Asia Tour – Akihabara, Tokyo, Japan

Posted on January 1, 2008 by Mike

Dec 30th – Deciding to waste no time, I made my first full day a trip to Akihabara. For those who are not interested in Anime, Maids, or Maid Cafes – you might want to skip on a section :).I spent the entire day hunting out Maid cafes and electronic shops like the average geek, and to be honest thoroughly enjoyed it. The first Maid Cafe was a Studio Cafe, I wont give its name here, and was a little disappointing, was quite small, and the main serving person was not even in any costume. As they didn’t speak any English, I used the little Japanese I had to get an hot coffee and a hot dog. It turns out my Japanese was slightly miss-understood however, as I ended up with an ICE Coffee and a Hot dog. Regardless of this, no stirring service from the maid.

After alot of wondering, I had come accross another Maid Cafe, however they had a sliding door, and this extra complexity to entry, put me off at first. I later returned to this place to find a small group of people out side, also complementing entry. I decided to be slightly more brave and hang around the middle of this crowd. It was at this point a maid appeard, obviously wondering why so many people where gathered outside and not entering. As per a classic moment from hundreds of sicoms, as she arrived, all the others in the group, all Japanese, stepped back in uniformally perfect timing, leaving only myself standing right at the front. When she gestured for me to enter, I casually pointed to the rest, only to discover them now standing firmly behind me. It was quite comical, if not a bit embarrassing. I finally thought “what the hell?” she had removed the door complexity by coming out, so I decided to go in. Following my great bravery, the rest of the crowed suddenly followed right BEHIND me. The maid was clearly slightly bemused by this, and assumed we were all together, a bit of pointing and partial explanation by the others in Japanese corrected this, and we had to wait for the tables to be free. The gentleman who had initially hid behind me in the line, then took that moment to thank me, in Japanese, for going ahead and allowing him to come in as well. I only wish I could have explained to him how I had been just as nervous 10 minutes before, and had walked past for the same reason as him, and how it was the presence of the group which helped me.

As it turned out, this was the best Maid Cafe I have visited so far in Tokyo – they had performances every 10 mins or so, dancing maids, paper scissors stone with the audience, stirring service, photo service, decorative service on your food and even a cat basket under your table to put your bag in when you sit down. This was Moe, real Moe at its best. I even shelled out for a polaroid with my maid – see photo above.

The following are some photos from Akihabara, these were taken on different nights, but take a look at this car – amazing, would love a car like that, there were a few people stopping to look at take photos, such detail as well. I want 1!!!!

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Asia Tour – Tokyo, Japan

Posted on December 30, 2007 by Mike

Dec 29th – My first day in Japan, starting off from Haneda Airport in Tokyo, I made my way through the Tokyo Subway to Asaksusa. After spending about 30 minutes trying to figure out which line and how much it was going to cost me, I ended up simply going to the ticket office and asking to get to Asakusa. I was pleasantly surprised that the attendant spoke perfect English, gave me my ticket and even told me which time and which platform I needed. Many thanks for saving me alot of time. I later discovered my problem was because I was looking at the wrong map, and further still discovered the stations have the English / Romanji name displayed on the platform. After a bit of time, the Tokyo subway is real pleasure to use.

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Asia Tour – Singapore to Korea

Posted on December 29, 2007 by Mike

Dec 27th/28th – Depart Singapore for Seoul, South Korea.

I spend the last half day by having lunch with my friends at Cosafe, before taking Korean Air flight KE642 to Seoul Gimpo Airport. This would be the start of the trip to uncharted territory, no one in my family has ever been to Korea, and so the mission to the unknown had started. I had no language skills at all in Korean, nor had any real idea of what I should be seeing in Seoul, but with only a day and a half, the time was seriously limited from the start. The other problem, was that I had steadily become more ill over the last 2 days, and already sounded pretty rough from the cold I had, but the temperature drop in Seoul made matters worse, and I was unfortunately forced to take the hotel up on an early check in charge, and get a nice bed for the morning arrival. Not so bad when considering my flight arrived at 06:00 local time, and having no sleep on the flight, I was pretty much walking dead following the hour transfer to the hotel.

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Above: Some random shots of Seoul.

I did venture out that night however, and after a brief encounter with a Korea cash machine / ATM where by we had a disagreement on exactly how much won I wanted to withdraw, (500,000 instead of 100,000) I made my way to the area frequented by foreign tourists. I must say that this particular area was not an enjoyable experience, I am sure the Korean people are a wonderful and kind people, however this area is clearly a “pull every cent you can from anything which walks in” kinda place, and it dosnt matter where your from, “welcome American, beer only $5.99 here!” I appreciate that being white makes me look like an American, however after explaining where I’m from they could have refrained from giving me all the prices in US $, as no offence, but to an Englishman, this is somewhat useless, and KRW was more useful a currency to me.

The worst part however, was the trip back in a taxi, having simply assumed I could get a taxi back having arrived via one, I was quite alarmed to discover many taxis would simply refuse the fair, either claiming no knowledge of the place – even with directions and a map in Korean, and others simply not being interested. After about 30 minutes, one taxi finally did attempt the trip, and got me on the same street as my hotel.

Dec 29th – Seoul to Haneda, Tokyo.

I maybe being unfair to Seoul when I say this, but for me, this was really not a very inviting place, and to be honest, I really did not enjoy my time there. The next morning I made my way to the airport a bit early, and was quite eagerly awaiting my flight to Haneda, Tokyo.

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Above: Seoul Gimpo Airport, Christmas tree and Cinema – yes a cinema in the airport!

Asia Tour – Cristmas Eve at Cosafe Maid Bar & Restaurant

Posted on December 26, 2007 by Mike

For me, Christmas eve should be spent at the place which makes you the happiest, either a place with your family, or the place with all your friends, or the place where you feel you belong for whatever reason, for me that was at Cosafe. Some people may find that an odd location, but for me there was no where else I wanted to be, over the last week and a bit, this little place had become more to me than anywhere else, until you become such good friends with people that you just cant leave, and that you just feel like your at home whenever your their, there is no place which can compare when it comes to spending time with people you care about.

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For me, this was the icing on the cake to best Christams I have ever had, the crazy anticts of the maids and the staff, and the fun of trying to cover everyone in silly string and party poppers (see photos) made this a party to never forget.

Asia Tour – Cristmas in Singapore

Posted on December 23, 2007 by Mike

This is somewhat of a summery of the events up to the 24th rather than a day to day account, although it makes no real difference to the story. The main point of this trip to Singapore was to spend Christmas here, and as a part of that, to spend time with some very special friends. Firstly, a big special thanks to Henry and and everyone who came out for KTV from WFT – that was quite an awesome night out, sorry I was so tired by the end of the night, but it really was a fantastic night, although I didn’t know the words to the Cantonese songs, that really didn’t seem to matter, and we all had an amazing night out.Aside from the KTV, I spent a few night with my friends at Cosafe, and the lead up to Christmas was no less special there either.

As apart of the Christmas build up I made several trips out to Orchard Road to do a spot of Christmas Shopping, it is worth mentioning that the lights and festivities at Orchard Road have to be the greatest I have ever seen, they are in a class of their own and out do London everytime – in fact do not even compare to the entire UK, they make the UK look like a non-Christian country. I take no shame to say that the my first visit to the festivities, I was greeted by no less than 20 carol singers preparing for the main event on Christmas eve, and the sound of these performers combined with the decorations along the street really made it hard to fight back a tear. Something I have never experienced in the UK, it was truly an emotional performance and an amazing site to behold.