Saturday, January 6, 2024

• We started the day by checking out of the hotel and going across Tokyo (with all our luggage, bags and a desk fan in tow) to Ikebukuro, the location for our second stint in Tokyo.
• We were staying in the b hotel Ikebukuro, which turned out to be both the most reasonably-priced hotel of this trip, and also the biggest and one of the nicest in Tokyo.

• The only drawback was the lack of a bath, but the shower worked just fine.
• However, transitioning across Tokyo at peak hour with all our luggage was a bit of an ordeal, enough that we arrived at the hotel, dropped our bags with reception, and immediately went for a 9 am curry udon and beer at a nearby 24-hour eatery. Perfectly hit the spot!

• Also, for some slight foreshadowing, we took to using the Parco shopping centre elevators or escalators to transition between the train station level and the street level while carrying luggage, and happened to catch that Parco was running a Yazuka (Ryo go Gotaku) exhibit at the time. Very interesting….

• With the day’s chores sorted and breakfast warming our bellies, we set off (back to) Akihabara for the day.
• We hit a couple of game centres (we miss real arcades back home so badly), checked out a few stores (including a NJPW store off the main strip we hadn’t been to before, visited some game and figure stores, and finally found a truly great bowl of ramen for lunch.

• The urge for more karaoke struck, so we found a place and belted out the rest of that karaoke song list I posted last time. What I lack in skill, I more than make up for with misplaced enthusiasm!
• Finally, with all of the fundamental nerdy activities ticked off the Akihabara list, we found a nice izakaya for MBW to set up shop for the afternoon; enjoy some lemon sours, some gyoza, and try out her beginners Japanese.
• Meanwhile, time for the advanced nerd speedrun – went back and picked up a Steam Deck from Yodabashi (they still aren’t available for sale in Australia, so this was easily the best chance I’d have), a quick whip through Super Potato (more for nostalgia than to actually buy anything, as the word is that their fame has led to prices inflating pretty significantly), a duck into Melon Books to look for any of hncl’s Daily Achievement series, which are distributed by Melon Books. (I’m not going to link directly to Melonbooks site, as they also sell a lot of more adult-oriented works. I’m sure you can find them yourselves by searching “Melon Books Daily Achievements” if interested.
• Long story short – they didn’t have any in stock. They also helpfully informed me that none of the branches had any in stock across the country, so that saved some fruitless searching on future days.
• If you aren’t familiar with hncl / hungry_clicker’s work, they post daily illustrations of video game characters, largely fighting games. They are insanely talented and disciplined, and I wanted to buy some of the books both to own and also to provide some form of thanks for providing daily updates for the last few years.

• Shopping done, we re-grouped at the izakaya, headed back to Ikebukuro and found a local izakaya for dinner.

• Amazing skillet gyoza, yakisoba, and some MONSTER-sized blood orange sours.

• Successful day.