Japan Day 7

Oh man, was I excited for today. As a giant nerd who’s always loved anime, manga, and video games, exploring Akihabara, the electronic entertainment district of Tokyo, had always been a dream of mine. Despite being exhausted from the previous day, my excitement kept me awake in bed around 6:00 a.m. With a full day of walking ahead, I needed to relax a little before starting my day. I tried the provided slippers but soon realized my size 13 feet weren’t going to fit. So I grabbed my own sandals and made my way to the third floor, where the men’s bath was located.

The bath’s quality and cleanliness pleasantly surprised me. Though I’m not shy about disrobing in locker rooms, sitting on a stool to wash in a shared space was a first for me. Since it was so early, I had the entire bath to myself, which helped ease my tension. I noticed the buoyancy of the bath’s water; I had to exert effort to keep my arms submerged. The bath had an open window with hanging plants, creating a calming ambiance, and the cool breeze along with the hot bath was extremely relaxing. Although I planned to soak for about 40 minutes, after 20 minutes, I got quite warm and decided it was best to get out.

Back in my room, I debated whether to bring my camera with me, knowing I’d be in crowded stores and wanted to grab a handful of souvenirs. Since the day was more about the experience than sightseeing, I opted to leave the camera behind and set off for Akihabara at around 7 a.m.

Akihabara, or “Akiba,” was only two train stops from my hotel, so travel was quick. Stepping out of the metro station, I was greeted by a giant “Welcome to Akihabara” sign. This was a “key memory” moment for me—I had been dreaming of this trip for a decade, and now I was finally standing there, ready to explore.

As I walked around, I quickly realized that nothing was open. It was a weekend, but most shops didn’t open until 9 a.m. or even later. I did notice lines forming in a few key spots, including a large line outside Yodobashi, a huge department store. I had no idea why people were lining up over an hour before opening. I grabbed breakfast at a small shop—some hotdog-like sausage rolls that were delicious.

Since I had some time before the shops opened, I returned to the hotel to do some laundry. The laundry room was very compact, with two stacked units for washing and drying, and it was surprisingly affordable—only 300 yen to wash and dry a load. Waiting for my laundry was a bit awkward, as this floor was also where the women’s bath was located and the door was right next to the entrance. This resulted in a steady stream of women in robes walking by. I didn’t want to cause any discomfort, so I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible.

With my laundry out of the way, I was ready to explore Akihabara (“Akiba”) again. My first stop was Super Potato, a shop my friend Shuri had mentioned the previous night. Without his tip, I would have missed it entirely. The shop’s entrance was inconspicuous, and finding it required walking up a couple of sets of narrow stairs. Once inside, I was transported back to the 90s! The store was crammed with retro video games and merchandise from the 80s and 90s. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked with game cartridges, consoles, and memorabilia. As a kid, I spent countless hours playing classic Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs), and here I was, seeing them in their original form, in their native language.

I wanted to pick up a few of my favorite games on loose cartridges, but when I checked the prices, I was pleasantly surprised. Despite being a specialty shop, the prices were incredibly reasonable. I was expecting to find collector’s items priced through the roof, but that wasn’t the case. It took a lot of self-control, but I ended up with only a modest stack of classic Super Nintendo games. I walked out of Super Potato feeling like I had scored a major haul and was ready to dive deeper into the heart of Akiba.

From there I just wandered the district letting myself be drawn into shops that caught my eye. Something I didn’t know about was the second hand market for vinyl statues. I’ve never been a huge collector of statues, but I have a dozen or so that I thought were interesting, part of that was just knowing that once their novelty wore off they would end up in storage or a landfill. That doesn’t seem to be a problem in Japan. A number of shops I walked through offered both new and used statues for sale, many of them at a heavily discounted rate. I found a Rei Ayanami statue from the newer Evangelion movies for 20,000 yen and added it to my haul.

My curiosity about the lines I saw forming early got the better of me and I made my way to Yodobashi to see what had people lining up so early. My experience with department stores in Japan had already been overwhelming, but I was again amazed by this one. Yodobashi didn’t feel like the well organized department store by the Sky Tree, instead it was organized chaos. Each floor blasted you with signs about the goods being sold on that level. I made my way up floor by floor checking out things like computer parts and home appliances. I can see the allure of living close to a shopping center like this that has everything you could imagine. One goal for Yodobashi was to find some souvenirs for my kids back home. They had all chosen a Pokemon plush they wanted me to find. I had already secured a Growlith, and I just needed a Bulbasaur and Pikachu (original 151 are still the best and my kids agree). I was able to make short work of that and I purchased a paper craft for myself.

One of the floors was filled with manga, statues, and posters. The sheer amount of media was overwhelming and I found myself wandering up and down the aisles pulling random books off the shelf and wishing I could read more than a few words of Japanese. Unbeknownst to me, the aisle were laid out in a very specific order and I had let myself wander one aisle too far and was promptly surrounded by copious amounts of hentai. The “18+” sticker on the floor wasn’t very noticeable and had eluded my attention. I was shocked to see how specific the genres were—demon bat girls, boy-love vampires, or anything else you could think of was categorized with shelf labels. This was a big culture shock for me, especially since the adult content was in otherwise all-ages stores. In fact many of the shops that I visited throughout the day had adult sections in them, though many of those were clearly marked and not as easy to stumble into.

The colorful advertisements and shops began to overwhelm me, so I decided to head out of the core of Akihabara and have lunch at the Final Fantasy Eorzea Cafe. While I’m a fan of Final Fantasy, I was only vaguely familiar with FF14, but the restaurant’s decor was impressive, even if the food was average.

After lunch, I went back to the hotel to drop off my haul and figure out what to do next. Even though I’d already done so much, there was still plenty of the day left. I decided to head to Shibuya Crossing, one of the busiest intersections in the world, averaging 2.4 million people crossing each day. It was chaos, but surprisingly coordinated, with people crossing in all directions, yet everything flowed seamlessly. When the do not cross light illuminated the intersection would clear of people and auto traffic started immediately.

I explored some shops around Shibuya Crossing but didn’t find anything else I really wanted or thought I could fit into my luggage on the way home. On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at Nakau for a quick dinner. It was fast, tasty, and inexpensive. I enjoyed people-watching while sipping on some green tea.

Later that night, I decided to check out Akihabara’s nightlife. Clubs aren’t really my thing, but I found Game Panik, a 9-floor arcade with 2 floors dedicated to rhythm games. Back in high school, rhythm gaming was a big deal at our local arcade in Garden City, with classics like Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Freaks, and DrumMania. We even had a IIDX machine which was one of the few available in the US and the only one in the Midwest. Standing in this arcade, surrounded by the latest editions of those games, felt like a dream come true.

The arcade had a simple but effective queue system—if you wanted to play, you sat on a bench and waited your turn. I stepped up to a IIDX machine and realized I was pretty rusty, but it was fun anyway. Watching other skilled players was a blast, and it brought back memories of playing these games as a kid.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted but happy. I had checked off so many things from my Tokyo bucket list and still had another full day to explore. I didn’t know it at the time, but tomorrow would be one of the most incredible experiences of my life.