Xander In Japan: Akihabara (Electric Town)

Akihabara has good electronics at cheap prices
It's a very popular town with foreigners for it's anime and videogame influence
It also has maid cafes, where girls welcome you as their master

Okay, so I'm a bit behind on this, but I promise I'll catch up :P Last last weekend (the 4th/5th) I went into Akihabara on Saturday and to a hanabi matsuri (fireworks festival) on Sunday. Akihabara is Tokyo's (and Japan's) biggest attraction to gaijin (foreigners) and otaku (geeks). It's known for it's cheap hi-tech electronics, anime merchandise, and maid cafes, where girls dressed up in maid outfits call you master, serve you food, and chat with you.

We mainly went to Akihabara to get electronic dictionaries. All except two ryuugakusei (exchange students) got the same type, that way we could all help each other out with the user interface (which is in Japanese). They're really slick, you can write the kanji (Chinese characters that are used as shorthand in Japan) in the bottom touchscreen for a fast search, though it did cost $250.

After we bought our electronic dictionaries we wondered around a bit more, checking out the different stores. All the buildings are very narrow and tall. The arcade we went into had 5 floors, each with only a few arcade machines. One of us (no, not me, I promise) wanted to go to a maid cafe, but the line was too long to get in. We did, however, get to see voice actors perform live, dubbing the anime that was playing at that time. It was pretty cool to see the actual people do the voices that you hear, and how they look nothing like how you think they would.

We ate dinner there then returned back home. It takes about 2 hours by train to get from my apartment to Akihabara, and costs about $40 round-trip.