Akihabara is the shopping district for what is called Otaku culture. It’s basically an obsession with niche or specific things. What this actually means is that they have crazy tech, hobby and anime stores.

There is no way to actually convey how huge these stores are. Take a mall like we have back home, make each floor have at least two times the amount of stuff on it, and make it 8 floors high, and you have the electronics department of one of these stores.

There is one famous tech store called Yodobashi Akiba which we had heard quite a bit about. This is basically, Best Buy, Michaels, and Toys R Us in one store, with about 10x the amount of merchandise of those three combined.

The top floor was called the Restaurant Floor, which we assumed was a food court. No, it was actually an entire floor of sit down restaurants, because Japan.

There is a love and respect here for all different types of hobbies and art. You see all ages in every store looking at model robots, trains, comics or computers. In our culture seeing a 50 year old man excited about Pokemon is looked down upon, or at the very least sideways, but here people have such respect for all types of art, and hobbies.

Amanda and I ended up spending 4.5 hours in the one store as she drooled over the arts & crafts and toy section, and I lost my mind with all the models from my childhood and remote controlled offerings.

There is a small museum in Tokyo dedicated to the history of the Samurai. The Akira Kurosawa fan in me was basically screaming with joy on the inside the entire time I was there.

The armour on display was all authentic and beautiful to behold in person. I’m not entirely sure how I’ve been so interested in this history and never knew that all of the armour was actually a series of iron plates. They are woven together with fabric, but the layered plates made mobility much easier than the European armour of the same time period.

Many of the helms had ornate and custom designs. This one has an Oni adornment.

The museum even had an authentic sword created by Musashi Miyamoto’s apprentice. Musashi pioneered the use of two sword fighting, the traditonal method was always a single sword using both hands.

There is a pretty common misconception portrayed in movies that the English and Americans introduced guns to the Japanese which the Samurai were not prepared for. In truth the Portuguese introduced firearms to the Samurai in the 1500s. Many Samurai carried and used firearms, resorting to their swords after the first shot was fired because of the slow reload speed.

In the Edo period, the Shogun at the time was so paranoid about being shot that he had many of the weapons destroyed. So they became more and more rare amoungst the Samurai. So valuable were these firearms that some families would trade their children for a gun.

I loved this place and it was a bit of a perspective change to see a sword that was 3 times older than the country I live in. You know, just laying around, here’s this sword that’s over 800 years old.

Our first night in Tokyo was like something out of Blade Runner. There were giant robots, neon, raman, and every kind of adult entertainment you can imagine.

That was our first day. The weather here is hot, but so far pretty much no affect from the Typhoon. We are averaging over 10 km per day walking, which is good given how tasty the food is here.

Our last day in Osaka before making a hasty exit was spent at the aquarium in Osaka. It had Amanda’s very favourtie thing, jellyfish…and sharks….and Hello Kitty?

Although not actually in the aquarium, there was a mall where Amanda had her first encounter with an entire Sanrio location.

One of the things that can’t easily be conveyed in pictures is the level of thoughtfulness that is taken with everything that is done here. For example when you get take out that includes coffee, they put them inside these custom drink trays that fit in the bottom of paper bag perfectly. You can then walk, holding the handle of the bag and not spill anything.

When you buy noodles or something at the grocery store the clerks will find you chopsticks, and napkins, because of course you’re going to need those later. Everything is done with such care and pride, I can’t help but think we must seem like neanderthals to them when they come to visit.

We had to leave Osaka earlier than originally planned due to a massive typhoon warning. Or hurricane for those of us in the West. We received notification that the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) may be shut down and we would be stuck.

So we boarded the train and headed for Tokyo early.

Although the train is amazingly fast, we were often going over 280 kph, it was a smooth ride as evidenced by Miss Nappytime.

I have another post for Osaka that I will put up later, but just wanted to update everyone in case news of the Typhoon reaches home, that we are safe and sound in Tokyo.

Dotonbori is the most famous tourist area of Osaka. It is the largest shopping area, endless restaurants and blocks and blocks of every type of shop imaginable.

We spent over 6 hours walking this area and still didn’t see everything. It was crazy how the shops would all be mixed together. That high end bag shop with the 1.3 million yen bag was right next door to shoe stores with shoes for 20 dollars.

Saturday was spent at Osaka Castle. Having grown up on Samurai movies I was extremely excited to explore the grounds. This was slightly dampened by the fact it was 36 degrees in the air and over 40 on the castle grounds. HOT!

Here we can see the main gate into the inner compound.

The library portion with the actual artifacts from the late 1500s to the mid 1600s was a photograph free zone, so unfortunately I can’t show you the amazing pieces of armour, folding screens and literature. It was truly something to behold, however. In the lower floors they let you take pictures of some of the replica art and armour.

The grounds were filled beautiful gates, and various architecture.

After surviving the blistering heat of the Osaka Castle grounds it was time for some ice cream.

Later that evening we took a trip to a local market where Japanese things were observed.

We then ended the day with a walk by the river, enjoying the cool 27 degree weather. I think home is going to feel cold by the time we return.

It is Sunday morning here now and we are about to hunt down some breakfast.

Amanda and I spent the day exploring the over 2km long Tenjinbashi-suji Shopping Street right near the hotel. We started off the day with breakfast in the hotel restaurant which was absolutely amazing.

It was then off to check out the shopping street.

This mostly covered, walking only, street stretched on seemingly forever and had countless tiny interesting shops. This included, restaurants, an almost completely empty slots arcade, random shops of all kinds, and bubble tea!

After a break back at the Hotel to get in some air conditioning we headed out to the Owl Cafe. As anyone knows the one thing that goes best with coffee, are owls.

The owls all seemed very well cared for, and are rotated out of attention pretty regularily. They are clearly 100% adorbs.

Some other random things we found on the street were Waldo, and a place where we were allowed???

We then discovered a random noodle house. Amanda wanted to take a picture but I had already devoured the bowl. It was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten.

With that we headed back to the hotel for a little snooze time.

We took off from Victoria and were on our way. After a brief stop over in Vancouver we had a pretty smooth 10.5 hour flight into Osaka.

Hilariously both the approach and first few minutes in the airport could have been YVR from all appearances. That is until we went through the quarantine area where thermal body cameras took our temperature, followed by being electronically finger printed and having our photos taken.

Well and there was Mario and the gang, because of course there was.

The train station outside the airport was something though. We boarded the express train looking to transfer to the subway a fair way down the line. A gentleman on the train saw us staring at the stops as they would display on the lcd screen and compare it to our list. He didn’t speak english but was able to communicate with us that the stop we were looking at wouldn’t be coming up for about 40 minutes.

We transfered to the Subway quite easily given another person saw us looking at various signs and confirmed for us that we were in the right place and that either train we got on would take us to our hotel.

Check in was painless and given that it was 2:30 am to us, the only thing we had energy to do was go to the 7-11 and see if convenient store food here really is as amazing as everyone says. It is. The premade teriyaki and egg sandwich, because you have to pick something odd, was shockingly delicious.

With that we hit the hay, and will see what the next day brings.