Akihabara x2

Today was filled with Akihabara stuff. Our first stop was an arcade to play the new Konami dancing game, Dancerush Stardom. It is one big platform that senses where your feet are and can tell your body position as well, so in addition to general left right stepping across the pad, you also have slides, dips, and jumps. Many of the songs make use of the running man dance step (think Party Rock by LMFAO). It was everything I hoped it would be, and was only a $1 for 2 songs.

After that we went to a big Gatchapon (coin operated capsule toy machine) hall, to pick up some fun little things for Escher. We also stopped into some of the other arcades around, including several of the Sega buildings (yes, there are multiple buildings of the same company's arcades, with different selections in each).

We headed over to Yodobashi Camera to eat some conveyor sushi and shop around. The sushi was pretty excellent  and given how much we ate not crazy expensive either. When we asked for the check, the waitress pulled out a little scan gun, tapped each plate, and then handed us a little E-ink block that had our table number and total to bring to the register! I assume it was some kind of RFID tech or something, but wow!

We forgot to take pictures of everything we ordered... Too hungry! 

After eating we walked around the hugeness that is Yodobashi: they are kind of like a multistory Best Buy, but with luggage, stationary, lots more toys, and some other things. They had an amazingly big selection of puzzles, models, and other hobby toys. There was even a decent board game section. We were there for quite awhile.

Don't squat on the western potties, people

When we were heading back out to the station to go back to the hotel for a little while, we noticed a place called Beard Papa, which was selling giant cream puffs, freshly filled. We decided to try them out, and oooooo boy were they good! I got the June special Blueberry and Meghan got the Cookie crusted custard one which was the one the worker recommended when we asked her which was her favorite - that was definitely the best.

Packed with an ice pack 

Custardy deliciousness

Blueberry yums

After getting back to the hotel and resting our weary legs again, we met with our friend Blake who brought us to his favorite kushikatsu (fried skewered food) place. Together we figured out all the things we wanted to order and only occasionally got a little smoked out by the tables around us (Japan is still crazy relaxed about secondhand smoke - so many places have either a smoking section or just allow smoking generally.

We had to travel back through Akihabara to get back to the hotel so we decided to stop by an arcade to introduce Blake to Dancerush as well. The Sega arcade we ended up in was CRAZY loud, to the point where you could almost not hear the music from your machine at all. We played a game of that and of DDR, and then headed back to the hotel for some more conversation. Our ears were all ringing as we left the arcade.

We chatted for a while and then Blake headed home and we went to bed.