Recently the family and I went up to Tokyo, Japan for a holiday.
Inevitably everybody knew what that would mean for a family full of geeks. Yes,
Tokyo is the ultimate geek haven or the plenitude of ‘otaku’ culture. Otaku is
simply a term used by the local Japanese to describe someone who is overly
obsessive with any particular anime or manga character(s) but somehow the term
has now been loosely used to describe those with deep interests in other
branches of geekery elements. For yours truly, that encompasses my profound
fascination with the worlds of Star Wars, Marvel/DC comics and other American
pop-culture goodness.
Being the OCD travelers that we were, we actually
charted the places that we wanna visit in Tokyo on our google map. Although we
were planning to also do ‘non-geeky’ stuff in Tokyo i.e. visiting ninja
shrines, eating godly sushi dishes at the famous Tsukiji market and the whole
lot, we’ve also done research on the must visit geek places in Tokyo weeks
before we boarded the plane. Frankly, we did not exactly know what to expect
and whether we’d manage to visit all those places we’ve listed down but by the
end of the trip, I think we’ve managed to get more than what we’ve bargained
for!
I understand that I may get carried away while I
talk about these places therefore I’m gonna break my reviews into several
parts. Please do note that I may not have visited all of the geeky places that
some of you might be familiar with in Tokyo but I can assure you that I have
visited most of the important ones. As a teaser, these were the places which
we’ve visited and along with it I’d also share some mouth-watering pictures to
whet everybody’s insatiable geeky appetite:
1) Star Case @ Koenji,
Suginami
2) Nakano Broadway @
Nakano
3) Tokyu Hands @ Shibuya
& Shinjuku
4) Kiddyland @ Harajuku
5) Blister Comics @
Akihabara
6) Star Tours, Tokyo
Disney @ Maihama, Urayasu
7) TRU Aqua City @
Odaiba
8) Diver City @ Odaiba
9) Village Vanguard @
Odaiba
10) Yamashiroya @ Ueno
11) Kotobukiya @
Akihabara
Aaaand….we were gonna do all these using the
super-efficient train services. Seriously, nobody really needs to drive or take
the cab over here in Tokyo. Just take a look at the web of train lines! After a
while you’d get the hang of it but make sure you prep yourselves to brave
through the mad rush hour crowd if you’re planning to travel during the peak
hours.
Stay tuned for Part 1 of my Tokyo Toy Travelogue…..
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