Enoshima and Kamakura

The train ride along the ocean to Kamakura was awesome. I walked the beachfront shops over to the beach and ended up at this Buddhist temple for their wifi. Caught this video of the Kamakura train pulling in as well.

To get to Enoshima Island you had to walk or bus this long bridge and it seemed to be a day trip destination for a lot of people.

The shops and stuff were along this steep walk up and then you reach a point to travel up the mountain. There was an escalator you had to pay for to get all the way up but I didn't do it. These shops and stalls seemed to be quite common in other small island destinations in Japan.

I got my stuff from the locker and went back to Tokyo no problem. Katsu for dinner!

So this is Tokyo again but I'm staying in the Akihabara area, it's only like 20 minutes from the first hotel but there was a lot to explore there. I also chose to try out a capsule hotel. Although this one has much larger capsules it's still pretty much the same idea. Shared shower stalls and bathroom, plenty of storage under the capsule for luggage and a nice common area. The only drawback is that usually these places only have a curtain so you had to be fairly quiet. Luckily there were quite a few tourists so you had people like me waking up at 5am or starting to go to sleep at 5am.

It was a short walk to Asakusa so I went to another temple that I didn't plan on going to. This one is insanely packed with people during the day so seeing it at night was a breeze to pop in and out. The only thing is that none of the shops are open. Properly one of the bigger tourist attractions in Tokyo because it's like the biggest temple in the area. There were still people checking it out in the middle of the night.

In the morning I walked along the river and then head off to Ueno Park. This park is famous for its Cherry Blossom row but none of them were blooming except for the few trees at the entrance. Also it's home to a museum or two and the Ueno Zoo. The line to the zoo at opening was like over a mile long and what I imagine the line for Disney would be like.

I got a pork katsu sando, a yakisoba pan and a creampuff from a local bakery. The bakery selections seem very sparse compared to most Asian bakeries I've been to but I guess it depends on timing. I found this Takoyaki spot in the Ameyoko shopping street. Lots of vendors and small-eats spots with very little to no seating.

I walked over to Kappabashi street which is famous for kitchen supply stores. Lots of places to buy knives and porcelain, which I think is the main draw for tourists. I specifically wanted to check out the baking supply stores but there weren't very many of them. I ended up buying two tarte rings but couldn't find the opera cake mold I wanted from Japan. There were even a few shops that specialized in replicas of food. I remember hearing about most restaurants having replicas of their food at their windows to entice customers.

My favorite meal hands down in Japan. This place is a chain but there was quite a line. I thought I went to the one with less of a wait but I think it took over an hour. This is the only thing on the menu, breaded steak cooked blue and then you finish the steak to your liking. I like this better than Wagyu.

Next stop was Akihabara which I've known about since I was a kid. Basically nerd central for anime, toys and video games. There are lots of girls dressed as maids out on the street advertising their maid cafes. I was disappointed with the arcades mostly being filled with claw machines and photo-booths. There were buildings with floor to floor claw machines and people were hyped for certain ones. There was even this full setup Taiyaki bakery in one of these claw machine places. The biggest surprise to me about Akihabara was all the self repair shops that sold electronic parts. This one that had all types of wire.

Kind of surprised to find such a nice Warhammer store, most hobby stores I've seen don't even come close to this. Surprised as well that Japanese people were big enough fans of Warhammer. I guess it's just something you never hear about. Tons of anime figures and their equivalent of Best Buy there had such huge sections for military replica toys. Even found a shop that only sold photocards for J-pop idols. (Trading cards for pop stars)

The rhythm games were huge at the 'real' arcades so I tried some out.

I rented out a manga cafe booth to recharge my phone and sit for a bit and quickly realized that people just straight up live in there. This one didn't have walls going up very high so it was more like a booth than a room. There's a shower and laundry at these places and renting out one of these places for a day is cheaper than most hotels. There were free drinks and snacks but they were pretty bad so I bought a few things at the convenience store. I don't even drink soda but whenever I felt like I needed some carbonation for all the snacks I was trying out there wasn't much to pick from. It was basically either Fanta or Pepsi.

This was my last day in Tokyo for a bit as I take a cross country trek on the bullet train to the west. This was all I had in terms of luggage. The duffel bag was strictly for souvenirs and purchases. I had the duffel bag in my backpack until I needed it.

Onward to Kyoto