Hey there! It's morning in Tokyo, I collapsed after our adventures yesterday and couldn't get this out last night. Our group went to Akihabara during the day. If you're not familiar with it, it has a very stories history. It started out as a black market for electronics parts and household supplies during the American occupation in the 1950's. Remnants of that black market still exist in the tiny shops that are literally right under the train tracks of Akihabara station. For us, we hit up:
- Don Quixote (If Wal-Mart did the methamphetamine instead of the customers, Don Quixote would be the result)
- Retro Game Camp (small retro game store with a lot of rarities)
- Super Potato (also has a bunch of retro games and a small arcade in the top floor. I set a machine record on Marvel Vs Capcom 2 yesterday!)
- Beep (retro game store that has an emphasis on vintage arcade hardware. This one was really cool!)
- Akiba Cultures Zone (this is a building with multiple sites in it. They sell TCG cards, figures and statues, idol group memorabilia, model trains, all sorts of stuff!)
We grouped up after a little bit of time wandering and stopped by Kyushu Jangara for a bit bowl of ramen. That's the picture of the food in this post. This place has been in operation since 1984 and it's been 8 years since I've been back. It's the only remaining ramen shop in Akihabara, and there's no reservations. Thankfully, we picked a time where the wait want long. We got in, wolfed down our food, thanks the establishment, and got out. They only have, like 14 seats in the entire place. And we filled half of them.
After lunch we wandered around some more. This ended in disaster when it came time to regroup. One member of the party, who does not have cell service here in Japan, got separated from the group. After waiting around a bunch, I finally flagged down two police officers to help me. While they were out looking for him, he jumps on Wifi and sees me panicking in the discord. One profuse apology to the police later, we were left with a warning to stick together. I get the impression that we annoyed them with my panic. Oops...
That evening, we went to Ameyayokocho for dinner. It's a street right next to Ueno Station, which is the closest one to our hotel. There's a bunch of small restaurants underneath the train tracks. We found one that had enough English speakers for the party. A Japanese couple overheard me speaking Japanese and moved closer to chat. They were pretty decent, but oh man, the lady could NOT handle her alcohol! She got so drunk she fell out of her seat! But they loved talking with us, they complimented my Japanese, and then they paid for the entire group's dinner!
The second photo is from dinner. We went back to the hotel, I laid down around 9:45, and promptly passed out!
So yeah, that's the story. We're off to Shinjuku and Ikebukuro today! Thanks for reading, I'm outta here.