Monday, October 29, 2012

Akihabara, The Most Animated Place On Earth

Yesterday, I met up with Grant and Andy at Grant's place and didn't get lost O__O! A great start to the day. We had been planning on going to Harajuku with Luke, but he had to cancel, so we decided to go somewhere none of us have been yet, Akihabara.
We had to stop at the local Stargate and make a pitstop at Atlantis, first.
After preventing another Wraith attack, we found some very helpful signs at the subway upon our return.
I feel like Beth took the picture on the left. Lauren and Shawn are the ones sitting down, Jeremy is the one on crutches, and I'm the strange Monkey Bear Child.
In the right picture, Lauren is the yellow guy on the right, Shawn is the Green guy, I'm the pink one, and Beth ran away from pushing Lauren in. Jeremy is conducting the train.
Then we made it to Akihabara ^_____^!
If you don't like video games, manga, anime, action figures, dolls, animated boobs, or electronics, this place is not for you.
Aw man, not Mother 3. But I'm holding an original Mother 1&2 box! Even though I already have the game. lolol.

This is really good, you guys. Whatever is happening here, it's really good.
Possibly Christmas Card to Grandma. There's even speech bubbles. It's perfect.

The buildings that we went into had at least 8 floors to them, so when you enter one, you best be prepared for some stairs and exploring. When you leave, you feel like you've been in a ton of different stores and then realize you were in just one. It's like the Black Omen. We gained so many levels before leaving.
We went to a place called World Radio first.
The Magic card shopping begins:
Then, I got told that I couldn't take any pictures by an employee. heh heh heh.
This floor was filled with figurines like Nendoroids and even figures of Mr. Saturn and quite of few of very promiscuous ladies.
When we go up a floor and I stopped and said, "Oh nOoOoo, Grant."
 And then this display...



This is just ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, Lauren. I picked up another thing for you. Ugh.
Oh yeah, and risked my life taking these pictures. Hey, it was on another floor. Different floor, different rules. Right? Wut?

So many statues and figurines. Like Sailor Moon! AwWWWww YeAAaaHh, giiIrRrRllL.
 And these huge statues:
 HAHAHA, BETH:
After exploring the 8 floors, we wandered a bit outside and Grant spotted another Mandrake. Only, this time instead of being 8 floors underground, it was 8 stories high.
Second floor - I'm making a note here, huge success :
 Hot diggity, pricey little buggers.
 She was great at posing for the camera:
So, I bought a folder and calender notebook with this girl on it and was hoping she was a stock Blythe and she is! Her name is Red Delicious, my new dream Blythe. I remember admiring her when she first came out, but I was phasing out of Blythes at the time and didn't want to invest in any more. She costs about the same as rent x___X. It's about the same on eBay, but those are NRFB, so they're a little more expensive.
 Woof, maybe one day.
 Plum?!
 PLUM, what are you doing in there?! What happened to your bangs?!
 And there were some magazines and books with Blythes too:
So many floors...so much manga...
 Samurai Champloo:
 Sweet fer-eeking custom Pokemon Nintendo DS consoles:
 And a FF XIII-2 PS3 bundle:
 And games from every console ever heard of:
This was taken right before I got caught again with a camera. Apparently, you're not supposed to take any in Mandrake either. Dangit! There were some Earthbound/ Mother 2 figurines that I found soon after. Sorry, Lauren >___<
Well, here's some Godzilla figurines. I took these for my sensei (teacher), Dr. Jones.
We left and found another gaming store where I may have picked up a game, wahaha. It was about 7 'o clock and we were pretty hungry after venturing for about 5 hours. Woof, it did not feel like that long. The info on that Stargate picture says that it was taken around 2, so I'm going believe it.
Grant and Andy had been talking about this Ramen place that they ate at a day earlier and how amazing it was. After looking at the choices in Akihabara to eat, we decided to go to Shinjuku to eat at this Ramen place.
In one of the stations, there was a bunny acting a fool:
Tattoo idea?! I want to shake hands with the creator of this.

The ramen place was really small, with one row of about 12 seats available to eat at. If you were to see it on the street, you would probably pass it up and think "Who. Would eat there. I'mgoingtoBurgerKing." But then there were these magicians:
They reminded me of monks that learned the way of making ramen the right way and decided to come together and make a small business out of it.
Thank all that is fluffy and happy that they did because it was the best ramen I've ever had in my life. Hands, eyes, spleen, down. The best.
Yeah, that's right. I made this pic X-Large so you can appreciate the greatness. They created our orders right in front of us in about 1 minute. I ordered the Kimchi Ramen. It was so good to mix the two together. The broth was different than regular ramen, as you can probably see. After eating this bowl, they offered us all another order of noodles, in which we all accepted. If you were to go by the Nutrition Facts serving size, we probably had about 4-6 servings of noodles. Our bellies were noodles by the time we left. Our souls, too.
Andy lives farther away, so he decided to depart, so Grant and I of course went to local grocery stores to explore.
While in one, I had this strange feeling to check if I had my Passmo (Train Pass). I checked and it was gone >___<. It must have fallen out. I keep putting it in a pocket that is easy to access, but it's also the pocket I put my ipod in. When I take my ipod out to take pictures (which is extremely often as you probably noticed), sometimes the Passmo falls out without me noticing. I really have to stop that habit.
Since we had only been one other place besides the Ramen shop, we went back to the magicians. I walked inside and was searching around all panicky and the 3 magician ramen makers immediately knew what I was looking for and all said "Ahh!, Passmo?" One went into his pocket and brought my card out. Oh gosh. These people. I'm telling you. Magicians! And kind ones, too.

After that brief panic attack, Grant and I walked around Shinjuku a bit more.
This picture is for MoMo:
 We also found a temple along the way:
Under construction...
lolol, and this building is for Lumberjack Shawn:
It was getting pretty late, so I went back home after a pretty darn awesome day.
Here's the haul (not including presents for several people):
I WANT HER.
And then....ho ho...
BAM, MOTHER 3. WE FOUND IT. Yes! Win! Magnificent! And in the box. I could have bought just the cartridge, but I felt like this game, of all games, needed the box. Same with SNES Chrono Trigger if I find that...
lolol, maybe one day. I think I'm set, though. This is really, exciting, you guys. I woke up thinking "Hey, I had some really great purchases yesterday." Well, actually this morning was more like "Coffee. I love...COFFFFEEEE."

Today was pretty much an ordinary day. Studying, Class, and Track practice. I increased the weight on barbell squats to 70 kilos, which is about 154 lbs. AwWwW YeaAhHhh, progress! Then, Wendy and Antony wanted me to show them some more moves, so I ended up training Yuuki, Wendy, and Antony.
It's really funny when we go to the gym now because Sou san and the others from track club do moves that I taught them now, like the Statue of Liberty. Oh gosh, what have I done? XD

Yuuki invited me to go to Disney Land with him and his hometown friends on Friday! Since we have off, I definitely want to go. So pumped. But first, the Halloween Party in Shimokitazawa on Wednesday ^___^.