Akihabara district

On the second day, we visited Akihabara. This is THE geek neighborhood par excellence! When you leave the metro, you are directly immersed in a world full of lights, Sega buildings, posters and videos of all kinds on the building facades.

First impressions are diverse. We felt like we arrived in another dimension. Already with the Japanese. When it rains, it's funny, they all carry a transparent umbrella with a white handle. We guessed that this umbrella is fashionable. Girls disguised as a maid or schoolgirl approach us (especially boys) to offer them to go to their bar or even have... massages! A little holding all the same! You should know that Japan is the country of both visual excesses and censorship... Couples do not hold hands in the street but a man can read a porn manga in the subway... and young girls can be disguised as maids. But probably they do not have dirty minds like we do!

We went into various stores. The common point of all these places, their size! Floors and floors of games/books/objects for sale.

We saw a manga store at least five floors high. There was something for all tastes and at all prices. There were also paraphernalia of famous mangas... Mugs, cushions, drawings, notebooks, bics, keychains, and so on.

Then the Sega store. Finally, the center of the amusement park would be better said. It is a multi-storey building where there are machines to play video games. We find 90s, original games, or games much more modern and imposing (eg dance games with movement recognition), games with weapons, seats that move,.... amusement park finally. There is something for all tastes and I must say that myself not being too connected video games, I managed to get into it! It must be said that the prices are very reasonable, they won't break the bank. About ten or twenty yen for a game that can last at least ten minutes sometimes. We also tested the king of claw machines, found at amusement parks at home. But we earn much more than at home! I won two soft toys in a few tries! And it's still cheap. Very good experience so we did not stay long due to lack of time, unfortunately.

Finally, we found, thanks to the backpacker guidebook, an old store with three floors of old video games. Gameboy, old consoles (Nintendo, Xbox,... ) and... the virtual boy, an old Gameboy in 3D. It was quite funny, especially since we could not see the picture because it was all red. Here are illustrations of this store that we had trouble finding because in Japan... there are no street names!

The virtual boy below:

Photo gallery