Akihabara (electric town)

This morning when we all woke up, Noboru said, "get dressed, let's all go to Akihabara today and take the train." I was happy because well, I've been wanting a digital camera for the longest time. I've never owned one before, if you can believe it. However my digital camcorder takes pics, so that is why I haven't pushed for one. However the past couple month's my camcorder/camera has been going crazy! It started taking funky pictures, they wouldn't be focused right at all. The camera would go weird around lights and show a weird yellow tinge. At first it only happened once in a great while. But the past month, it started happening more often. And the past two weeks, it happened most of the time. To take 1 picture would take a long time, and sometimes the special moment, would be long gone by the time my camera behaved!

Noboru knew the headache my camera was giving me. I had researched about digital cameras on Amazon, read all the reviews. I decided the best one for me, was the Sony T9. Everyone raved about it. One guy who reviews cameras said it was the best one, he's seen in a long time. Noboru had been researching it and we both liked the Sony T9.

With obon under way, and traffic jams all over Japan, we knew taking the highway and driving there was outta the question. We never ride the trains,only because with us living in the country it makes more sense for us to drive. So we were all a bit unsure how our family of 4 would be on the trains. We took the bigger roomier "green car", well Branden is at the easy age and so he was no problem at all. And Noah was surprisingly no problem at all either. He looked out the window with Branden all the way there. When we arrived in Akihabara, we suddenly heard about a huge power outage in Tokyo. We worried if we would be stranded in Tokyo! We thought, "oh great the one in a million time, we ride the train, we get stuck?" However lucky for us, Akihabara (electric town) was unaffected completely, phew!

There were a gazillion people all over Akihabara! And with me being used to living in the Japanese country side, I was not used to being around the hoards of people like that! It was nice getting the things we needed to get. However, I will be honest and forthcoming to say, taking the train sucks! I think if we were going without kids in tow it might not have been so bad. But as a family of four, plus the stroller. Ugh, definitely hard.

In Japan, some train stations have escalators but a lot don't and you just have stairs. I'm telling you, with two kids in tow, plus the stroller, and our stroller is super light btw. However going up the stairs, down the stairs. Up again and down the fleet of stairs again. All while carrying the stroller, plus the heavy electronics we bought. And yup, without the car, I realized how tough it is to actually have to lug everything by hand. Clearly I was not used to taking the train. And Noboru hated it as well. Branden was exhausted, but he couldn't take a nap like he could have if we would have had our car. So he kept having to walk and walk and walk. And if you are reading this and you have kids, you'll know what I mean when I say, even kids who walk...can get tired and want to be carried and want big hugs.

So with kids and stroller and heavy equipment all in tow, it was truly exhausting! All in all, it was about 6 long grueling hours. And on foot, with no car and no air conditioning. We felt every dot of the Japanese summer! We got our car at the Narita train station where we left it. We were so happy to see our car, tears almost came out! Ha ha ha! We were in zero mood for cooking. We drove through the Mc Donald's drive thru and the boys and I got something. They got kids meals and I got a chicken pita sandwich and a salad in a cup. Noboru stopped off at Yoshinoya for himself and we went home. We all ate. After that, I was so exhausted I said....no showers for us tonight. Until I saw Branden's and Noah's toes! Their toes were completely black with dirt! Was it from walking around Tokyo? Was it dirt, or smog? I'm not quite sure. I've honestly never seen their feet look *that* dirty before. Not even when we went to Disneyland or Disney Sea! I then looked at my toes and they were completely black as well! What the heck? The boys and I all jumped into a cool shower and got squeaky clean. I made sure to wash everyone's feet three times.

I got all our pajamas put on. The boys fell right to sleep. Not even a dot of TV. I sat in front of the TV for about 10 minutes. Not really watching per say, more like reliving the entire day in my head while starting at the TV screen.I felt too sleepy, so I went to bed. Noboru fell asleep right away too.

Here's the pics from our day in Tokyo at Akihabara! : )

Branden in the train.


Noah in the train. : )




In Tokyo, but on our way home! : )


The things we got are, a digital camera, a camcorder, and a region free portable DVD player. We had a portable DVD player for the past 2 years. But it broke/stopped working 2 month's ago. So, since they had them there and they were region free. We figured, why not! The portable DVD player keeps Branden entertained on long flights. : )