My bestest weekend ever (IV final)

Toriaezu

Yui and I woke up early in the morning to make good use of our day, hoping to tour/sightsee what’s left to see from Tokyo. Of course, apart from having all the fun, I on the other hand, had other ‘serious duty’ that I needed to accomplish. They included several orders from different people: 1) takuwans, or Japanese cured radish, and furikake, not any furikake, but those 100 yen ones ONLY for my sister (note: we DO have takuwans in Taiwan, but she insisted I get her some from Japan, and she demanded them to be GOOD. For god’s sake, we don’t have the same taste buds! How am I supposed to know which ones you like?); 2) medicine pills for my mom; 3) muscle pain reliever for my dad; and 4) the most important item—Wii!!! for me and my brother.

Some of those things were easier to get, random stores will do. Now, as for the Wii, the foremost critical purchase of the trip, was a little trickier. See, Taiwan sucks because it’s not selling Wii yet, so the closest place for Taiwanese to get the console was from Japan. However, seeing the surplus in demand and lack of supply due to the restricted delivery of machines from Nintendo, Wii was a hot and hard item to get, even for the local Japanese. So Yui suggested the following: to go to Akihabara, and place all our best over there. Sounds like a good plan to me!

I’ve heard quite a lot of stories about Akihabara, and how it’s the hometown for all otakus. Hehehe~ Don’t know bout others, but that fact alone raises a lot of interest from I Nong. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ‘interested in’ otakus, but I think they are rather some kind of interesting group of people among others. And so, after breakfast, Yui and I rushed to Akihabara for Wii and some Otaku-seeing.

Unfortunately, it was not our best day in Akihabara… No signs of Wii (all sold out in stores, not taking reservation nor do any of them know when they’ll get more machines) or otakus (because it was Monday morning, I guess otakus have life other than mangas as well) whatsoever… Sad. =(

Either way, it was around noon, so walked around for a bit more, then went to where Aya’s office was, hoping to catch some lunch with her. But Aya’s training was running a bit late that day, so Yui and I had a Japanese rush-hour style lunch without her. We stopped at a ramen store, and the order was taken through a machine and not an actual person! Basically you insert coins and pick the food you want from a list on a machine, located at the door of the store, then the machine will issue a coupon and your change, which later is to be handed in to the chefs. My ramen was quite alright, a bit too salty, but the gyozas were really good! Me likes gyozas a lot.
Then, we dedicated the rest of the day for shopping. If I didn’t remember wrong, we went to Shinyuku that afternoon, where Yui got a cute pair of green shoes, and I got shall, umbrella for Amy, socks, card holder, etc from Muji. We also went to Don Quijote, a store where they sell all sorts of things at cheap prices, and there is where I got quite crazy… The spree was me holding a basket, go thru isles of goods, and whichever snack that looks appetizing would be thrown straight into the basket. I mean, it’s quite hard to find a disgusting Japanese snack anyway, so why waste time thinking?

However, I do regret buying that much stuff, because we had to carry them all to Roppongi Hills, this trendy neighborhood with pretty people and pretty stuff. Again, once we reached Roppongi, the first place we looked for was a Café, to sit down can catch up some breath from all the walking. After enough rest, back to walking and shopping again and sightseeing and eying pretty ladies (yes, just ladies. No specific pretty gentleman in sight). Roppongi was, in my opinion, very chic, but since none of us were familiar with the place, guess we need someone who knows the area to take us to the specific worthy sites else we’d just be walking around in circles, scratching just the surface of something truly fantastic.

As the time for home rush-hour was approaching, we also tried to wrap the tour of the day up, grabbing some final groceries for breakfast (yummy bread) for the next morning, and started heading back to Yui’s place to meet up with Aya.
We decided to chill for the rest of the evening, because we all walked too much for the last few days, so instead of dining out, we made it cheap and picked up some bentos and drinks from stores near Yui’s place, and talk and chill my last night in Japan away. Aya was the first one to pass out though, poor girl, she was stuck in the office receiving corporate training and meetings the whole day, and I have to thank Yui again for taking her day off to show me around! Thank you~!!! Hope you’re enjoying your cute green shoes right now!.

My final day in Japan was brief for I had a flight to catch in the afternoon. After breakfast, we sent Aya off to the station, and waited for the grocery stores to open again to run some final errands. Jeff was right, a tourist is never to bring too much money to Japan, I used up all the yen that I had at hand, including the last US$100 that I exchanged the day before... I feel so guilty now…
To wrap up my tour, Yui and I tried so search for some anime CDs for Jeff (FYI: for those who need anime related stuff, just head straight to Akihabara, don’t bother trying anywhere else), and failed the mission, got some coffee and I bravely challenged taking the train to the airport by myself. Yui was nice and smart enough to instruct me to a train that doesn’t require any transfers, and as all good things come to an end, I had to say goodbye to Yui as well. And splurged some more while I was wandering around the duty free (this is when I start hating my credit cards).

No matter how many times I’ve said this over and over again, I will say this, again.
I love my trip to Japan, I had one of the best times of my life ever!!! I missed seeing my girls, it was great visiting Aya’s mom and family, and I enjoyed meeting up with the old friends so much! If I can choose to live certain period of life again, this definitely would be on the list.

Come to think about it, the 3 of us haven’t been altogether for almost 2 years, and this kind of gathering is surely comes on the right time. Oh! This can even be as our bachelorette gathering for Aya! So unbelievable that the next time I see her, she won’t be Aya Kitani anymore, but will be Mrs. Viaud (hope I didn’t remember Laurent’s last name wrong… @__@ ). The first of my best friends who is getting married… How amazing is that?! Hehehe, Aya’s always filled up with surprises. And there are no words to express my happiness for the start of her next phase in life with Laurent. =)

Alright, this is all from my trip to Japan. Realized how much I enjoy traveling around to meet old friends in their respective countries. After seeing the place that they’ve grew up in, and being more acquainted with their culture, it gives you a better understanding of your friends and how and why they turned out to be such awesome people.

Thank you Aya & Yui for being there for me! You are the best!

That’s Japan, toriaezu. There will be more traveling soon, and this certainly won’t be my last visit to the wonderful Sushiland~! Next time, I shall consume large amounts of raw food until I drop.