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Going to sleep early, led to waking up early, earlier than the sun, earlier than the train, early. So we laid around in bed trying to find a place that would pay the baseball game. Apparently the Chicago Cubs made it to the world series (cause I guess they beat teams from around the world?) and laura wanted to watch.
With the time delay Laura was under the impression the game would be starting at 1100. So we took our time getting up and over to the Tokyo dome city ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Dome_City ). Thus place is pretty cool, it's kind of a big mall/amusement park/stadium/venue.
We went to this entertainment Goliath because there was a MLB cafe, that would certainly be playing the game. We presumed it would be a large American style sports bar, which it was once we found it. We needed the help of security, who was great, between their broken English, gestures and the map we found the place.
The primary difficulty in finding the bar was that the entire complex was slammed with fangirls. There was some kind of show or expo for this presumably J-Pop boy band. I really apologize for not taking a picture of the sea of girls and signs.
The game was already in the 6th inning and the Cubs were losing. I honestly had little interest in watching the game, even less so given that I am in Japan. And knowing Laura's stellar ability to multitask while "her team" is on, I had little interest in sitting in an American themed bar, drinking expensive Bud, in Japan. So I went shopping. What a progressive and gender-role ignoring couple we are.
I went over to akihabara, to look through the anime stuff, and most importantly the Gundam models (henceforth gunpla). Gunpla is a hobby I got into years ago when the Gundam Wing TV show made it to the States, it was a pretty natural thing for me to like, giant robots, explosions, political intrigue, existential crises in regards to the the value vs utility of a soldier as a human, and gunpla, the building of scale model kits of said robots fit into my hobby set. They are very expensive in the States, I always figured it was just an expensive hobby, kits range from $35 and up, with my particular subset usually around the $60 range.
Not the case here, everything is 25% less expensive, some as much as 50%. But much like when I buy over the Internet, I'm going to get beat up on shipping, cause not a single one of these is going to fit in our bags. So I resolved to beat shipping the way everyone does: bulk.
I figure I can slow-boat ship 10kg worth of shit for $40, if I send 2 kits home. Where I save $20 off the purchase price, I'm breaking even, so if I send 4 kits home at the same rate, one is basically free right?
So I wander around, spot the deals and go back around desperately trying to find the same shops in the circuitous, warren filled, no street sign, all signs in language I can't read, neighborhood. I found some but had to head back the 2km to laura to pick her up at our designated time. I met up with her on time, and dragged her back to akihabara, but still couldn't find what I'm looking for (is OK though I'll go again later and I'll find those damn discounts).
Also I have to describe akihabara. It's a neighborhood full of stores dedicated to all things Japanese pop culture. All forms of anime, manga, movies, music everything. So this area attracts all the otaku (look it up), and is the Mecca of weeabos (again look it up) the world over. It is full of people, and probably the area with the most non-Japanese people we have seen so far.
After this we went back to fully check out of the hotel, and move to our new one.
Our new hotel is in shinbusa, which is the district that all the office workers go to to eat and drink.
For dinner we had breaded fried steaks, and cabbage salad, and rice and it was pretty good. There were little grills at every seat so you could cook your steak pieces to your liking. The place was tiny in a basement, 6 seats at a bar and then another 8 seats at tables. The line took about 25 minutes to get through, but good showed up as you sit down so it was a quick process.
After this we wandered around the narrow alleys looking for an izakawa to eat and drink at. Ultimately we settled on one with another White guy and his Japanese translator friend, just in case we need help.
And we certainly needed help. The menu was in hand written kanji, so there was no way we knew what to get. The server spoke a little English and recommended a sashimi plate, and I got tempura fried chicken parts. I can do raw fish when it is doctored with enough other flavors, this was not doctored. The plate was well presented, but all chopped up raw fish, and very fishy. Laura did her best ate the (I'm guessing here) salmon, and the eel, other pink fish, but the full little fishy (with head on plate) was to heavily ocean flavored for us. The chicken cane out, and was ok. I had one chunk, ate it, and realized that the tiny little pots in front of me had a seasoning salt in them. Boom turned okay tempura chicken into good tempura chicken. At this time laura showed down eating her sashimi plate, so she watched me, she saw how the salt reacted to the oils in the chicken sauce.
And then...
Noticed that it wasn't a chemical reaction, it was in fact squirming little larvae.
She told me not to eat it, I didn't eat it. And we tried to figure out how to communicate this to the staff. Not tryna get a free meal or anything, just let them know, pay and get the fuck out of there.
I immediately interrupted the white guy and his friend next us and tried to explain, they found their own creepy crawlies in their salt, and he called the staff over. They exchanged some words and asked us what we wanted, again we wanted the check and to get the fuck outta there. The chef refused to let us pay. We tried to communicate that the food was good, we are just done, on account of you know the maggots.
We got out of there, laura felt sick, which is odd cause i was the one that ate the baby bugs.
We stopped at 7-11 and got some snacks on the way home and watched Japanese soaps until we fell asleep.
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