Forum - View topicLet's Go To Tokyo: Day Two
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5887 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Surprised there was no picture of the Gamers building. It usually has the biggest anime billboards in the area.
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Beltane70
 Posts: 3915 |
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I'm looking forward to seeing tomorrow's Nakano Broadway pictures! A friend of mine actually owns one of the shops there.
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grooven
Posts: 1426 Location: Canada |
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That was really cool seeing the maid cafe pictures. I never went myself and seeing it up close was really fun. I saw these ads with the animal parfaits too that I got handed.
I actually the cases are WAY over market price for most items and do not have their boxes. so any collectors like me aren't really interested. The cases are also saturated by Ichiban Kuji figures too. Most didn't take credit card and they were the most overpriced places of all :/ I had to shop around to find deals at other stores. I found better deals in Nagoya and Osaka at Book Offs than Tokyo for figures.
 I don't know what is happening but it's not what it used to be back in 2001 when I first went.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Oh yeah, that makes so much sense! I forget that the Chinese New Year would be relevant to these shrines too.
Ah, thank you. I didn't know about that folktale. So it's a tale that's most closely associated with this shrine then? There being a lot of ema boards with Nozomi Toujou on them made sense; I just didn't get the goat or the rabbit ones at first (though now I know it's actually a hare, and I thought he was feeding the lagomorph something from his bag). |
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AnimeAddict2014
 Posts: 925 |
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i have 2 questions
1- how much cash you can bring into the country? -- i think there's a limit 2- will $10,000 USD enough for 4-5 weeks in japan? -- we tried the 1 week tour in China once-- too fast pace i like to just take our time when visiting a foreign country
First thing i'm going to do when i got off the plane would be the Onsen after dropping our stuffs off at a ryokan then find a place to eat before heading out 
Probably have to call up some old friends from JPN class during college-- probably will need a tour guide Last edited by AnimeAddict2014 on Fri Mar 20, 2015 6:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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omiya
 Posts: 1836 Location: Adelaide, South Australia |
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Depends on what you want to do, but a good strategy is to work out the biggest ticket items (accommodation, rail passes, theme parks...) and you can probably have a great time for 10,000 yen (less than USD$100) a day. Although an Australian site, you might find useful information here: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=2373203 (I hasten to add that it's a non-commercial site and contains no advertising). A good Japanese site with English available to start with is the Japan National Tourism Organisation http://www.jnto.go.jp. |
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hyojodoji
Posts: 585 |
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It's a pleasure. Since there are many shrines which are dedicated to Ōkuninushi no Mikoto, the 'deity and the hare' mythical story is not necessarily associated only with Kanda Myōjin. The most famous shrine which is related to Ōkuninushi no Mikoto is probably Izumo-taisha. It is said that people from Izumo Province built a shrine dedicated to Ōkuninushi no Mikoto in the Nara period in the area which would later become Edo/Tokyo and it is the origin of Kanda Myōjin. Wikipedia has an English article about the 'deity and the hare' mythical story. |
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Penguin_Factory
 Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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Speaking as someone who has never been to Japan and probably won't get to go for several years at least, I always love it when ANN does these travel diaries. I think this might be my favourite one so far- I love Zac's snarky observations with all my heart, but Bamboo's enthusiam is infectious and makes me super jealous.
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wohdin
Posts: 352 |
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"There is no limit on the amount of any currency that may be brought into or taken out of Japan. However, if you transport (any currencies, checks, securities or other monies) exceeding 1,000,000 yen worth in Japanese currency into or out of the country then you must complete a customs declaration." The power of Google. |
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AnimeAddict2014
Posts: 925 |
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i'm not sure if the mods of this forums read these posts but you should have a KUDO or Thumb up feature available so i can give credits for people like this person! for his/her assistance. +1 Kudo
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KH91
Posts: 6176 |
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If I could describe this article in 1 word...it would be "heaven." I look forward to part 2.
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sailornyanko
 Posts: 134 Location: Mexico City |
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I kind of have this love/hate feeling about Akiba. On one side it's freaking AKIHABARA! OTAKU PARADISE!! As an otaku you just HAVE to go there.
However one HUGE word of advice to tourists: the stores open there super late and close super early. I didn't know this and the first time I went at around 10 am which was in my opinion as a mexican tourist a reasonable hour because at least in Mexico some of the bigger stores would be opening around that hour, but I would just wander around the streets with all of the cute signs and everything was closed.. except the rather few and far between slot machines selling figurines and stuff from anime shows I've never even heard of before. If you arrive there after 9 pm you're likely only going to see maid cafes and the sega videogame stores open. I'm kind of awkwardly surprised the guy that took photos inside of the Sega videogame parlor didn't show a photo or two of locals smoking their brains out playing vintage 90's videogames on the old fashioned consoles or the infamous suicide nets in the staircase. I kind of wonder why would they need a suicide net for such a short fall that would be unlikely to kill you but I guess some people may freak out of they run out of 500 yen coins for the new Hatsune Miku figurine on the UFO catcher machines (I gotta admit I did give the machines one or two shots with no luck, it's like really, really, really hard to win anything with them). To my chagrin most of the itsy bitsy tiny and crowded anime/manga shops in AKiba sell only the most super new manga and anime dvd's and very little of anything else (either that or I always had the bad luck of arriving after 8 pm and all of the stores selling other things closed super early). Since I'm more into the older 90's early 2000's era shows it's kind of annoying to be wanderoung around Akiba and not finding anything. I have a friend who is a huge otaku and I told her I'd get her a Black Butler manga or doujinshi (ideally a PG-13 one). I searched everywhere and they always told me it was all sold out. I ended up buying some really cool stuff from that anime in Kyoto instead. I did bump into the enytrance of the Voids store once on the very last day of my first trip to Japan, I was actually in the area for a nice tax free Seiko watch I wanted to buy and because I had a plane to catch didn't have the chance to really see the store further, it looked awesome and I was never around when it was open during my second trip a few months ago. If I ever come back to Tokyo I'd definitely love to see it in a more civilised hour. Next time I'll avoid visiting Japan in November and pick a month with more sunlight hours even if the ticket is more expensive. I also missed out on seeing the Kanda temple, I've heard Kanda has all of the godly second-hand stores with used perfectly good rare collectibles that seem more elusive to find than a pink unicorn. I had more luck finding second hand manga stuff in Ryogaku and Ueno! Seeing the photos of Maidreamin gives me memories, I went there myself and had the green ice cream sherbert which seemed at least reasonably priced (Maid Cafes force you to pay cover for some beverage or food along with the 1 hour ticket to enter the place and alcohol is sold at a high price, they even sell Corona which as a mexican I felt kind of weird because I find Victoria and Bohemia to be much better brands and I wouldn't fork 100 bucks for a tiny bottle which would cost me less than 1 USD in Mexico). If you don't speak japanese the games are kind of boring, you don't understand what's going on and the maids only speak very basic english. It's still a popular place for foreign tourists so you don't have to feel too awkward going there, but I was getting bored pretty fast. There was an insanely polite middle aged japanese guy that spoke insanely good english that helped me read the menu (the menu has no english BTW), I kind of feel bad I got really shy because he was seated with so many people and didn't just move to his table to chit chat, it would have been really fun.
Quite personally there are other parts of Tokyo I like more and the Gundam cafe in Odaiba is cooler looking than the Akiba one. However gotta dig those Hatsune Miku otakuized cars like the photos I'm shoing here from my trip: 
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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In regards to merchandise from older franchises: Last year's Anime News Network trip to Japan did involve a visit to a couple of stores in Akihabara that sell mainly things the other otaku shops couldn't sell enough of--in other words, these are clearance stores aimed at people who otherwise missed their chance, waited too long, or found out about anime, manga, or video games they like some time after they premiered.
That being said, you still have to do a lot of looking for these stores, and even they may have run out of something that's sufficiently old. It's just the way the merchandise market works in Japan: Everything is a collectible, and manufacturers expend all of their resources towards what is the hottest new thing or what they expect will be the hottest new thing. It all comes across to me as a race, with anime studios setting the pace. Personally, I find a lot of stuff from older series and IPs exported across the Pacific Ocean and sold in North America (with a greater concentration towards the west coast, of course). They sell a lot slower because of the smaller audience, so an item can spend several years on a shelf before it's sold, but you have to know where to look to find them (or you buy them online). |
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CatSword
 Posts: 1489 |
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I want to live here.
How else am I going to get a Gundam-shaped teriyaki? I mean, I could try baking one myself, but I can't even make microwave popcorn without burning it... The maid cafe also sounds pretty interesting (love that picture of Bamboo with the maid), though I'd already have to be pretty tipsy to do some of the ordeals talked about here as a guy. |
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