Japan Trip 2012 - Akihabara Day 4

Day 4 - Akihabara!! We took the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line to Ueno again and then switched to the Hibiya Line to Akihabara station. We didn't know which exit to get out of, and it turns out the Tokyo Metro Akihabara station we came from wasn't near Electric town. We had to walk a bit further to get at where the action was!! Conveniently, we found a Lawson near by with a Loppi machine so we could reserve and print out our Ghibli Museum tickets in advance. I had some trouble with the machine, but the staff there were really nice and helped me out. 

I actually didn't have a shopping map for Akihabara and just planned to shop around where ever... so I totally don't remember all the stores we went into >_<

While we were wandering around the Electric town area, taking in the otaku culture and walking past girls dressed up in frilly maid costumes handing out flyers, I turned around a corner and saw this:

The Volks Akihabara showroom. I had a little heart attack right there lol. I was planning to visit the Harajuku showroom (I only picked one showroom to visit, cause Jillian isn't into dolls and I wasn't sure if we'd have time to go to all of them) the day after... but conveniently the showroom was staring me in the face!! The lower floors had figures and character goods but the upper floor was devoted to Dollfie Dream and Super Dollfie. It was amazingggg. The displays were so gorgeous!! No photos allowed, so anyone into Dollfies must give this showroom a visit and see for yourself! They did have nice backdrops set up for you to take photos of your own Dollfie in them, which really made me wish I brought Yukio with me on this trip!! :(

I picked up some things for my friend Kim, and had a nice time browsing their selection of clothes, though they had lots more girl outfits than ones for boys. I was really worried I might have lost it and bought a doll right there and then but seeing the Tenshi no Sumika counter and all the dolls made me feel a little intimidated!! ;_; I was really afraid they would treat me differently if I was non-Japanese so I quickly looked around the displays and went back into the main shop/showroom...But I would definitely visit this showroom again--I didn't even need to find it... it found me. *_*

Saw this KFC with the creepy display of the Colonel standing outside... I didn't check to see what's different on their menu compared to back home since I don't like KFC...

For lunch, Jillian really wanted sushi so we spotted a sushi place. Turns out it was a standing sushi bar and there were no women inside... just a bunch of men lol. We really didn't want to stand since we've been walking so much and wanted to rest, but we really wanted to eat! So we went, and they gave us an English menu. The sushi was so good and I finally got to eat ootoro! After that, we got some macarons (I saw them everywhere!! In such cute shapes, too!) and we ate them at this shopping mall(?) complex right beside JR Akihabara station. I got some odd chocolate flavour macaron and it was completely black in colour with some silver glitter on it! It looked really pretty... but didn't taste like anything in particular, just really sweet.

Here's a shot of the outside area of JR Akihabara station. It started to get really crowded. We went out the other way and saw this huge building called Yodobashi Camera.

We went to the toy/goods floor again and there were so many people inside @_@ there were so many game machines, toys and gashapon machines!! I spotted some Togainu no Chi merch and got myself something with Keisuke on it (50/50 chance cuz I wanted either Akira, Shiki or Keisuke and the rest were characters I didn't like). I guess Togainu is no longer popular cause I had a hard time finding any merch... it was all Utapri and One Piece >_<

I also visited the DOLK store, they're mainly a dealer for non-Volks doll items from companies such as Crobidoll, Rosen Lied, Doll Heart, Blue Fairy and Nine9Style, to name a few. The shop was easy to find. It was really small and dark inside, I honestly thought it'd be bigger! There was a whole wall of Crobi wigs and they had their T-Lines on display behind glass display cases, as well as some of their bigger dolls. I didn't buy anything, but I did see a few guys in the store, one of them was carrying their Yo-SD sized boy doll inside a small cylinder case and was clothes shopping for him...I thought that was so cute..;3;

I don't remember what happened after this... but I think we went back to Asakusa for dinner since we weren't familiar with this area. I feel like we only hit the tip of the iceberg with Akihabara so next time if I ever go back I'll make sure to visit some more shops!!!