The Wonders of Akihabara

We've just gotten back to our hotel from Akihabara - The Electric City... and it fulfilled all of the bright lights, big city expectations I (Fawn) had for Tokyo. It was clearly Ed heaven. In fact, as I write this Ed is rummaging through the days treasures for all of the anime wonders he picked up. We spent loads of money on arcades, poured over a bunch of used video games, and climbed stairway after stairway to multiple floors of nothing but toys.

We started our day once again by getting on the Japan Rail. An aside here... the public transportation here is phenomenal. The sheer number of rail lines that come together in one station is overwhelming. Trying to understand the maps is a little scary, but once you figure out the main lines it's fairly simple to get around... and everyone is SOOOO polite! It's really very nice and too bad the US can't develop their transportation systems more like this. I might never drive again if this was available to me.

Anyway... as soon as we exited the rail station in Akihabara, Ed saw it... Club Sega. Six stories of arcade games made by Sega, Ed's all-time favorite video game developer. Unlike Sega Joypolis (where we were yesterday) Club Sega actually had Sonic stuff, and Ed was immediately excited. Right away he started buying cards for the different games... he was very excited. It was here that he played the new Street Fighter and the Gundam pod game... although this caused him a bit of motion sickness.

We spent all afternoon going from one store to the next. Sometimes it was a game store... sometimes a toy store, and sometimes an arcade... always it was lots of fun to see Ed's excitement or help him hunt down the Yoko figure or spear girl he wanted to buy. We ate lunch at Kentucky Fried where all of the other Americans (all five of us) also stopped to eat... Ed and I are still working on our willingness to venture into more traditional Japanese restaurants. It was here we saw today's "engrish"... see adjacent photo.

As the day wore on, the sun set and the lights came on. Akihabara is really very beautiful at night. Essentially we spent our whole day traveling up and down (both vertically and horizontally) a five block stretch. We were truly overstimulated by all of the colors and stuff. Some stores just had floor after floor of toys that came from Gashapon machines (the little toys that come in plastic bubbles). After awhile your eyes just stopped focusing. Finally, just as our eyes had tired, our feet also began to tire and we returned to our hotel.

Tomorrow we're off to Shibuya where I hope to find a pair of boots bigger than a 6.5... but so far, my feet are officially giant compared to the women of Japan...