ABD Japan July 14-26 (with Tokyo Disneyland Extension): Trip Report and Impressions

[Mathmagicland]

Great trip report - brings back a lot of memories of our AbD trip in April.

Re the Melon Pan,my son loves thst too - we stopped at the same stand in the Osaka food tour!

 

[Mathmagicland]

Edit - deleting as ended up being a dup post

 

[Mathmagicland]

@CaliforniaGirl09 You are the 4th person to express that the Tokyo portion of the trip needs restructuring. So my question is what time did everyone have to meet up for the Farewell Dinner? Because I am seriously considering doing a tour of Akihabera on Day 10... and make most of that day our own time (would probably still do the shine and ceremony). We are big Video Game Fans (and have no interest in shopping or Takeshita Street at all really) Also on day 9... I believe that's a dinner oyo… what time did you guys get through with ABD. Might try and get a reservation at the Ninja Asaka Restaurant (its either do that or the Robot Restaurant show that night)

We hit Akihabara on the free Tuesday afternoon in Tokyo as my son is a huge anime fan. Hopped on the train at the station just behind the Peninsula, we’d scopedit out the night before to save time on Tuesday.

Upon arrival in Akihabara, we immediately bought our return tickets so we wouldn’t have to wait to do so going back, & could get a few more minutes shopping. We also knew the return train schedule trip we needed to get back for the farewell dinner.

We had approx five hours there to explore. My son had a list of places he wanted to go, prioritized and mapped ahead of time as there are so many of them. We hit most of them - I was along as the designated bag holder for him, would wait outside with the bags and my book while he explored and shopped. He enjoyed fhe time there a lot.

 

[aggiedog]

Mathmagicland, I'd love your son's list. We will be in Japan next year and dds are huge gamers.

 

[CaliforniaGirl09]

Great trip report - brings back a lot of memories of our AbD trip in April.

Re the Melon Pan,my son loves thst too - we stopped at the same stand in the Osaka food tour!

So fun! And your son obviously has great taste, LOL. Half our tour group were hunting down Melon pan. I even found it at the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel in the store on the bottom level. It was packaged and not nearly as good, but it made a nice snack on the plane.

We hit Akihabara on the free Tuesday afternoon in Tokyo as my son is a huge anime fan. Hopped on the train at the station just behind the Peninsula, we’d scopedit out the night before to save time on Tuesday.

Upon arrival in Akihabara, we immediately bought our return tickets so we wouldn’t have to wait to do so going back, & could get a few more minutes shopping. We also knew the return train schedule trip we needed to get back for the farewell dinner.

We had approx five hours there to explore. My son had a list of places he wanted to go, prioritized and mapped ahead of time as there are so many of them. We hit most of them - I was along as the designated bag holder for him, would wait outside with the bags and my book while he explored and shopped. He enjoyed fhe time there a lot.

We almost went there as well to have lunch in one of the moe cafes (@ home cafe) since that sounded so different. For anyone interested: https://jw-webmagazine.com/5-best-maid-cafes-in-akihabara-5687dd586238/ Love how he took charge of the itinerary.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Mathmagicland, I'd love your son's list. We will be in Japan next year and dds are huge gamers.

Let me ask him for the info & I will share. He got it from friends who travel to Tokyo and Akihabara annually.

 

[PrincessDisneyFan]

Let me ask him for the info & I will share. He got it from friends who travel to Tokyo and Akihabara annually.
[/QUOTE

I'd love to see that list as well. Because it just so happens that we are 100% doing Akihabara (right after the shine ends) with a personal tour guide. But we have discussed with him that we are go with the flow type travelers. So if we come up with new things to add...he'll just amend our list we have already given him.

You were smart to map out your areas... we decided on the guide to expedite our travel time... since he knows the city well. Less fumbling around trying to figure out streets and google mapping (more hitting the ground running) Plus he will be escorting us back to the hotel to give me time to dress up for our farewell dinner.

 

[Mathmagicland]

For @aggiedog and anyone else interested, here is the Akihabara info from my DS -

I stopped in a lot of places, but here's the main places I actually bought things at:

Mandarake Complex - Sells used CDs, Blu-rays, Figures, and more.
Lashingbang - Sells miscellanous anime merchandise, especially from older series. Lots of Blu-rays and figures. Lots of other stuff on the higher floors.
Animate - Sells lots of smaller things, like keychains and stickers and pin badges, especially from newer series.
COSPA gee store!! - Sells clothing (t-shirts) and wall scrolls, and other merchandise.

Other notable stores I didn't shop at:
Main COSPA store - Same type of stuff as the gee store, but a larger store. I would have liked to stop here, but we didn't really have time, and I'd already gotten the thing I most wanted from a COSPA store at the gee store.
Sofmap - Lots of merchandise for games and anime, but more directed at stuff I don't buy things for (Dragonball, Gundam, etc.)
HEY Arcade - one of the biggest arcades in Akihabara. Not really shopping unless you want to go all-in on crane games, but for that it's probably cheaper to just buy them direct from the other shops along the street (which is what I did).
Comic Toroana and Melonbooks - Theres a few buildings for each of these, and they are good for finding manga and doujins (fan manga). That said, it's all in Japanese, difficult to search through, and the Adult stuff isn't always in it's own section - especially in the doujin areas.
Gamers - More focused on games than anime.
SEGA store - Likewise, more focused on games than anime. There's also a few of these up and down the street.

Hope this helps.

 

[aggiedog]

Please tell your ds thank you! I"ll be copying and sending this to dds.