Adrian in Town

I got my first non-work visitor and it's taken me this long to recover. Adrian came to Japan and we rushed all over Japan for a week. The day he got in, he came to Utsunomiya and we went to the bar. It was a Wednesday so the bar was dead. We had a couple of drinks and then headed out to the hostess bar. We did a hell of a duet on some NSync and called it a night. He was jet lagged and I had to work in the morning.

The next day was Thanksgiving, so we had a traditional KFC dinner. Didn't go out that night, but the next day we headed to Tokyo after I got home from work.

After we checked into the hotel, we finally went to dinner around 9:30. The first choice was already closing, so we made reservations to come back the next day and went on to the #2 choice. It was a Thai restaurant, food was OK, but their main claim to fame (to me) is that they have Mekhong on the menu. So I had a glass for dessert and we headed out to the usual Roppongi places.

Somehow (no one remembers how) Adrian broke his new camera Friday night. Luckily for us, our Saturday sightseeing plans called for us to go to Akihabara (electric town) anyway. We went to Yodabashi Camera and tried to get it fixed, but they said they would send it to the Canon repair place and it would take 3 weeks. So instead, Adrian bought the same camera in Japanese, and duty free.

We did some more sightseeing and then we went back to the original restaurant, Inakaya, for dinner. Frommer's online describes it as "tourist-oriented and over-priced, it's still great fun", and that's about right. Everyone sits around a U-shaped table with the cooks on the other side and a grill and the food choices in the middle. You point to what you want, the cook it, and they pass it too you on a rowboat oar. Kind of interesting.

They also made some fresh mochi. It's a kind of rice cake, really sticky, and they put some cinnamon on it to make it like a dessert. To make mochi, you throw some rice in a bowl and pound the shit out of it.

After dinner, it was apparently time for the shift change. The old cooks were leaving and had a nice little "Thank you, good night" thing before the new cooks took over.

Adrian wasn't feeling very good, so the night ended there. The next day, we went to Shibuya. We walked from there all the way over to Harajuku to see these guys in Yoyogi park. They found a way to turn a weird hobby into a tourist attraction.

In Akihabara on Saturday, we ran out of time to go to a maid cafe, so we had to make a return trip on Sunday. We found our way to the @home cafe.

This place is the top 4 floors of a building, and when we got in the elevator we had no idea where to get off. We thought there might be some kind of a reception desk, so we got off at the bottom floor of the cafe. There was a line wrapping down the stairs, so we got in line. After about 2o minutes, a guy came out to take names. Another 20 minutes later, we reached the landing and found out that the floor we were on was catering more to the traditional Japanese style, kimono and all. That's not what we wanted, so we went up another floor and started the waiting all over again.

This line was a little quicker. As we went in, they explained the rules to us. 700 yen/hour, you can only stay one hour, and you're expected to buy a drink or something. When we went it, they greeted us with something along the lines of "Welcome home, master". They took us right to front of the stage. I wasn't expecting there to be a stage, so that was the first surprise. Next, they brought a menu. I selected the "Yummy Yummy Choco Bear Cake" with coffee, Adrian got a hamburger.

I should explain, there are different kinds of maid cafes, from the high-collar-Victorian-maid style to the slutty-girl-on-Halloween-maid style. We ended up in the painfully cute style.

We sat and watched and listened to the "all maid girl band" music playing at way too high volume until they brought our drinks. Just bringing me coffee and putting in the cream and sugar wouldn't be enough. Our maid offered to make our drinks more delicious by sending here love into it. She told us to make a heart with our hands, move it back and forth while saying "mo-eh, mo-eh" and then she sent here cuteness laser into my coffee. Awesome.

Then, they brought the food. Again, they made it more delicious with cuteness lasers. Then, the maid asked Adrian what kind of animal he like. He picked a dog, so our maid drew a dog on his burger in ketchup.

All this time, we saw maids playing games all around us and taking pictures on the stage in front of us. On the menu it said that pictures and games were 500 yen apiece, and we couldn't leave without them. But by then we were running out of time, so we opted for pictures. So I paid my 500 yen and they took a Polaroid (in 2008!!) and decorated it for me.