On our 4th day in Tokyo, we had a cooking class scheduled in the evening, so we chose to go to Akihabara district in the morning. Akihabara is, like, the nerdy district. There's supposed to be tons of hobby shops, anime stuff, and things like that. We figured we could come back to the hotel, rest a little, and then head out again for our cooking class.
It ended up taking us a little longer to get where we wanted to be. We got to Akihabara station and walked around outside for a while and didn't really see anything. We looked it up and Maddie figured out we needed to go back a couple stops. So we got on the train again.
Maddie was not impressed with the situation.
While we were on the subway, Dan started to look up hobby shops he wanted to see and they were all back at the station we had just left. You know. The one we went to then left.
So we got off the train and back on again to go back the way we came.
Along the way we found an owl cafe that Mandy REALLY wanted to check out. Unfortunately, it was reservation only. Sad day. But we got a picture of the front. Check out the names on those birds.
Eventually we made it to where we wanted to be.
Yay we did it!
We basically spent our entire time in one multistoried building. It was FULL of nerdy stuff. Including Dungeons and Dragons manuals in Japanese. No, we did not buy them. We can't read Japanese.
You might know that Japan is known for its various flavored kit kats. We found a store with a huge stash and we bought a bunch including sake, melon, banana, and cheesecake.
Maddie will be redecorating her office from Harry Potter to Studio Ghibli themed and she found a bunch of things to decorate her office with including a little stuffed Totoro, Totoro Russian stacking dolls, and a 3D wooden frame thing. I got one, too, so we will put them together when we get back home.
After that we really needed to eat some food. Akihabara is known for its maid themed cafes so Maddie found one and was really excited for it. Until we got there. Then she was a little hesitant and REFUSED to wear the bunny ears that came with our curry set, saying they were for Leo. Lame excuse. I got white cat ears.
Dan got some kind of fancy drink while Maddie and I shared another relentlessly green melon soda. Mandy got a plain old boring cola.
When the food came you had to do a cute magic spell on the food with the maid. It was adorable.
Dan got a bear curry, Mandy got a surprisingly yummy omurice (a fluffy omelet with ketchup rice), and Maddie and I shared a chicken curry. Everything was decorated very cute and was very tasty. Oh, and we had more gyoza.
We also got to take pictures with the maids as part of our sets, lol. Of course you had to take a cute pose.
The set Maddie and I ordered came with a little cat ice cream parfait. It had a cute little marshmallow chicken, fluffy yummy strawberry frosting, corn flakes (a tasty addition), and chocolate sauce. It was very good.
Mandy got an angel food cake pancake. Ours was cuter. Just saying.
We then made the trek back to the hotel and had about 30 minutes before we had to head back out to get to the meeting place for our cooking class. We met our guide and host at the station before driving to his house which was a pretty traditional style home. We got to learn about how to make dashi stock for miso soup, maki sushi roll, and teriyaki chicken.
Part of the process was making a rolled omelet. Dan and I each made one. She kept trying to give me the spatula but I was DETERMINED to use the cooking chopsticks. Mine ended up a little worse for wear... but the layers looked really good. I think Maddie just said that to make me feel better about Dan's omelet looking so perfect.
You can't really tell in the picture that the middle is a little bit crumbled...
Compared to Dan's perfect omelet. Rude.
Then we took the rice, fish cake, gourd, cucumber, carrot, and krab and rolled up some beautiful looking sushi rolls.
We then made some basic teriyaki chicken and plated it up.
Ooooo... how stylish.
After dinner, we got to have a lesson in traditional calligraphy. First we learned the basic strokes before getting to practice some character to paint on a fan. I also tried out some Korean words. I ended up choosing the sign for cat "nekko" and added a little cat drawing in the corner of my fan. I think it looks pretty cute.
Here's us with our host and two teachers. It was very fun!
Another view of my fan calligraphy, this time held by my new stuffed Jiji!
Maddie chose the signs for music. You can also see the temple blessing our host gifted to us. He told us that it expires after a year and you have to take it back to the temple. Guess we have to come back next summer! Lol, no. This was very expensive.
Then we dragged ourselves back to the hotel to crash.
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