J-HOLIDAY DIARY 2015

3rd May 2015

Hello to you. I am in Tokyo for the next two weeks....yay!

Qantas flight was uneventful. Apart from the scrambled eggs the food was very poor. I ate the worst potato salad ever, undercooked and they used the wrong type of potato, vile. No movies worth watching either. And all the cabin crew were middle-aged larakins.

Arrived at Narita Airport Sunday morning at 6:20am. Caught the JR NEX to Tokyo then the Yamanote to Ueno. Unfortunately my hotel room was not yet available and I had two and a half hours to spare. 

I left my suitcase in the hotel lobby and walked the short distance to Ueno Koen. Very busy with families going to see the pandas and the dinosaur bones. A bit worrying as there were very many riot police in body armour etc. Reason being there were right-wing activists with loud-hailers in the park and driving around Ueno in black buses and vans. They are not nice and they were fortunately largely ignored by everyone. I saw the same type of thing at Hiroshima Castle a few years ago. 

Anyway, I took the train to Akihabara and searched for a 7eleven shop as I needed to get a concert ticket printed out (they print concert tickets at 7eleven). I am going to see Fairies at Akasaka Blitz next week. They are an all girl idol group. I am especially fond of Sora-chan.

After this I went back to the hotel and slept till the mid afternoon, unpacked then went to Lawson to buy delicious food. Who needs a restaurant when you have Lawson right next to your hotel!

I brought my laptop with me this time and have connected to the internet in my hotel room. I needed to customise an adaptor to take three pins going in and two pins going out. I used a hacksaw.

I will leave you now and go and eat my yummy instant noodle soup. Zumi says hi! (small doll that stowed away in my carry on).

  

4th May 2015

Today it was Monday and in the morning I went to Akihabara. It was extremely crowded and I realised it was a public holiday. There was an outdoor flea-market with all sorts of otaku-ware for sale. In Chuo Dori there was a full size Gundam lying on a truck as if it had been captured in a battle. One arm was torn off. People were standing in the middle of the road taking photos but when I took out my ipad to take a photo the truck drove away. Nothing else happened. It is very warm with a nice cool breeze. 


5th May 2015 

今日　１０：４９AM 　おきました。

まず　ふろ　に　はいりました。

つぎに　秋葉原　で　さんぽ　を　しました。

小さい　けんきゅせい　な　アイドル　が　見られました。

Here is a photo of people queuing for something in Akihabara. By the way, I think the time on the clock is wrong, it is actually in the afternoon? Also a photo of small wannabe idols outside AKB48 cafe next to Akihabara Station. I don't know why they have masks? 　

6th May 2015

Today I circumnavigated the entire length of the Yamanote Line going anti-clockwise. I like to sit in a train and do nothing at all, very relaxing. I admit, however, to stopping off at Shibuya for about 30 minutes to seek out a shop-girl in a particular cafe, but the cafe was closed for some reason, probably staff training. Shibuya is a bit dull for my liking so I left quickly.

When I got back to Ueno Station I thought it might be wise to test out the journey to Akasaka Blitz, so I did that. Very easy to find and takes about 30-40 minutes by Metro and walking.

Here is a photo of Akasaka Blitz. There were only females queuing to go in so it must have been a boy-band performance of some description. Age of females varied with some not so young and some in goth style.

I think today was not a public holiday so it was not so busy with sightseers. I went to Maidreamin # 2 and it was virtually empty, and noiseless, which was awesome for me as I could relax without the stress of human activity. I wanted to eat fish but they had sold out, so I asked for squid but they had sold out of that too. I did not ask for my-little-pony (horse) but even if I did they had sold out of that also. I ate fried octopus, gyoza and cucumber salad.

My neck is a bit sore from the concrete slab in the hotel that masquerades as a pillow. I might go to a department store and buy a disposable pillow.

9th May 2015

Nothing to report for yesterday or the day before. No photos either. Sorry.

Today was Kanda Matsuri Day. I tried to catch up with the procession at lunch time in Akihabara but went south instead of north and missed it 'by that much'. In the afternoon I went to Kanda Station to catch the procession there. I waited and waited for an hour but nothing happened. Here is a photo of other people waiting for something to happen. I decided to call it a day as I can always go tomorrow morning hopefully with better luck. Therefore the answer to your question is no, today I did not see much at all. I will be on a tight schedule tomorrow as I need to be at Akasaka Blitz by 4pm to see six fairies dance and sing. I think people will arrive well before that to queue, so I hope I can hold in my wee for at least a few hours. 

By the way, I forgot to mention that I felt two little earth tremors a few nights back. Probably Japanese people don't even notice such things. One tremor must have lasted 8 seconds.

May 10 - Sunday

In the morning I went to Kanda Myojin (shrine) hoping to see something interesting. I was not disappointed. The shrine is almost exactly next to Electric City in Akihabara. There were many awesome portable shrines being carried along the streets and it was crowded so not easy to take good photos. The better ones are posted below. It was warm and sunny and everyone looked happy, even me for a change.

After this I went to the maid cafe for earl grey tea and french toast. I had a nice talk with Firefly （ほたるちゃん）.

About midday I walked the short distance along Chuo Dori back to my hotel in Ueno. There were more awesome shrines being carried along the street. I also saw that giant robot I told you about the other day. It look real.

In the afternoon I took the subway to Akasaka to see Fairies J-pop idol group at the Blitz. I got there at about 20 to four for entry at four for a five o'clock performance. There were many people queuing. However, queuing was a waste of time as it was not first in line first in. They called entry by ticket number, ie "tickets A1-100 go in now" etc. I had ticket A1171 so I had to wait till near last to go in. I had a reasonable view of the Fairies and they were reasonably close. There were as many girl fans as males. There were two tiny girls standing near to me who didn't get a good view at all but kept waving their magical sticks all throughout the concert, changing hands when one arm got tired. It was so cute. The Fairies were awesome. The music was pre-recorded but they sang live. Sora had a new hairstyle. I prefer the bob she had before to the short ponytail she has now. Here is a photo from outside the venue and some 'stock' photos of the Fairies from Google images.

After this I was tired from basically being on my feet all day and went back to the hotel and watched some TV and went to bed at 9:15pm.

 

11th May 2015 

Today I decided to go to Kawagoe, which is a suburb of Tokyo. To get there I took the JR train from Ueno to Ikebukuro then the Tobu-Tojo train to Kawagoe. After that I had to walk two kilometres. To me it was not so inspiring and involved a long walk.   

Here is a photo of Crea Mall and a dog wearing a dress. 

  

12th May 2015

Guess what? Yesterday evening I was outside my hotel and saw a rat. I tried to catch it but it was too quick for me. Rats are AWESOME! 

Today I went for a short walk around Ueno. I had never really explored Ueno before. It is actually quite seedy with bags of rubbish on the curb and disreputable bars. For some reason it was unbearably humid so I went back to the hotel to change and cool off.

In the early evening I went to Akihabara. It was still very humid. I went to a maid cafe where they are used to seeing me. The cafe was was almost empty. I told the maids I liked quiet places and not noisy places. One maid acted as my sensei and corrected my poor pronunciation and gave me some homework to do. The cafe closed early at 10:00pm at which time I was the only customer. One maid sang a song (ponytail and scrunchy) but it was a bit surreal with only one customer. When I left there was a tropical storm, which explains why it was so humid earlier. As I did not have an umbrella one of the maids gave me a free umbrella. When I got back to the hotel the top part of me was dry but the bottom half was not. I felt sorry for the cardboard box people.

The lobby clerk gave me a flyer for the Sanja Festival in Asakusa. I will go this Friday.

15th May 2015

This morning I went by metro to Asakusa. It was very crowded (the metro and Asakusa). Too crowded for me, mostly school girls and Chinese tourists. I did not stay long, but here are some photos.

In the afternoon I slept because I forgot to sleep last night.

In the evening I went to Akihabara. A maid called Bibi gave me one of her fingernails and in return I gave her a small octopus sticker.

On the way back to the hotel I had a bad tummy ache and was obliged to use one of those 'funny' toilets next to the Koban in Ueno.  I remembered to face the right way.  

 

16th May 2015 

This evening I flew back to Australia.

The night before I packed and only slept for four hours. I am a bit run-down. In the morning I left my suitcase in the hotel lobby and went to Akihabara to buy a souvenir plate for a work colleague who wanted a plate that was "made in Japan".  I also bought some Hello Kitty pencil toppers for some girls in the office.

After this I went to the 2nd floor of Maidreamin Eki Mae Ni. I was glad it was quiet. The second floor is good for me as the whole of one wall is a window overlooking Akihabara and I can sit by the window and look out. The maid on duty was called Emily. She said her younger sister Sakyu-chan was working on the 3rd floor. The 3rd floor is also Maidreamin and is the busy floor with more tables and a bar and a maid-stage and tourists.

After this I went for a walk and went into Don Quixote to buy another pair of inner soles as the other pair I bought were "molded for comfort"....which made them uncomfortable.

In the afternoon I went to the 3rd floor of Maidreamin Eki Mae Ni. Sakyu-chan was not there (she was "sampo"...ie walking the street touting for customers "no photo no movie"). I bought a bottle of sweet fizzy stuff in an ice bucket which entitled me to ask a maid to sing a song and have a photo with a maid. I wanted Mariru-sensei to sing Bun-Bun Nine but they did not have it on tape so I settled for Brand New Blue Jeans. Chiroru-chan (Tyrol) was also there. I know her quite well. She is an awesome chiichai maid who is like a small mischievous pixie.

Unfortunately I was very pushed for time and left after 40 minutes and went back to the hotel to pick up my suitcase. I caught the Skyliner from Ueno Keisei at 5:40pm and arrived at Narita at about 6:15pm for the 8:30pm flight to Sydney.

At the airport I went into my only "restaurant" during this trip. It was awesome for me as it basically only had one and a half walls (one and a half walls were not there and the fourth wall was a floor to ceiling window overlooking the runway. I ate unagi and miso soup and sushi (see photo). Actually, it was not that great.

Here are some photos of maids that were taken with me by other maids using my camera. I have cropped myself out of the photos as I am not very photogenic to say the least.

I am actually writing this blog in my bed on 24th May. I am not well and have a sore throat and bad cough that I can't shake. I did wake up Minoko and Aimee yesterday and had a welcome home special meal with them and told them about my trip, see photos.