Day 15: Back to Finland.

I woke up at 7:00 and we checked out from the hotel at 8:00. The weather was very cloudy and it somehow fit the depressing leaving day. The walk from hotel to train station and from station to another was hell and I almost lost a feeling of my right arm while carrying all the heavy luggage. The airport hassle went pretty smoothly as expected from Narita and we were on the airport right on time. The plane ride was boring, I watched some Family Guy and listened to the music I bought from Tokyo. We arrived to Helsinki around 15:15, got our luggage and then we finally were back to Helsinki. It's tuesday the 12nd, 7:35 as I'm writing this and I still have to go back to Oulu by train. My train leaves at 9:30 and I'm supposed to be back in Oulu at 15:15. Then my journey will finally be over...

Day 14: The last day

At the beginning of our last trip I went to Harajuku to buy the last souvenirs I still had to buy for my friends. Takeshita street was as annoying as ever but I managed to buy the things I needed. After that I wanted to check if there were anything interesting at Yoyogi park so I headed over there and bought some takoyaki on the way. I the famous rockabilly group there and sat down at the bench near them to have some takoyaki for lunch. Takoyaki was okay, nothing too special and after I eating I walked around the yoyogi park. There were some actors rehearsing around the park and it was kinda interesting to see em do that. Then it was time to leave Harajuku and go to Akihabara one last time. I went to the arcade at first and met Laggy there by chance. Then I decided it was finally time to enter one of those famous maid cafes with Laggy. We tried to go to Nagomi and @home cafes first but those were full so we went to a cafe called Popopure. I ordered a "traditional maid cafe dish" called omurice and it was surprisingly good, reminded me of risotto. And of course I took a pic with one of the maids there, it's so hilarious I have to scan it asap. :D Then it was time for some last minute shopping around Akiba and before going back I went to play some arcade games one last time. I finally managed to clear the Area 88 game too, cost me 4 credits and totally worth it. On my way back to hotel I bought some melonsoda and candy as a souvenir for myself and then it was time to get some sleep at hotel because the following day was gonna be rough: going back to the airport with all the stuff I had with me...

Day 13: Goi, Chiba.

The 2nd last day of our trip we went to pay a visit to our friend Qward's hometown area which was a place called Goi in Chiba. We took a bit under 2 hour train ride there and arrived to Goi station around 13:00. From there Qward drove us to his home with his car and we greeted his mother and little sister there. Of course the first thing we did was to go to the local arcade so we drove there from Qward's house. The arcade was decent at best and after a little while we decided to head back to Qward's house to grab something to eat. We went to a local chinese restaurant and the food there was really good! After eating it was time to check the local DVD/anime/manga store and after that it was time to get some alcohol for the night. So we drove to the local liqueur store where Qward bought some good brand sake and then we bought some beverages from a local supermarket and convini. The night was pretty awesome, we drank a lot and talked at Qward's room and at the end of the night we all were really drunk. So we left back to station all pretty wasted and we were shouting some stupid things on the way, and of course we acted like we were "FROM AMERICA" ^^; . Laggy felt at the half way of the train ride but at the end we arrived back to our hotel safely. Tomorrow was the last day of our trip and I wanted to make most of it...

Day 12: Government Building, Asakusa, onsen etc

At the beginning of day 12 we finally decided it was time to go to that Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building we were trying to enter for some while. So we finally got inside and rose up all the way to the 45th floor of the building, at 205 meters. The views from the top were astonishing and at that time I just kept thinking my existence feels very small. So we took many many photos from there and went to both two observation towers it had. After taking photos etc it was time to go sightseeing and souvenir shopping to Asakusa's famous temple area. Asakusa area made me feel a bit nostalgic because I stayed 1½ weeks there last year and we entered the Sensō-ji temple area. From there we all bought some nice souvenirs for our parents and took some good photos of the temple area. After shopping and sightseeing we went to relax at some local onsen near there, the 41C water of the rotenburo felt really good. After onsen it was time to end the day traditionally by going to Akihabara and from there back to hotel.

Day 11: Ueno and Kouenji

I went to stroll around Ueno park area which was really nice. There was also some yoyo performer named Naoto doing a show and apparently he had won last year's yoyo world championship in California. I ate some kitsune udon at some old famous soba restaurant in Ueno's ameyoko and later on I went to hunt some used records from Kouenji. Kouenji's record stores didn't have so good selection this time but I found the best arcade so far from Kouenji, the beatmaniaIIDX machine was top-notch and only 100y/play. After arcade I went to Shinjuku's disk union chuuko center where I found several cheap records and wasted the rest of my day budget there. After that it was time to go back to hotel.

ps. I finally fixed my WLAN problem, turns out it was the stupid Sygate firewall blocking the WLAN connection. Uninstalled it and everything works normally now, even with my integrated WLAN adapter

Day 10: Ikebukuro and GUHROOVY

I did some laundry at the morning and after that me and Laggy decided to go and check out the anime stores of Ikebukuro. So we left hotel around 12:00 and went to Ikebukuro with Yamanote. Ikebukuro had a nice atmosphere in it and we found some pretty good anime stores from the other side of Sunshine road. Then from Ikebukuro we finally went to Shibuya's GUHROOVY and this time it was open. I met DJ CHUCKY there who was a man of few words, the selection of GUHROOVY was brief as the last time too but it was nice to visit that store just for the novelty of it. I found the famires where we ate a year ago with JUOLA, Qward and mFX so me and Laggy grabbed something to eat there. After eating it was time to end this day traditionally with Akiba too.

Day 9: Hanging around with Tay

I promised to meet Tay at 14:00 in Shinjuku's south exit and there he was with his girlfriend. He showed me one good arcade nearby where I showed off my beatmaniaIIDX and pop'n music skills and from Shinjuku we decided to go to Yokohama station to grab some food. We went to some soba restaurant and I had katsudon there which was good. We talked about lots of different stuff with Tay while eating and after we ate it was time to head for Sakuragicho station. The view from Sakuragicho was something I had never seen and it was simply amazing, I took some really nice pictures there. Then Tay wanted to go see Avatar movie with his GF so we headed back to Shinjuku where we parted ways. After that it was time to end the day traditionally with some browsing around Akihabara.