Shibuya and Akihabara

After moving to Tama Plaza I took some days to settle in and get some orientation. As I noted before, Shibuya is the station on the Yamanote Line that's nearest to me, so I decided to explore the area first.

Well, that was the original plan, until I entered the station: Seemingly an accident of some sort occurred and the trains didn't move for another hour. Used the time to walk through the station area. Multiple storeys, lotsa shops and some eateries.

After that I got to Shibuya, the view from the station area down to the Shibuya crossing is something like that:

Shibuya crossing

This crossing is famous for its never-ending masses of people walking in all of its five directions.

Shibuya station

After leaving the station through the Hachiko exit I took a look at Hachiko himself (a famous extremly faithful dog who waited here for his owner who had already passed away, google or wikipedia for further info) and the area surrounding him.

Found this train car put there as a memorial of the "old" Shibuya and its way to its modern status. Some pictures, some info, some seats to rest and an AC.

Some other pictures of the area:

Shibuya

Shibuya 109

Disney store

Oh, and I found these guys, handing out free grapefruit drinks to everyone passing. Not bad.

Left Shibuya of the day.

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Another thing I noticed is the fact that there are Pokémon stations at every station around and lots of kids dragging their parents towards them. Seems like you can collect stamps of different Pokémon and exchange them for prizes.

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Akihabara was next and I did pretty much all of the standard Akihabara stuff in an afternoon.

Radio Kaikan

Radio Kaikan is located directly in front of the Electric Town exit of the station and offers everything to satisfy your otaku-needs, from manga to doujins to games to model guns to trading cards to character goods ... The list goes on.
Some pics:

Lifesize Rei in yukata

Manga

F*ck ad (yes, it's a magazine)

The last poster shows a book that is supposed to translate expressions of Marines and American slang into Japanese. Motto = "Cuss like a Marine". Kinda hard to pass by, maybe I will get a copy later.

This line marks the border between the normal Manga and the 18+ stuff. Lots of people on both sides.

Other buildings:

Akihabara

Maid café ad

Game store

Maid cafés: One part of the Akihabara-experience that is known all over the world are these cafés where all waitresses are cute girls in maid outfits and addressing you as "Goshujin-sama" (=Master) or "Ojou-sama" (=Lady or Mistress).
You can play games with them for discounts or prices and many have musical performances, cute rituals and dancing. The one I went to had *g*
Inside you have to follow some rules like don't ask the maids about personal things and don't take pictures inside (pictures of the food are allowed though).

Maids

Iced coffee@Maid café

Another maid

Other pictures:

Gashopons

Mouse pads

Cosplay in front of a sex shop

Way to save money...

The last one explains a way for women to get discounts at a seven storey sex shop (there are some of those around): Buy a costume or lingerie, let an employee take a picture of you and hang in inside the shop. 20% for a costume, 30% for lingerie.

That was a quite interesting experience, all things considered ^^

So long an stay tuned,
JuergenS

written by

JuergenS on August 1, 2010 from Tokyo, Japan

from the travel blog: Two month of Japan

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