Days 153-154: One For The Otakus

Yesterday I was still recovering a bit from Mt. Fuji. I actually felt pretty good, but I had a blister on one foot and didn't want to do anything too active for the day. I decided to go back to Akihabara and check out some of the side streets in more detail. Akihabara is one of the weird few places that seems to get more respectable the smaller the side alley you walk down. The main streets are full of big towers of manga and toys generally tailored to men, and most have sizeable adult sections that are very open and prominent. The side streets have some of that as well, but in general they are more little restaurants, electronics shops and random vendors.

The second of those pictures is a shop entirely of vending machines for toys. You know the sort you see where you put in money and a random little plastic bubble with something comes out. I decided to give one a go, since I thought a little Japanese keychain would be an easy souvenir that I could just clip to my bag. I ended up getting a Prince of Tennis (manga/anime) keychain.

I also finally found a Sukiya restaurant, which was my favourite Japanese fast food restaurant when I was here before. They still had my favourite - a bowl of rice with beef and a few onions on top covered in 3 cheeses that melt to make it all one gooey delicious mess.

Today I headed out with somebody else from the hostel with a specific goal in mind, and we ran into two others from the hostel at the train station who had the same idea in mind. We went to Shimbashi station and took one of the private train lines - the same one I used last time I was here to get to the science center. This time we headed to Odaiba, which is a large constructed island that is a mix of shopping and entertainment. A lot of the attractions cost money, but our specific target was free and out in the open.

That would be the full scale Gundam model on Odaiba. The significance of this will mean different things to different people, but the post title really says it all.

That gives a rough idea of scale.

We checked out a few other things on the island (including a brilliant dance performance by the always entertaining Rockabillies), but it was really hot and most things cost money so we didn't linger too long. Instead we headed back to Shimbashi to explore some random events and activities set up by a TV station.