Tokyo Game Show 2016

We had the chance of visiting Tokyo for TGS 2016 with our school! It was so much fun visiting Tokyo for the 2nd time this year! The last time i was here was April for Nana Mizuki's concert!

We stayed in Hotel Mystays in Hamamatsucho for the whole week for TGS!

The hotel room was quite small, this bed took up the whole space and the walking area was just about a luggage's size.

We walked around the street, there was like 2 convenience stalls right at the street our hotel was on, which was nice. There was even a shrine right opposite the hotel, it's definitely cool to see such a shrine in a city area, since in Singapore, our major temples are like not near the housing.

The first food we had was Coco Ichibanya! I have missed this so much even though we have this in Singapore. But this definitely tasted better in Japan!

I have missed Ueno so much, it is definitely one of my favorite places to visit. So, off to Ueno we go! As usual, the subway map is terrifying :3

Safely arrived in Ameyoko!

We went to the shrine that was in the park!

The food this time was, Udon!

I remembered coming here in April and ordering the largest bowl of Udon, and accidentally ordering raw egg, and not finishing that.

But this time, medium Udon with Soft boiled egg! I still couldn't finish it...

After our free time, we met up with the rest of our Course mates!

Then we both headed down to Akihabara which was just a stop away! Shopping haven for anime stuff! Not the first time we came, but it definitely is a place that never gets boring!

We even went to a maid cafe later in the evening! This was the omu rice my friend ordered! Sadly, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the maid-sans :(

However, we had ordered a set of drinks which included a poloroid shot with a maid-san of our choice, so we took one with the maid-san who was the one serving us most of the time! She was sooo pretty..

We even wore costumes and took pictures in the Purikura machines!

Our late night snack was yummy Takoyaki! I definitely recommend this Takoyaki stall which is right on the street of Akihabara!

We spent the next day in Akihabara again, mostly in Mandarake. We walked around all the floors, and there were some floors which are not PG13!

We had yummy ramen that day! However, i still think Ichiran has the best ramen even though is is quite a touristy ramen place.

The next day was finally the day that we got to visit the Sony headquarters in Shinagawa, so excited! But sadly, there wasn't any pictures allowed inside except for the lobby. We did take group photos outside with the Sony sign though, like a bunch of excited tourists!

In the lobby, there were cool exhibitions on display, which was stuff that were shot with the help of sony devices! There was even one with ghost busters, and another that had music videos playing!

After touring Sony headquarters, we headed to Odaiba to see the infamous gundam! The first thing we saw after stepping out of the station was this huge ferris wheel!

We walked around in Venus fort, but there wasn't much to see inside. Although the interior was quite cool, it was like a sheltered street, there were even cobblestones, fountains inside.

We did grab yummy food inside, it was apparently Ladies Day(?), so ladies like me got 10% off the food. I ordered this set and some oreo milkshake desert, yum!

After filling our stomachs, we walked back to Diver City and spotted the huge gundam!

Of course, as tourists, we took a picture with it! xD

There were quite a number of malls in the area, so we went inside some of them. There was even this life scaled Mumei from Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress on display!

My loot so far even though i have only been here for 3 days so far. The prices of these figurines were so good i couldn't resist! Mostly around 1000 to 2000 yen.

The next day we went to Sunshine city's Pokemon center to buy some Pokemon stuff! Here is one of my friends with his many baskets, if i remember right, i think he spent 500 sgd on these items!

Then we went to a studio for a small tour of what they do, which was interesting but sadly, photos were prohibited. After the small tour, it was free time again. This time, we headed to the infamous Nakano Broadway!

After our long day of shopping in Nakano Broadway, we decided to have some food since we were soooo hungry! We just walked around the alley of Nakano Broadway and saw a tempura shop, and just headed in. But the menu was in Japanese, so we did not know how to read. Good thing for glass food displays! We ordered by pointing on what we wanted in the display outside the shop!

It was run by a cute couple, the lady took orders and the gentleman got to frying! The food was so good! I recommend this to anyone in the area!

The next day, we decided to go to Harajuku, Takeshita street, since we heard of cats and owl cafes in the area.

Legit food before heading to the cafe! The kinokuniya in Japan was so different than Singapore's, they had mince chicken and salted salmon! Yum!

The ticket we bought was a packaged deal of both the bengal cat cafe and the owl cafe. We visited the bengal cat cafe first. The bengal cats were so cute, but so playful! They wouldn't stay in one spot for more than a minute :(

Most of the time, the bengal cats would just stay on this guy, so we didn't get a chance to play with them. But oh well, on to the owl cafe!

It was my first time seeing owls in such close proximity, but it was sad to see them clipped to the branches, not being able to fly and move much. I don't know if this was being cruel to them, or to protect them.

Maybe the cafe let them fly around when nobody is in the cafe, but I didn't ask.

However, the owls looked healthy (?)

My favorite was this owl, which was curious over seeing himself in the camera on selfie mode!

There was even a live concert in one of the food areas of Takeshita street! Didn't know who they were but they had some very responsive fans!

After walking on Takeshita street, we went to Meiji jingu, the shrine right opposite the street.

It was so relaxing and peaceful, with the forest surrounding us. We took a small path away from the path where most people walked, which was just a dirt path.

We then chanced upon a wedding ceremony at the shrine, lucky us!

That night, we went to Tokyo Tower to enjoy the night view from above!

There was even a DJ section in the tower, but sadly, it was in Japanese so i could only understand a little bit.

Then finally came the day for the public access to Tokyo Game Show! It was in the outskirts of Tokyo, but when we reached, there was a HUGE crowd! Everyone was headed to TGS!

It was such a hot and humid day, especially with the many people around. We had to queue for around 2 hours to finally enter the area. When we were near the entrance, there was a sign for the try outs for games, but all of them were out of slots...

There were so many booths in TGS, so we walked around to see and hear about games. But the bad thing about TGS was, they only spoke in Japanese, so to us, we can only see the games and actions they did, not read or hear what the MCs were saying, which was a bummer.

There were also so many customers hired b the companies! This was one of my favorites, with its Egyptian theme.

The crowd was so overwhelming, together with the language barrier, i went out very quickly since not being able to understand much made TGS too overwhelming for me. So I just headed to the marketplace area. There were so many people here already!

The dinner for that day was some yummy Udon with tempura!

With that, came the end of the whole trip, next day early morning, we left for the airport. Sadly, i realized that i left my power bank in the hotel room.. But it was too late to go back to get it.

Last food I had was of course, RAMEN! Although i would still say that Ichiran had the best ramen for me :3

But i will be back soon JAPAN! See you!