12/04/2014 - Maid cafe and Shibuya

On this day, I met up with a friend who was visiting from England. He'd already been in Tokyo for a few days and seen a lot of things, but he hadn't been to Akihabara yet, so I decided to show him around there a little before showing him some of Tokyo's nightlife, which was our main reason for meeting up. 

Outfit of the day:

Cross necklace: GLAVIL by tutuHA
Harness: GLAVIL by tutuHA
Shorts: d.i.a.
Skeleton body suit: Primark
Heart ring garter: Creepyyeha
X garter: Black Milk Tea

The obvious thing to do was to visit a maid cafe, so that's where we started. I'd only been to a maid cafe once before (Maidreamin, about 2 years ago), but I'd heard good things about @home cafe, so decided to try the one in Don Quijote. I have to say, it was much better than Maidreamin. Despite the fact that we went on a Saturday and it was fairly busy, I felt that the maids paid more attention to us than at Maidreamin (I believe I went there on a weekday, and it wasn't very busy), the food was cuter (I think taste-wise it was about the same), and the overall atmosphere was just somehow better. 

Simon chose the food set menu, which includes one main meal and one drink of your choice, and you also get to take a polaroid photo with the maid of your choice as a souvenir. I think it costed 1900 yen (about £11). I opted for the dessert set menu, which is the same thing, but with a dessert instead of a main meal, and it costs about 100 or 200 yen less. 

After ordering, our maid brought us a board with photos of all of the maids working that day so we could choose who we wanted to take our photo with, and whilst waiting for our food we were called to take our photos. They also had a selection of silly hats/ears that you could wear for the photos haha. I chose some kind of bat wings, but you can't see them very well. 

After taking the photo, your maid takes it away to decorate it for you. 

Unfortunately, you're only allowed to take photos of your food (as opposed to the actual cafe and the maids), so I don't have many photos, but this seems to be a pretty universal maid cafe rule. Anyway, here's what I had:

Yummy iced matcha latte. The maid who brought it to me asked me what I wanted her to draw on it with sauce. I couldn't think of anything, so told her to do whatever she wanted, and she drew this bunny. c: 

My parfait was also delicious. 

With every drink and food item brought to us, the maid would have us help her to "cast a spell" to make it more delicious, which involved little hand gestures and cutesy incantations. I knew to expect this, but Simon seemed rather bemused (and slightly embarrassed haha). 

After our time was up at the cafe, we went to take purikura. Some purikura shops have cosplays available for rental, but I'd never paid them much attention because I'd assumed you'd have to pay to use them, but on closer inspection I realised that it was completely free! So of course, we took advantage of it.

(I'm not sure why these are sideways, sorry!) 

After that, we headed to Shibuya, where we stopped at an izakaya for some cheap nomihoudai (all you can drink alcohol), before going to meet Tom at a rock club called shibuya THE GAME. 

With great music and friendly people, it had a good atmosphere and was a lot of fun.

At about 3am we decided to move on to Trump Room (another night club).

I also came here last time I went to Tokyo. While the music isn't quite to my taste, the interior is really cool, and the people are really nice so I always have fun. 

By the time Trump Room closed, the rest of our group had either gone home or just lost us, so Tom and I went to sing karaoke until the first train. Except somehow we got carried away and ended up singing for about 3 hours (rather than the hour or so needed until the trains did start), and had to actually go to a different karaoke place because the first one we were in closed haha. By the end of it I could barely even speak any more. Good times. 

Tokyo: Akihabara

Akihabara, or Akihabara Electric Town was probably my favourite place to just hang out in Tokyo. It's seriously like being in a cartoon. You walk through the streets and there's loads of AKB48-esque music playing, with maids everywhere advertising various maid cafes, and the buildings are super tall and colourful. It's not great for shopping (for clothes, anyway, but there are endless anime shops), but there are endless arcades, and loads of places to eat. I spent waaay too much money playing Project Diva and Dance Evolution. For the last few days of our trip, we stayed in a hotel in Akihabara.

On the last night, Dom and I visited MaiDreamin (a maid cafe). You were only allowed to take photos of your food haha, but the whole thing was ridiculously cute. To give you an idea of the atmosphere... As soon as anyone enters, all of the maids scream "irrashaimase!" (welcome) in squeaky voices. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's music was playing at first, but towards the end it changed to metal ahaha. The maids act as waitresses, and also talk to the customers, and teach them "spells" to cast on the food before they can eat it (I think it was something like "yummy yummy moe" haha). They didn't speak much English, so I had to sort of interpret for Dom, but they were super friendly, and very patient with my terrible Japanese. It was a little pricey, but definitely worth it for the experience.

Turtle sundae 8D

Alex playing a game where you basically... flip a table. It was amazing.

I won this from a claw machine! 8D 

By an escalator in the station

There was kaomoji (emoticon) merchandise everywhere 8D 

It also makes an evil laugh when you press the top. I didn't know what it did when I bought it, so it freaked me out a bit when I accidentally activated it to hear that and have the blinding lights shining in my eyes haha.

Danbo!

Takoyaki (deep fried octopus balls)

Rilakkuma hotcake KitKats

Dom and I went to Katsuya, a restaurant chain where most of the meals only cost about 500 yen (£4), and arrived within about 5 minutes. Amazing!

Dom's food

Best katsudon I've ever had.

-Finlay