いらっしぁいませ - Irrashaimase - Welcome

It's not like we're exactly natives, but it definitely felt like we were welcoming people in when buddies Kevin and Carlos came to town. They confirmed our belief that Tokyo is the most confusing city in the world by refusing to be found. I know they landed late and all, but Kevin's idea of getting around is to follow groups of people. This irritates me immensely. I'm not exactly OCD or anything, but I really like to know where the hell I'm going.

When we finally found each other that night, meat was on their minds, so we went for Yakiniku again. Found one at the edge of Kabuki-cho, and while it was cheaper than the one we had in Shibuya, it was nowhere near as good. This was also the closest we've gotten to the red-light district. There's a lot of restaurants and shops inside Kabuki-cho that have popped up in our google maps searches, but so far we've been avoiding it. Sooner or later, I guess I'll find out just how bad it is (word is that it's not that bad now).

Called it a night, woke up the next morning, met up, and took the children to Harajuku. The two areas we are most familiar with so far are Omotesando and Nishi-Shinjuku (with Shinjuku San-Chome and Shibuya tied for third). Our fourth time in Harajuku was a little different though, since we hit up Takeshita-dori in search of cosplayers. I found out later that many of them are migrating away from the tourists and that they mostly come out on Sundays.

Takeshita-dori was somewhat interesting, but way out of our age group. We kept walking down and cut through one of the side streets to Omotesando. On our way we walked by a whole bunch of small designer stores. Some I'd heard of, most I hadn't, and V and I will be back to check it out. Carlos and Kevin are less vain, so we moved on. They checked out Omotesando Hills and we continued down to Cat Street.

It was a pretty nice day out overall, but it was way hotter in the sun that advertised in forecasts. Let this be a lesson to you kids: dress light and just be cold if it's cooler than you thought. Well I take the cold much better than I take the heat anyway.

Not at all sure why Cat Street is called that, but we had to go since Kiddy Land opened yesterday. Despite Kevin's phobias, he had some errands to run in there so we tread onward. Of course, V was right at home. There's this Hello Kitty/Sesame Street special release going on. It's a Japan-exclusive, but isn't actually out until later this month. In fact, the only location with it so far is Kiddy Land. I'm seriously heavily considering a short-term business strategy of buying the whole stock and selling them on Ebay.

17 hours later, we continued down the rest of Cat Street to Shibuya. The rest of Cat Street was littered with awesome vanity. We'll be back. We hit up a tonkatsu place that we had walked into our first time in Tokyo and took Los and Kev through Shibuya crossing. Everyone took photos of the crossing and Hachiko like proper tourists. Everyone was also thoroughly impressed, but I've been there during rush hour when I crushed infants while rushing to the Shibuya ward office. So, instead of posting a mediocre representation here, one day I'll take the craziest picture of Shibuya ever and then post it. Til then, you get Hachiko.

After Shibuya, we took the Yamanote line alllll they way to the opposite side of Tokyo, Akihabara. Carlos and Kevin were immediately more in their element (also much less women for Kevin to ogle at). I felt suffocated by the overall otaku-ness. Kevin in fact repeated multiple times how he understood how people could spend an entire day there.

I knew two things before I went: 1. I was not going to spend money on anything anime related. I've been a big fan in the past, but I'm not going to waste my dough on that crap when I can buy *psht* clothes and stuff... 2. Nothing electronic would be worth buying. For bargain hunters like me and my resident deal filter, Taeil, everything in big box stores is too expensive. Things are even more inflated in Japan. They do have some camcorders and laptops that seem cutting edge, but also seem either no-name or two early gen to worth adopting early.

Am I a savvy consumer? Not at all. One of the big electronics stores was having a stereotypical Japanese raffle going on. I've dreamt of spinning the wheel and winning a trip to a hot spring. I'll buy something and come back to Akihabara just for that. We're all suckers. Of course, I expect the two visitors to hit up Akihabara again sometime next week again. Case in fact:

Kevin Kim inside Kiddy Land

Kevin Kim after receiving a coupon from a Maid Cafe advertising girl.

All I wanted to do was play my goddamn Bemani game, but none of the arcades had it. Instead, they were filled with machines and people playing games from ten years ago and even more people watching other people playing ten-year-old games. It's all a little bit sad. The top floor of most of these arcades are reserved for the super-nerds. The kids who buy card decks to stick inside arcade machines to play for 500 Yen a shot.

V mentioned to me today that D mentioned to her that she doesn't like Akihabara much. Just too otaku for her. That's just true for pretty much every girl (there were very few). I'm not one who's starved for female attention, and I can take my fair share of testosterone. But it wasn't testosterone that filled this place...it was...something else.

Tomorrow there will be some pictures of Los, too; I promise.