Tokyo - Oedo Flea Market and Akihabara

In our planning for Tokyo, we got super lucky in our timing--the Oedo Flea Market (which only occurs twice a month) was in session. Surprisingly, I only bought some cloth--and not a passel-load of kimono and other assorted tsotchkes. I thought it was somewhat prudent after my pottery spree--little did I know what was yet to come.

It was GINORMOUS

After spending an hour and a half exploring all of the stalls, we descended down to the depths of the subway and headed to our new destination--Akihabara.

Akihabara is well-known for its geekery--both anime and electronic. I like to consider myself not really anime-obsessed (though I was in my youth), but interested--but my backgrounds showed because we went to a ton of different anime shops today.

First thing we see? A gigantic screen showing various anime scenes/commercials

Our first stop was the Gundam Cafe, named after a popular anime franchise that Keifer is especially fond of. We waited around half an hour in the drizzle before we were allowed in. The food was shaped in popular characters/logos' shapes, but since I have never watched Gundam, I was more than a little clueless.

After Gundam Cafe, we wandered down the square where we entered our first anime shop. I poked around --there was nothing too interesting within my price range (a.k.a. cheap) that I needed to buy. After leaving the shop, we got swept by a crowd into a video game demonstration thing in which I was assaulted not once, but twice!, by free stuff people, culminating in a ton of advertisements, free demo cds, and two packs of Magic: the Gathering cards.

After escaping, we made our way towards my doom--a five story anime shop--complete with a "used toy store." Of course "used" means "looks like new but is so much cheaper"--and I found a catbus toy (from the Ghibli movie My Neighbor Totoro, so of course I was doomed!).

The Totoro pops out!

Meet my newest friend--"Do Not Want/PANIC" Cat. He will be my faithful friend and companion over the course of the midterms that I am not studying for because I'm in Tokyo

I found some pretty great deals and then, as we headed out again, I got seduced by the tinkling sounds and fairy lights of a nearby arcade. Before I knew it, fifteen minutes and over ¥1,000 had left me--all I had in return were three plush cats, two keychains, and a cute coin purse.

This claw machine had chocolate!

Another big thing in Akihabara are maid cafes where you are served by women dressed as maids (and sometimes cat maids or bunny maids) and treated like a rich person. These vary from respectable to slightly more than skeevey 

Fleeing the money-eating arcade and its claw machines, we took refuge in a kaitenzushi restaurant. We refueled on delicious and beautiful things such as fatty tuna, baby cuttlefish, and squid, to name a few. SO. DELICIOUS.

Baby cuttlefish!

They're staring at you...

After that we wandered through some more stores and admired the night lights.

Then we headed home though the subway, where I saw a familiar face--Auntie Anne’s! Oh man, I did not realize how much I missed pretzels before now. Man, oh man, was it good.

One weird thing of many spotted--a capsule machine of fake taxidermy animal heads that are keychains!

On the way back from the station I took a few more pictures (and Paulina photobombed a ton of them -.-).

As for my final thoughts--today was fun, even if I spent a little more than I expected to. Tomorrow we're heading off to the world's largest fish market for breakfast and then getting a tour of the Tokyo Imperial Palace and quite possibly going to a shrine as well--you can never expect everything tomorrow will bring!