Errands and Fun in Tokyo

Today was a day of visiting old haunts and running errands. We have a day to burn while our gear gets shipped up to Osorezan, so we're stuck in Tokyo (oh darn!). We walked over to Ueno Station for some baked goods

New storefront, same great pastries

then walked down to Akihabara to look for various things. We were contemplating getting the new Nintendo Switch, only to find out that they are rather in demand at the moment, and sold out everywhere. Oh, well. I did pick up a used Vita game at Traders 2 (great used store just off the main drag), since they aren't really shipped to the US much anymore.

We stopped at Yodobashi Camera to look for the Switch, and found a bunch of other things, instead

That's a "life-sized" lego R2-D2, and a ton of Storm Troopers in the back

We also found a very well stocked cycling section in Yodobashi, and were able to pick up a travel pump and some new gloves for Sumi. Yodobashi is a great store. We also did some window shopping at a few other places. Sumi was impressed with the Pokémon selections

Jon warned me, and it is true: Hobby Off Akiba has closed. Well, moved, but the Akihabara location is no more. Looks like they are doing something with the whole building. When we get back to Tokyo next week, one of my missions will be to find the new location.

The rest of the day was spent getting some lunch at the world's best Indian restaurant outside of India, Rasoi, and getting everything ready for the real start of the trip tomorrow: the JR Passes, Shinkansen tickets, breakfast for tomorrow (the train leaves at 6:30am), laundry, finishing work (I'm done! Sumi is less done), and packing.

On our way back from Rasoi, we stopped at Tokyo Station, where Sumi had read about a place called Character Street, where there were a ton of, essentially, cute crap for sale.

The sign above reads "Tokyo Character Street"

There were a great many shops with stuffed animals, etc, for sale. Sumi was in heaven, I could barely fit in the stores.

There was another competing side "street" dedicated to Gashapon, which are little vending machines filled with plastic capsules containing some toy, trinket, or other collectible of a given brand. They are insanely popular here.

We did not partake.

Back in Asakusa, while I did the laundry and finished the semester grading, Sumi took a short Pokéwalk to Sensouji temple. It was quite crowded with tourists, as usual, but also people in festival attire (kimono, happi, etc) for some kind of performance.

Restoration and construction finished, looking very nice.

A beautiful day to be out walking.

Not a very exciting day, but it's great to be back in Japan! I'll leave you with the Bic Camera website's response when we attempted to order a Switch from them online, just to see what would happen. This happened:

Payment amount of money of the moon?