Tag: Akihabara

Day 19 – Rise of the machines

Today it was time to go and look for some robots in Odaiba!

After a 60 minute ride on the subway and 20 minutes or so on a private line I arrived at the Odaiba station, or its real name Tokyo Teleport. I’m now in Odaiba an artificial created island to originally build a futuristic town, but was later developed into the leisure and tourist attraction it is now.

In the direct surroundings of the station next to the shopping malls,  you have four attractions, the ferris wheel, the TV station with its iconic ball in the middle, a replica of the statue of liberty and a nearly full sized RX-O Unicorn Gundam.

Behind the Gundam is the Diver city shopping mall that hosts the Gundam Base Tokyo. A store filled with nearly every Gundam model kit, an exhibition showcasing a ton of completed models, a contest showcase and a room where you can start building the kits you just bought.

For Lunch I had some Osaka Yakisoba with a Gundam Taiyaki and some kind of strawberry drink. After that I watched the Gundam transform and went back to Akihabara for some more shopping!

 

I had dinner in some kind of peppered-beef restaurant.

 

 

This was certainly a fine day for me, looking at (and buying) some model kits from a series I loved as a child, the transformation and the Fuji TV building that has been destroyed o so many times in anime.

Day 18 – What should’ve been my first day

Day 2 back in Tokyo, time to get back what was lost due to my earlier misfortune at the start of the trip. Today I’ll walk around Asakusa as was my planned day 1

Slept in a bit so left pretty late. An hour on public transport later I arrived in Asakusa and the first thing I saw was the Asahi “cloud”. With the Tokyo Skytree to the left.

 

That one would be my destination later on in the day, but first some more traditional stuff in the middle of this city.
On the way to this temple there’s a huge market filled with the traditional souvenir shops. Which was handy as I almost found everything there that I needed to bring back home.

After the temple I walked to Kappabashi and from there made my way to the Skytree. But not before stopping at the Burger King for some food.

After walking trough the neighbourhood I arrived at the Tokyo Skytree. Where I went to visit the Pokémon Center. This center has a huge Rayquaza displayed. I found that one pretty cool!

 

Got my culture take for the day, now it was time to travel to Akihabara, the Geek heaven in Japan. And honestly? I wasn’t that amazed by it, probably dulled by my previous experiences in the country. Had I gone here first, then Dotonbori would’ve been a “meeh” so yeah. Take this with a grain of salt.
It is here big, colourful and shops with more than 6 floors everywhere you look.

I did some more shopping and decided on dinner in a place close to the station. Afterwards I went back to Ikebukuro to play some more Mahjong.