To start:
We took the Shinkansen, which is pretty much like riding a charter bus. I pretty much slept the whole way there.
Out the window at Nagoya station. Just before I conked out. XD
The lobby of our hotel. AND IT WAS AN AWESOME HOTEL. Rachel did such a good job of organizing it.
Your average street in the middle of Ikebukuro. Lauren taking a picture in front of me. Whatever. XD
I swear, Hetalia was on that TV screen RIGHT before I took this shot. It was awesome.
Then we took a trip to the other side of the station and ran into...
It's a café where all the waiters are dressed as butlers. This isn't the one Rachel said we needed to go to, but it's definitely a famous one. Thing is, since there are so few of them, you have to make a reservation months in advance.
Then we went out and did stuff. Ikebukuro at night: CROWDED. Like, even more so than in the daytime. Being the city person I am, I was practically twirling in circles the whole trip. XD
And now, we come to the epicenter of the anime district. Eight stories of manga, anime, posters, hanging plates, magazines, character goods, you name it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Animate.
The view from right up front. Delightfully intimidating. Also, I have no idea what that poster is of.
Down the street on the right, you can see all the stuff down the road. XD They're all closed, since it was kind of late when I took this.
(No matter where you go, all the stores in Japan close at 8 or 9.)
Then we went to dinner at this noodle place, and because I fail at life, i made Italy out of the water I spilled. XD Kind of...
Fact: everything in Ikebukuro is blue, and everything in Akihabara is red. Even the Animate there is this weird orange color.
Then we found an arcade, and while Lynsey and I think Rachael played Taiko, I decided to take photos of everything in the UFO catcher machines.
Designer perfume. Difficulty level: 8
Hello Kitty mp3 players. Difficulty level: 7
Hello Kitty skillet. Difficulty level: 6.5
The Nightmare Before Christmas Watches. Difficulty level: 7.5
The Nightmare Before Christmas necklaces. Difficulty level: 8.5
Care Bears Pillow: Difficulty level: 9
Nail polish set. Difficulty level: There's no way.
Coffee mugs. Difficulty level: Come back later.
Clocks. Difficulty level: Come back when they're WAY closer.
Cat plushies you actually expect to be in a crane machine. Difficulty level: Harder than it looks.
Clannad figurines. Difficulty level: The one on the right maybe. The other one, don't bother.
Neon Genesis Evangelion figurines. Difficulty level: Don't bother.
Disney lunch boxes. Difficulty level: Not with that fabric on the table.
Then we went upstairs and did Purikura, which is like a photobooth on steroids. I'll have to scan in one of our photo sessions sometime. They all kind of look like this:
This picture is larger than the others so you can see the details of this girl's preposterous manicure. Seriously, what.
While we were there, fate intervened on our behalf and we looked to the left at one point to see THE most amazing Hetalia cosplay I've ever seen in my life. And we only saw the UK and Hungary at first, so when they all came out to take a photo we nearly died of happiness. Seriously. They were amazing. However, they asked us not to put our pictures online (I'm doing a whole presentation on the differences between Japanese and American fans), so yeah.
Then we went back and talked about really random stuff until like 4 in the morning. XD
The next day Lynsey, Kat and I went to Akihabara, where we looked for the giant Gamers and ended up in the orange Animate somehow. XD
If you know you're in Ikebukuro when you see butler cafés, you know you're in Akihabara when you see a MAID. Seriously, they're EVERYWHERE.
After Akihabara, we went to Harajuku, where Rachel and Lynsey got Gothic Lolita dresses. They looked so cute. XD
There was a store there that sold nothing but socks.
I am almost used to the gratuitous English here. Almost.
Okay, then...
I had to go look it up, but apparently touting is trying to sell something by harassing people. I still don't know what smorking is, though.
To get serious for a second: outside of America, people LOVE Obama. Seriously, they really believe in him. That's why he got that Nobel Prize: all over Europe and Asia, people are finally starting to see America in a positive light, and they're starting to believe we can actually DO something. So yeah, once you leave America things get really idealized really fast.
Then we went back to Ikebukuro and Lynsey and Rachel played Taiko again. In their dresses. XD
That's all I've got. There's a place in Ikebukuro station called Swedish Foot, and I actually broke my camera there when it hit the ground and the lens jammed. There are places here that can fix that, fortunately, so for now I'll just use my DS camera.
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