Rossett Japan Exchange - Day 9

Today is the day we're heading off to the Electric Town - Akihabara! This is a visit that I personally was looking forward to a ton; it's a shame we didn't get more time here!

Upon entering the town, you're immediately swamped with bright, neon lights ('Tacky-habara' - Miss Horsfall) and masses of people. A group of us headed to Animate - a 7-floor store filled to the brim with anime and manga-related merchandise. After around 40 minutes we left the store, our arms weighed down with the bags we received and our wallets and purses feeling much lighter.

After another several minutes of rushing around and filling our arms with bags, we met up with the rest of the group. We then decided to each lunch at '@home', a maid café. After they welcomed us (their 'masters') we sat down and ordered. They brought us our drinks (a 'Magic Shaker' for myself) and asked us to 'imbue our drinks with magic power' by repeating their words.

'Moe moe!'

'Moe moe...'

'Kyun kyun!'

'Kyun kyun...'

'Waka waka!'

'Waka waka...?'

'Kira kira!'

'Kira kira!'

Of course, we had to do the same thing with our food as well, except this time we had to make a heart gesture with our hands.

'Moe, moe, kyuuuun!'

Then we took a picture with a maid of our choice - animal ears and paws were provided! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take photos ourselves. Mr. Bulmer looked great as a bunny...

To finish everything off, all the maids went to the stage at the front of the room... and they sang and danced for us. No, I'm not kidding. After printing our photos for us, we left the maid café, some looking more pleased than others.

Our next destination was Segaworld - Joypolis. This was much more than a huge arcade like I expected; there were rides so it was essentially an indoor theme park. According to those that went on the rides (which included a driving simulator and an indoor roller-coaster amongst others) they were very fun! We won a lot of tat merchandise from the claw machines, including figures and keychains!

We returned to the youth hostel to freshen ourselves up, then headed to a nearby restaurant for our final meal in Japan. With a hotplate in the center of our tables, we cooked the food we ordered ourselves!

Mr. Bulmer and Miss Horsfall presented us all with gifts that best showed our role on the trip:

Ultimate Life of the Party - Oliver Bennett - Spongebob keychain

Ultimate Poker Face - Holly Higlett - Pikachu facemask

Ultimate Pocky Consumer - Brighdie Oliver - Multiple boxes of Pocky

Ultimate Blogger - McKenzie Collins - 'I <3 Japan' T-shirt

Ultimate Jetlag Sufferer - Josh Wilson - Ninja sleep mask

Ultimate Tat Collector - Deborah Stockill - Sheep keychain

Ultimate Japanese Food Taster  - Josh Breeze - Sushi keychain

Ultimate Keychain Collector - Emilia-Rose Manship - Fox keychain

Ultimate Culture Embracer - Monet Page - Floral hair pin

Post by McKenzie Collins