Myu myu, everyone!

Konnichi wa :) I hope you are all doing well and enjoying these (possibly) last days of summer.

Yesterday there was no post, because there was really nothing spectacular to report :P I was very lazy, sleeping until noon, merely going out for some grocery shopping and spending the rest of the day getting things done at home and studying some Japanese. But a day off after so much action was really necessary.

So today, there is even more to write about so it's going to be a long post! We (Laurien, Alizée, Essi (I haven't introduced her yet - she is Finnish, studying in London) and I) had Tokyo city centre on our schedule today. Around 11am, we marched on despite the rain, which gave up to the usual heat after a while (the summer weather here is like a box of chocolates). Our main destination was the Imperial Palace and the many gardens around, which I did not imagine to be that impressive. Attention, a lot of photos coming: 

Tookyoo station

The trees are incredible, aren't they?

It was weird to walk on such a large street with no cars at all

The harmony of old and new

Entrance of the Imperial Palace - unfortunately, it is only open on December 23rd (Emperor's birthday) and January 2nd (New Year)

Listen - you can hear these guys all around Tokyo, even here in Kawasaki right now:

   

A watchtower from above

The Tea House - which is not in operation :(

This is a Japanese garden as you imagine it indeed!

Can you spot the koi here?

Unfortunately, Laurien had to leave halfway through our garden tour so we went on just the three of us. For lunch, we stopped at a soba noodle place. Soba are buckwheat noodles which can be eaten hot or cold and are offered in different varieties, but mostly in the form of a soup with extra side dishes to it. Mine looked like this:

Having decided to take a walk, we discovered two temples which, of course, we had to visit (or rather have a look at from outside): The Confucian temple Yushima Seido and the larger and well-known Shinto shrine Kanda Myojin.

Yushima Seido

Hello Confucius!

Pom Poko, a Miyazaki movie character, right here at Kanda Myojin

Kanda Myojin Shrine, one of the oldest shrines in Tokyo and also referred to as "geek shrine" (see picture above)

Here, you wash your hands and mouth before you go inside the temple...

...and this is what to do as a clueless visitor

This constantly moving guy,  Shishimai, gives you your fortune after you insert 200 yen. He gave me even two (by mistake?) and it was both "Excellent" :)

Our way led us further to Akihabara, which you may know as "Electric Town". In the area we have been in, however, something else had been prevalent. There is a Japanese idol girl group called AKB48, which owes its name to the number of its members. And they really are idolized by many Japanese people, which you can observe everywhere in Akihabara: Waiting at a traffic light, we noticed a group of people crowded at a store entrance. It seemed to be an AKB48 store, which apparently only accepts a certain number of people at a time. And there were only men standing around waiting...

But it's not only a single shop: Even an entire department store is dedicated to AKB48, including a theatre where you can see them perform. And when you look closely inside the numerous shops stuffed with toys, colourful costumes and accessoires, you can see AKB48 merch here and there. The department center however, which was called Don Quijote, was offering all kinds of manga/anime/video game merch (I got myself two pairs of adorable Totoro chopsticks :D), party goods like costumes and masks (you could even dress up as onigiri - rice balls), and a looot of arcades. Unfortunately, it was not allowed to take photos or videos inside - without them, it is very hard to describe the craziness the Japanese are playing these arcade games. Just imagine a room with really loud music and lots of people standing in line, madly typing around on a machine with an impossible speed looking incredibly concentrated, or dancing wildly on a painted floor. Wow. We even tried one game where you had to shoot zombie AKBs ;)

A bit of Akihabara

Yes, this is toast

To crown this experience, we visited a place that is also typical of Akihabara - a Maid Café.

You recognize this one by a girl or woman in a maid costume, standing around at the entrance greeting and offering you a menu. Again, there are only men seen outside the entrance. Are there really only male Japanese frequenting these places? But we are already determined, so once we have decided to enter, the maid escorted us to the escalator and waved to us before we ascended to the café itself. There, we were once again greeted with a high-pitched "Irasshaimase!" - "Welcome!" by several maids running around the café, and seated to one of the small tables. A look around made us sigh in relief that we are not the only female visitors in here, but also one of the many foreigners ready to give in to this unusal experience. We now had to choose between different dishes, desserts and drinks and went for ice cream cups in the form of cute animals. To ask a maid to come to your table, you have to say "myu myu" and make cute cat paw movements.

But once we were seated and our order is taken*, the lights suddently turned off and loud disco music started to play. We saw one of the maids getting onto the stage and saying something happily into the microphone. She told us to clap along and make funny movements accompanied by very Japanese noises, while she performed a dance to us on stage. 

I wish it was allowed to take photos in there but it wasn't, the only thing we could to picture was our ice cream:

Roar! The others had green tea turtles *-*

However, for 500 yen, we took a picture with one of the maids at the end. I will post it here soon if I get the permission from the others :) Overall, the whole fun was not even very expensive: You have to pay 800 yen basic service fee in addition to your order. With the ice cream and the photo, each of us paid around 1900 yen - it is definitely worth it! Oh, and you get cute cat, bunny or bear ears on for the length of your stay.

Back at the dorm, Alizée treated us with delicious bruschetta from the (real!) baguette she finally found here after a week (How can one even live without baguette?  - But even if you can, good bread is hard to find unless you go to one of the French bakeries. And there are quite some, if you discover them...) Yum!

Thank you for reading through all of this - I hope I could pass through at least some of my impressions to you today. Good night :)

* If you still haven't got enough maid café madness - here is an addition: The seating is accompanied by a "ceremony" where the maid says "One, two, three" and lights an electric candle for you. Similarly, upon receiving your food, you have to perform a choreography with your hands formed like a heart (I can't remember the words to it though). :)