like two tiny pancakes squishing some red bean paste together. They’re delicious! Even with all of this awesomeness we still require our creature comforts.  Thankfully we are located right across the street from a 24 hour convenience store. 

At the store we stocked up on the toiletries that we needed. We found some great snacks and we both grabbed some drinks to try out. Coke Zero is everywhere here! Kyle is so thrilled (note: I enjoy trying all the teas and such but need the occasional taste of home). We both got some cold green tea. Chrissy got a dehydrated squid, and Kyle got food bar that is apparently featured in some video game (Calorie-Mate!)? Neither of these things have been eaten yet. Chrissy thinks the green tea tastes like sunflower seed shells.

The attendant did not speak English but this was a non-issue. When we walked in he said “Ohayo Gozaimasu”(Good Morning). When we checked out we were easily able to pay. The total shows on the register and you just give them the money. As we left the attendant said, “Arigato Gozaimasu” (Thank you very much).

Traveling to Akihabara:

We found a map of all of the Tokyo trains in our apartment, this has been unbelievably helpful. To get to the station we had to walk back the way we came the night before.

The Sumida Bridge

The Golden Flame

Once there we decided it was time to buy our train passes. They have cards that you can just refill as needed. We were not sure how to go about this so we asked the attendant and he was very helpful. He could pretty much understand us and took us to the machine and set it up in English for us. He also gave us a pamphlet in English with instructions while bowing and saying “arigato” several times.

With the map we very easily found our way to Akihabara, we only had to switch trains one time and it did not take very long. These trains did not have the scrolling announcements about the stops so instead the stops were also announced in English!

Finding Breakfast:

You would not believe the number of McDonald’s here. They are everywhere! When we were attempting to find breakfast we wanted to eat actual Japanese food, not fast food. This was a difficult task. We left very early in the morning apparently.  We are having a hard time locating open restaurants at 7 am. We saw Denny’s, McDonald’s, and Starbucks as well as several convenience stores before we finally came across a restaurant with a big fish on it. That was our place. 

When we walked up we had a hard time getting in. A lot of the doors here are automatic but they still require you to push a large button to open them. Kyle pushed the button and nothing, so we just slid it open. We were greeted by a waitress in a very maid/waitress like outfit. I believe that she first asked us in Japanese if we speak Japanese. After our blank stares she then asked us in English if we speak Japanese. We said no so then she just spoke to us in English the rest of the time.

The restaurant was very crowded with young people. It had more of a Waffle House at 2 am feeling. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. We were not sure at all how to order. The waitress asked us for our drink order and then brought us a cup of green tea and iced water. This is all you get…you better savor it! The menu was small and had pictures for everything. We were not sure how to order so we each ordered a sushi combo dish. The waitress came by and put the check on the back of our chair.

As we were sitting there, we learned that we did not make the best ordering decision. All of the people around us were ordering by the piece. They got a soup and then ordered one or two pieces at a time. Meanwhile we see our plates being made and okay, this sushi is GIGANTIC! These are not the rolls of sushi that we are used to eating at Bonzai. This is a large ball of rice with a large piece of fish over the top. Definitely two bite sushi by normal standards. Why did we get these 2 huge plates of sushi???

Then came the two large bowls of Miso soup! How…I don’t even…how do we consume all of this. The chef just smiled.  There are no spoons by the way, you only get chopsticks. After much whispered debate we decided to drink the soup from the bowl.  The soup was delicious. The sushi was delicious. We did beast out and eat all of the sushi, some pieces were a little challenging. We decided that you have to rip off the Prawn’s head before you eat it. Do not eat prawn sushi. We still are not really sure how to eat the piece that came on the giant leaf. Kyle just ate it off of the leaf.

At the end of our meal the waitress came and took the check off of the back of the chair and got our order from the chef. He keeps track on a sheet. As we were going to pay all of the chefs gave us a small bow and an “arigato gozaimasu”. We paid and the waitress made sure we went out the working door this time.

So thirsty:

Thankfully there are vending machines every block or so. We were able to get some drinks to help after eating all of the sushi with just the one cup of tea. You are supposed to stand at the machine and finish your drink but we were not able to do that so we just put them in our bags. We then stopped by a 7-11 and grabbed some snacks for later. These have not been eaten.

We ended up getting one of these at the end of the day

Shopping, or not so much:

Akihabara is the area that we were most excited to visit. We had seen and heard so many great things about electronics and gaming in this area and were really happy to finally be here. Well it was maybe 7:30 am and this place does not open until at least 10. We wound up walking around just checking out the location and all of the vending machines. There were several parks in the area. We walked to one small park. This park was about a quarter of an acre, if that. There were a few roped off sections with plants that are obviously very well-tended. There were a lot of benches and less than 10 people there so we just sat down and relaxed for a while.

Chrissy relaxing on a bench

After this we decided to walk some more and found another park. This park was much larger and had many more trees and plants, including a pomegranate tree. We relaxed here for a while and it was very peaceful.

We still had a bit of time to kill before things were going to start opening so we just walked a bit more and found some really great buildings and sites.

We call him "Japanese Eric"

Eventually we came to a western style coffee shop where we grabbed a drink and sat at the front window to people watch.

What did we learn:

These hours wound up including some of our favorite parts of the day. Just walking around and seeing all of the buildings was really cool.

There are a lot of homeless people here. You can tell because they carry all of their belongings with them. There was at least one homeless man at each park sleeping on a bench. We saw a few homeless people walking on the sidewalks before it started getting busy. These people were not asking for anything, they were just there.

This place is very clean but it is very difficult to find a trash can. They are typically located around vending machines but not always.

When you pay cashiers you are supposed to put the money in the provided tray. They will then hand you your change before taking the tray. We kept trying to just hand the money directly to people. They would not say anything but just put the money in the tray. We know better now.

There is no real place to sit unless you go to the parks or into a restaurant. There are not any benches along the street. Many people sit on the low bar that are meant for tying up bikes.

Actually Shopping:

Finally the stores began to open and all of the sudden the whole street was packed. Some of the aisles in the shops are only a person wide which made navigating quite difficult in some places. We found some great arcades and were able to observe some of these masters at work. The skill and coordination required to play many of these games is very high but they play like it is no big deal. Unfortunately there is no photography or video allowed in the arcades or we would have some sweet videos.

Saying that claw games are popular here would be like saying fast food is popular in the US...they are everywhere!

The one game we had to play: Silent Hill The Arcade Game

A cat riding a pig in a diaper...just because.

We got to go into all of the big name shops like Gamers, Super Potato, Donki, and Mandrake. We found a lot of stuff in Super Potato. Mandrake was really neat but way too crowded. We could hardly move around. By the way, these shops are made up of several small floors. Mandrake was one of the largest with 8 floors. Super potato was on the 5^th floor but it only took up the top three floors. You may either choose to walk up the narrow stairs or take the elevator that will fit 3 at most. We took the elevators up and the stairs down. Donki or Don Quixote was more like a walmart with several large floors made up of all sorts of items. We did not find anything in there and eventually had to find our way out as we were becoming very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things displayed.

This made me so excited, then I realized my copy was at home

The Throne

Snake seemed to intimidate

How much?

Making it home:

After several hours on our feet we were beat. We successfully found our way back to the train station, on and off both trains, and to our stop. When we got off there seemed to be some sort of festival occurring. There were people EVERYWHERE. As much as we would have loved to check it out we just wanted to get home. We finally made it across the bridge and back home. Kyle grabbed some snacks and drinks from the convenience store across the street. Kyle had some wraps and Chrissy had a delicious vanilla ice cream cone. This was at about 3 or 4 pm Tokyo time. We passed out shortly after that. It is about midnight on Monday morning here…

The day's haul