Akihabara? I'll take another one of those.

I went to Akihabara a second time yesterday. This time I accomplished the following on my trip:

• A nap on the bus trip to Tokyo,
  
• Purchased a Digital Camera,
  
• Acquired a set of headphones too advanced for my mp3 player,
  
• Came by the following pieces of Manga (to practice my Japanese reading skills, thanks for the recommendations Amber):
  
  
  
  • Rurouni Kenshin (book 1)
    
  • Bleach (also book 1)
    
  
  

I failed at finding the Cosplay Cafe (names Cos Cha) and purchasing dinner from a pretty girl in an anime costume, had plenty of opportunity to practice the little Japanese I speak asking for directions though. Eventually I got two girls at a convenience store to show me where I was, and where I was heading on a map. After following the instructions on how to get to Cos Cha, as according to that map, I found something that looked like a suspiciously new office building. I hate to think that pretty girls in anime costumes have been replaced by a bunch of depressed Japanese fellows chasing after red Swingline staplers. However I am afraid this may have happened.
My camera came with it's own rechargeable battery. Great I think until the following thought zips though my mind: rechargeable good, uncharged bad! Sorry ladies and gentlemen, I had an entirety of three pictures taken by the time the camera ran out of juice. Anyway, I purchased the camera from this dude:

A fellow gamer, highly addicted to Counterstrike. I think that is why I got along so well with him. He also gave me an awesome deal on a 256MB chip for storing pictures (the tag on it said the same thing as the 128 MB cards, so his boss told him to sell for that. Score!) Word up dude! Pwn some n0085 for me. Here is a picture of me while chatting with my fellow gamer:

Sw33t! You totally pwn! Anyway, here is a picture of the ally just outside AKKY III (the shop where I ended up buying the camera:

It was considerably emptier then when I went there before. May have had something to do with the fact that it was Monday afternoon, and most self-respecting Japanese were at work. Mind you there was a bunch of tourists there (including me I guess ... man I hate tourists). A bit later the place was stormed by a crap-load of junior high-level students that were presumably heading for the arcade and or the Mange/Anime shops.
Anyway next I cruised back into that store called Gamerz ... 7 stories dedicated to Manga, Anime and Video games (all pr0n free, but more on that later) . There I purchased said Manga books. I also wanted to take a couple of pictures to make Amber jealous (Mainly floors 5) Manga, 4) Anime, and 3) PS2 games but my camera died right there).
Now all I have left to do is replace my small headphones (for music while I am running) since my old ones are busted. I pick up some cool looking Sony earplug-type headphones. Very nice, headphones for ca. 1500 yen = US$15.00. Turns out the plug does not fit with the jack in my mp3 player o.O wtf? Of course I do not figure this out till I get back to KEK however.
Anyway off to find Cos Cha and some food served by pretty Japanese girls in anime costumes. Or so I thought. I follow the instructions in the travel guide for a while. Head down this road (Chou-dori) until you get to this shop ("Kirara") ... ok fine I am heading down Chuo dori, the wrong way of course as I find out as I ask a guy handing out flyers for a book shop (well he looked at the address, and then pointed me the way opposite to where I was going). Ok I head that way, for a good long while and don't find said store (which I actually did not find all day, even though I know how to spell the name in Hiragana and Katakana at least). After asking a few people along the side of the road about where I needed to go I just got a number of shrugs, and "I don't know"'s ... To which I resounded with a "Daiyobu desu, Arigato gozaimasu" (-> That's ok, thank you). Or something of that persuasion.
*intermission*
So I make cruising about I run by this store called "Game on". Looks rather appealing, the ground floor is just overflowing with games. On the second floor we had a large collection of Maga. So let's explore this place some more ... to the next floor I go. It seems a bit empty but once I walk inside I see a few guys about browsing though comics. The I look at the posters at the wall and see that I am standing in the middle of a massive selection of Hentai. Hmm there seem to be more floors of this me thinks, and I continue up the stairs thinking I might find some more gaming supplies up here. But what do I find on the next floor, more Hentai. I head to the 5th floor, and would you have guess more Hentai. And a dude that had just made a purchase was leaving with a brown bag apparently full of ... you guessed it, Hentai. This made me think of this particular piece from the MMO Radio Smackfest (battle of the DJs at that radio station Shawn and I listen to a lot). With that I took my leave. I must say, I'm not a big fan of the flying tentacle dick (I don't get what fascination the Japanese have with that ... seriously). Wait did my mom and dad just read this ... Hi Mom, hi Dad no I didn't buy anything, really :-P
*end intermission*
Eventually I talked to a couple of girls behind the counter at a convenience store. One pulled out a map, found the address I gave her on the map, and then pointed me where to go. After saying the instructions in Japanese (and English) I replied with something like "Wakarimasu, Domo aregato gozaimasu" (I understand, thank you very much). So having the map memorized, and knowing my way I purposefully walk to where I think the store should be. Walk right to where I think Cos Cha, should be, and find a pretty fresh looking office building. "Shit" says I, but I would not give up that easily. So off to searching the area in an *organized* manner, up this road, down the next so on so forth. Scanning for a big sign of a winged waitress (according to my travel guide the identifying mark of Cos Cha) Anyway I run by a couple of girls handing out flyers for a Japanese ISP I could not help but ask for directions. They just gave me a shrug, and sorry and after a little bit of chatting let me go back to searching. (Anyway I ran into them about 5 more times while searching the place, each time stopping to talk about what I had and had not found on my way, they seemed to enjoy it anyway. I wish I had some pictures)
Eventually I had to break off my less and less organized search and head back to get my bus, so I stop by those Girls on last time, tell them that unfortunately I had to give up to catch the last bus home, and then made for the closest train station (which turned out to be Kanda). From there, to Tokyo and off to purchase bus tickets. I even had time to wolf down a quick bite to eat at the Train station before running to catch my bus. Again, leaving Tokyo I found that it's a pretty cool city. I think I could get used to the place, as opposed to other pig cities I have been to.
When I got back to KEK I found the manipulator not working (but fixed it). Then while taking some more runs I scanned thought the manual for my camera and found that a bunch of downloads had finished on my computer. I now have a favourite Marilyn Manson song.