Today was mostly traveling, taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo and then from there taking the local subway to Akihabara. 

The Shinkansen ride was about the same as before, but this time I bought an ekiben to take with me on the train! An ekiben is just a bento box that many people buy to eat on the bullet train, and so I wanted to try one at least once on this trip! The one I bought was fried chicken, teriyaki chicken, egg, and rice, and it was pretty good. 

Once we’d done all the train hopping we needed to, we arrived at Akihabara! It was such a stark contrast to Kyoto, having multitudes of high rise buildings adorned with electric billboards, anime posters and images, or some combination of both. What was also cool was our hotel was right next to the subway entrance. Very convenient! 

We settled into the Remm Akihabara, and then headed out at around 4pm to explore as a group! We went to Mandarake and Super Potato, two of the main spots we wanted to hit here in Akihabara, but on the way to them me and Jas got a little lost! We ended up over-shooting by a few blocks because the streets were so crowded and we lost sight of the group, so we experienced the intensity of the popularity of Akihabara first hand.

Inside Mandarake, it was like a used or rare toy shop on the 7th floor, and then the other floors had many other items and things like manga, figure statues, and more. 

Super Potato was a cool collection of super old and retro games/merch that you could buy, and a cool retro street fighter type arcade setup on their top floor. It was very cramped and tight though, and the humidity was kind of through the roof, so I found it a little packed-in, but still a cool experience. 

Afterwards, we all split up and I joined some of the group for ramen at this nearby apparently famous place. It was pretty good, and honestly I really enjoyed it! I had a regular size, but they went up all the way to Mega and even “Manly” size, whatever that means. 

After that, I wandered around a bit and explored a few shops/arcades, and then headed back to the hotel. A pretty good first day in Akihabara!