Tag: akihabara

The happiest place on Earth (Japan version)

We woke up very early at 6.30am hoping to chow down breakfast, get to the station, take a train and reach Tokyo Disneyland just in time for the gates to open. Though we made good time, it was a large crowd already storming into the happiest place on Earth and this crowd were mainly locals.

The day wasn’t moving too much in our favor because it was showers throughout the whole day. Despite it being light, moving around with a raincoat wasn’t my kind of happy. However, in comparison to Universal Studios Japan, this crowd was better.

Ooh ooh. If it does shower when you’re here, be sure to gobble down a nice warm turkey leg. It is the best thing to have during a chilly weather. Well, at least I think so.

While following the paths, there was a familiar smell in the air – curry. We tracked the scent to a kiosk and bought some to tickle our taste buds. It kind of reminded me of a light Twisties taste.

The rides we managed to get on were Pirates of The Caribbean (PoTC) and their new jungle expedition. I must say, PoTC did very well with the movement of the puppets and environmental lighting to make them look very real. Plus, the mouth movements was not your typical jaw dropping and raising. Really well done.

But since the rain wasn’t letting up, we left Disneyland earlier than we hoped and went to another happy place – for anime and mange enthusiasts.

Welcome to Diver City Plaza, Odaiba. Hello Gundam.

If you paused long enough, its head will start moving, dramatic smoke will appear from its body, its arms will stretch, and its legs will move forward. Okay, maybe its arms and legs aren’t moving yet, but they probably will someday. Then Japan will be able to split their parks and raise their robot armies deep from underground. Lol.

To wrap up the the day, we returned to Akihabara and entered the building; Radio Kaikan. It was a multi-level complex with many stores for various interests from Danboard, Nendoroid, Figma, Gundam, Volks dolls and others.

Let’s just say, I’ve a small Danboard obsession and something really good to build and share with you later. 😛

Tokyo oh Tokyo

This morning we departed from Gifu via the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Tokyo. When we bought the tickets with our aunt’s help, it didn’t seem that confusing, but it was a different story than we did on our own later.

It was my first experience riding the train and when it arrived, it was quite interesting to see its true shape. The tickets we bought had allocated seats like an airline and during the trip, there was even a stewardess (not sure if that’s what you call the role) pushing a cart with food for passengers to purchase.

The train was really fast although when you look out the window, it may not be as obvious. At some point we were wondering whether we could view Mt. Fuji but we weren’t sure whether it was the actual thing.

Moments later when we reached Tokyo, we decided to buy our tickets back to Gifu in advance. This was when we weren’t sure what the officer selling the tickets was explaining to us, although we did still manage to buy the tickets.

Once that was done and we got out of the station to walkover to our hotel, we had to pause a few minutes because Tokyo’s “sky tree” tower was in clear view.

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Hello Tokyo. #nofilter #visitjapan

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After checking in and taking a short break, we left to see the giant lantern at Shinsoji. Then made our way to the land of otaku; Akihabara.

It so happened when we walked out from the station, we were already walking into Yodabashi Camera. We spent at least 2 hours in there combing through the figures and continued walking around Akihabara to see what else it had to offer us.

Needless to say, we didn’t return empty handed and will probably make another trip there before we leave.

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Hello Tokyo. #nofilter #visitjapan

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I hope I’ll be able to fit all of the goodies from this trip into my bag when I leave later. In the meantime, I’ll not worry about it and look forward to the happiest place on Earth soon.