Japan Vacation, Day 3

Went to sushi for late breakfast (okay maybe more like lunch), very tasty.  From there we went to the Imperial Palace Gardens and walked around, pretty.

Next my brother wanted to show me one of the more recent strange Japanese fads, the "Maid Cafe".  I guess the basic idea is that you have hostesses who are very cute (cute is very, very important for the Japanese.  Everything is cute.  Cute cute cute cute cute.) and dressed up as maids and are very nice.  For a extra charge they will sit down and talk to you at length, play cards games with you, etc.

The first one we tried to get to is the most popular and famous, and it had at least a two hour wait.  Pass.  We walked around a bit more and found another named the Cure Maid Cafe (?!) which had probably a shorter wait but still quite long.  The very very very cute maids weren't really all that cute (I think the girls at the coffee shop we went to were much cuter) so we took a pass and walked around some more.

This was in Akihabara, which is known for electronics shops, arcades, and so on.  Apparently there is a video game which involves typing Romanji accurately and fast, and we were going to show off my brother and I at this game since we both type very fast.  But we couldn't find it.

We went to a huge electronics store, I looked over a lot of camera equipment hoping to find something for my wife that she couldn't find elsewhere, but this is the age of Internet shopping and that's just not really possible. I looked over some 'fashion straps' for the Pentax brand but they didn't have the shade of blue she likes, so I passed.  Very tempted to buy a new lens but probably a bad idea, and again Internet shopping.  Could find it cheaper and more conveniently elsewhere.

Also saw a lot of other tech, including computers (one had Outlook Express up and running on a big LCD screen), HD TVs, and saw a little of Toshiba's HD DVD demos.  I find it really interesting to see how the Japanese are pushing the limits on some of the tech, with ultra small, lightweight laptops and very cool and useful mobile phones that can do so much.

By this time my feet hurt quite a bit from all the walking around so we headed back to the hotel, stopping
at a convenience shop (they really are convenient, they're all over the place) to pick up some tuna onigiri and
drinks.

For dinner we went to ramen again, and in fact the same place as the first day, but had a different style (salt
ramen instead of miso ramen), very tasty.

Headed back to the hotel to rest our feet and hang out, then went to bed.