Tokyo Trip: Day 6 & 7

Tokyo trip

Sun 18.November - Thurs.29.November.2018

DAY 6 Saturday, 24. November

This was a lazy day, we were too tired to travel anywhere else, so we "stuck close to home" so to speak. We went back to Okachimachi (the same area from day 2). This time we noticed that not too far from the station there was a Don Quijote store. A few days earlier, we did very briefly visit the Akihabara Don Quijote store, but we only saw one floor out of the total eight. The place was crowded with people, so we wanted to get out of there very quickly. It was probably a mistake to come to the store in the evening. The Okachimachi store was smaller and there weren't that many people around, but then again, we were there fairly early in the morning.  It was nice to explore the store at your leisure, without the feeling that you need to move along so that you wouldn't be blocking other people.

I had a look at all the floors, but didn't find that much to buy. I found a small gift for my friend and a Moomin figure for myself. We also bought a bag of mini Raspberry Kitkats. Japan is supposedly known for its all kinds of crazy flavored Kitkat chocolate bars. Raspberry seemed a safe choice and not too out of the ordinary. Once we got out of the store, we popped the bag of Kitkat open and had a taste. I was not disappointed, it was so good!

While we were in the area, we went to our favorite food store again and bought something for lunch and something for the evening. We got back to our hotel for a lunch break and drop off our recently bought stuff.

Later, we headed for Akihabara again and visited  4 different places. The main place I wanted to go to was the Gachapon Kaikan, where they have (supposedly) over 500 capsule machines. But on our way there we walked past a place with those big glass cabinets filled with figures. As I understand it, people can rent a cabinet to sell their unwanted collectibles and figures. I'm curious, if there's a fixed price for renting a cabinet or if the rental provider is entitled to a cut of the profit? I have no idea how this works. One Piece figures dominated this place (and all other places I happened to look by), I'd say at least 50% of the figures where One Piece characters. Good thing for me that DBZ was the next popular thing, so I had no trouble finding something I liked. I bought 4 small figures from this cabinet place. I don't know if this shop is permanent or not, but the name of the place was Volks.

From there, we continued to the Gachapon Kaikan place. I had high expectations for this place, but unfortunately, I didn't live up to my hype. I was expecting the place to have a great selection of different Gachapons, but honestly, they didn't really have anything I hadn't seen before in any other place, like the Yamashiroya toy store, any train station or any of the Sega game arcades. Or maybe I'm feeling let down just because I had absolutely rotten luck with the capsule machines. I gave one of the machines a spin that had Eeveelution charms as prizes, FOUR TIMES IN A ROW I got the same one I already had. I even tried to help my mom win a cute horse charm she laid her eyes on, but nope! I had no better luck that her. After having enough of my losing streak, I got curious about the store right next to Kaikan place. They seemed to be selling only new figures, so maybe this was some sort of outlet shop. It also looked like a pop-up setting, seeing how non decorated and barren look the store had. I had already picked up two DBZ figures when I found a three pack of figures of Ôkami (video game) characters. Ôkami was one of my favorite PS2 games, and this was the first time I have ever seen any figures of it, so of course I had to buy it. The pack was the second most expensive thing I bought on this trip, so I reluctantly put back those two Dragon Ball figures I picked up earlier (and now, I really wish I had bought them too).

The last place we went to before heading back to the hotel was Akiba Culture Zone, a 6-floor shopping complex with lots of different shops for all your otaku needs. I was only interested in seeing the figure stores, so I only saw floors 4 and 3. I left the place with nine figures out of which five were Star Wars. I remember telling myself before this trip how SW should be low on the priority list..... but I didn't know there would be so much of it! If I'd known I would never have said anything like that!

literally me in every store

DAY 7 Sunday, 25. November

The plan for today was going to the Moomin café which is located in the Tokyo Dome area. It was just a short train ride away and then a little bit of walking. It was absolutely a gorgeous day with the sun shining from a cloud free sky, so I didn't mind the walk. It came as a bit of a surprise that the surrounding area was actually an amusement park. The was no entrance fee, you only had to pay if you wanted to go on any of the rides. Naturally, we got sidetracked and just walked around the park for a while before focusing getting to the café. There was also a game arcade we walked through. I think it's fun just looking at all the different kinds of prizes you could win, if you'd play. We were almost at our destination when we walked past an ice cream parlor. Besides, the weather was perfect for an ice cream! We just had to stop and go get some! There was hardly any line I had to wait in and because the menu had pictures it was very easy to order and the cashier spoke English so everything went smoothly. I might just be imagining things, but the ball seemed a lot bigger than what you get when ordering ice cream in Finland, it came with a plastic spoon too!

Finally we were at the café! Or Bakery & Café as the actual name goes. I thought there would have been far less people as we arrived there quite early, but there was already a line outside the café. We hadn't actually planned on staying and dining at the cafe so we went to check out their bakery shop. Their business seemed to go well, there were already lots of empty baskets, but we did find something to buy, even if we weren't really sure what we were actually buying.  We both picked just something we thought looked good. I also looked at their merchandise wall with lots of different Moomin stuff. Just like in the Tokyo station Moomin shop, here they also had some Finnish Moomin mugs for sale, but none of the Japanese ones. There were all kinds of stuff for sale, every type I can think of kitchen stuff, towels, canvas bags, umbrellas,decorations, plush animals, candies and some small figures too. I picked 4 (sofubi?) figures to buy. There was also this cute charm (or necklace, however you want to use it.) of Snufkin made to look it was carved from wood (I doubt that it actually is wood, would probably be more expensive if it were). It was named "Kukusa charm" on the label. There I was, scratching my head and wondering what the heck does "kukusa" mean? Is it a type of tree or something? Then, when I noticed what was hanging next to Snufkin, a wooden cup, did I realize what the word meant and felt pretty stupid for not realizing it sooner. Kukusa was (now) obviously the Japanese spelling of the Finnish word "kuksa" which is a word used for a handmade wooden drinking cup made of birch burl. Apparently the English name for it is Guksi, I didn't know that. I had been tempted to buy one of these charms at the Tokyo station store days earlier, but I forgot about it. So I got it this time! However, my best find from here, was without a doubt the soundtrack CD for the classic 90s Moomin TV series. I freaking love it! It's now one of my favorites to listen to while driving to work. At the register, I was surprised to receive a free Christmas themed plate for free. Maybe I was just lucky if they were giving them out randomly, or maybe you had to spend an X amount of money at their shop to get the plate, I don't know. My mom didn't get a plate, but she didn't buy as much as I did. Anyway, we saved all the goodies we bought at the shop for later. We still wanted to explore the area to see what else there was before getting back to the hotel.

Around the corner was a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. On the poster outside, they were advertising Moomin themed lunch boxes you can get if you order the kid's meal (or that's what I'm assuming it said). I remember when in Finland there was a "public uproar" when McDonald's wanted to sell Moomin toys/books along with their Happy Meals. The public opinion was that Moomins doesn't belong in a fast food restaurants promoting the their unhealthy food. I can't remember the result, though, did McDonald's cancel the whole thing or did they go through with it anyway...
As the day went on, more and more people were turning up and the place was getting very lively. The big roller coaster that surrounded the area started to look really fun and tempting, but I'd rather not stand in line waiting for the ride when there was so much else to see. On the opposite side of the Moomin Café was a Forrest Gump themed restaurant! That looked like a fun place too. We only saw like half of what the park had to offer, because we didn't even venture to see the other side of the area. Nevertheless, this was one of my favorite places we visited during our stay, and it would be so much fun to return here and see the rest of it.

Right next to the KFC was also the LaQua shopping mall, we went in and spent a little time there, checking out a few of the stores. This was a very traditional mall, in the sense that this place didn't have any of the otaku stuff we've seen everyplace else we've been to. There were a lot of fashion boutiques and that kind of stuff. It is also, funny that when we arrived in Tokyo there was no Christmas stuff anywhere and then, poof, a few days later there's Christmas stuff everywhere! Or Xmas seemed to be their preferred way of spelling it.

decorations in an underpass

When it was time for us to head back to Kanda, we didn't backtrack the same way back to the station we came. We took a slightly different route to see more of the area. We came across this place with at least 50 or over, what looked like kid's swimming pools, most of them were empty, so we were wondering what the heck they were there for. We saw people swarming around one of the pools so we joined in to see what they were looking at. There was a giant Carp fish swimming in there! The further we walked by this corridor of pools, we saw a few more fishes. On some of the pools, with the inhabitants still there, there was this plastic pocket hanging from the edge of the pool with photographs that showed the pattern on the fish's back. I had to google what this was all about, and it turns up that, just yesterday there had been a Carp show! You know, just like any dog show where there are judges giving points for the animal's appearance. I never knew this was a thing too for fishes!

Back at the hotel, we finally treated ourselves with the goodies we bought from the Moomin Bakery. I'm not sure what to call any of them, but they were all sweet and delicious!  Unfortunately, my chocolate muffin type of bun with the Snufkin decoration didn't  quite make the trip unscathed and was smudged, Shame, it was so pretty!

One of the pastries had a sticker on its wrapping that said "This taste warms the cockles of the heart." Cockle? That's a word I never heard before, so I had to look that up. I also took a closer look at the plate I got. It's really cute, particularly Snufkin is adorable! There's 2018 printed on here too, so now I'm wondering, do they give away plates every year?

While eating, we turned the TV on and there was a sumo tournament going on, we kind of got stuck watching that for a while. Good thing my mom had also bought some popcorn from one of the stores at the LaQua mall. White chocolate (dyed blue) covered popcorns! As good as it sounds! Unless, of course, you are one of those who doesn't like white chocolate....

Later in the evening we went briefly to the Radio Kaikan in Akihabara. Maybe I was finally getting burnt out by the constant shopping I had been doing for days, so I didn't really find anything. I gave a few Gachapon machines a spin and that's it. We didn't stay there for long and went back to  the hotel. We were going to bed early, because we would also be waking up early tomorrow. Because we were going to Disneyland!!!

to be continued....

Custom paint: Freddy Krueger

Hopefully next time I'll post something about my trip to Tokyo (which was pretty sweet, btw), but for now, I'll talk about my latest repaint.

Freddy Krueger

I bought this Freddy Krueger bust bank at a GameStop. A few years back, my friend bought me a Predator bust bank as a gift. So now it was payback time!  My friend really likes the  A Nightmare on Elm Street -movie franchise and has a few Freddy figures in his collection. Immediately when I saw this bust at the shop, I thought that it would make a great Christmas gift for my friend. It wasn't overly expensive, so I went for it.

There is a problem, however. The factory paint, it looks horrible, or maybe "acceptable" at best. The paint job is so flat and clean and I couldn't stand it! For some time now I have wanted to try out repainting something else than dog figures. And since my Cthulhu custom paint went rather well, I gave this one a go. I couldn't possibly make it any worse than it already was. >_>

I was stupid and forgot to take a picture of the bank before I started painting it. I already painted one arm before I remembered to take a photo of how it's original looks. No big deal, but it still bothers me personally. With that said, I also like to confess that the second picture above is not by me, I copied it from some web shop. My point is, how unflattering the original factory paint job is, as you can see from this sales picture. Based on the picture alone, I wouldn't  have bought it. To me, it just looks that bad. But, since I saw it in an actual store, where I was able to hold it in my hands and look at it from every direction, I saw potential! The sculpt itself, looks really nice and the only thing I'd change if I'm being nitpicky is Freddy's left arm. It looks too stiff in my eyes. Maybe it would look better if the fingers were bent a little more or posed differently, instead of being so straight and flat like they are. In short, I hated the original look of the bust because it was all around too "clean" but the sculpting was very good.

the primer turned it all glossy, look at that hat

Before I started painting, this time I used a primer spray meant for plastic in hopes it would make a difference helping the paint stay on (the bust is PVC material). Unfortunately, I can't tell if it was helpful or not XD because I didn't notice any big difference between this paint job and the ones I've done before. Whenever I actually have a plan, nothing will go smoothly it seems. I opened the spray bottle and the damn nozzle broke off!  I still tried to make use of it, but rather than spraying the primer evenly around it was more or less leaking everywhere....
I think Freddy's hat got an extra thick layer of the primer, so I tried to play it safe and left the bank to dry for two days before starting to paint it. Still, the hat remained a little shinier and stickier than the rest of the figure.

Rather than painting it felt like I was just "dirtying" everything up more or less, with very very  watered down paint. Not very noticeable, but I did darken down his hat along with the sweater. I hated the original skin tone of the figure for Freddy's lovely burnt up face (and hand), so that was my main area I tried to "fix". I think it came out real nice. I also repainted his eyes. Those original black holes didn't look very appealing, so I repainted them with a color that was something  closer to  actor Robert Englunds's eye color. I dry brushed some gold paint to his knife hand to give the glove some extra detail. I also really wanted his finger knives to be bloody rather than clean. Too much time was wasted trying/failing to mix the perfect blood red tone! I used a toothbrush to create the mini splatters around the blood stains.

no blood on the knives and no eye shine

now with blood and eye shine

I finished everything off with a few layers of matte varnish to protect the new paint job and then added the final touch with some glossy varnish over the bloody fingers and in his eyes.

I also want to point out a mistake I made, even if I tried to cover it up. After painting some area of the figure, I put it down to take a break, but then I noticed I had somehow managed to accidentally dip Freddy's left hand fingers into some black paint. I did my best to wash it off, but you can still see the tip of the middle finger is darker than the rest of the hand. :P

before & after

I sent Freddy along with some other goodies to my friend, and they arrived just in time for Christmas, even though I was running a  little late sending them off. A few weeks ago I went to  visit my friend and I was happy to see he had put the bust on display and to my surprise he was actually using it as a coin bank!

there's a god damn cat hair in his palm

This was a fun project and I'm happy with the result. I wish I could have taken a few more photos in much better light.  Natural light is a rare resource in Finland in the middle of December by the time I get home from work and the ceiling light in my hobby room is not good enough I have come to notice.  In my desperation to get a photo in good light, I took the figure outside one day  and snapped a few. Well they didn't turn out that good either, now Freddy looks too red all over! I swear it does not look like that in real life, like it does in the outside photos!