Asakusa

Asakusa, Tokyo.


...the text on the banner is reversed. It must have blown around in the wind - or else I just took a picture of the back side of it.

Pretty Building!

...this picture may or may not be from Akihabara in Tokyo. I'd prefer not to say.


(Okay...so I keep forgetting my camera at school. I brought it in to take a class picture, then stuck it inside the podium to keep it safe afterwards. Unfortunately, it's a little too safe, since even I don't notice it in there. So I'm posting a few older pictures for now, until I get a chance to take some new ones.)

Return to Ghibli?

Look! It's a drain face!



No...it's not from the Ghibli museum...of course not... :p

Akiba (3)

Cosplayer surrounded by otaku in front of JR Akihabara, oh my!

Akiba (2)

There was a big crowd gathered here...for something involving video game with the big sign, I imagine.

Someone may also have been fliming for a TV show/movie. My friend said she saw people with cameras, and soon after this was taken, a large portion of the crowd dispersed (mostly the crowd on the right side, out of my picture...they were covering a good part of the huge 4-lane road) as if, perhaps, they'd just finished watching the filming?

So if anyone sees a scene resembling this in a movie or something, let me know!

Akiba

Akihabara street scene (1)


(I have a few more to post in the coming days)

Eight Floors of Anime

Buildings in Akihabara...including the 8-floor Animate. We started at the top and walked through each floor on the way down. (By the end, even I was getting a little tired of anime goods.)

It's giant...it's purple...

...it's a penguin?


McDonald's has put out ads with purple penguins to promote McFlurries over here. (Or would it be McFlurrys? Hmm.) Either way, they had their mascot hanging out by the JR train station in Akihabara, Tokyo.

For some reason, it was a little creepy. I have nothing against mascots in general - in fact I ususally like them - but I felt no inclination to go pose with this one. I was actually trying not to attract its attention...

Lipton Ad

The new Lipton Tea ad is cute! It also makes me laugh.


I took this picture in Shibuya (Tokyo), but I've seen them in Osaka, too.

Here's a close-up of the text at the bottom. (It's even a fairly accurate English translation.)

Comic City Tokyo Day

The train that took us there:


The line to get in. The huge, huge line...


On the way back, there were strange cow-people statues watching TV (or were they watching us?) near the train station. It was weird. I took a picture.


The ironic thing is I'm going to Comic City Osaka tomorrow :p

Ghibli Crest

The whole area was beautiful. Even the gates were adorned with the Ghibli crest.

Laputa

On the roof of the Ghibil Museum, there was a huge statue of one of the robots from Laputa. Here my artistic back-of-robot-in-nature shot. (This way I also managed to cut out the crowds posing in front.)


And for perspective -

See? Big.

The Straw Hat Cafe

At the Ghibli Museum, we ate at the Straw Hat Cafe (which reminded me far too much of One Piece). It was pretty and brightly colored! Also, the food was delicious.


Bonus picture! This was my order...(delicious) strawberry cake and a drink which, so far as I can remember, was called "Looking Up Into a Clear Blue Sky Cream Soda." I didn't even really want cream soda (which in Japan, by the way, actually means soda with ice cream) - I just got it for the name. It was totally worth it.

Ghibli!

This was one of my favorite pictures of the Ghibli museum :)

Tokyo Pictures!

I'm back from Tokyo! My friends and I had a great time :)
Here's a quick run-down of our Golden Week activities:

Day 1 - Thursday, May 3rd

We went to the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, on the outskirts of Tokyo. It was amazing!

Look! It's a totoro in the ticket booth!

This is the entrance to the museum. The architecture of the building is great - it really feels like it could be from a Ghibli film. And there was so much beautiful, beautiful greenery!

We also went to a restaurant called Ninja Akasaka for dinner. We were guided to our table and served by ninjas. It was cool. And tasty. (And expensive.)

Day 2 - Friday, May 4th

Comic City Tokyo! It was fun and big and crowded. No pictures allowed inside, but here's a picture of Tokyo Big Step, the building where the event was held.

That night, we had dinner in Shibuya, which I think is comparable in size, traffic, and atmosphere to Times Square in New York. I took a picture of the station building, complete with blurry crowd (...and ads for a movie I'm looking forward to seeing. Yay pirates!)

Day 3 - Saturday, May 5th

We went to Akihabara, the part of Tokyo famous for electronics/anime/video games/etc. See? Big billboards!

Then my friends headed back on the Shinkansen. I went to Harajuku to shop and watch all the fashionable young Japanese people until it was time to catch the night bus back to Osaka. And surprisingly, to not take pictures...somehow I ended up without a single shot of Harajuku. At least, not from this trip :p

And now I'm home! Yay Osaka! Though it was rather ironic...we had *beautiful* weather for the entire trip in Tokyo. When I got off the bus in Osaka, it was pouring, and it's been raining all day. I'm glad today was my rest-and-recover day. And tomorrow it's back to school! (eep!)

Taking a trip...

Going to Tokyo and Yokohama tomorrow! In honor of that, today's picture is from my last trip to Tokyo, in December.



This is Hachiko Square in Shibuya (taken through a window in the train station). It's supposedly the busiest intersection in the world.

I'll have more pictures on Wednesday when I get back!