秋葉原へ！
So, today I went out to meet up with leuzugaa (et al.) and buy myself a 電子辞書. Yeah, really - no other motive for going to Akihabara at all ^^;;.
According to google it only takes 20min to get to Akihabara station from the nearest JP station to here. I think I took about 30 since I messed up. Got on the train from Waseda and thankfully I had looked up the route before so I just hopped off at the one that said 山手線. Turned out I still got there early, but they had all taken the subway and so we were at different stations. Oh well, I was on the train with ハルヒ·すずみや, complete with SOS団 armband. Sadly, SOS団 is how I remember the kanji for 団. And they had a Wii commercial on the train - they look just like the American ones but with Japanese in them and no English.
So after waiting around for a while I decided I'd just walk around and hope that I ran into them. I mean, the place looks fairly small on the map, right?
Anyway, found myself a lan cable (harder than you'd think) and a 電子辞書 like a good computer nerd and went up and talked to the guy in the Dell shop about getting a new battery for my laptop since this one is fading and never really lasted too long in the first place. He tried to sell me a whole new laptop, which I would have loved to buy, but I also kinda like eating. In the end, I wound up with the phone number for Dell Japan (toll free, w00t), which I probably won't ever use.
So after going back and running through the station again just in case they came back, I went walking around and found the more famous part of akiba. I went into one anime shop and looked around for a while before I realized that I really have watched most of what I want to see and can torrent the rest. I'm such a bad capitalist. But I did buy a completely worthless little Zelda figure ball thing. And I got Link. ^_^ Twilight Princess Link, not bishi-Link. Well...not über-bishi-Link, anyway.
The police had the next street blocked off (like 4 lanes in either direction) and people were everywhere. I almost walked completely past this one shop before I heard the Zelda theme song playing in all its 8-bit glory. Turns out they only sell "retro" video games (Yeah, you'd think the name レトロゲーム would give that away, but I didn't see the sign). I kinda looked through the titles for a while until I spotted not one, not two, but 8 copies of Chrono Trigger. For 780円 each! I asked the guy whether or not スーパーファミコン games work in the SNES and he said to ask another gaijin. So I did. I just got to the end of the big Otaku Mecca area and turned around to go look at the other side of the street and then I ran into leuzugaa and friends out in the middle of the street. We both wound up with a game ^_^. And she let me hold her wii while she got out an umbrella. You've lived in California too long, you wimp. :P
So we walked around for an hour or so and then went back to the music shop to meet up with her friends. They have the single for Gurren Lagann so ヨーコ and シ>モン were standing out in front of the store handing out stuff. I got pictures with them. ^_^ Didn't buy the CD. ^^;;
Cosplay rundown:
The only Naruto headbands I saw were still wrapped in plastic. Yay!
And a bunch of the little kids I saw around today had little cardboard Pikachu hats on - they all looked like little pokèmans. Japanese kids are awesome.
According to google it only takes 20min to get to Akihabara station from the nearest JP station to here. I think I took about 30 since I messed up. Got on the train from Waseda and thankfully I had looked up the route before so I just hopped off at the one that said 山手線. Turned out I still got there early, but they had all taken the subway and so we were at different stations. Oh well, I was on the train with ハルヒ·すずみや, complete with SOS団 armband. Sadly, SOS団 is how I remember the kanji for 団. And they had a Wii commercial on the train - they look just like the American ones but with Japanese in them and no English.
So after waiting around for a while I decided I'd just walk around and hope that I ran into them. I mean, the place looks fairly small on the map, right?
Anyway, found myself a lan cable (harder than you'd think) and a 電子辞書 like a good computer nerd and went up and talked to the guy in the Dell shop about getting a new battery for my laptop since this one is fading and never really lasted too long in the first place. He tried to sell me a whole new laptop, which I would have loved to buy, but I also kinda like eating. In the end, I wound up with the phone number for Dell Japan (toll free, w00t), which I probably won't ever use.
So after going back and running through the station again just in case they came back, I went walking around and found the more famous part of akiba. I went into one anime shop and looked around for a while before I realized that I really have watched most of what I want to see and can torrent the rest. I'm such a bad capitalist. But I did buy a completely worthless little Zelda figure ball thing. And I got Link. ^_^ Twilight Princess Link, not bishi-Link. Well...not über-bishi-Link, anyway.
The police had the next street blocked off (like 4 lanes in either direction) and people were everywhere. I almost walked completely past this one shop before I heard the Zelda theme song playing in all its 8-bit glory. Turns out they only sell "retro" video games (Yeah, you'd think the name レトロゲーム would give that away, but I didn't see the sign). I kinda looked through the titles for a while until I spotted not one, not two, but 8 copies of Chrono Trigger. For 780円 each! I asked the guy whether or not スーパーファミコン games work in the SNES and he said to ask another gaijin. So I did. I just got to the end of the big Otaku Mecca area and turned around to go look at the other side of the street and then I ran into leuzugaa and friends out in the middle of the street. We both wound up with a game ^_^. And she let me hold her wii while she got out an umbrella. You've lived in California too long, you wimp. :P
So we walked around for an hour or so and then went back to the music shop to meet up with her friends. They have the single for Gurren Lagann so ヨーコ and シ>モン were standing out in front of the store handing out stuff. I got pictures with them. ^_^ Didn't buy the CD. ^^;;
Cosplay rundown:
- Maids (well, duh - they work for the Maid Cafés)
- Nekomimi (actually, they were cross-play)
- Sailor Fuku (thank god no fat guys)
- Gurren Lagann (Yoko and Simon)
- Suzumiya Haruhi
- some random guy with a lightsaber (I really just don't know which series)
The only Naruto headbands I saw were still wrapped in plastic. Yay!
And a bunch of the little kids I saw around today had little cardboard Pikachu hats on - they all looked like little pokèmans. Japanese kids are awesome.