Once I arrived at Akihabara station, I looked for an exit and got out.  Unfortunately, when I came with Ayaka the first time, I didn’t notice which exit we’d gotten out of, so I was pretty lost.  I pulled out a map of Tokyo and tried to figure out where I was.  Meanwhile, about 20 or 30 people passed me by every few seconds.  It was pitch black, but with some light-falloff from a few stores in the area, I was able to see my relative location on the map.  I realized that I found Akihabara station on the map, but I had no idea of which exit I had exited from.  So I figured, “what the heck? I can just follow the crowd of people, surely, they will know the way to go…”  The only problem with that strategy is that in Tokyo, there is probably a large crowd going in about every direction.

After following one group of people for a few blocks, I decided that I was probably walking in the wrong direction.  I stopped and saw a bridge that goes up and over to the other side of the street.  I had a haunch that Akihabara was located somewhere in that direction.  I suppose I figured that a major electronics district would be located near a lot of lights; and it did seem that it was brighter going in the opposite direction.  So I crossed the bridge and started heading back up the street.  I saw an open space and then saw a very large building that was well lit.  I walked towards it and I noticed that the stream of people turned into a flood.  They were all heading out of one large building, which was near a JR Rail train station as well as a loop-around for buses and taxis.  The building is called Yodobashi-Akiba; which is the largest electronics store in the area, but it is a bit off of the main street, Chuo Dori (Chuo Avenue).  Yodobashi is located on the east side of Akihabara Station.  Unfortunately, there were no other well lit or busy buildings on this area.  I walked over to a map and tried to get my bearings.  After realizing that the map was of little help to me, I began to try to figure out where people where headed…yes, back to that theory again!  This time it paid off.  I noticed that more people were heading in one specific direction than the other directions.  I followed this larger group but we walked around a corner, went under a bridge, and then came out to another open area – this time with benches and a few bike racks.  I was feeling rather unsure when all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye, I see a lot of light coming from the other side of an alley on my right.  I stopped and then began heading towards the light, hahaha.  As I neared the end of the alley, I saw a large SONY sign, which looked very familiar.  I came out and was directly in the middle of one of the sides of the main electronics district of Akihabara.  I was elated to see that I’d finally made it.  I seriously got off at a station that was some 12 blocks away from Chuo Dori.  I was definitely happy to have arrived!

The busy street below the bridge I crossed

The Yodobashi-Akiba building

A stream of people coming in and out of Yodobashi-Akiba

The front side of the building...notice all the people int he bottom right corner

So, Akihabara at night…let’s see, it is bright, loud, and busy.  It only lasts for a few blocks, but within this area, there are a multitude of stores offering “sales” on all types of electronics, comics, and collectibles.  The larger department stores in the area include Ishimaru Denki and Sofmap.  Since I’d already been here before I wasn’t intimidated but I decided that even though my mission was to find a specific game or two for my Nintendo DS (which is all region – I love Nintendo for that!) – I also wanted to look around the rest of Akihabara.  So I headed to one end and then began walking by every store.  As I walked by, I would look in, and if I saw anything worthwhile or if I saw a number of people inside (indicating a good store, loyal customers, or a crazy sale) I would walk in.  Of course, after a while, you begin to realize that almost every store offers the same merchandise, the price only sort of changes from place to place.  But, you can find niche shops that for example, sell vintage video games and consoles.  This one store sold all things video game related from what seemed like the industries inception to about the early 1990’s.  The most recent technology they had was Playstation and Nintendo 64.  But everything else was Nintendo SNES, SEGA Genesis, and prior.  Obviously, I played SNES and Genesis back when I was young, and I thought I’d played about every game, but I forget, the Japanese market for niche games is so much larger than that of the U.S., and so there were so many video game titles that I had never seen before.  Of course, the ones that had Japanese titles forced me to look at the front cover to see what it was all about, but some were written in English.  Too bad I no longer own either an SNES or Genesis because I would have considered buying a few games; the majority of them were cheap.

People waiting to get a small Kebab sandwich - gotta have fuel for all the shopping

A busy alley way that connects with other back alleys - you find a lot of the small stores back here

Japanese curry is awesome!

Pachinko = legalized gambling?? hahaha

Another thing I just had to have while on Chuo Dori, was takoyaki (たこ焼き) or octopus pancake ball.  I passed a takoyaki stand during my first time through Akihabara with Ayaka.  I made sure to make a mental note of its location…just in case I’d ever return.  It is difficult to miss the stand since it is located  on the main street.  You’d probably only miss it if you were caught staring up at all the lights around you.  Walking up to the stand, I notice that on the left side, there was a display with plastic takoyaki!  Don’t forget, many restaurants in Tokyo feature plastic models to give potential patrons an idea of what menu items they offer.  The stand had them numbered, just like a fast food menu.  In looking at all the choices, I decided on number 8.  Once decided, I got in the line and waited about two minutes.  Once it was my turn, the attendant took my order and also asked me a few simple questions.  I just said, “hai!” or “yes!” to each question.  In the end, he hands me a white Styrofoam box with my snack and I paid.  Now, I really like takoyaki, but I’d honestly only ever had it plain, so I was SO EXCITED about trying this version that had green onion, teriyaki sauce, a mayonnaise sauce, and other seasonings.  Ok…so here is the thing, Japan has very few seats around, so you either eat standing up or you crouch down to eat.  Needless to say, Akihabara is pretty busy at night, so I didn’t want to be trampled.  So I walk down an alley, found a building with an escalator that had a nice view and decided to sit there and dig-in.  It seemed safe since there were about 15 other people there sitting and enjoying the night or chatting with friends.

The takoyaki stand! It is very simple and fast service...and a great snack!

The number 2 of their menu...looks good right??

Another potential option, all of them looked very good

I sat down, opened my box and was immediately hit by the smell of it.  The smell had a familiarity to it but something was off…it also had a strong smell of fish and in examining it closer, I saw what looked like onion skins on top of my takoyaki.  I thought for a second, “maybe they give you a piece of fish to go along with the dish.”  But I moved some of the “dried onion skins” out of the way and saw the pancake balls below…no fish!?  So I smelled the dried flakes and realized they smelled like fish.  And the funny thing, I swore that they were moving.  There was some wind blowing, but not enough to move every little flake individually.  I was shocked!  I tried a few flakes by themselves and realized they were still moving in my mouth, and had a distinct fish flavor, and was also salty.  In the end, after I got over the moving dried fish (which slowly stop moving as they cool off) , I enjoyed each bite, hahaha.  But I made a mental note to look up what those dried skins were.  I was shocked when I got back to the hotel and looked it up.  Those dried skins were not onions at all, but instead were shaved flakes of dried and fermented tuna.  These flakes are called Katsuobushi and are a topping that are put on many different Japanese dishes.  Actually, Katsuobushi reflects the name of the tuna used, but it can be served in many forms, one of which are the shavings or flakes that I tasted that night.  The cool thing is that heat and steam make the flakes move around, as though they are alive.  I’m glad I tried it; I only wish I could have shared it with someone else who’d never eaten it because it would have been priceless to see both of our expressions, hahaha.  But you can assume I made a few faces of amazement as I tried it, and again later at the hotel when I found what it was! Hahaha!

Stuffed with so much added ingredients...AWESOME =)...but what's that on top??

I opened one of them to take a photo of the small piece of octopus that is inside

The scene above...I basically found a place behind the entire main street

Most of the stores are multi-leveled and have different categories of merchandise on each level

AKIBAICHI - Akihabara Restaurant Row

Filed under: Travel by Giancarlo Deleon