Maid Cafe!

Due to it being late, and needing to get up at 5:00 in the AM to catch a train to Nara, this will prolly need to be a shorter post than most.

To help facilitate the shortness here is a bulleted list of our day, from which I will elaborate as needed.

• Woke up and went to Starbucks.  White chocolate mocha and a slice of poppy seed bread.
• Train ride to Akihbara, the electric town, full of all sorts of wonderful gadgets and anime related goods.
• Went to Yodobashi Camera, a seven story version of Best Buy, where each floor is much larger than your average Best Buy.
• Searched around all of Akiba for a Perfect Grade Gundam model for Josh.
• Went to a Maid Cafe - will elaborate below.
• Purchased some goodies.
• Went to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro, a five story, underground mall.
• Ate udon noodle at a not-so foreigner friendly restaurant - will elaborate below as well.

 Now, to elaborate on the two highlights of today.



First we have the Maid Cafe.  Now, for the un-educated, a Maid Cafe is a place where cutesy Japanese girls dress up in french maid costumes and serve you food as if they were your chibi servants.  The room is all pink, the girls are all wearing the stereotypical maid outfits, and there is plenty of bouncy pop music playing.  

Everything on the menu is made cute by drawing a cat or a bear on it.  The deserts all look like little animals made out of ice-cream and fruit.  Whenever they bring you something to eat or drink you have to sing this song with them while making hand motions and a heart symbol.  It was rather funny to do.

Also, every so often the lights would dim and one of the girls would do this weird/cute dance with disco lights flashing everywhere.  All-in-all, best 500 yen I've spent so far.

The second fun thing was my dinner tonight.  While the girls were out shopping it up, Josh and I decided to go and find a noodle place.  Inside of Sunshine city we came upon this traditional udon house where they serve your noodles out of a large wooden bucket.  With my limited Japanese it was rather funny seeing us try to pick out something to eat but we managed.  I enjoyed plain udon with a miso-like broth for dipping and some tenpura squash - yummo.

At first we weren't sure how to eat it, but after doing a little people watching it became obvious that you were to dip each noodle in the sauce prior.  Josh was at a bit of a handcap, mostly due to his odd chopstick technique which prevented them from closing flat.  It didn't seem to matter though because he finished well in advance of me.

No matter how we ate it, the price was one that couldn't be beat.  The bucket-o-noodles was only 230 yen (about $2.50) and they tasted as if they were fresh made from scratch.

Once again, a great day of first.  Now off to bed!

To see pictures from today - click here.