Summer Trip Part 6: Asakusa and Akihabara

(continued from part 5)

We arrived in Narita Airport pretty late at night. We took one of the last few trains into Tokyo proper, and immediately went to our hotel to go to bed.

The next morning, we took an obligatory trip to Sensouji Temple in Asakusa to see the kaminarimon "Lightning Gate" because Kristin hadn't been there yet. All around the place were rickshaw pullers asking people if they wanted a ride. I later found out that the word "rickshaw" actually has Japanese origins, and the original word is jinrikisha, or "man-powered cart".

Anyways, we made our way through the temple complex and around the shops surrounding it, looking at stores selling goods that were CLEARLY overpriced tourist traps. We ate some menchi-katsu, which is like a deep-fried meat patty, before heading to our main destination:

Akihabara! The last time I went to Akiba was during winter break, so it was great to back during summer. I brought Kristin with me so she could see it for the first time. We spent a few hours wandering around the street, patronizing anime and game shops, snatching up anime character plushies and figures, and looking for used Nintendo DS games.

We passed a group of white adolescent boys intensely discussing whether or not they could sneak into the 20+ adults section of a store just because one of the kids is abnormally big for his age. Of course, even when you're not in the 20+ section of stores, there's still plenty of scandalous stuff scattered all about, like these boobie cushion mouse pads:

Using these must be very stimulating...

This time, since Kristin was with me, we decided to try something that is hard to find anywhere else: a maid cafe. I'd be much too shy to go by myself, and I wasn't able to go when Kevin and Wesley came to visit Japan, so this was my only chance! There were maids all over the place handing out flyers in the streets, so after wandering about looking at the different options (there are many different companies and themes), we settled for the largest and most prominent one: MaiDreaming.

A maid ushered us into a small elevator, and as she spoke on her walkie-talkie, she started every communication with "moe moe". I couldn't help but giggle a little bit, which made her giggle awkwardly too. As we got to the floor, we walked into a heavily decorated room with basic dining furniture and a small makeshift stage. Even when decorated, it's still apparent that the location is just your basic small office space in Tokyo, but whatever. I was there for the maids, and they were all ridiculously cute and spoke a decent amount of English. I guess that makes sense, since they have a lot of tourist patronage.

The prices aren't that bad at all. Food costs about the same as your normal tourist trap spots ($10-20 for an entree), but they tend to snare you by showing you only the package deals and not providing an a-la-cart menu. A meal for the two of us ended up being just under $60, mostly because of the drinks, dessert, and souvenirs we got in the packages. I'm sure if you told them you didn't want a drink or extras, the prices would be much better.

Yummy omuraisu with my name on it! Kya~~

Bunny ice-cream sundae.

Souvenirs

The coveted and rather expensive picture with the maids!

The omuraisu tasted better than average, and the fact that it had my name written on it by a cute girl somehow made is tastier. The maids also do a magic routine to "make the food more delicious", and they have customers participate in the silly ritual too. Near the end of the meal, there was a concert of sorts, where the maids danced and sang along with some recorded music. It was all pretty standard, until some of the maids started headbanging pretty hardcore for no apparent reason, which cracked me up. My only real complaint was that they served the ice cream sundae (they call it a parfait in this country) in a glass that wasn't chilled, so it melted within minutes. Sad, melty bunny...

After lunch and a bit more shopping in Akiba, we headed to Ueno to wait for our night bus back to Aomori. We killed time by walking through Ueno park and renting a rowboat to lounge on in the small lake.

Captain Honeybunny on deck!

After an hour of that and a few more hours of wandering and trying various foods around the station, it was time to put an end to a good vacation. Thanks for reading all the way through, and see you next time!