exploring Akihabara

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Ticking off the places I haven't been to in Tokyo that I could easily visit by train (and were still open at night), I settled on going to Akihabara. According to the tourist information websites, this is known as "Electric Town" because you can buy a lot of household appliances here. This specification of districts selling specific items remind me of Calle Raon in Quiapo, Manila. Like Akihabara, Raon is known as the shopping district for electronics. Anyway, I digress...

As I was walking along towards Electric Town from the Tokyo Metro station, I came across these billboards. I was quite surprised because there were a lot of anime characters portrayed on these boards. After looking high up, I resumed looking at street-level and was more surprised to see many women dressed like Sailor Moon and her friends, trying to catch Japanese men's attention. What was going on in here?!?



I learned later, when I looked up on anime culture on the internet, that Akihabara is the centre of otaku (the Japanese concept of computer nerds) culture in the world. These otaku practitioners are highly into computers, video-gaming, and Japanese cartoons and comics. The women walking around in character were apparently promoting "maid cafés" that line the street. 

So walking on, I ended up in one of the bigger department stores for electronic gadgets in Akihabara: Yodobashi Akiba. Good thing too because I was getting tired of the limitations of iPhone photography (It has a really good camera but still can't replace a real one, sorry!) and was raring to get a real camera... not a dSLR though because it's way too heavy to carry around when I travel. As I entered the lobby, I felt I entered Ollivanders wand shop or Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment, both in Diagon Alley.


If this was my last stop for this evening's adventure into Tokyo, I would've spent so much time checking out the different gadgets. However, I wanted to see Tokyo from the sky so I only stuck to the camera floor... there are a total of eight floors, I think; it's a shame I wasn't able to visit the other floors. I'm sure that I'll drop by again; if not this branch, another branch in Tokyo... someday.

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