July 6th, Akihabara, Tokyo part 2

Around 5pm, I finally headed back to the Don Quoxote buildling, AKB 8th floor. I went up there to check it out, and see what the hype is about with this group of girls. I have seen video of this group and they can sure sing and dance. The Japanese man, who created this group of girls is a rich rich man, and a genius. Anyways, I finally reached the 8th floor, and browsed around. I bought some souvenirs. After finishing up on my purchases of AKB items, I noticed a small line forming on the other side of the floor infront of the double doors that lead to their concert theater hall. There was a long table with a small stack of Japanese books, apparently autographed by one of the AKB members. It was Mariko Shinoda!, one of my favorite AKB members. I went to the line quickly and bought a book, not knowing what it meant, since it was in Japanese writing, but she signed it. It was for 1260 yen. After buying it, I stood in line for less than 5 minutes. I finally stood face to face with a Japanese singer, who was part of the huge music Jpop group AKB48. She didn't speak any english, so i spoke to her briefly in my limited Japanese conversational skills. She shook my hand with both her hands what seemed like 2 minute. She smiled and said "sugoi" several times, which means "awesome", and she thanked me. It may not seem like a big deal to other people and americans, but for me it was an amazing experience meeting a japanese celebrity, known in parts of Japan, and Akihabara, but for me it was a pleasant happy experience. After meeting Mariko-sama, I headed out of Akihabara and went back to catch the train back to the hotel. By the time i got back it was almost 7:30pm. I dropped my stuff off in the hotel room, then headed back to the akasake mitsuke area to get something to eat for dinner. I got some soba noodles at this one place where you buy a meal ticket first from the vending machine. I got the ticket and gave it over to the man behind the counter, and i got my bowl of soba a minute later. A lot of salarymen and other locals eat here for lunch and dinner. It is a fast and convenient to get a meal. There are lots of ramen, other food places to eat, some convenience stores, hostess bars that cater mainly to the over-worked, fatigued salarymen of Japan. There are also a few pachinko gaming parlours, and other various stores. I then went to the "combini" convenience store, and got some snacks, milk tea, and some pastry for tomorrow's breakfast and went back up to the hotel room (#2234) to turn in for the evening. It was a fun filled down in Akihabara, as tomorrow i will visit my pen pal from Nagoya via Shinkansen train.

July 6th, Tokyo

Today, I woke up around 3am. I think my sleep hours are off, and typically i wake up real early the first day while in Japan as i adjust to the time difference. I watched some Japanese TV, amused by the tv programs, commercials, and some news. I'm planning my day ahead and trying to map out my destinations. It is somewhat warm and humid outside, as expected. ....It is now about 5am as I write this and the sun started coming out as early as 4:30am, that's early eh?
Earlier, i went to the trainstation, about a 5 to 7 minute walk from the Grand Akasaka Prince Hotel. I took the Akasaka-Mitsuke subway line to Tokyo Station. The stations are big and have a "JR" station and a subway trains. There is a lot of walking and lots of stairs, no wonder the Japanese are so fit and in-shape. I then transferred to the JR trains to the Yamanote Line(green). I took it to the Shinjuku station. Little did i know, i could have more easily taken the Marunouchi subway line, which is direct from the Akasaka-Mitsuke station, and taken it a few train stops to the Shinjuku station, about 7 to 10 min. Each stop is about 2 min away from each other, and literally the stop time at each specific station is less than 30 secs, once in while it could be longer, depending if it is a major station, or the location. So, I then took the JR train to Shinjuku station. I got out and walked around for awhile. I was waiting for the Kinokuniya bookstore to open, which opens promptly at 10am. I bought some photobooks, and then i headed off by the JR-yamanote line to Shibuya, to walk around. I headed off to the Shibuya 109-2 bldg, which is accross the street from the station. I bought some Hello Project Official store, to buy some photos of the girls of Morning Musume(J-pop music group.) Afterwards I headed off to Akihabara via the JR-Yamanote line. It took about 30 minutes from Shinjuku to Akihabara. I walked around for awhile, and finally visited the AKB48(Don Quixote building). I first had lunch at a Maid-Cafe, my first one, and first time eating at one. The girls were really "kawaii"- cute for Japanese. I didn't have to wait long, i guess other days it gets really crowded. Finally one of the waitresses took me in and asked me all in Japanese where i basically wanted to eat, and for how many. I answered back to her in my limited Japanese. I ate curry, and after nearly an hour, of just sitting, eating, observing the scenery, and waiting, I was finally ready to pay for my lunch. Beforehand, i chose(an option), to have a picture with one of Maid-cafe waitress, for a pix for 500 yen. But first my lunch was iced coffee, about 500 yen, and curry for about 1000 yen. It was a cool experience, and for being a tourist, i felt for once like a true "Japanese Otaku" lol. Little did i know, that i was in the same bldg as AKB48, a Jpop girl group, consisting of 3 teams, A-K-B! of 16 girls on each team. After figuring out it was in the same building, i headed back in to the 8th floor. As there are no elevators, i took the escalators up and up to the 7th, and for some reason there was a sign on the leading up the 8th floor, and there was a time of 5pm, in Japanese, so i decided to come back around 5pm. I went back out and heading out to the other stores in nearby buildings. Akihabara is a big area consisting of Japan's well known high-tech electronics, but what some travel brochures and books forget to mention is that Akihabara is more and more becoming Anime-Otaku paradise, with blocks of everything Anime-otaku related. Probably atleast a few blocks of buildings devoted to everything related to anime, music, gravure idols, and everything else to the person that just loves to collect things. It is truly amazing what the Japanese people will go for, for the collector, in what is presented, and available, they are really amazing. It is because of Akihabara that anime conventions around the world, probably exists, this is the mecca of all things anime! Japan also has other anime-otaku based stores, in Kyoto, Ikebukuro, Nakano, and other areas. But Akihabara is the main place that has it! i went to other bldg's, including Toro no Ano, one of the main buildlings that has everything anime!, then Soft map, more of the same. Each building has about 7 to 8 floors, and each floor is distinct in what types of anime, stuff they sell on each floor, anything and everything, on anime. There is also stores that are devoted to the collector of anime figurines, robots, dolls, trading cards, anything you can almost imagine in the anime-otaku world. I found a few noodle shops, onigiri(rice ball), and crepe(deserts) places on the street.

LAX to Narita airport, July 4th - July 5th. Tokyo, Japan

Wednesday, July 4th, 2007. I am going to Japan again, and this will be my third time. I got to the LAX airport early, atleast 4 hours before my departure time at 1:20pm. After waiting awhile, the plane finally was ready depart at around 1:40pm. I love JAL's service, and the flight attendant girls are so gorgeous! I didn't care to much for the movie selection, but the food was delicious, the flight time wasn't too long, as i flew before on JAL to Narita. I recommend if you fly JAL, to try their green tea, whether cold or hot, also try their version of a fruit softdrink, minus all that carbonation. The drink is called "Sky Time", and you can get it even here locally in LA, at Mitsuwa Market. I love this drink and i will always get it while flying JAL if and when i can get it. The flight time to Narita was 10 hours and 40 minutes, approximately. There was little turbulance, and as usual, i didn't sleep hardly any, maybe i rested for a short while. I arrived at Narita airport, local time in Japan at 4:20pm. After going thru customs, and getting my baggage, i headed off to redeem my 7 day JR-rail pass. I highly recommend that anyone traveling to Japan to look into the JR-rail passes, which come in 7, 14, and 21 day rail passes. It can only be bought in your home country, and once in Japan, redeemed for an actual JR-rail pass. I went to the basement level, which has various kiosks, sitdown places to eat ramen, cafe, JR-voucher pass ticket area, and regular ticket area as well as JR trains to and from Tokyo which connects to Terminal 2. Also, there was an area to rent "keitai" cellular phones. I rented out a vodafone from Softbank. I then caught a limo bus to the Akasaka Prince hotel in Akasaka. The bus left terminal 2 at 6:20pm and arrived at the hotel at 7:50pm. There was some traffic once in the downtown Tokyo area, and there were other hotel stops along the way, until reaching Akasaka Prince hotel. After checking in, and settling in my hotel room, i walked around the outside area. They had various ramen restarants, other types of food places, convenience stores, karaoke places, pachinko places, and more bars. I felt the area catered more to the "local Salarymen, and Office ladies, and other locals" more than the gaijin, but still, there were other foreigners like myself. I got a map of the area, and got more information from the hotel. About a five to seven minute walk to the Mitsuke subway trainstation which connected to other trains. I used the Marunouchi subway train line a lot, as it connected me to other Tokyo cities such as Ginza, Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Akihabara. One thing that i had to learn and understand as i got more use to their trains was that, Subways and JR-trains are two different train companies, and are independant of one another, but usually are together in one station, for example, Shinjuku station, Tokyo station, each will have a "JR-train" section, and another area for Subway stations. Just knowing your destination, and train route(it's colored, example, Green - Yamanote JR-train). If you know your destination, and route(colored), then you can figure out the fare amount. Subway trains don't accept your JR-pass, only JR-trains. So each time i took a subway train, which was often during this trip, i used "yen" to get my train ticket.

I walked around until around 9pm to find a place to eat for dinner. I finally found a ramen place to eat. It must've been the cute girl who was passing out "fan's" that advertised their restaurant. It was a chinese-Japanese ramen shop/restaurant, as i ordered the spicy and delicous ramen. I think the people that worked there were chinese but spoke in fluent japanese, i could tell by their slight chinese accent. It's good as i brushed up on my japanese conversational skills, since the waitress as other people in japan, seem to know very little if any english conversational skills. The ramen dinner, including a Yebisu beer that i got, totaled 1280 yen, just over $11, not bad for dinner. It is good to be back in Japan, as i recognize a lot of things from my previous trips to Japan. I love the vending machines, food, even the confusing train stations, I hope i don't get lost too much in this massive metropolitis. But i have to say there are so many hot japanese girls here in Tokyo, they know how to dress and look well! Afterwards, i headed to the convenience market down the street and bought some softdrink, milk tea, pastry and ruce balls for tomorrow's breakfast. I went back to the hotel room to watch some tv for awhile, and went to sleep just after 10pm, Japan time, after being up for 24 straight hours.

Japan July 2007

My third and recent vacation visit to Japan, July 4-15th, 2007.

I took over 600 pictures, and i will post some in my Japan trip weblog.
The trip was pretty recently and still fresh in my mind as i just came back a few weeks ago from Japan. It was amazing, as i went to Tokyo, Hakone, and Kyoto again. Also my first visit to Nagoya as i visited one of my pen pals. Japan was amazing, even though it was cloudy about every day, and the rain fell quite a bit as it was Monsoon season, and even a typhoon was approaching Tokyo the last day we were there ready for departure.

I will start by filling in my Japan trip journals day by day, as i wrote them already during my actual vacation. I will try to add pictures along the way, not necessarily in order, but close to it.

I started out by including pictures of the Tokyo downtown area as my intro pictures for this trip. Tokyo is an amazing city with over 12 million people jam packed in. The train systems are elaborate efficient and a punctual way to get around, and probably the best way to get to where you need to go in Japan. There are trains practically everywhere and it is a web of routes and for the foreigner(gaijin), it can be quite intimidating.