The thought that “maybe I signed up for too much” always occasionally slips into my mind whenever my schedule starts to overwhelm me. Japan has been the adventure I have always dreamed of, but lately there is just so much to do and so much to absorb, I can’t help but feel a bit overwhelmed. It’s not a bad thing, but I’m not used to constantly being under a time pressure. The days back at home, following a mundane and repetitive schedule seems so far away nowadays. Kind of like how when you first enter college and thinking to yourself “wow, I feel like I had much more free time during high school!” Well I guess with more freedom, comes more responsibilities.
Freedom and Fun stuff:
One of the places I was most excited to see upon arriving in Japan was Akihabara, also known as the world’s Otaku Cultural Center. After finding each other at the station, we decided to experience having lunch at a maid café. (Yeah, I know Tiara, also did a blog post on the same place—I guess it’s almost a tradition to visit one when you’re in Japan!) Our maid knew just enough English to ask where we were from, demonstrate a really cute “ritual” to bless our food to taste good, and told us how excited she was to have us.
Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures of anything else, but they did give us a keychain and photo with our maid to keep!
Next stop Animate! So if I was to summarize this place with one word, I would probably pick “paradise”!
This store is literally six floors with nothing but anime merchandise. I have never been more tempted to buy everything I saw in a store before. We literally spend hours here and never got tired of it! I am definitely coming back here to for souvenirs for friends!
For dinner, conveyor belt sushi!
Looks yummy!
My friends who came back from study abroad total me that the sushi here is super fresh and taste so much better in comparison to what we had in the US, so I just had to experience the difference myself. Needless to say I was not disappointed.
We also made a pit-stop by the Gundam Café!
Much our surprise, there was actually a decent about of girls in there! We were expecting a bunch of guys since that’s usually what we are used to when it comes to the Gundam fan-base in the US. It’s cool to see some diversity in something I once thought was a predominantly male hobby.
After a fun Saturday with friends, I stayed home on Sunday to catch up on homework and spend time with my host family. Around evening, otou-san told me that there was a local Matsuri, and asked if I wanted to take a break from homework to walk with him. And I’m certainly glad I did!
There were kids doing taiko drumming, all the fun games you would normally see in an anime Matsuri episode, and the food smelled delicious!
We did a quick prayer to the gods, enjoyed the festival, before returning home to okaa-san’s world-class cooking.
