Quick breakfast

After a good long sleep we took a late “morning” down to a close-by Katsuan for some fried brunch and rice.

It was very nice actually, and just look at these towers of cabbage!

Buying statues in Akihabara

This place is lit up very nicely when dark.

The next (and final for today) stop was Akihabara, (also known as Electric town, and sometimes shortened to Akiba which is a fire controlling diety?? The story goes deep apparently), the tech and anime heaven of Tokyo. I could spend days if not weeks exploring this one area, and today a part of the group walked around a little bit to explore and buy some figurines.

Since we have a massive Monster Hunter fan in our midst, and I happened to remember a store with a bunch of monster hunter dragon figurines from new-years, we headed there first to look at all the figurines. Whilst exploring that I looked around a bit, and found a FFXIV part of the store! There weren’t all that many things there, but enough to make me consider buying stuff xD. I would love to have one of those little acrylic statuettes or stands or whatever, but it just seems like something that’ll catch tonnes of dust on my shelves. I’ll probably end up getting something at some point during this trip, but I managed to keep myself in control this time.

Heading out of the store I also found the box and the rule book for the FFXIV TTRPG, which I’ve been wanting to play for a good while. A friend reached out some time ago asking if I had a group he could dm in it, so if you’re interested in trying it out, send me a message (damn, didn’t think I would plug tabletop groups on my blog, but hey, everything once or something like that). Of course it’s all in Japanese here though so I can’t read it anyways.

So big, so Japanese…

Tech stuff

This is absolutely insane, it’s so adorable!

Walking around and finding gatcha machines was the next step of the day, and I found this adorable tech gatchapon, which is some sort of play computer rack equipment. Having now gotten to play around with and use proper rack equipment seeing this made me laugh, it was just so cute! It’s even all based on real hardware from retailers I know and some I’ve even used myself. Clearly a lot of effort has been put into this. I didn’t end up buying one, partly because I have no clue what I’d use it for or where I’d place it, and partly because I’d rather have a real server-rack in my house than a miniature one (though having the miniature one on top might be cute….).

I thought this would be the end of the tech stuff for today, but as we were walking by a computer store on our way down the street I realise that I am getting a new laptop soon, and need new RAM for it, and then I get a genius idea; what if I buy it here? And so up I go to the fourth floor, surprisingly managing to find compatible laptop RAM for significantly better prices than anything I’ve found online so far, and buy it then and there (sorry mum, I know I should make sure to try it in the warranty period, but it should be fiiiine, and I can resell it if it doesn’t end up working for my laptop even though it’s a reputable brand). Look at all those papers, and the RAM underneath it all. When buying it I politely declined membership (even though there was a free return policy) since I was going to be leaving the country before using it anyways, but the salesperson insisted, and some rounds of translations later I had somehow become a member at this random tech store in Tokyo! This came with lots of papers, a pretty membership card, and an overall very interesting experience, but was all in all probably not the worst of ideas (although I’m probably never going to use it).

The search for Kugg

There were lots more artwork, but I only took this one photo. Before heading home we quickly went by a small store with even more FFXIV stuff, as well as a toilet which was sorely needed. Whilst waiting for the others (turns out the queue was long) I looked around the pop up Naruto / Boruto special shop / exhibit, which was a really cool experience. I didn’t quite get why it was there or what it was celebrating, but it could probably just be some summer festival thing.

Anyhow, with toilets sorted we had one single mission left; to find Kugg! (if you were’t aware, dear reader, Kugg is a character from a book my dear cousin has written, about this cute little robot who gives too much of herself to help others). When we were in Tokyo last time I ended up putting a Kugg sticker among a bunch of other ones on a giant arch here in Akiba, and so obviously we had to go back and see if it was still there!

AAAnnd, to our horror it has been removed!! Some of the stickers nearby were still there, so when we referenced the old pictures we knew we’d found the right spot. I unfortunately didn’t have any spares on me, so replacing it (somewhere else probably) will have to wait until I eventually come back here again some other time.

How could they remove Kugg?!?!?!

Sushi time

Finally we went and got food at an old conveyor belt sushi place on our way home. It was really an experience since they didn’t have any tablets to order from, and I somehow managed to miss the drinks menu, so we experimented a bit with the make it yourself green tea, before finally finding the courage to ask for drinks, and eventually the server pointed it out to us and we could finally order what they have. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures (otherwise I would’ve) but honestly I think that added to the charm of it a lot. The most exciting thing to happen there (apart from the not figuring out how to order food) was getting to try real wasabi (it was spicy spicy and you certainly did not need a lot), and then spotting octopus sushi. I really wanted to give it a try, but I didn’t have courage left to try in the end (and also the plates were racking up rather quickly). All in all it was a pleasant experience, and after a short walk and then a train / mono rail / whatever that specific version of rail travel was called, we found ourselves at home, and went to bed!

(Or well, almost. We booked an experience called TeamLab for tomorrow, which I’m really looking forwards to, and then I wrote all of this ofc).

Writing this still takes a good while, but it’s a lot quicker and easier now that I can handle the images more properly, which means a higher likelihood of actually being able to keep up with this on time!

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