Akihabara and the Many Cafes

Japan is one of our favourite destinations. We love Japan and the many sights to be seen. Not to mention, the trinkets, the oddity, the food, and the cafes to try.

I am very happy to have visited Tokyo last Dec. 2013 with my husband and daughter for a brief pre-Christmas get-away gift for our daughter. She loves Japan and anime stuff so much so visiting Japan as her Christmas present was the perfect choice. We were lucky enough to visit Akihabara, a nice area for cafe and cosplay lovers.

Akihabara has plenty of cosplay and maids' cafe for various types of people. It is also home to many action figure shops and souvenirs. During our visit, we didn't see much cosplayers because it was during the weekday. We saw some staff wearing costumes along the streets near the west side of Akihabara Station but we could not take picture of them.

The whole place is really interesting. We managed to spend almost an hour in one of the buildings with claw machines and those that dispenses capsule containers with toys inside. We did spend a lot there but the experience was worth every penny! We managed to get lots of kawaii trinkets too from those machines. And we also realised that people actually spend their time (and money) there for fun. I thought we were the only foreigners sucked in there out of curiosity. But the whole building is just meant for those machines or what the Japanese call as gashapon. It is quite addicting! I had to stop because I was spending way too much on the dispensing machines just to try my luck completing a set of miniature toys.

We strolled along Akihabara but didn't go inside the cafes. Some cafes were not open when we visited in the morning after our stop from Shibuya. It was fun to stroll along the many themed cafes and I bet, it would have been more fun if we went inside to check them out.

We also went to some shops with action figures for our collections. I managed to buy a toy robot (I forgot which one) for my brother.  Akihabara is also known as the Electric city.

Visiting Akihabara is just one of the many things you can do while in Tokyo. It's easy to reach by train.