Peter's Japan blog

Hello again. Back in the same internet cafe on the 7th floor of the HMV in hectic Shibuya. I just bumped my head here in the chat booth, so my mood is down... And I am now tired again, as I seem to not be recovered yet from that jetlag...
Anyway, today was Akihabara day. I woke up at 9, and got up at 10h. By 11h I was underway to the train station to go to Akihabara; I did a little walk, to not have to take a second metro for just 1 station. Because of this, I came across a amusement park with a rollercoaster. After I walked a bit further it became clear to me that this was the amusement park next to the Tokyo Dome. It's only 5 minutes from the hotel. Now I have arrived at Akihabara station. I'm starting the whole tour from a guide I found on the internet. Which has been really handy. There really are about 10 big 5-to-7-story high building which house nothing but manga, anime, anime games, gatchapon figures (these are small figures), figurines (these are the bigger figures, 20-30cm), anime music cds, hobby/model kits, dolls, clothing for dolls. And all of these types (except the cds) are also to be found in doujinshi (read independent ecchi/hentai), even the figurines. Unfortunatly these bigger figurinesd are too big to bring home, because they won't fit. And I've seen quite a few nice ones, of which some of them I haven't found on the internet yet. But here you can see them in person, which makes a difference. There are even people photographing them (so I took some picture too).
There are even model kits to build some of some mecha robots on human size scale, and entire sections with paint, brushes, glue and everything you need for building model kits. Also cosplay shops with costumes from many anime & game characters, including bright coloured wigs for anime hair. Also many anime merchandise, like t-shirts, art books, magazines, mouse mats, hugging pillows, 2 meter long pillows with a character on it (something to hug in bed, i guess ;p), calendars (I havent seen many of them though..), necklaces that appear in the animes themselves. And always there's anime music being played, or several tvs with animes on it. Of which a few I've watched or am watching.
There's only 1 problem, every thing is in japanese without english subtitles... No american releases whatsoever. So all the dvds are without subtitles, the manga books & games are in japanese. So i'm limited to what I can buy. Merchandise, figurines, gatchapon & music cds are about the only things I can buy, but the figurines are too big.
It became 14h and got hungry so I looked around for that maid cafe, but did not find it, so I went to a small curry rice restaurant. There were about 7 different dishes, all in 3 type (little hot, hot, very hot). I took the little hot, and I foud it actually more like hot, than little hot. Imagine what the very hot would be like... After that, I got on with my tour, and by 16h, I was finished doing them all.
Everywhere there are people screaming things, handing out flyers/pack of tissues. These people dressed with a jacket of the store, or as a maid in case of maid cafes. The store people, sometimes even have microphones, so you can hear them from across the street (and Chuo Dori has about 6 lanes, so it's quite wide. And on Sunday there are no cars there.)