Akihabara 秋葉原 (field of fallen autumn leaves)

Paradise for manga & technologies geek. At night will also be filled with office workers.
Akihabara, or Akiba for short hold reputation to be the homebase to otaku. This subculture grows very fast now we could find maid cafes, shops for anime, model kit, and spare part for your robot at every corner.



The legendary Radio kaikan! Renovated, but they do keep that iconic red-yellow facade. Good smile company cafe is on Akihabara too, but I can't find it!


Akiba also home for the world famous idol group AKB48, they have theater for their show at Akihabara Donki. Cross the street from Yodobashi & JR station Akiba, head straight. AKB48 cafe is side by side with Gundam cafe. Both are flowing with customer :0 If you go to gundam cafe, please try the bathroom I heard it's interesting!

Now, no Akiba trip is complete without visiting a maid cafe! My friend Wilmar recommend this favorie maid cafe of him, @home cafe. So me, Wilmar, his roommate Nindra, and his friend Gen-san went to the building, the cafe located at 4th floor. Altough Gen-san is native Japanese, he told me he'd never been to a maid cafe before.



We can't take picture inside the cafe, but with this ojousama set (princess set), you could pick any of the available maid to take a polaroid photo with. All the maid will call you ojosama (princess) for girls and goshujin-sama (master) for boys, and no they don't talk like normal person.

Gen-san paid for my bill as a treat for first-timer tourist aand the ojousama set cost 2,600 JPY (wtf, haha) big thanks Gen-san! At the cafe exit, we could take free uchiwa (handfan). If you got time, please visit one of the maid cafe in Akihabara, it's really not kind your everyday experience, even in Japan :))

After @home maid cafe, with full tummy we're walking around the neighborhood. It's already dark I can't visit the place one by one :( Just passing over, Taito game station, animate, and Donki. We visit the donki bld, browse their goods and see AKB48 Theater at 8th floor, unfortunately the show already started and we can't go upstairs! lol


Walking around Akiba is interesting, many loud touts dotted the pavement. They also handing us flyers, tissue, & candy sampler. If you lucky you'll get more odd items maybe, I got a maid reflexology flyer :|

Then we visit Akihabara BOOK-OFF. It's a second-handed CD and DVD music and book shop. To my thrill those CD are still in crisp condition & exceeding my expectation :0 Bought some CD singles for 100-200 JPY each and a CD album for 550 JPY, dramatic cool-off price... Read more about my record shop hopping in Shinjuku here.

Ikebukuro 池袋 (Sack of pond)

Now, my sole purpose of going to Ikebukuro is to find Otome Road :)) After get off at the Ikebukuro subway at Seibu Dept. Store, I did a quick look to the depachika (basement of deaprtement store), usually lined with vast array of food, from dessert to fresh fish. In here, they mostly sell snacks for souvenirs. They are so cute and indulging! Sorry, can't take pictures :( Flickr tag of "depachika", I confirm it will be even prettier in real world.

After a cup of matcha, some sweet bites & a cheese cube free samples, moving onto the upper-ground world, now I'm heading to Sunshine City Mall. Around path to the mall there's many stereo every 3 metres, all plays instrumental french-pop music, giving extra drama to the atmosphere (I feel like I'm in a movie).

Unfortunately I didn't find otome road! :( I go round and round from Sunshine City, but can't find the Animate shop :( But I did find Closet Child Ikebukuro. More story about Closet Child in Shinjuku.


If you go to Sunshine City, try the strange flavored ice cream at Namja Town, inside the mall. Imagine Bertie Bott's flavour, you'll find horsemeat, squid-ink, or charcoal ice cream.

Before leaving Sunshine City, I visited Tokyu Hand. It's like an over-equipped bookstore, but without books. Whole 3 (or 4?) floors of the store filled with stationary, DIY paper art, origami, home appliances, even fake beard: