Monday 18/01/10! Harajuku, Akihabara and Yurakucho!

We didn't get a good enough look around Harajuku yesterday, so today we headed out again to see if we could find 6% Doki Doki and stuff. We found it upstairs in some backstreet (exactly where it was supposed to be). It was tiny and had about 6 shop girls (5 too many). It was filled with colourful fluffy/plastic/glittery accessories. A girl gave me a toy shopping basked to place all my tiny purchases in. We didn't buy anything.

Next we went back to Laforet to see what we missed. We started at the top floor and worked our way down. We didn't dilly dally, and I only tried on one pair of shoes. They were too big.

We walked back to the station, stopping at a fashion shop that had a mannikin with a rabbit's head. The rabbit was wearing really nice tights so I bought some, and a cool watch! Pictures to come!

We took the train to Akihabara, which is on the other side of town from Harajuku. We met our Japanese teacher from Canberra, Shizuko. We went to a Maid Cafe because we heard so much about them! We just had to find a cold-looking girl dressed as a maid in the street and she took us all the way up to the 4th floor cafe. There were a bunch of girls about my age all dressed as maids with cute hair, saying "Irasshaimase, Ojisama!" or something, which means "Welcome, Master!". They all looked kind of embarrassed, and Mozart was on loop.

We each got a drink and I got a cake as well, but no meals because it was outrageously expensive. One maid was a westerner from Germany. Shizuko asked how much she's paid. Turns out not much.

When my cake arrived a girl told us that she has to cast a spell on it to make it more delicious. She got us all to make love hearts with our hands and say "Moe, Moe, KYUUUUU!" which probably means "Cute Cute BLAAAAAH!" If it worked, imagine how gross the cake would have been without a spell. Super gross.

Shizuko asked a girl how to become a maid, pointing at me. The girl said you have to do 30 lots of 6-hour training sessions, then you get a certificate.

We looked around Akihabara for a while. It's full of interesting nerdy shops full of anime and manga and character goods. We went to the Akihabara Electronics Market which is a labyrinth of little shops selling plugs and wires and capacitors. Charles was happy!

On our way back to Shinjuku, we stopped at Yurakucho to visit the Muji head shop. Muji is great! It's reasonably cheap, reasonably quality, and stylish. Charles bought a jumper for Y3980 but 70% off - cheap!

We walked back to our hotel from Shinjuku station, stopping to look in Kinokuniya for Deco Alice A La Mode, but failed. It's 8 stories high (the shop, not the magazine).

Charles says: Time to work out where will will stay on Wednesday, since Emi is sick and can't have us for a while. :-(