All right, we’re back to summarize the first full day of my time in Japan. After sleeping for around 5 hours, I was up and ready to go! Unfortunately…almost nothing in Japan opens until 10:00am. I woke at around 3 or 4am, so I had a fair bit of time to kill. I started my day in the best way possible: breakfast with food from 7-11, iced coffee from a vending machine, and 鬼滅の刃 Demon Slayer! No joke, this was actually incredible.
Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden
After a few episodes it was time to get up and going. I checked out of my hotel and, in walking around to find an actual sit-down spot for a proper breakfast, I was hit up for a massage by a woman that was questionable at best. That was quick! Hard pass there, thankfully this was the only time I had to deal with anything like that. I found a few things as I walked around waiting for things to open up en masse. There was a really pretty shrine in the middle of the city that I stumbled upon, with vendors setting up for what appeared to be a small market. I wound up eating a proper breakfast at an amazing little ramen shop, 名代富士そば, that had a delicious-looking promotional meal for the newest Ishin Kiwami game. The picture sold me – and it was only 680円, or about $5.
While I was eating I planned out my morning. Once it opened I’d go to 新宿御苑 Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden to hopefully get some amazing pictures. I thanked the chef for the delicious meal 「おいしいでした、ありがとう！」and was on my way! While it was still a bit early to see cherry blossoms everywhere (that would be more in the April timeframe), I did get to see some that were early to bloom and spent a couple hours here. Before it opened, though, I did get to wander into a Japanese cinema and see that Liam Neeson is a rock star in Japan!
Akihabara
Once I left the garden I was ready to head to my next destination: the legendary 秋葉原 Akihabara, or Akiba. This is pretty much heaven for anyone that’s into video games, anime, or just overall otaku culture. I stopped into multiple stores on the way, one of which was a music store, Disc Union. It turns out that this store had one of the items I was really hoping to snag, and I got the only copy that I found on my entire trip: the Chrono Trigger Orchestral Arrangement CD. I also found the Japanese versions of my two favorite Killswitch Engage albums, The End of Heartache and As Daylight Dies, for a couple hundred yen each. Winning!
Lunch had to be more ramen, with some incredible fresh gyoza to boot. This was the authentic experience – bar-style close quarters dining. This was beyond delicious.
After lunch I was off to see as many of the cool retro game stores, multi-story arcades, and anime/manga shops as I could. There were SO many cool discoveries. 80’s computers and computer games? Check. Walls of Famicom, Super Famicom, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64 games? You bet. Even Virtual Boy games! This was such a cool blast from the past for me, I grew up reading about these Japanese games and consoles – seeing them in person was just awesome. I still couldn’t find the crown jewel I was looking for, though – Chrono Trigger continued to evade me. I spent time in every store looking for it to no avail.
After spending the entire day checking out the retro consoles, I found one of the two Switch games I was determined to grab for immersive study: ドラゴンクエストXI S 「Dragon Quest XI S」! The cashier was very nice and told me, in Japanese, that the game is 日本語-only, that there’s no English option. I told him, “That’s okay, I’m using it to study”「あぁ、大丈夫。勉強しますよ！」. He had such an awesome response – “Amazing, try your best!”「えぇぇ、菅井！頑張って！」. I loved these simple conversations – humbling as I clearly need to work on my conversational skills, but so motivating to have locals dumb things down a bit and encourage me! There were cool manga shops too, with really interesting fan manga that I’d only heard rumors about as a kid: Dragonball AF.
After walking over 26,000 steps with a 35lb backpack it was time to head back to my hotel. Not too late, only around 8:30, but it was a 20 minute walk and I wanted to rest up for the next day of adventuring. On the way back I stopped into a small retro game shop to just browse. There were some really cool game cartridges in front, and when I was on my way out I found it – a copy of クロノトリーガ Chrono Trigger was mine! I couldn’t believe my luck, and I didn’t see another copy for the duration of my time in Japan. I’m a thankful guy!
I made it back to my hotel, played a bit of Dragon Quest XI, and crashed hard at around 10pm. The next day I’d explore more of Akiba, hit the Square Enix Cafe, and enjoy some street food in アメ横 Ameyoko! Stay tuned for Day 3 next!
