Tokyo Trip 2 : Day 12 & 13

 Tokyo trip 2

Sat 02.November - Sun.17.November.2019

DAY 12 Thursday, 14. November

We went back to Nakano Broadway, because the place is so huge that one day isn't enough. We got there quite early, so I had to wait for some of the stores to open up. All of those figures I had taken a mental note of "buy later" were gone. I wasn't surprised, it had already been a week since the last time we were here, no wonder somebody else picked them up. To be positive, I did find a lot of other figures I didn't even notice on my first visit. So there's that.

We spent so many hours here, by the time I was done, I had bought 30 items from 6 different stores! Most of them were small, Gachapon sized toys and only a few bigger ones. 

Before we left Nakano Broadway, we went down to the basement level, where there is this tiny ice cream bar. Their specialty is a cone of soft ice cream with 10 layers, all in different flavors. Ten scoops of ice cream sound a bit too much, but I still wanted to try some. So I bought a cone with four ice cream layers and picked the weirdest flavors from their menu I could think of ; latte, sweet potato, lemonade soda and matcha. Mom wanted only two scoops and played it safe with a combo of strawberry and chocolate. All the flavors I picked were okay, but I especially liked the sweet potato and soda layers! Good thing I didn't choose more four layers, even that was borderline too much. I can't imagine anyone would be capable eating the full ten layer ice cream alone or at least fast enough before it starts to melt and make a mess. That one is probably meant to be shared with more than one person.

After spending a good chunk of the day in Nakano Broadway, we returned straight to the hotel. But there were still a few hours left before the stores would be closing in Akihabara so headed out again. First, I went to Mandarake to check if the Sonic the Hedgehog and Kazuma Kiryuu figures were still there, that I saw there three days earlier. Nope, they were gone! I thought as much. Of course I was disappointed that they were gone, but relieved also. They would have costed me so much, I probably wouldn't have had the money to buy the other stuff I found later on if I had bought them (not that I knew this at the time).

I found a copy of Detroit: Become Human in their gaming section, and kind of deciding on the spot that it would be fun to hear the Japanese dub of the game. So I bought it along with a big pack of Dragonball Z cards.

Next, I went to the Radio Kaikan complex. I ended up not buying anything there, I just scoped the place out, more or less. From there I went to Akiba Culture Zone, where I roamed pretty much until closing time. Or half an hour before closing time, they did start signaling with the lights around 08.30 PM. So that was my cue to get out of there. I didn't find much, but something at least.

Walking back to the hotel I remembered, I had nothing ready to eat for breakfast for tomorrow. So I made a quick stop by a Seven/Eleven before returning to the hotel. 

DAY 13 Friday, 15. November

So this was our last full day in Tokyo. We hadn't planned anything special, so we took the train to Shibuya. Since we saw the real Hachiko in the museum, we thought we should come see the famous statue once again. This time, we didn't get lost and found the Hachiko exit right away. The statue didn't have a red ribbon around it, like the first time we saw it. There seemed to be even more people around this time, there was people waiting in an actual line to get to the statue.

As we watched the people come and go around Hachiko we were approached by a guy holding a note that explained he supposedly was collecting donations for an animal shelter. I gave him some yen to get rid of him faster, I hope I actually went to an animal shelter and wasn't just a hoax, like the ones I always run into whenever I go to Helsinki.

There was noticeaby a lot more foreigner around  in Shibuya compared to other places we'd been so far. We were walking to the Don Quijote store,  when I actually recognized someone passing down the street. It was PaolofromTokyo, the YouTuber who's videos I had been watching prior to our first trip to Tokyo. He makes very helpful  travel guide videos and I watched so many of them. 

Once we finally found the Don Quijote store, we saw him again. That was one of those moments when I wish I had the courage to talk to a stranger. "Hey, I've watched your videos, they are really helpful" something simple like that. But nah, then that feeling gets overturned by thoughts like "I don't want to disturb their day..."

Anyway, inside Don Quijote they had a pretty close replica of the Hachiko statue, only surrounded by KitKats right there on the ground floor. We didn't go through the whole store, because we had other stores to visit, but what little we saw was interesting enough. In the candy aisle they had bags of insects for sale. That bag of Tarantulas sure would be a perfect gift for any arachnophobic friend.

From Don Quijote I went to find the Shibuya Mandarake shop while mom looked for the nearest Daiso. Inside Mandarake, I found a personal jackpot of mine and I didn't even have to look for it. There they were, in the glass cabinet right next to the entrance and the cash register; some Ginga doujinshi! Finally! I've been wanting to find one for long, but I have no idea in which category I should search them for. G for Ginga?, T for Takahashi?, by the publisher?, comic or TV section? I don't know! Lucky that they were in the display cabinet, otherwise I would never have found them. Of course, there was a reason why they were locked up and that's because they were expensive. I think there was 4-5 of them in the cabinet and the most expensive one was about 5000 yen and the "cheaper" ones were about 1600 yen each. Compare that to the other doujinshi's I've bought that, on average range somewhere between 200-900 yen each.  So, I had to think about it for a minute, do I really want to spend that much on a book I don't know the contents of? Well, yes. I bought it and one of the cheaper ones I thought had the best cover. My reason being; when or where am I ever going to find something like this again? I also found a couple of Okami (the video game) comics I hadn't managed to find anywhere else. I made some great finds today, so this trip to Shibuya was well worth it!

After I left Mandarake, I met up with mom in the Can★Do 100-yen shop and from there we headed back to the train station. I saw this Hachiko themed vending machine that I didn't notice before. I chose a Coca Cola and out popped this metal bottle with a picture of the Hachiko statue, very nice.

We returned to the hotel. After a meal, I headed back out and went to Akihabara once again. I went by the Mandarake store to pick up a final batch of doujinshis I had looked at before, but regretted not buying the first time. Then I went to Radio Kaikan, to also buy something I scoped out the day earlier. Lastly, I went to the Yodobashi Camera to see their video game section I had yet to check out. I picked the wrong day to do that! It was chaos, one giant serpentine line of people through the whole floor, all queuing to get to the cash registers. I forgot that today was the launch day to both Jedi: Fallen order and Pokemon Sword and Shield games. I picked out the two items I wanted and got in line. There must have been hundreds and hundreds of people there, but it went surprisingly fast. They had like ten or more cash registers open, so it was very efficient. I waited in line for 40-50 minutes before it was my turn to pay. I must have been the only one there that bought an older game from the previous year and a walkthrough book for a four year old game. 

After I survived that, I got back to the hotel and chilled for the rest of the evening, after packing away my stuff, and watch the Japanese dub of Disney's Frozen.

to be continued....