Aug 13, Monday Tokyo

First on out list today is Asakusa Temple. HY instant messaged Day to meet us at the Edo Cultural Museum at 1pm. In the end, he didn’t come because he saw the message a bit too late. It has been seven weeks, we have survived without a handphone for seven weeks. Imagine that! And all everyone can do is say to meet at a certain time and corss fingers and wait for the others to come.

Asakusa Temple has a street lined with shops to cheat tourists’ money. It was stuffy there coz they had tent over the walkway between the shope.

I decided to get a fortune telling thingy from the temple. I’ve never tried doing it in Japan. But the results was a bad one. I think I asked about my on campus accomodation. Holy cow! It’s damn true! I have no luck even with the waitlist, but D’s kindly taken me in.

I wanted to bring the paper home as a souvenir but HY insisted that I tie it at the temple, like one should when getting a bad reading. My stubborness didn’t win, so the least I can do is take a photo of it being tied nicely.

The temple was ok ok. Then it was time to go to the museum.

Took this photo of 24 hour TV on train.

Edo museum is a fun place. They had performances when we were there. Kyoto Cultural Museum is crap, even withour comparing it to Edo museum. DO NOT GO TO KYOTO CULTURAL MUSEUM. waste of money

Child birth

Then we went to Tokyo University. The top university of Japan. We decided to lunch around the area because in theory, there will be lots of cheap places to eat.

Not *that* much cheap eating places, but we went to a Yoshinoya-like place and got set meals. Usually, only men go to places like this. But we’re tourists! Forgive us!

I cracked my raw egg into my rice. heh heh heh

Tokyo University’s famous red gates.

There was no big sign saying “TOKYO UNIVERSITY” so we took a photo with the Opening Hours sign instead, at least it has the kanji on it.

The campus had lovely western buildings.Remember the creepy buildings in Kyushu U, there is not one creepy haunted looking building here. We sneaked in one of the buildings, not that furnished, but it looked like they were using Macs. Rich kids!

Next stop! Akihabara for the maid cafes. We went to the bus stop and then realised it was the Bon festival and there might be no buses. The sign said that the bus to Akihabara follows the holiday schedule, I misunderstood it as being off duty so I thought we could take the subway.

While we were walking to the subway, I saw the bus! we went back the the bus stop we came from

Akihabara, the place where legends are made. we saw plenty of otaku stereotype in Akihabara, no photos here though. They wear checkered shirts, stuffed into their pants and have backpacks.

Lots of machines to turn toys. I got a Maple Story Ribbon Pig. Yipee!

The thing not to be missed in Akihabara is the Maid Cafe. We followed the direction of the cafe recommened by the travel guide book, we found the place but it has closed down.

So we had to turn back to the shop that had a queue until the exterior of the building.

The place only has one small lift. to go, you need to wait at the lifts
to get up. Then when you’re up, you still need to queue to get in. The
queue reached the lower level of the fire excape. But we waited anyway.

We tried to peek in while waiting. The girls are really cute with their pouffy maid outfits, seriously better quality then the flat maid outfits you see people cosplay in.

We waited and waited Finally! it was our turn, to our disappointment, a butler came out for us. What the hell! He wasn’t even cute!!!! SHOO! He asked if we only spoke English and went back in. I don’t want to be served by an un-cute guy. sob, i won’t pay!

Then we could go in. The minute we stepped in a loud chorus of “okaerinasai, ojyosama!” (meaning, welcome home, young mistresses [opposed to masters]) rang out. I was too embarassed to look at the maids there. paiseh!

We were seated by a glasses wearing girl. She said she’s Fuki and she speaks some English. So cute! Oh, by the way, the glasses part is deliberate, because some people prefer megane-kei (glasses type). I’m a glasses fan too, ha ha.

She told us about the rules, 500 yen for sitting for one hour. Then everyone must get at least one item. You can play games with a maid (500 yen) or take a photo WITH a maid (500 yen per person)

Now’s the funny part, if you order a drink that can be shaked, the maid will sing a song and shake it for you. If you order an omelette, the maid will write on your omelette with ketchup. okaaay…

So we got two drinks and two ice cream to split. Then we people watched. There were guys coming alone, looking very otaku. And guys who look like otakus that went for a make over but was still otaku-ish. Then there were two other girls who were queueing behind us.

When our food came, we had to infuse the drink/ ice cream with power, by doing some embarassing rhyme “moe moe kyuu”. yikes! I’ll never do it again!

We concluded that our waitress was the real cute among all the other faker cutes. Around the end, I asked to take a photo with Fuki. Souvenir! Voila

Then off we went to the train station to go to Odaiba. Found this poster of a Japanese maid cafe, the maids were traditional clothings instead of the french maid ones. I think the french maid costumes are more authentic.

Poster (same branch as the one we went to “@home cafe”)

Maid giving out tissues, deliberate face covering when she saw me taking photos

More maids

Odaiba is an island where there’s shopping malls, a TV station and all the other stuff. It’s famous for its Rainbow Bridge, being featured in several (old) dramas (that I had not watched). Dramas these sayd have the blue bridge instaed, where is it?

The monorail connecting Shinbashi to Odaiba is v v v expensive. One ride was 360 yen. Hell.

Even more helly was when we got to Fuji TV, it was bleeping closed. Then I found out it closeses early these few months. Why didn’t I check online?

Nevermind, we went up to the free 25th floor instead. at least there were posters there.

Some old man wearing an apron. He’s not real

It was really dark by the time we were done. There wasn’t time to go Ginza so we headed to AQUA city, the mall opposite Fuji TV. It turned out to be a great place.

There was a COACH shop

smaller statue of liberty

very cute toys

DAISO

Blueberry Mc Flurry

We had ramen for dinner in the end. This is the black soy sauce Tokyo ramen. I really prefer Hakata ramen, with it’s oily porky soup. Fukuoka, I shall return one day!

When we finished dinner, I asked if we could go to the JUMP shop. I didn’t realize how big it was. But when I saw it from the 2nd floor, I had to run down.