Robot Claw

The very reason I booked a hotel in Akihabara was to maximize the shopping potential of this place. On every previous visit to Akihabara, bags would fill, bodies would tire, and senses would be overwhelmed. Inevitably this would mean a return to the hotel to refresh, but since my hotel is right here this means I can have a rest stop and then head right back out into the wonderland. Yesterday that’s exactly what I did.

The rain was pervasive, but this only served to diminish the crowds (somewhat) and didn’t bother me. I ended up shopping for about 8.5 hours, visiting dozens and dozens of stores including some on higher levels of buildings that were only accessible by stairs.

It was, for me, a close to perfect day. I saw a lot of wide-eyed tourists standing around overwhelmed and thought “That was me over 20 years ago.” Now I’m an old hand, and navigate these streets like a local. Even the maids reached out to me, and they usually ignore foreigners 🙂

So what did I buy? Lots of books, games, gacha toys, trading cards and other otaku stuff. Wonderful things in other words, including some that were special, and a few that are even ‘holy grail’ items for my collections. One thing in particular almost made me pass out with surprise when I saw it, and I’m sure I set some sort of speed record grabbing it off the shelf! In time I’m sure you’ll see them all on this very blog. Today I’ll showcase – as I do – some of the items I didn’t buy 🙂

Let’s start with the above. I haven’t seen an actual Black Lotus (the most expensive Magic The Gathering card) in many years, and I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen an Alpha version. And yet yesterday I could have just bought one for about $111,000. Or an Alpha booster pack for about $35,000! The same store had dozens of ‘power’ and dual lands, and even sealed boxes of older sets. Incredible!

Speaking of cards, I also saw the above Pokemon card for about $45k. I don’t know much about the Pokémon card game, but a quick search showed this was a card depicting the Pokémon company president that he gave out to friends. As few as 30 exist!

One store I went into had an exhibition of superbly build model kits and the above stood above all of them in my opinion. The artist used some sort of reflective metallic paint that seemed to change colour depending on the viewing angle. It was absolutely beautiful, and his comment (on the card) which read: “I did my best.” may be the understatement of the year!

Quick, someone tell Jonathon Ross there’s a boxed Micronaut for sale at Mandarake 😉

The retro game market has exploded these past few years, which is one of several reasons I’ve sold half my collection. And yet it’s still extraordinary to walk into a shop and see things like this Famicom (NES) cart for ~$2500. I’m always looking for Wizardry games (it’s the series I collect) and they’ve become rare now, but I saw cart-only examples of games (I own mint-in-box) for hundreds yesterday. I’m happy I was into this stuff decades ago.

Speaking of games I was finally able to visit Beep, a small retro game store with a focus on old Japanese PCs and arcade games. It was an amazing dungeon of treasures, and had a vast array of (working!) old Japanese home computers for sale, as well as dozens of arcade boards and even modern tech to play them on your TV. They had a library of old game guides (which I bought a few books from) and they also had these two items I didn’t buy:

Both of these date to the late 1980s and were for the Wizardry tabletop RPG (like D&D). At over $300 for the metal dragon figure and $200 for the ‘module’ you’d need deep pockets indeed to shell out for this pair. Still it was a treat to see an example of a Wizardry RPG book, which I’d never seen before.

I had breakfast, lunch and dinner in Akiba yesterday (all at fine dining establishment, I assure you) and took frequent breaks in air-conditioned arcades and drunk lots of water. I even had two rest stops back at my hotel. But at the end of the day I was still absolutely ruined which is why this blog entry waited for this morning. I didn’t visit every shop I planned to, nor buy everything I wanted to, so I’ll absolutely be back to Akihabara this trip. Look forward to another post like this one in a few days 🙂

I headed out early today since I wanted to be at Tsukiji before 9 am. This is the Tokyo district famous for its fish markets (and seafood restaurants) but I was going for a different reason.

After I exited the subway I followed a small crowd through the streets until we saw signs of a festival being set up. At the end of the stalls there was a shrine, and in this shrine giant lion heads were on display:

Today was the day of the Shishi Matsuri (Lion Dance Festival), which is only held every three years. The festival involves a portable shrine being carried all around the town for several hours. This in itself is not unusual – it’s a common type of festival here and Kristin and I have seen them before in the past – but what makes this one special is that the portable shrine is accompanied by giant lions!

Except today… it wasn’t 🙂

I suspect – and heard others speculating – that the lack of lion dancing was due to the rain. Perhaps the lion heads are fragile or not waterproof? Either way I didn’t see them today. But the shrine parade itself was spectacular enough, and I was quite taken by the little carriage that led it, in which were seated some elderly musicians playing traditional Japanese festival music:

It was a fun thing to see and the enthusiasm of the throng carrying the shrine was infectious. I’m glad I went to check it out.

Afterwards I headed over (via two trains) to Shibuya for some shopping. Since it was still early when I arrived the crowds weren’t too bad (as you can see above) but several hours later when I left they were insane. Shibuya is popular with the younger crowd, and it’s obviously the place to be seen on a weekend!

After a healthy and delicious lunch I looked in a wealth of shops for the usual stuff. I bought too many postcards (watch your mailboxes; you’re all getting extras), stickers, gacha toys, books and games. I also spent a lot of time in Mandarake – one of my favourite shops on Earth – and while I didn’t buy anything once again I loved just looking at the rarities in the cases. Such as a $3000 Tarzan comic:

Or a $1000+ Ultraman record (from almost 60 years ago):

Or even a $35000+ (yes, thirty five grand) Yu-Gi-Oh card:

Only 500 of these solid gold cards exist. I doubt I’ll ever see one again!

These busts of Rem and Ram were almost life-sized and in a gacha machine shop. This was the last place I visited in Shibuya and I was very worn out when I finally got back to the hotel. An early dinner, a hot bath, and my energy had returned! The options were write postcards and watch TV, or head to the Akihabara game centers just a hop and a skip from my room?

You can guess which one I picked…. but let’s save Akiba for tomorrows entry 😉

The ‘fishing’ shrine from yesterday also had an extraordinary ‘tunnel’ of ema, which are wooden charms you (buy and) write wishes or prayers on. Traditionally these are hung for the god to take notice, and eventually burned in rituals.

These are common at all shrines, but the quantity I saw yesterday was incredible. The above pic was taken maybe halfway along the tunnel, so there’s at least as many behind me.

For comparison the Yatagarasu shrine had only a couple of hundred hanging:

I didn’t do one by the way. Maybe I should?

Today I visited Kawagoe, a city to the northwest. It’s famous for an old town featuring preserved buildings dating from the 19th century that look like this:

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

I woke early today and bounced around in my room for a bit (breakfast was a pork katsu sandwich, pineapple pieces and a salted rice ball) before heading to the station. It took about 70 minutes on two trains to get to Kawagoe, and even though breakfast was only a few hours prior I was famished when I got there. Haven’t I been eating enough?

The old town is north of the station at the end of a long shopping street. It took maybe 15 or so minutes of my speedy walking (yes, yes I am ‘taking it easy’) to get to the first famous tourist attraction, the Kumano-Jinja shrine, at which Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow god is worshipped:

It’s a somewhat smallish but beautiful shrine, and I was quite taken by the Yatagarasu images and charms. He is the god of guidance, so I hope he’s watching over me 🙂

A bit further on I reached Ichibangai, the street full of old clay warehouse buildings from the 19th century (as pictured at the start of this blog). Almost all of them now are souvenir shops or eateries, and as it was a rain-free day the place was mobbed today by almost exclusively Japanese tourists. I got the distinct impression this is not a location frequent by foreigners, since English signage was few and far between even at the famous tourist sites.

The above shows a famous Starbucks built to resemble a period building. It’s just as fancy inside as well, and blends in so well that I suspect many passers-by don’t even notice it at first. This is on another famous street that includes a famous tower called Toki no Kane:

The tower rings a bell four times every day, and while the current version is about 120 years old, a tower has stood at that location for over 400 years (and yes I added a ‘ye olde’ filter to the pic to give us an idea of what it looked like long ago)! The tower was by far the most popular subject of tourist photos I saw today, and I had to wait quite a while to get the above pic!

A bit further to the east from the above got me to Hikawa Shrine, where I went fishing:

At this shrine you could ‘fish’ for a sea bream which contained a fortune in it’s belly. There were three tubs of fish to choose from, and since my translator failed to identify the difference I went with the traditional red. It was simple – but fun – to catch my fortune fish:

You can see the fortune sticking out of his tail! What did mine say? Here’s what the translator told me:

At this point I’d been walking for a few hours. It was hot (about 85F) and very humid, and me and everyone else were sweating like dogs. There were food and snack vendors everywhere, and ice creams and cold cucumbers-on-a-stick seemed to be the refreshing snack of choice but I’m partial to neither. Imagine my joy therefore when I found a shaved ice stand:

Like an old bloke I sat on a bench and ate it all in no time flat. It was wonderfully cooling but even then the relief was short-lived. By the end of my 4.5 odd hours in Kawagoe today I drunk three 500 ml bottles of water and ate this shaved ice and even then I’m not sure I hydrated enough! I was telling some of you about Japan’s summer humidity when I was in Oz, and today was a perfect example of how sweaty it can get.

My last stop was a quick visit to ‘candy alley’, a shortish street featuring shops selling cheap or traditional candy and snacks. This was particularly mobbed with people, and while I was fascinated by the array of stuff for sale but in the end only bought one tiny item for a mere ¥8 (about 5 cents):

There were other sites to see but at this point the heat had started to wear me out and it was time to return. I meandered back to the station (stopping at a game center, a retro game store and an anime goods shop) and returned to Tokyo. I was knackered with a capital ‘n’, and planned to simply eat dinner in my room and rest, but madness took me out again for a bit of shopping. There’s a reason I booked a hotel right in the middle of Akiba!

But I’ll save Akihabara stuff for another day 🙂