Last weekend was a bank holiday for Autumnal Equinox Day (whatever that is) and myself and Bren decided to head to Tokyo. Fortunately (well, for him) Bren got a press pass to the Tokyo Gameshow which was held last weekend. I have to say I was less than enthusiastic about going to the conference which was sure to attract all Simpsons fat comic book guy lookalikes in Japan. Not to mention the nerds actually nerdy enough to fly to Japan for this sort of thing.  I expected it to be a mainly Japanese crowd but clearly I wasn`t aware of the amount of nerds (otaku in Japanese) there actually are with a thousand euros to spare, because the place was swarming with big fat gaijin (Japanese word for foreigners)!

 Despite my attitude heading to the Gameshow which was less than enthusiastic, I had a really great day! The gameshow was held in a a futuristic spaceship/turtle building and we managed to avoid the queues in the blazing sun thanks to Bren`s press pass.

After we got our tickets we began making our way to the main entrance, nerds all around us were breaking into awkward little sweaty sprints, unable to contain their excitement and trying to get to the 4 hour long queues for Metal Gear Solid as soon as possible. They were very cute!

When we got inside we were bombarded with leaflets, loud music, flashing lights, cosplayers and booth babes. It was a little overwhelming and, I have to admit, far more exciting than I had expected. I`m still not sure whether the sights I saw were extremely cute, like so much in Japan, or very seedy and a little worrying.

Every corporation had a stand with giant screens showing trailers, demonstrations of the games and, of course. the booth babes, who seemed to be drawing by far the biggest crowds. These `booth babes` are pretty Japanese girls very scantily clad in maid uniforms, army gear, leather boots and whips, bikinis etc. They`re only purpose is to stand there and look cute for the otakus. At every stall there were 20 or 30 middle-aged men standing taking countless pictures of these booth babes while they struck various `cute` poses. Despite the clear sleaziness of it all, it seems to work. The girls seem to adore the attention, and the fat nerds are only delighted to actually stand within a few metres of a girl. Another thing to be said in its favour is that the girls were soooo cute in their little costumes. I think Japanese people look cute and harmless no matter what they`re doing really. They seem to adopt some parts of Western culture that are crude and make it cute, innocent and adorable, I don`t know how they do it!

After looking around at all the stalls, we headed out to where all the cosplayers had assembled. Cosplayers aren`t a million miles from the booth babes. They are costume enthusiasts, mostly young girls, who like to dress up as video game, or anime characters. These costumes were generally tamer and more innocent than those of the booth babes. They were very professionally done but it was all wasted on me, I`m afraid, since the onlt Japanese cartoon character I know is is that yellow fella from Pokemon. Still, it was great to see and there was one 50 year old guy who was walking around with little chipmunk ears, who I particularly enjoyed.

After the Tokyo Gameshow, Brendan decided he hadn`t seen enough technology for one day so we headed to Akihabara. Akihabara is the nerd district in Tokyo, it`s a shopping area, about the size of Dublin City, dedicated entirely to electronic gadgets, computers, games and the likes. Not surprisingly, Brendan was very excited by this and we spent THREE HOURS there. I`ve been having nightmares about surround sound 5.1 and Ipod Nanos since then!

In the evening we headed to the Italian restaurant where Yuka is working and which was absolutely gorgeous. Yuka swindled us some free food which meant that we had a full three course meal and drinks for about a tenner each. It was so yummy. Thanks the Yuke!!

We then went to stay overnight at an internet cafe, which was an interesting experience! Tokyo is ont a cheap place to stay and since we already spent all our money on laptops and projectors this month, our choice was capsule hotel or internet cafe. Since most capsule hotels don`t accommodate girls, we decided to stay in Media Cafe Popeye for the night. It cost only 15 e for one night to stay in the centre of Tokyo and, surprisingly, wasn`t too uncomfortable. We were given a computer booth with a flat seat so we could lie down comfortably. There were also free drinks, manga, dvds, playstation games and a lot more, but this had its drawbacks, because Bren drank so much free Coke that he only slept  about 3 hours, feckin eejit!

The next morning I woke up bright and bushy tailed after my night on the flat seat- now it was my turn to seek revenge for the day of nerdiness inflicted upon me! We got up and headed straight to Harajuku and Yoyogi Kooen, where the Harajuku girls hang out. Harajuku is the cool, hippy part of town, a little like Temple Bar, but with no rain, skateboarders or Avril Lavigne lookalikes!

The shops there were really cheap and had lots of cool stuff in them. I had 10 euro left to spend on clothes so spent an hour hunting for bargains in the shops then headed to Yoyogi Kooen for the Harajuku market. There, I managed to buy one skirt, one dress, one pair of shorts and two tshirts with my tenner, so I was more than satisfied with my day`s work! 

After I had done my shopping, we spied a Laos festival on by the stage in the park and went to have a look. It consisted of an old man warbling and a few students bowing, so we had a look at the few people dressed up in the lovely traditional Laotian clothes so we could tell Sabrina we had seen it and then we fecked off back to Harajuku station.

We got the bullet train back to Okayama and somehow managed to make it home on our bikes with Bren balancing his newly puchased speakers on his knee while we cycled through the city.

All in all it was a really great weekend and I can`t wait to head back up there to see the Yuke for some karaoke and shopping in October

 I put up some pictures of what I`ve been doing over the past few weeks on http://picasaweb.google.com/poolady