Day 3: 2nd day of Comiket and Tsukishima

We headed to Comiket77 2nd day around 8:30 and went there with Yurikamome line today aswell. This time the lines to the Comiket77 were massively long, we got inside the Comiket area around 11:00. There was even a long queue to the east hall itself which I've never seen yet, but we finally managed to get inside the east hall and begin our shopping spree madness. I bought several music CDs and I got to have some small talk with SHARPNEL SOUND's jea and Lemmy AND TatshMusicCircle's Tatsh (formerly known for his works in Bemani games). After getting all the records I wanted we met Qward and his friend FT. FT is a programmer working for Nintendo and he was a Bemani fan like me so we had a lot of different stuff to talk to. We saw Qward's friend's circle called Programmable Maiden and we went to greet him. After talking for some while we decided to leave Comiket77 and head to eat Monjayaki because FT knew a town district famous for for Monjayaki restaurants. That place is called Tsukishima, which we headed over with Tokyo Metro and when we arrived there was some taiko drum show going on. I still feel really lucky to be able to catch some genuine taiko drumming action, it was something really amazing! After seeing the taiko show we went to eat some Monjayaki and it was really delicious! We also had some Okonomiyaki, Yakisoba and Teppanyaki. And the best thing was, FT decided the food was his treat. After eating FT wanted to see us play some rhythm games so we went to Akihabara with metro. FT knew some good arcade at the back street of Akiba which was indeed a really nice place. We had an epic duel with FT in pop'n music and I just barely won, he was a really good player. And apparently FT was amazed of me and Laggy's beatmnaiaIIDX playing. :)

In conclusion yesterday was a really good day even tho my flu is getting worse day by day and I only got around 4 hours of sleep last night. I just hope my flu won't get any worse from here...

Day 2: First day of Comic Market 77 and Akiba

We left hotel around 9am and headed to Shimbashi station first with JR line. Then we switched over to Yurikamome line and the views from it were absolutely amazing, got to see all those huge buildings with an interesting architecture. We arrived to Tokyo Big Sight around 10:15 and the lines were still really huge, we waited over half and hour and finally entered Comiket. We tried to go to the　企業 ("enterprise") booths first but it was too crowded so we headed to the doujin section. I bought some BEMANI related stuff there and then we wandered around the east and west halls for some more doujin shopping. Around 15:30 we decided to leave to Akiba to finally get some food. We went to Akihabara with JR line and Akiba was as amazing as it was the first day I ever went there. We tried to get some gyuudon for dinner but the place was too crowded so we just went to eat some KFC. After KFC we headed to White Canvas where Kohfel did some more shopping and then it was time for some arcade action. Me and Laggy went to Akihabara's HEY arcade while Kohfel already headed back to hotel. I played some Tetris Grandmaster 3, pop'n music, 太鼓の達人13 (taiko no tatsujin 13) and beatmaniaIIDX but pretty much did bad on everything. around 20:00 we got really tired so we decided to head back to our hotel.

Tomorrow it's time for 2nd day of Comiket77 and after that Qward promised to take us to eat some kaiten sushi with his friend. I'm looking forward on that!

oh and what have I got/bought so far from my trip? We'll here's a pic of all the free stuff I've been given to:

and here's the stuff I've bought:

Pictures from my trip

From now on, I'm going to post pictures from my trip to the dedicated album on my photobucket account. I already uploaded some pics from the first day.

Day 1: A letlag from hell

So we started our trip from Helsinki-Vantaa airport. There were huge queues to baggage drop and we lined for half an hour to the wrong line at first so after that it looked like we wouldn't make it in time to the correct luggage drop. Luckily Kohfel got us past the lines from Business class drop and we made it in time. Plane ride was long and tidious and the seats were really crampy. I didn't get much sleep in plane but we arrived safely to Tokyo, 50 minutes late from the schedule. Immigration and getting our luggage went really smoothly and we all got safely outta Narita airport. But then the jetlag started to hit us when we traveled from Narita to Minami-senju. Somehow I managed to get us totally lost on Minami-Senju and we wandered around for several minutes trying to look for our hotel (surely it was almost impossible to find a hotel that's literally one block away from the nearest 7-eleven). But we finally managed to find Hotel New Koyo and checked in there. Then it was time to go to Shibuya to meet our Japanese friend Qward.

We arrived to Shibuya and Hachiko exit was as mesmerizing as it was the first time too. We met Qward near the famous Hachiko statue (only 3 hours late from our original appointment time) and went to grab some okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki was delicious and getting something nice to eat was great! But then the jetlag started to hit me even harder and my head was almost spinning by the time we finished eating. After eating we went to Shibuya Game Kaikan arcade to play some music games, I tried my luck with Taiko no tatsujin and after failing miserably the first song I tried it clearly showed I shouldn't be touching those games for today. Then I had to hurry for the 男臭ぶちキレNIGHT！～其の23～ and got there without problems. After just seeing three bands the jetlag got really unbearable and I was almost falling asleep in the middle of the live house. I finally decided to leave from o-nest but it was a hard decision since one of my favourite Japanese bands THE LOCAL ART hadn't played there yet, they had the last time slot. I left with a really sad feeling and almost fell asleep in the train way back to hotel. At the hotel I found out my laptop's WLAN card doesn't support the network our hotel has, but I can still use a cable connection from the hotel's lobby.

So in conclusion the first day has not been what I dreamed it to be and I've even had some thoughts of "why did I have to come here". Maybe I'm just nitpicking and the horrible jetlag is having an affect to my mood, I hope tomorrow is a better day. It should be since it's the first day of Comic Market 77...

Prelude: an introduction

So this is the start of my travel blog. In this blog I'm going to cover some experiences from my upcoming two weeks in Tokyo. My first trip to Tokyo was last year, from 22nd December 2008 till 12th January 2009. I also did a travel blog from that trip too but it was in Finnish (link to the blog at the right in links section). This time I decided to do it completely in english so I chose to start this blog.

This time I'm staying in Tokyo for 14 nights, from December 28th 2009 till January 11th 2010. I have two Finnish friends travelling with me, Laggy and Kohfel. I'm trying to update my blog daily, or whenever I can. I will also be posting pictures to my Photobucket account, to where I'll be posting the address later on when I've done uploading my first set of photos.

I'll start my journey by leaving on 26th December from my hometown Oulu to our capital Helsinki, where I'll be staying at my ex-roomie's place for one night. Then on 27th I will go to Helsinki-Vantaa airport where my flight to Narita is boarding at 17:20 (yes I'm using 24 hour clock because Finns use it).

As a fan of japanese music, rhythm games and 'otaku culture' my main interests are going to be band gigs, arcades, Comic Market 77 and Akihabara. Here's a checklist of some sort which I've made for my trip preparation:

• Attend all 3 days of Comic Market 77
• See at least these three band gigs: 男臭ぶちキレNIGHT！～其の23～ , HAWAIIAN6 ”BONDS TOUR” and つばき 10th Anniversary 「正夢になった夜」vol.1 ～VS編～
• Wander in the streets of Akihabara with the help of Akiba map and go to several maid cafes
  
• Go check out Shibuya's Game Kaikan arcade and other well-known arcades
• Hunt used CD records around Koenji, Shinjuku, Nakano etc.
  
• Go to Hakone for a genuine Onsen experience
• Wander around Ueno (Ueno park and amekoyo)
• See the sights from Tokyo Tower and Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building
• Check out Yoyogi park on a Sunday for street performers
• Sing some songs at a karaoke box and get wasted in an izakaya
• Try out more different Japanese cuisines like Conveyor belt sushi, yakisoba, shabushabu, takoyaki, taiyaki etc.
  

The plan for my beginning of the trip is like this: I'll go check in to my hotel where I'm staying at, which is going to be Hotel New Koyo in Minami-senju. After I've dropped my luggage there I'm heading Shibuya for the said 男臭ぶちキレNIGHT！～其の23～ live event. And then the next following three 3 days are going to be the 3 days of Comiket77 and after last day we're going to go celebrate New Year's eve somewhere.

I'm sure this trip is gonna be legendary, like the last one was! Only 10 more days to go. At the end I'd like to share a link to a song from one of my all-time favourite Japanese bands: eastern youth. I feel this song fits really well for this whole theme about my dream of being able to travel to Tokyo again coming true. Enjoy!