Most of today i'm afraid to say wasn't very eventful. I had to wait at my apartment this morning for the bank delivery, but luckily that came pretty early, and I was able to go out and explore the wider part of Akihabara by about 10. Unfortunately what I forgot was that most of Akihabara doesn't open until 11, so I had a fair bit of time to slowly wander around the place. I was able to eventually go into the shops but the trouble with having no furniture yet in the apartment is that I can't buy anything interesting because I have no where to put it yet. So mostly this morning walk was an excusable attempt at exercise (I haven't found a gym yet so walks in the heat are the equivalent to sauna steaming).
For lunch I decided to head back to the katsudon shop I found before (and when I say decided, I mean most other places were closed). When I arrived at UDX Akihabara, the large centre where it was located, I found an enormous Queue of people wending its way t the front doors of what I can assume was an anime related event. I had sen the anime that the event was centred around and although I was sorely tempted, the thought of waiting in that queue was the stuff of nightmares. So I gave that a miss and spent most of the rest of the afternoon catching up on emails.
The real fun began at 5 p.m. when I had arranged to meet some friends at mine from university, who I had met through the same club. We had become friends and still kept in contact after they had to return to Japan. And so after a year of not seeing them, we met at Shibuya station under the statue of Hachiko the dog (a famous dog here, don't ask me why I haven't investigated yet). Now outside of Shibuya is a huge cross roads. But when all the green men start to flash for walkers, hundreds of people just flood over the road in every direction. A Wave of people would be a pretty accurate description. We then went to a purikura shop - this is sort of like a passport photo, but one where you can have some real fun, including customising and messing with the pictures by adding funny drawings and words etc. This is a fun thing to do with friends, and one I had only done before with a different friend while here. After that they took me to an Izakaya - which I roughly the japanese equivalent to a pub. It was a really cool bar with separated cubicles for groups of people, and where we could order great food and booze. And we spent the next 2 hours catching up and chatting about what we're up to and various other things about Japan and living here. And these are some of the best people I know in Japan, and we had a fantastic time. The second biggest surprise of the evening was when we left the Izakaya and walked straight into a festival parade. It turns out that tonight was the night of the nebuta matsuri - one of the 3 biggest festivals held in Tokyo, and we got to see one part of it going past. It was an awesome parade with a cool light up float, lots of people in strange jangley costumes, and a whole marching band complete with Taiko drummers. Truly an incredible spectacle and a really great end to a fantastic night.
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