11/17/2010: "Tokyo Day 9 - (Musashi-koyama, Jinbou-chou, Akihabara)"

Ack, it's it way too late at night. So, the thing about aquariums, other than them being awesome, is that sometimes they are closed on Wednesdays. Which we luckily discovered before we trekked all the way to Edogawa, but not before it was difficult to change our plans for the day.

So we decided to head over to the Palm shopping street in Musashi-koyama that we tried to go to a couple days ago. Which was kind of cool, if only in a "Hey, old people and moms! So this is where they hang out!" kind of way. We also had some pretty good sushi there and I actually managed to find an affordable Boom Boom Satellites cd (albeit from 1998), so that was kind of nifty.

After that we thought we might check out Jinbou-cho, which is the book shop district. And, yep, there are a ton of bookshops there. Although, if you are freezing cold and it's raining and you don't know much Japanese, it's less of a useful place and more like a "Ah, so there are a ton of bookshops here. Cool." kind of situation.

So yeah, that was cool. Maybe next time we come I'll be able to read a bit more and it'll be more interesting. After that we walked through what is apparently the guitar district (I had heard there were a lot of guitar shops in Kanda, and it was not untrue), back over to Akiba, where I finally found the Bakemonogatari Set 1 (see previous posts on how this should not be mentioned) for a sum of money I would not like to discuss, and some other nerdy things. (Danboard figure - huzzah, and some games). Then we came back here and ate a pork rice ball (!!! - delicious!) and some crazily rich and heavy ramen at a shop down the street from our hotel (it had spinach - it sounds like it would be wrong, but it's oh so right).

After that we met up with my cousin Tim and his wife Rumi who are also bumming around Japan just now (her being from here and all) and went to an izakaya where I had a drink called the Men's Purple. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ORDERING THE MEN'S PURPLE IT IS FOR MEN. Ahem. Even if it comes in a tiny cute little glass. Then we came back to the room and they thankfully helped us finish off the bottle shochu I bought last night and had no idea how to finish. It was really fun. It was our first time meeting Rumi. She's great. Cousin Tim did good.

And now it's nearly 2am and we're supposed to go Kamakura tomorrow so I need to be in bed an hour ago. So there.