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Published: September 5th 2006
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Home of Mario
Home of every Mario game ever made...and all the other Nintendo games too!! Our last full day in Tokyo and we have saved our most anticipated district for last. Akihabara is Tokyo's electronic district, where you can find anything and everything and even more for cheap low prices. Models of cameras that aren't even released yet in North America, discounted computers, video games galore, and dvd after dvd after dvd. One of the first stores we went into had my camera, the new one I just bought before we left, for almost half the price I paid! Dev's eye's were the size of saucers and he had this "kid in a candy store" look on his face the entire afternoon. The highlight was the Nintendo store (www.superpotato.com I have no idea what the potato has to do with anything!) which was 2 floors and carried every single Nintendo game ever produced. And remember, there are about a million games in Japan which we never see in North America. They even sold all the original consoles.
On the 7th floor of one building we were thrown for a loop. The lower levels were electronics, then we started getting into models, model planes, model cars, then model trains (Dad you would have been in Heaven)...now
Akihabara
It was like we died and went to electronic heaven! for the final floor...GUNS. Yes GUNS. And we are pretty sure they were all real guns too (one of the handguns in the case looked like it had bullets in it!). There was this creepy hardcore evil music playing and the tv screens were showing military style videos, and it was glass case upon glass case of guns and more guns. Handguns, machine guns, rifles, every kind of gun I think they manufacture. It was so strange. And they weren't expensive either, maybe $300 for a big assault type rifle!! Near the back of the store they had clothing, camoflauge outfits and black police wear, and patches that said S.W.A.T. and Police on them. There was even a red flag with a swastika on it (and yes, it was facing the right way so it definitely was a swastika). We definitely felt lost in traslation. Is this a huge trend here? Where do people use these guns?
If we weren't poor backpackers on a budget you can believe that we would have gone on a crazy spending spree. I have never seen such amazing computers for such low prices. Dev was drooling over some fancy processer chip and a
Superpotato?
What does a potato have to do with Super Mario?! 500 gig harddrive that we don't have yet in Canada.
Dinner was at a small Japanese style diner. There was a long counter that wrapped around and you take a seat at the counter and order your meal. This was the first time I have ever ordered something by just pointing to a picture and having no idea what it was. It looked like meat, it looked good, it was CHEAP, what do I have to lose?! And damn was it good. And quick!! After you order your food takes no longer than 7-8 minutes to come out to you, sometimes it's almost instant! There was a local seated across from us who could not stop staring at us. He showed us how to hold our bowls like real Japanese, and which sauces to put on top. Mine turned out to be pork (?) with rice and veggies and a delicious sauce. Dev's was similar but maybe chicken (?) with a different kind of sauce. Eating the local cuisine at small places like this is definitely the cheapest way to go. Dinner for the both of us, and the bowls were huge, was under $10!
Walking back to
Ultraman!!
This seems to be Dev's hero...I have no idea who Ultraman is, but he screamed and ran to it when he saw it. the Guesthouse there is a park area that runs next to the river, and we spotted a man with his dog...a CORGI!! We had to stop and ask him if we could take a pic. He was setting up a little obstacle course for the dog to run. We explained that we too had a corgi, and that his name was Ziggy. He laughed at the name and told us his dogs name was Dai-jiro. Cute. He then put the dog in my arms and took a pic of us together. What a cute little dog, and he acted just like Zigg.
Tokyo was awesome and it was a fun first stop on our whirlwind tour. Next up is Kyoto (little known fact, Kyoto is Tokyo with the letters rearranged...haha) which is a little more traditional than modern Tokyo. Lots of temples, and hopefully we will spot a few Geisha.
Until next time (which I'm sure will be tomorrow...we lucked out and have an internet connection in our room, might as well take advantage of it while it lasts!!)
xoxoxoxo
PS-Here are a couple links to some videos we took. We can't seem to get them
He's Cute!
This guy is everywhere, he must be a famous Japanese cartoon character. to work on this website, so we posted them on Google Video. Follow the links and you should have no trouble viewing them. Enjoy!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-402385040136165168
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5417115703646151087
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Martin
non-member comment
Ultraman!!
Nice work on finding ultraman :) I am glad to see you are having a good time in Japan, I wish I could have been there for the electronics outting you went on today. I would have loved it. Keep the blog entries coming and take more pic's if you can. Later Martin