Continuing from my previous post, we headed off to Akihabara main street after stopping by Yodobashi. We visited the Taito Game Station and pleasantly impressed how the arcade business is still booming in Japan. First floor is mostly filled with UFO catchers, while the upper floors are devoted to games. As a quick note, most stores in Japan do not allow for photography apart from some larger department stores and company stores like figure makers Kaiyodo and Kotobukiya.

Went to the famed Toranoana and learned that the store was split into 2 right next to each other. The first store on the right in the picture below sells mostly boy love and girl orientated material upstairs, while the store on the left sells heavily male orientated doujinshi material after the 3^rd floor.

Animate, the anime store is located right next to it. Went to a few other stores and took a few photos at the famed bridge seen in Japanese dramas and movies. Roughly we spent the entire day in Akihabara exploring the main streets, and we barely scratched the surface as many stores are located on various floors and many in alleyways.

My first impression of Akihabara wasn’t particularly great, as I had expected to find tons of rare stuff and oddities at second hand stores; instead, Akihabara seemed to be composed primarily of first hand retailers. It wasn’t until later when we discovered the lockers at Volks, the discounted manga book store store Book Off, and the giant second hand  anime goods chain, Mandarake that my view change. More on those stores later as we frequently went back.

Ended up eating at a “hamburg” place and ordered the largest sized set they had for 1,417 yen. Oddly enough the place was considered a nicer restaurant as the locals were a bit more dressed up and sipping wine. The hamburg itself was interesting, partially like a meat ball and partially like a meatloaf. There wasn’t a vending machine at this place so we split the bill and left heading back to the hotel to plan for the next day.