Tokyo Trip Day 2: Nakano and Akihabara

I thought I would start out by telling you a little about our hostel room. For a start, it was fantastically cheap, costing me 3500 YEN per night. The beds were clean and warm and even through they could be a little hard, when you are exhausted from a day of shopping it really does not matter. We were also able to get a private room for the three of us, so no sharing a huge dorm room with a bunch of unwashed miscreants from all over the world. On the other hand, it also had its quirks. The bathroom, where it was not physically possible to completely stretch out and soak those aching shopping muscles, the hand basin tap that splutters and sprays water all over you, and the loo. The loo where even though there is a privacy lock, there was not enough room for your knees to fit behind the door when sitting. It really takes privacy out of the whole bathroom experience. Unfortunately, we later discovered that the beds were riddled with bed bugs and we all ended up bitten.

(view from the tiny balcony attached to our room)

But, bright eyed and bushy-tailed we made our way out into the big world of Japan...

And just about froze our arses off! Thankfully the concept of layers was already with us, and we were rugged up to the nines. Our first stop was Nakano, specifically the Nakano Broadway. Now I should point out that this was a shopping trip to Japan with the purpose to firstly blow a lot of that hard-earned cash in my savings account, and secondly to have the experience of visiting Japan.

Nakano broadway is a multi-story building with a whole bunch of shops in it. Specifically, a whole lot of shops with collectibles. We are talking Anime, Film, Gaming figures and whole lot more. It was a unique experience. I have never in my life seen so many collectibles in one place. Not even all the stalls at Supanova can compare to the sheer quantity of stores and items. I tell you know that if you are heading to Japan for collectibles, head to the Nakano Broadway first.

Our next stop was Akihabara, (photo #2) where you can get basically similar sort of stuff as at Nakano, but brand new and on a whole different scale. I snagged a beautiful new Pullip doll to add to my collection as well as some awesome figurines and cute little anime characters.

TIP - If you are going to do some hard-core shopping, take your small wheely carry-on suitcase with you. Yes it can be annoying dragging it behind you; and you feel a little silly; and it is a pain in the arse to lug it up the stairs, but your arms will thank you for the break from carrying everything in their individual plastic bags. It was truly the best advice I had before I went over. Everywhere I went, my suitcase went.

And another evening of 7-11 food picked up on the way back to the hostel, where we all crashed into our beds with aching feet and muscles.

(the cutest signage I have ever seen which tells you how to use the Tokyo subway system properly. I simply adore the cartoon animals.)