Day 14: The Akihabara Luggage Situation

So I’ve bought a lot of stuff this trip. A lot. Of. Stuff.

So much stuff, that I can’t fit it into my suitcase, the duffel bag that I stashed in my suitcase, and my messenger bag. Luckily, international flights allow me to check in 2 bags… so… time to go buy another piece of luggage to store my crap.

Luckily, one of my party members had the exact same problem (well, except multiplied by a factor of 3 or so), so off we go to Akihabara to buy luggage.

The day itself started out really late. We didn’t even leave the hostel until after noon. We had our normal cheap meal at Matsuya’s near the hostel in Asakusabashi and then walked over to Akihabara.

We actually spent most of the day checking out the smaller stores in the side streets of Akihabara. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take pictures of all these stores…

We hit up a bunch of second-hand anime figure stores. Anime figure prices seem to fluctuate greatly between store-to-store: we saw one particular figure for around 4000yen at one and 7000yen at another. I took the opportunity to finish my K-On! nendoroid collection by buying Mugi and Ritsu nendoroids at two different shops. They were both used, but about 3000yen each, which is a lot cheaper than I’m used to seeing them.

We also hit up the 2 Cospa Gee stores in Akihabara. They have a bunch of interesting anime goods like shirts and other articles of clothing. For instance, they have this awesome hoodie styled like a Zaku that even comes with matching mono-eye sunglasses. I took the chance to buy two shirts. One is this awesome Miku shirt:

PUT YO HANDS UP

The other is an Ika Musume shirt that was on sale:

SHINRYAKU!

I also found a Miku Grafig there that’s her costume from the Tricolor Airline (OSTER ver) PV. It’s the only piece of Miku merchandise to my knowledge from that version of Tricolor Airline so I’m happy.

We also headed back to K-Books, where I took the chance to buy a compilation doujinshi from Harada (the Disgaea artist) and Fujima Takuya’s other artbook VIVIDGIRLS.

Of course, with a cover like that, it’s not like I had a choice.

We also went to Kotobukiya, where they had this awesome stack of Misakas:

Misaka Imouto~

If you look carefully, at the base of each of the big figures, there’s at least one Misaka Imouto looking up the skirt.

Eventually, we actually got to Akky, a series of duty-free stores in Akihabara, and I spent 6000yen on a decent hard-case luggage that’s ridiculously green:

Ridiculously green luggage

Now it’s time to actually finish packing to get ready to go. Here’s a sample of all the stuff I bought today:

Stuff. Bought.

Since my flight in two days leaves at 6;50am, I need to try to be there around 3am. Unfortunately, no trains run after midnight or so. Also, a taxi from my hostel to Haneda airport would run me over 10000yen… so… no. Right now, my plan is to get on the last (or so) train over to Haneda tomorrow (at around midnight) and hang out in the airport for 5 hours or so. Welp, at least I’ll finally have time to finish up the backlogged blog posts.

Tomorrow, it looks like we’re going to Enoshima and walking around, mostly to avoid spending money in Akihabara.