This Ginza Thing thinks you should read this entry!



こんばんは


So my friend is gone and I finally get a full day to freely explore as much as Tokyo as I want. I decided to do this in the same way I’ve been traveling up to this point, by picking places on the fly and wandering. I decided as a longtime gamer, I needed to seeing everything there was to see in Akihabara. If there’s anything I learned there, it’s that I must not truly be into anime or manga like I thought I was, at least on some minor level I thought I was.



Street Fighter characters have their own special dish



So no offense to anyone that’s into the popular anime/manga scene or at the least one in Akihabara, but it’s largely a blur of the cliche disproportionate breasted women. I made my way through the popular parts of town and crawled nearly every anime/manga/figure/dvd/etc. closet shop that goes up vertically around 7 floors usually. Every one of these stores generally had the same assortment of the aforementioned type of anime/manga stuff and pretty much everything you could possibly want if you’re into that stuff. It’s not to say that there isn’t non-cliche stuff out there but it’s clearly not the popular thing in these parts. It was a little disappointing in that aspect as I was looking for some cool video game figures mostly and there was mostly only the major things like mario and shit ton of dragonball stuff. I think Nagoya had a better selection for VG stuff.


I also saw a random clothes sale out in some random streets there. Also as usual I found the random shrine which also seems like a game now to find the random shrine in a Japanese city. I went to Yodobashi Camera and say in $4000 massage chairs to get some much needed rest as traveling as been nothing but grueling and intense and sure to be a long last day. After I was getting ready to leave, I accidentally found the Gundam Cafe(see gallery). I didn’t actually get to buy anything there because there was a long line and things weren’t cheap.




A glimpse of Gundam Cafe



After this I went to Ginza. Having spent so much time in Akihabara crawling through tightly packed closet stores, it was incredibly refreshing to go to Ginza. Ginza has big spacious roads and has streets lined with tall elegant buildings. Even if you’re not buying anything in Ginza, it’s worth the look. I stopped into the Yamaha building and caught a random concert for a really talented pianist and percussion player. After that I went up and checked out ridicuosly expensive instruments. I laughed when I saw a box of reeds for $30. Each reed was individually sealed to keep the same temperament it had at manufacturing or some nonsense. After enjoying the posh Yamaha store, I found a store with general games and kid’s stuff. It had a huge toy race track(see gallery) in store that was pretty cool. Ginza also had some pretty cool bakeries and what not, something I wish was more common in all parts of Japan.



Ginza - All Your Yen Are Belong To Us



After this I went to the “Tokyo” part of Tokyo. Didn’t really do too much but saw a big international expo area.


Finally I went to Shibuya. Saw the famous crosswalk again and saw Hatchiko’s statue. I expected it to be big but it turned out to be about actual size. There were plenty of people hanging out around it. Short and interesting background on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachiko#Life . I don’t know for sure but sounds like a pretty good inspiration for a certain Futurama episode.



HACHIKOU!!!!



So I wandered around Shibuya a lot and then I decided to walk to Harajuku. By this time it was evening and nightfall was going to hit by the time I got there.


The walk was pretty nice going down a brick paved road with some small shops adorning each side of this bike/walk road. After not long I emerged in Harajuku next to Kiddy Land and a Hello Kitty store. I had never heard of Kiddy Land and was a bit weary of entering a place named as such but whatever it’s Harajuku! Kiddy Land had a good layout and featured a nice variety of stuff on each floor. Ironically most people in the store were young adults around my age and not kids. Harajuku is a surprise to me because it turned out to be a really cool place and a good place to end my day. Harajuku street had a bunch of fashion stores and niche products. A few stores sold every item for 777 yen or something like that and had some pretty cool looking watches. Harajuku station was even made village-y quasi Disney style which was cool.




Are you female and possibly asian? If yes then this probably excites you.




Those letters actually floated up and down and it was a really cool effect that you really had to see in person.



After a long day I returned to Asakusa and hit the bed knowing tomorrow will be my final day in Japan.


Here we are right at the end. I have only one more entry left in this series to wrap things up. It’s been a blast and anyone that managed to read any of my series, thank you and stay tuned for my final entry.


またね