This is my third time in Japan so I didn’t plan to do very touristy stuff in the itinerary. Rather, I planned to relax abit and do more stuff that is actually representative of Japanese culture.
So with that being said, here’s the first post of Japan!
After a really scary turbulence on flight that had me doing flashbacks on my life, I landed safely and met my brother whom I haven’t seen for ilke 4 months?? Haha. We took a train to Asakusa, which is our hostel, which took like 2 hours+ ._. OTW updated each other on our Korean and Japanese language statuses!
Much of the day is gone by then so he asked if we should just visit Akihabara, to which I agreed. Akihabara was one of the few places I remembered from my previous visit to Tokyo, and I did remember finding it very interesting for a few reasons at that point of time:
- The maid cafes and maids waiting outside
- The anime-loving culture as seen from all the merchandise shops
- Sexuality of anime characters as seen from the modified merchandises
- The earthquake that happened when we were at Akihabara back then (think telephone lines shaking violently and merchandises falling off shelves and everyone running out of buildings kind of scenario)
Pretty strange reasons especially since the point of Akihabara was actually for electronics. HAHA. Nevertheless, I remembered Akihabara vividly and when we visited on D1, I remembered every street rather clearly.
With plenty of time to spare, we decided to drop by a cat cafe called Neko Jalala at Akihabara.
It’s not really my first time with cats in a cafe since I frequent Table A so much in Seoul, but it IS my first proper cat cafe that charges by the hour.
I was petting the cat that was sitting on the counter but got told off kinda because i needa wash my hands first looool. So we washed our hands, ordered the very expensive drinks, and settled down. I can’t remember how much the rates were, but for half an hour it was pretty expensive… maybe around 500-600 yen? And the drinks were about 400 yen. So we each spent about 1000 yen (almost $12) for half an hour plus drinks 😦
*ponders about life*
this cat looked so grumpy otl ❤
my bro trying to catch the attention of the grumpy cat who basically just dao’ed
When the food came hahahaha
The cats weren’t the most friendly towards humans, similar to the cat cafe in Singapore. They generally dodge the customers’ touch hahaha, only going to the owners. But it’s generally expected for cats anyway, so i wasn’t really surprised. I just waited for the cats to settle down before i touched them and they were generally responsive and okay when they’re settled down and not on a mission to do something.
They were really adorable to the owner of the cafe though. They meowed a lot and responded to their names haha and literally begged for her touch.
After half an hour of petting cats we made our way out and walked a bit around Akihabara.
Akihabara~
Akihabara with girls in maid costumes waiting to pull people in
Maid cafe~
streets of Akihabara
We tried to find a bookshop that my brother heard about. It’s called Book Off and they sell really really cheap third-hand (?) comics, CDs and the likes. All in Japanese though.
Mangas sell as cheap as $2!!!
Great shop if you know Japanese and want to read some mangas to improve~
I kinda wish they had something like this in Korea.
Okay that’s about it for the D1 in Tokyo! ^^
darmawanders 