Tokyo Redux III: Akiba

Yard-sale like vendors outside the Akihabara UDX Building

As I made my way back towards nerd central, which I recently learned is affectionately shorted from "Akihabara" to just "Akiba," I stopped in a couple of anime figurine shops...
mostly in the vague hopes of discovering a nice mini of any number of various characters who were probably a lot more popular back in the '90s. No such luck for me. The Sailor Moon minis I found were actually quite hideous, and I already know a place in Kyoto where I can buy the adorable chibi-fied Final Fantasy figurines.

(Google "Sunako" and "Sunako chibi." For the main character of the anime/manga The Wallflower, or Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge, Tomoko Hayakawa actually utilizes the chibi style regularly to show Sunako going back and forth between her humorous self-conscious side and her more mature, self-confident side. The Wallflower is essentially a modern Pygmalion/My Fair Lady story.)

In any case, no figurines really struck me besides fairly large one of Elwyn/Elwing (an elf character from the anime Shining Tears X Wind)--about whom I know nothing else. She was just pretty, and in the end, too expensive.

I found my way to the Tokyo Anime Center, which I found rather lackluster. Like the Pokemon center, it's mostly a small shop of a fairly limited selection of merchandise. I think there's also a theater next door, which probably shows promotional clips or screenings or some such, and perhaps the Center sometimes has important guests from the anime industry visiting.

That day all was fairly quiet and empty. The store mostly carries merchandise from Neon Genesis Evangelion, Bleach, One Piece, Astro Boy, some Studio Ghibli films, and a few anime unknown to me. Here, the coolest thing I saw was some NERV duct tape.
Not saying too much.
Near the Akihabara UDX building, I ducked inside a dinky merchandise shop, which sold CDs, books, folders, figurines and small knick-knacks. I actually spent probably about twenty minutes in there digging through the baskets of discounted posters and folders. My efforts were pretty well-rewarded, too, I think; I found an adorable Furuba poster of Kyo and Tohru, as well as a tin commemorating the n-th anniversary of Clamp's X series.

Since I was running out of the the couple of hours I'd allotted for exploring Akiba, I didn't manage to check out the Kanda Second-hand Books Area nearby, which is said to have over 150 bookstores I would have loved to get lost in had I had the time. Second-hand bookshops in Japan are slightly dangerous places for me, I think.
But it sounds...fascinating.

A few examples of kogyaru fashion, above; there are several different sub-categories of this style, taken to different extremes. The basic idea of the look is a schoolgirl uniform with a shortened skirt, usually with loose socks, died hair, and sometimes with tanned skin (although there's a more recent gyaru style called shiro gyaru which goes for the pale look).

Tokyo Redux II: Kanda Myojin

Before diving back into the nerdom of Akihabara, I took a short stroll down from the station to Kanda Myojin shrine.

There was something rather enchanting about finding it, the small side entrance torii coyly and quietly tucked away between the red-brick city buildings.

Kando Myojin was an important shrine, at first mostly to the samurai class, but in the Edo period it became popular with the general public after the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu paid it particular respect. People today visit Kanda Myoji to pray for luck in business, family, and in finding future spouses; the kami enshrined here are Daikokuten, Ebisu and Taira no Masakado.

 

a beautiful fountain to the right of the Main Hall

 

a statue of Dakokuten

A somewhat unusual statue of Ebisu, who is usually portrayed as a cheery man with a fishing rod. This statue hearkens more to his origins as the firstborn "leech child" of Izanagi and Izanami. Because of a Izanami basically messed up the marriage ritual by greeting Izanagi first--and they had to redo it--Ebisu was born deformed and thrown into the sea in a basket as a child. He washed ashore on one of the northern islands, where Ainu found and raised him, and he eventually grew bones. Thankfully.



A fortune-teller machine. Reminds me of Big a little bit, only with a Japanese puppet instead of Zoltar.

When I arrived, workers at the shrine were taking out some of the mikoshi. I believe they were making preparations for a festival coming up soon. Kanda Matsuri would be held this year on the 15th and 16th of May (about a week and a half after I visited), in honor of the kami of Kanda Myojin, although originally it started as a victory celebration after Tokugawa Ieyasu won at the battle of Sekigahara.

Tokyo Redux I: Asakusa

Wednesday I managed to wake up bright and early to a gorgeous, sunny day. I think I was the first to leave the guesthouse in the morning, but most everyone else was going to Tokyo DisneySea that day--which I would like to see sometime, but that day, I wanted to re-examine some of the places we'd been on my own. I was packed already, and I had the battle plan laid out.


1) Minami-senju-->Tokyo Station: put stuff in locker
2) Tokyo Station-->Asakusa
3) Asakusa-->Akihabara
4) Akihabara-->Kudanshita (near Kitanomaru-kouen)
5) Kudanshita-->Shibuya
6) Shibuya-->Harajuku on foot (and back again)
7) Shibuya-->Kamiyacho (to Tokyo Tower)
8) And back to Tokyo Station


Phase 1 and 2 passed without incident. Once I reached Kaminarimon Gate, I found a sign on the store I'd wanted to go back to which said "Closed on Mondays." (Which was strange, since it was a Wednesday, but it was still closed when I left, so...No second look for me.) In any case, I continued down Nakamise to visit Senjoji temple.

 

Hozomon Gate

Senso-ji is the oldest temple in Tokyo, built in 628 after two fisherman caught a statue of the bodhisattva Kannon in their nets. The founder of Sensoji, Shokai decided to hide the statue from public view in 645 after a mystical dream, but in the early 8th c., Ennin of Enryakuji temple came to Sensoji, created a replica statue, and called forth Kannon's spirit into the statue.

The top-most story of this pagoda contains a bone relic of the Buddha, a gift from Sri Lanka in 1973 from when the temple was rebuilt after WWII

 

The garden by Yogodo and Yakushido Halls

 

The Shintennou, I believe

 

An intriguing ad of some sort I caught leaving Nakamise

 

A rickshaw driver on the hunt

 

I feel silly now, because looking at the map on the pamphlet from Sensoji, I probably could have made a quick stop at Asakusa Jinja, no problem. It just looked a lot farther on the city maps...

Two Ports,One of them for the cocoaWhat do you call it? Yoko-hama! Ja!Und Nagasaki!

Well, only Yokohama, that evening. The train from Kamakura to Yokohama was fun: some of the cars, including the one we rode in, were double-deckers. Only...I think they might have been reserved cars because the half of our group that went upstairs got shooed out into the next car, but they left us alone on the bottom level.

*shrug* I got a small nap in a very comfortable seat, in any case.





Since it was getting on towards evening, we didn't have much time for a lot of wandering around all over town, so we pretty much headed straight to the Minato Mirai 21 area.

 

This is the Canon Cats Theater...which is exclusively for the musical CATS, which has been produced here since 1983.

 

Yokohama manhole captured!

 

I'm not sure, it was just in front of an enormous Toyota lot

 

Below is the Nippon Maru Training Ship, the Yokohama Port Museum, sail-less

 

Hard Rock Cafe and an small outdoor stadium (with fire-eaters) in or near Queen's Square

Adventures in Yokohama Cosmo World

Just across from Queen's Square and down the street from the Nippon Maru is Cosmo World, a small but cute amusement park boasting Cosmo Clock 21, one of the world's largest Ferris wheels, and...the world's largest clock. The sail-shaped building to its left is the Pacifico Yokohama, which contains the Conference Center and Grand InterContinental Hall of Yokohama.

There's no entrance fee for the whole amusement parks, just each ride/attraction has a different price. You get your tickets for a certain amount from nearby vending machines--which, by the by, several restaurants in Japan have you order food this way. Sun Young and I paired up to ride on one of the spinny, centrifugal rides, and Momo-chan joined us for a walk through Dr. Edgar's Haunted House.


It was cheesy but fun--somehow I still find maize mazes a bit scarier. And they give you these electric candles which you're supposed to keep upright throughout the walk through, and then they gauge your points at the end of the trip. I didn't really pay attention to what level I got on my candle, because I didn't realize the point of it until afterward.

Also, laughing is just as bad as jumping and screaming for keeping things like electric candles upright.

After a long, long wait, almost all of us had a go on Diving Coaster: Vanish, which is probably the main attraction besides the Ferris Wheel. It's aptly named for the seconds of the ride where the coaster "dives" into a tunnel in the middle of a pool of water, vanishing underground before resurfacing and throwing you for a double horizontal loop-de-loop.


A couple of shots I managed with the night setting on my keitai camera


The ride's short, especially when compared to the wait, but I'd say it's fun enough that it's worth riding at least once.

We managed to eat dinner at the food court of the mall across the street from Cosmo World, even though most of their restaurants were closing down. I also found a Hello Kitty vendor and bought my Yokohama souvenir charm: a little Hello Kitty hugging a glow-in-the-dark mushroom...I realize it doesn't mean anything with relation to Yokohama, but it struck me funny. Plus, glow-in-the-dark. Way cool.
Then we returned to the guesthouse, and I packed so I could get up early and leave to do some adventuring on me ownsome Wednesday.