Tokyo is still enjoyable! -3-

Now I can say I have a tendency to come to Tokyo every two weeks. When it's a bit hot and the weather is really good, I feel a strong urge to come to Tokyo to have some fun. And another reason for me to visit the capital is to show people all over the world that it is safe to be in Tokyo. Over 90% of the foreign college students have come back to Japan to study.

Let me show you a Ramen shop. You can't say you're familiar with Akihabara without having Ramen here. I waited for about 30 minutes before I was served. It reads, "Aoshima Ramen".  

If you have Ramen at a small shop, you'd be able to see how the chefs are cooking Ramen. At this shop a woman was the chef, and this is her assistant's hands.   

 One thing that makes this Ramen different is it had some ginger in the broth. It was worth waiting, but I doubt if I could wait again in the summer, because you have to wait outside of the shop. 

 And after having Ramen, I walked about in Akihabara. The ad on the Gamers gets changed every time I come here, and people seemed to be enjoying the artwork. This is the moment I always notice I'm in the Otaku area. 

 While I was walking I saw this ad car. It was advertising the 1st dvd of the anime "Mariaholic". As far as I found on the net, its story revolves around a lesbian girl who entered a female high school. Such an anime is called "Yuri", the opposite of "Yaoi". This is the official website of the anime. 

These days you might find any anime goods on Amazon or somewhere else, but very new and unique anime goods could be seen only in Akihabara. This is a Toaru mouse pad with a calculator. 980 yen is about 12 dollars. Is it inexpensive? 

And after that I came to Okachimachi, where there is a shopping street "Ame Yoko". Okachimachi station is next to Akihabara. This is where you can buy seafood, shoes, clothes, and accessories for less money. It was so crowded, and I saw lots of Chinese people.  

 It was bright until 6:30 pm in Tokyo, so, in order to have more fun, I got off a train at Ikebukuro. The areas in Tokyo that are popular among the young are "Akihabara", "Shinjuku", "Shibuya", and this "Ikebukuro". I noticed almost 60% of the people walking were 20-something. This is a pizza restaurant "Shakey's". My friends and I decided to have dinner here.

The pizza was very crisp and the waiters and waitresses were very polite. There is another Shakey's in my city as well, but the taste of this restaurant was much better. 

There were still fewer foreign people than the last year, but the number of them seemed to be increasing in Tokyo. Hope this trend continues.