Incredible Cosplay

Incredible cosplay

“Here We are. Earth. Full of things as usual. Hmm? HMM!? Aack, so ... so ... s-small ...You’re as small as ever. We didn’t notice, not one jot, what with the stars and all.”

I spent all day sewing these costumes for our first Halloween party of the season 🎃👻

I guess the prince had like a crazy growth spurt lol

Japan 2020 - Day 5

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Our continuing Tokyo travels take us to a dark warehouse, an abandoned museum and some tasty beverages.

Friday 28th February 2020

Tokyo

Today was out last day staying with Hiroshi and Aiko, they were getting married on Saturday and we needed to get out of their way.

Aomi, Koto City

We headed out early to catch the train to Aomi (青海) an area of reclaimed land in Tokyo Bay. To get there we travelled across the Rainbow Bridge which is 798m long! At night the towers that support the bridge are lit up in rainbow colours.

After getting off the train we enter an area known as Palette Town (not to be confused with Pallet Town from Pokémon) we walk between two buildings, into the circular area in the bottom right of the picture above, the VenusFort Venice-themed mall on the left and the Toyota City Showcase on the right. We were meeting up with Oli's parents, they had just gotten back to Tokyo from sightseeing elsewhere in the country.

We had some time to kill so we had a quick look at what shops and eateries the mall had to offer but decided to head in to the Toyota City Showcase, I'm not really in to cars but they did have some interesting exhibits of what they though cars might look like in the future (with jet packs... what do you mean I already made this joke 🤫) You can see more about it here.

We walked through the Toyota City Showcase and on the other side we found the Daikanransha (大観覧車) Ferris Wheel, Oli suggested we ride it, I was initially hesitate because it seemed expensive but I realised that I was on Holiday and I should try and experience things if I can.

We opted for one of the smaller 360­­° view cars and got some lovely views, the sky was nice and clear and it did the job of killing some time while we waited.

When Oli's parents arrived we headed in to teamLab Borderless, I won't be able to do it justice here, it's a visual and auditory experience, when you enter you get lost in a giant maze and lose track of time much like Ikea.

It's mostly dark except for projectors shining lights and imagery on to the walls, in other areas LED strips hang from the ceiling, these were controlled by the visitors from an app, to add a bit of interactivity.

On the left is a sign showing different kanji's and the pictographs and on the right the corresponding symbols appear in the app.

This is a great place to come and take some beautiful selfies, though beware some areas feature a mirrored floor, so skirts may not be the best choice of clothing. Although these areas are often in side rooms so you don't have to go in if you don't want to.

We had been in here for awhile and I was starting to get hungry, I left Oli and his parents and decided to head over to the food court of the mall next door. I didn't take any pictures here, it looks just like a mall food court with Venice theming and lots of Japanese food.

Just a short walk from the mall in Palette Town is the Unicorn Gundam Statue (実物大ユニコーンガンダム立像) I don't anything about Gundam but it was impressive to see such a big structure just standing outside I had to stop by to admire it.

II had hoped to visit The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (日本科学未来館) but unfortunately it was closed from today until 17th March 2020, I'm sure it'll all have blown over by then.

I met back up with Oli and we headed back to Hiroshi and Aiko's place, we had to change at Tokyo station so took the opportunity to stop off at the Pokémon Center Tokyo DX (ポケモンセンタートウキョーDX) here I picked up an squishy Oddish and a Snivy plushie. There's also a café where you can enjoy cute Pokémon themed food and drinks, but we didn't try it this time.

It took until the last day we were staying with Hiroshi and Aiko for me to check out their nearest BookOff, it was a short walk away from the station, practically on the way to their apartment. There I purchased a Wii Remote, the idea being I could use it with the Wii U I had bought to test out the Taiko no Tatsujin Drum Controller before I took it home.

Hiroshi and Aiko kindly let us store some luggage at their place so we could carry on our journey across Japan with just one suitcase each, before we left they took us out to a local restaurant.

We met up with Oli's parents again and visited Junpei (じゅん平) for some okonomiyaki, Hiroshi took care of ordering for us all which was nice not to have to worry about. After the meal Hiroshi and Aiko left as they had a busy day tomorrow. We stayed in the restaurant for another drink, Oli's dad wanted Sake 🍶 but was having some trouble communicating with the waitress, I watched her trying to work out what drink he wanted for a moment. She was asking questions which didn't seem to relate to sake, I suddenly remembered that the word Sake just means alcohol and that in the west the drink we know as Sake is called Nihonshu (日本酒) with this information we were now able to narrow down the choices from alcohol to a specific beverage.

After our drinks we hopped on the train to Shibuya, the station was being renovated and it was quite confusing to navigate after escaping we then found road works blocking our way so it took us a little longer to get to our AirBNB.

Once there we then had the confusion of working out how to get in to the building, but Oli found the code for the door and we got inside. The small apartment featured two sofa beds, a small kitchen, a washing machine a small shower room and an even smaller room with the toilet. While seated on the toilet you could reach out and touch the wall in front of you.

Tomorrow was the big day for Hiroshi and Aiko, I was invited to the wedding reception in the evening, so I had big plans to explore Akihabara on my own.

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Japan 2020 - Day 4

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Sightseeing shrines and temples in Northern Tokyo, then shopping in Akihabara.

Thursday 27th February 2020

Tokyo

Asakusa

The next day it was time for more history only this time it was outside and it was looking at old buildings. We went to Asakusa (浅草) and started off admiring the Kaminarimon Gate (浅草寺 風雷神門) leading up to the Sensō-ji (浅草寺) Temple and the Pagoda. To get from the gate and the temple you walk through the Nakamise-dori Shopping Street (仲見世商店街) we wondered part way down but decided to get some food first.

Apparently we went to a Unagi restaurant Funachu although I don’t recall having eel. Then it was back to the shopping street leading up to the Hōzōmon Gate (宝蔵門) which is just before the Temple. Here people posed in front of the gate all dressed up, I now know that you can rent kimono to wear so I would love to do this next time.

To the left of the gate is the Five-Storied Pagoda (浅草寺 五重塔) and after passing through the gate we finally reached Sensō-ji Temple

The old and the new, Tokyo Skytree towers over the skyline in the distance.

Akihabara

It may sound silly but I was excited to check out Japanese shops, one that had been recommended to me was called Bic Camera.

It’s a big department store that sells everything including but not limited to, fancy toilet seats, fancy ceiling lights, video games, label makers, rice cookers and big televisions. I didn’t actually buy anything but it gave me some good ideas of what I would like to get in the future now that I know it’s available.

As we were in Akihabara that can mean only one thing, retro video games! First up was Super Potato, as it has become the most famous retro store it’s also become the most expensive but still worth checking out, they didn’t seem to have any of the items that I was most interested in and flipping through games trying to work out what they are by the picture was very time consuming, another lesson learnt I need to know the exact title in Japanese so I can read it off of the spine for cd/dvd games and maybe even a picture of the front cover/label.

I found another store down the road which did have some of the bits that I needed including the disk system game that I had been after Doki Doki Panic (released as Super Mario Bros 2 in the west) there was another store I wanted to visit but I had lost track of time and it was now 8 pm and the store had closed so I would need to return another day.

I arranged to meet back up with Oli but not before another exciting stop for me in the form of BookOff, from my research this was an second hand shop equivalent to CEX in the UK, here I found another few to tick off like a Wii U, a drum controller and 2 Taiko no Tatsujin games. I was worried I had spent too long in there but Oli was running late too so it worked out fine, I took a train and met him back at the station near Hiroshi’s place and we stayed in for food.

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Happy Star Trek Day! (September 8)

Formally created back in 2020 to salute NBC's pioneering sci-fi TV series' first broadcast episode "The Man Trap" on September 8 1966, Star Trek Day is a time of remembrance for creator Gene Roddenberry's "Wagon Train To The Stars" that presented Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy) Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and the intrepid crew as they crisscrossed the galaxy aboard the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.