Akihabara and Shinjuku (Tue 2/16)

I didn't do much today, just had a lazy day.

I went to Akihabara and I figured I had to do it for the experience ... I went to a maid cafe. What a bizarre place! Unfortunately, you can't take any pictures One nice thing, though, since the waitresses are so much more attentive, I ended up talking to them quite a bit and it was pretty good Japanese practice. For those that don't know, a maid cafe is one where the waitresses are dressed in French maid outfits, and they try to make everything as cute as possible. When I went in, they explained the system: you pay per hour as well as paying for whatever you eat, or any activities you do. Then they sat me at a table, and the waitress took out a little fake LED candle, and said that when the candle is lit, I'm magically transported to a dream land where I become her master (ご主人様). Anytime she brought out food or drink, she made me recite a "magic spell" with cute little hand motions to "make it more delicious". She used ketchup to draw a cat face on my rice. It would have been really embarrassing if not for the fact that everyone else in the place was doing the same thing. They had a little stage where you could pay to have your picture taken with one of them, or you could play a game with them, or pull a random name from a box and get a pre-printed picture of the maid whose name you drew. These were the things that you could pat extra for, and since they had a Wii I played a round of Mario Kart with one of them, and she actually ended up beating me. Now that was embarrassing.

Anyway, once I was done there I went back to Yodobashi Camera, wandered a bit, and then headed back to Ikebukuro to pack up a few things to take over to the next place I'd be staying, so that I didn't have so much to carry tomorrow. I'm going to be staying in my Japanese teacher's apartment for the last two weeks of my trip, and I managed to find it pretty easily with the map she drew for me. The place is huge (compared to my hotel room). Thank you so much, sensei!

On the way back from dropping things off, I stopped for my first visit to Shinjuku to grab something to eat. As I was wandering, I passed a curry place and any time I'm hungry and I catch that scent it makes up my mind for me. So I went in and had pork shabu curry with a little salad (nothing picture worthy =)