Japan Pictures Day 2: Akihabara

 Day 2: Akihabara!

I am going to switch to Japan time when I talk about where went just because it is easier. We both woke up pretty early because 2 in the afternoon (Utah time) is just too late to be sleeping in, I guess. We stopped by a Conbini (Convenience Store. Too hard to say the whole word in Japanese, so it got shortened to Conbini from Conibiniensu) and got some breakfast.

Onigiri (rice balls), mostly liberated from the fancy
wrapping that keeps the seaweed
from touching the rice until being opened.

We shared some kind of "pan" that a sweet, jam-like filling. "Pan" is the Japanese word for bread, stolen directly from Portuguese and incorporated into their own language. We also each got a different kind of Calpis, a "soft drink" that isn't carbonated. In English, the company is called "Calpico" because "Calpis" sounds too much like "cow-piss".

Drinks, unopened Onigiri, and some
kind of "pan"

The manhole covers in Shinjuku
were very pretty. The colors are
which utilities it accesses?

Then we headed to Akihabara, the "Electric town" and the Male anime/manga fan's place-to-go. We got there so early that nothing was open yet! We also had issues finding the places on Kerri's list, so we ended up asking a Koban, cops in a little room (box?) that are all over the place, and they ended up giving us a map after we came back several more times to find the other places we didn't ask about the first time. XD

Eventually things opened and we started at Super Potato. It covered 3 or so floors of a thin building, and was all about Retro games, with toys from a few more modern games.

Steps on the way up to Super Potato

More steps, but with one full character.

Trying to read what is on each floor off a Mario sign.

On the stairs of the final floor. Can't read it, but obviously
it says "You can't go up here!" D:<

Stolen from Kerri.
From http://www.japan-hotels.ws/tokyo/akihabara/shopping.htm

After Super Potato, we went to the Gachapon store. A gachapon is one of those plastic balls you get from the vending machines in the grocery store that have little toys, or whatever, in them. In Japan, they contained figures, cell phone charms, and more. They cost anywhere from 100Y to 500Y, and are mildly addicting. The place we went to was called Kihabara Gachapon Kaiken, and contained 430 gachapon machines, supposedly. I spent... a lot of money there.

My Gachapon spoils

After that, whenever we saw a gachapon machine in front of a shop or wherever, we were all "Oh! What do they have?!" and would have to run over to find out. A good majority of my souvenirs were gachapons, though once out of their capsules, they don't take up a ton of space, usually.

And Me in the cutout.

Kerri in the Maid Cafe cutout
outside the gachapon store.

I should have bought this headband!

 Next we went to Don Quixote, a place with lots of random stuff, including housewares, bath towels, costumes, umbrellas and more! There were like 8 large floors full of stuff.

After some shopping, where I got a little fold-able umbrella because it was raining a little still, we went to find a restaurant that Kyle recommended to us, called Hamakatsu. It serves tonkastu, which is breaded pork(?) cutlets. At Hamakatsu, you get to crush your own sesame seeds to mix with sauce to get your own preferred flavor. It was DELICIOUS and fun, even though we were still working on understanding the etiquette of eating in Japan.

Tonkatsu at Hamakatsu on the 8th floor of some building.

We also went to a very large Manga store called Mandrake, but since we couldn't read anything, it wasn't very exciting. Oh, and also the Tokyo Anime Center which looked pretty empty, space-wise (lots of empty space) and had a little bit of expensive merchandise. It was starting to get late and kind of cold, so we headed back to the hotel in Shinjuku. When we got there, we stopped for Dinner at a place close to the hotel.

My gyudon (I think) which is a beef
bowl. Came with an egg and separator
so I could add my own yolk.

Kerri got Curry

Then it was into the hotel to organize our spoils and recover from a day on our feet.

The elevator was rather small. You can
see I am touching the back and holding
the door open at the same time, and I
have the Ross raptor-arms.