this is the day of the week that every otaku in japan must look forward to. it basically differs from any other day because most people have time off work or school (about the only day of the week they *may* have free) and after 1200 they close the inner roads of akiba off from cars. the result of this is a lot of people taking over the streets either performing or just… cosplaying. so you basically see about 8 huge crowds of men around a couple of girls in school/maid uniforms, or the occasional balancing juggler with kids and adults watching.

the main downfall of visiting on sunday is the crowds of people that plague the shops. moving around inside animate and other similar stores is like a nightmare where you are stuck on a kaitenzushi conveyor belt, being forced to keep moving and maybe, just maybe getting a chance to grab what you want before you are swept away. especially bad are the doujin floors, which are full of about 80 smelly men doing their best to get their latest doujin or erohon. not a sight/smell you really want to experience (unless you’re there for the merchandise i guess :p).

one thing i have been wanting to do a lot more is take pictures of the inside of shops that look really cool, or a shelf of models which own badly. unfortunately, taking photos like this is pretty much considered a crime in japan, and it really takes a lot of effort to hide a camera well enough to not be seen :p. that aside, i managed to get a few shots today, so check out the gallery for those. i guess this will be my last visit to akihabara in quite a few months, unless i get bored over the next few days ^^;

kinda short on power and net atm, (and time to write about stuff) so next update might come in a few days.

today’s fish

so we went to oosaka with the intention of visiting “one of the largest aquariums in the world”. it was pretty nice, with the main exhibition being the huge pacific ocean display in the middle of the 7 storey building, surrounded by a lot of smaller exhibitions from all over the world.

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i kind of compiled all the video footage i took and put it on gen’s space to try and own his bandwidth :p – take a look if you have a bit of spare bandwidth and time.

there was everything from dolphins to sea otters to jellyfish, and also a really cool gift shop at the end. there are these really nice pillows all over japan with a substance inside that feels reeeaaaallly soft and nice… i really want to get one sometime. they were shaped as dolphins and other sea creatures in thsi case, but i didn’t end up buying one mainly because the ones they had were quite dirty from all the kids passing by having a rub.

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we ended up eating kfc after ds was attracted to the store and wouldnt leave. i think the 11 secret ingredients didn’t quite make it through the translation to japanese correctly. not that it didn’t taste good… it was just different. not to mention the stingy chip servings (about 10 chips ^^;). if i had to say something good about it, it did taste healthier – my twister had beans and other stuff inside.

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mmm, the bakeries in japan are just too good. i can’t resist when i see one. soo much bread in my stomach .

today’s photos

so we ventured off to nara today to visit the deer park and surrounding temples. little did we expect it to poor with rain . we still made the most of it – paying excessive fees to explore ancient temples, observing that the huge temple reconstruction is STILL going on (it has been every time i’ve visited japan) but it now has a finish date of 2010! yay.

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darksith got uberowned by a deer – you have to watch this

dinner was nice, with a healthy katsudon followed by cream purin! we also ate some mister donuts today. what a healthy day