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!!!!
