It was nice to have a bit of a sleep in today. Whilst the girls slunk out early to go to Disneyland (or Disney Sea I think) the boys and I decided to meet up in the lobby at 8:30am to catch the train to the Geek Mecca: Akihabara. Well known for its retro video games, Akihabara is a hub of everything awesome - retro video games, Marvel, DC and Anime merchandise and technology shops. You do occasionally find yourself in stores with less than wholesome merchandise - hentai blurs with comic books a lot, so a word of warning if you are visiting.
We arrived at about 9 o'clock, which was an hour before anything actually opened. This was actually a good thing because Akihabara is actually quite large, with multiple versions of the same store (I believe they stock different things) and it is very difficult to get around, particularly without internet to use Google Maps. So our first stop was Yodobashi - the same chain as the massive toy store from Kyoto. It was nine stories tall, but only one floor was toys - although the floor was huge. My first stop was the camera department to try and get a filter for my brother, but I couldn't find the right brand (I should never be sent shopping for things I know nothing about.)
Some of the buildings around Akihbara
Speaking of which, I have been spending the last couple of days searching for a birthday present for Frank (my friend) who is turning 21 before I get home. So every toy store I go into I am searching anime aisles without speaking a word of Japanese or having any understanding of any of his animes which leads to hours of hilarious time wasting. I have seen so much anime and it all looks the same to me (cue: nerd rage). Still, despite best efforts, not luck at Yodobashi.
Our next stop was going to be a Maid Cafe - a cute little place where the waitresses are maids and refer to you as master/lady. It was going to be our quirky Japan thing - we were all pretty sure it was going to be fetishist, but fun none-the-less, but after much searching and being unable to find our original one, we found another that opened at 11:30. So instead we visited retro gaming store. Three floors of original PlayStation, Nintendo Game Cube and Gameboy games - it was incredible. It even had a Virtual Boy which was an amazing thing to play. Even more surprising was how cheap the games were, for vintage games. The only issue is they are all Japanese and some are region locked in one way or another. It was still great fun to explore, play some old games, listen to 8-bit music and I got some neat merchandise too.
Vintage Nintendo in Pristine Condition
After geeking out we grabbed lunch at the Maid Cafe @home cafe. It was a small cafe where we were greeted by adorable girls dressed in maid costumes. Our waitress, Rii, was super nice and her English was very good. The prices were also really good considering we spent about 25 dollars each and got a drink, meal and a photo with a maid of our choosing. When we were shown the photos of the maids we all picked the same maid, who happened to be the girl serving us. She was so happy we picked her and was very grateful.
I ordered a massive chocolate sundae that filled me up quite nicely. It was super delicious, although the jelly at the bottom tasted funny (could just be my cold) and it oddly had cornflakes in it. Before we could eat it, we had to do some hilarious Japanese chants which were magic that made our food taste better. The water we were served as complimentary was also "love water." At the end we also got a few presents, a pair a chopsticks because we were from Australia, a letter and card for being so nice to our maid and a folder for posting a status about it on Facebook. Afterwards, we went to the souvenir store and Josh bought all five photos of our maid that were available, which was hillarious.
The coffees got a picture of your choosing drawn on them by your maid
Yum!
The photo of my photo with Rii - our sweet maid
We explored Akihabara for the next couple of hours before splitting up at 2pm. Steve and I headed towards to National Museum for Emerging Science and Technology. It was a reasonable trip of about forty minutes, most of which was on the new monorail across town. If nothing else, the view on the way there and back was totally worth it. The monorail runs over the main Tokyo bridge and across the harbour, showing a brilliant view of the city.
Poor window shots of some of the view - I will have night ones tomorrow I hope
After arriving at the museum, we had two hours to experience everything. We were lucky we got inside when we did, because not even a minute after we entered, it started to absolutely pour down with rain again. Unfortunately the dome theatre with the 3D projection of the universe was full, but we did get to explore how space was formed and climb inside a spacecraft, as well as look at the ISS and the role it serves for humanity. We also sat down and watched a lecture (in Japanese) about Brain Machine Interface (BMI). It was a talk aimed at kids and already having experience in the lecture helped me follow along. The Science Communicator warned us before it started and was super nice about it. We didn't sit through the whole talk, but we did get to see a very cool demonstration of the technology. As an engineer, this excites me so much for the possibilities in assisting the disabled and allowing us to access dangerous areas with ease and without risking human life.
Dog Statue for an event on at the Museum
The Museum itself - pretty impressive huh?
Thermal Imaging Camera Selfie!
A digital globe hung in the front of the museum - it rotated weirdly though
Aussie Pride!
BMI Demonstration - she controls it with her brain!
The other floor was totally awesome. It was all about robots and the challenges in having androids involved in our everyday life. There were a number of robots to interact with, as well as interactive displays on hydrogen generation, conductive plastic and how computers transfer information. The highlight of course has to be the live Asimo Demonstration. It was incredibly talented for a robot and took the time to demonstrate how the entire body must compensate during walking. It even sang a song and signed the words as well. That alone was definitely worth the entry fee.
This android would sit and talk to you
Asimo!
Sending a binary message
The message was the letter "Shi"
Tada!
An octopod that wasn't on demonstration today
Android reading the news
Asimo Demonstration
After a long monorail ride back, enjoying the gorgeous views of the city at twilight, Steve and I grabbed some food for dinner and headed back to our hotel rooms to have a nice relaxing evening before getting right back into the fast paced itinerary for our final week here in Japan.
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