Second part of the Tokyo trip!
We got up in the morning and went to see the Meiji Jinja – we had a lovely walk through the Yoyogi Park and even managed to have a peek on a traditional Japanese wedding! It was really an amazing experience, and the weather was also in our favour.
From there we walked down to Shibuya to re-take the crossing pictures. I personally was just happy to see without having a ‘proper proof’ of it but it was interesting to see it in the light of day.
From there we caught a subway to Asakusa. I wanted the others to see part of Tokyo that doesn’t really stick with the great cyber-punk like metropolia image everyone is familiar with. Asakusa Temple was just as impressive as I remembered.
Finally, it was time for Akihabara. We roamed through enourmous buildings filled with anime and game related goods. We spent some time in arcades and ate some kebab (the least Japanese meal we could choose, really, and we already had italian pasta for breakfast).
One of our last stops was a maid cafe. We chose the @home cafe, which turned out to be 6 different cafes of the same branch on 6 different floors.
It was a really cool experience. We tend to think about those girls to be forced to make idiots of themselves but I don’t think that’s the case. They just put on that cutesy persona and have fun playing it. Also, some tend to think being a maid in a maid cafe is like being a hostess or even overlaps with some sort of sex work. That’s absolutely not the case! It’s a bit of a nice fantasy with a sprinkle of role playing, yes, but one that is not in the least sexual. We are all part of this cute little world and as long as no one crosses previously set boundaries (example, no touching and no taking photos of the maids) we can all have fun in it.
We were all really tired after that eventful day so we went back to our hostel, not the Ryokan this time. We got up in the morning to eat breakfast and went ahead to go to the Tokyo station. Once we arrived we realised we still had some time so we took a walk towards the Imperial Palace.
From there we just went straight to the Airport, barely made it to the flight (everyone told me the flight is 30 minutes later than it actually was so I planned accordingly). We were back in Sasebo at 7pm and still had time to get some sleep before Monday classes!
