Pilgrimage to Akihabara (Electric Town) and My New Purple Sony Camera

A visit to Tokyo is never complete with a pilgrimage to Akihabara. The signs in the metro call it Electric Town. Akihabara is several square blocks of multi-story stores and buildings that sell electronics parts, phones, cameras, small appliances, games, and computers.

Maki loves coming here because there's this crazy alley filled with little shops that sells electronics parts and kits. He can find obscure cables and connectors, ham radio parts, kits he makes with CJ and his buddy Crawford, yada, yada.

I love Akihabara because here you can find cameras, video cameras and phones in all makes, models and colors. When we visited Akihabara back in 2000 (right after we got married), I picked up a purple Walkman. Sure enough, on this trip, I picked up a purple Sony point and shoot camera.

Akihabara is also full of buildings with nothing but video game consoles and arcade games across many floors. CJ went into one building with Alex. If it weren't for the smoke in the building, I think I would have lost them forever.

Here's a few of one street. Note the tall SEGA building where every floor had terminals for playing games. Crazy!

There's a lot of food in Akihabara as well.

No idea what this game was or how it worked. There was a circular screen and this guy would touch the screen as these blocks would flash on. The game was very fast-paced and he seemed to be getting perfect scores. He was moving around a lot to keep up with the game and he was wearing these gloves that I assume are the special touch screen gloves.

Check out these colorful Sony cameras. I got the purple one!

 More colorful cameras. Why don't they sell these in the US?

 Pink and gold cameras!

 Blue and red cameras!

Rainy Day in Tokyo

On Friday morning, November 23, we woke up to a rainy day in Tokyo. We were a little tired from all of the traveling the day before, so we decided to take it easy. Turns out there is a Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku close to the hotel, so we bought an umbrella from the underground mall, made a stop at Starbucks and headed to Tokyu Hands.

MJ insisted on holding the umbrella in the rain.

Maki and I love Tokyu Hands. I call it the Target of Japan but that's not quite right. At Tokyu Hands, you can get souvenirs, clothing, stationery and pens, electronics, small appliances, tools, toys, etc.

Tokyu Hands had a section for toys. MJ found some Thomas items and CJ got some Pokemon cards.

After a couple of hours of shopping, we decided to head for lunch. We found a Korean restaurant right in the building that looks great. It was called Garlic something and hoo boy, there was a lot of garlic in everything we ordered!

Here's MJ playing with one of his new toys.

We squeezed into a tiny booth.

Here's my hot pot bibimbap. It was delicious. Note the raw egg that gets mixed into the dish.

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel for a nap. MJ ended up napping right in his stroller but he wouldn't let go of the umbrella. Here he is clutching the umbrella while in the underground mall leading to our hotel.

I Love Yard Sales

There was a pretty big yard sale in our neighborhood and I could not resist checking it out.  I just love yard sales.  Yes, I love the bargains, but I also knew it would be fun to hang out with our neighbors and CJ would enjoy running around with his buddies.

Maki gave me $60 since I didn't have any cash and told me to call him if I needed more.  Thankfully, I only spent $45, but boy did I get good stuff!  I got 10 CDs, 14 DVDs, 4 gorgeous Chinese prints and a purple planter for my office!

Among the DVDs I got were:

• All 3 Indiana Jones movies
• X-Men 2 and 3 (Maki and I have not seen the third movie)
• Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (yes, I admit to being a Keanu Reeves fan)
• Amadeus and Immortal Beloved (about Mozart and Beethoven, respectively)
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit
• Batman Begins

The CDs are mostly from the 80s, including including Bob James, Prince, Vivaldi and Wham (yes, Wham, don't laugh).  How's that for variety?

Now you know why I love yard sales.

Winnie the Pooh

On Saturday, May 31, CJ and I met Dina and Jessie (my sister and niece) at the Thomas Jefferson theater in Arlington to watch a Children's Theater production of Winnie the Pooh. Winnie the Pooh is very special in our family. Jessie has had a Pooh bear for years and years; she does not travel anywhere without him. CJ loves the entire Winnie the Pooh cast of characters, but especially Tigger and Winnie the Pooh.

The show was supposed to start at 3pm, but we had a torrential storm (possibly a tornado) in the Northern VA area. Thomas Jefferson lost power as a result. The dozens of parents and kids waited patiently for a hour and a half, and then we finally bailed. CJ and Jessie were amazingly good. They walked around, checked out the displays, and listened to the storytelling. But after all that waiting and still no word about whether or not the generator could be turned on, we decided to go shopping.

We headed out to Pentagon City mall for shopping and dinner. Jessie and CJ were great: they let Dina and I get some real shopping done. I bought a pair of shoes, got some new makeup, and some clothes for CJ.  We made the kids pose in front of candidate cutouts in front of a souvenir shop.

The funny thing is that I don't think CJ even noticed that the Winnie the Pooh performance happened at all. He loved the storytelling at the theater and then the shopping.

CJ, btw, seems to really like shopping. He is actually commenting on the shoes I look at. And he likes jewelry. At a jewelry cart int he middle of the food court, he picked out some bracelets and said, "mama, this is gorgeous." Fun day.

Shopping in New York

Shoe shopping, lunch, chocolate, wine and hanging out with the girlfriends? I can't think of a better time!

On Saturday, May 17, I got to hang out with some cool women during a bus trip to New York organized by Reston Limousine. It was a long day, but a fun day. We left Tysons Corner at 7am and arrived back ground 11:30pm.

The ride up was awesome. I got to meet some fabulous women, all friends of the amazing Kristina Bouweiri, CEO of Reston Limousine. Many of use are business owners and moms, which made for some fun conversation.

We got dropped off at Canal Street around 11:30. Yes, we were hungry, but we had more important things to do. Our first stop was Shoegasm (yep, that's the name), where I bought a pair of purple ballet flags and a cute pair of black and gold sandals (a little more bling than I'm used to). Next up, Shoefinity, where I bought a pair of lavender Merrill walking shoes. (Did you guess I like purple?)

Next up, handbag shopping. Most of the group ventured into a secret basement shop to hunt for Pradas and Guccis, but I was too claustrophic. I wandered around Canal Street and got a wallet and Sponge Bob watch for my son.

After all that shopping, we were famished. The group split into two. The first group went for an Italian lunch. My group went for Chinese since I never get great Chinese in the DC area. Michelle led us to a great hole in the wall where we had a veritable feast for $25 per person. We had crab, duck, scallops, fish, noodles, beef, and soup. We even had bubble drinks from next door.

It was still early, so we hit some more shops. We hit a couple of sample sales, wandered around the discount department store Century 21 and even got to see Ground Zero. After that, we headed to Soho, where I got an amazing deal on a Cleo and Patek purse and wallet. Seriously, I bought the most beautiful purse I had ever seen and it was 60% off. The store manager said sales are way down and they are forced to discount.

Our day ended at Te Casan shoe store. This has to be the swankiest shoe store I've ever been to. The store carries 7 lines of designer shoes, many of them limited edition. Did you know that Natalie Portman has her own line of vegan shoes? The shoes start at $275 and I had already bought 3 pairs elsewhere, so I was able to resist the temptation.

After Te Casan, we grabbed some hot dogs for the road and headed home. The bus ride was long, but Kristina treated us to a movie (Maid Money, total chick flick), wine and chocolate covered graham crackers. We slept, we chatted, we shared our food, and we passed around the goodies we bought.

I was a waste of space on Sunday because I'm not used to all that activity in one day and I'm definitely not used to being up so late anymore! But boy was it fun! Reston Limousine organizes New York trips once a month. I'll definitely try to join another trip in the Fall. Fun times!