Shibuya and Akihabara

Tokyo is kind of like New York. There's a lot of building and a lot of people. And New York is divided into different places, like Manhattan or the Bronx. Tokyo does this too, except there seems to be a lot more places. I'll update you on the cool places I go, but right now I'm starting off with two rather popular ones. Shibuya and Akihabara.


This is Shibuya. You see this place in movies and games and what have you. In the pictures you are looking at a cross walk that goes in every direction. It doesn't just go across the street. It goes diagonal.

Shibuya is often related to Time Square in New York city. Which I can see in some ways. There's buildings with big TV screens on them that play advertisements. There's cars and a lot of people going every which way. And there's lots of shopping that you can do.

But one thing about Shibuya and most of Tokyo that isn't like New York is that the building aren't as tall. I was kind of disappointed. In pictures the buildings seem huge. To be honest, most of the building here aren't as tall as the tallest buildings in Salt Lake City. The only difference is that there are a lot of these buildings, that are somewhat tall, expanding for miles. Imagine if you're walking in downtown Salt Lake. Now imagine if those buildings expanded throughout Salt Lake valley. That would be what Tokyo is like.

I was really excited to go to Shibuya cause I heard that is was the like the Time Square of Tokyo, but that excitement quickly turned to disappointment. It's true there is a lot of shopping there. But there is a lot of shopping if you're a girl. Clothes shopping in Shibuya is off the hook.

There is a plus though. There are plenty of good places to eat. Some friends and I went to a Starbucks cafe. Which I didn't even know they had. But before you judge me and say that they have Starbucks in America and it's the same...it's not.

The food they had there was kinda like a blend of foreign foods and Japanese foods. For example, yesterday I had the Mexican Taco Rice. Which didn't actually include any tacos. But it was more of a salad on top of rice. And it was Surprisingly good.


Electrical Town Akihabara. This place is my favorite part of Tokyo so far. It is a place for techies, geeks, anime nerds, and gamers. Not only do they have the latest and greatest in anime/manga/and video games. They also have the oldest of anime/manga/ and video games.

There are girls there dressed up in cosplay. They're called maids. Unfortunately they don't like getting their pictures taken because they want you to come into their stores and spend money on getting an 'official picture' taken with them.

Anime stores have floors of different types of anime and movies. Loads of stores with figurines and models. There are stores where they still sell the original Nintendo and the Super NES. It's fantastic. Except here, the Super NES was actually called the Famicon (Family Console). You can buy it for like 1000 yen and the games are like 300 yen. It's very cheap and awesome.


If there is any electrical good you need, they have it there. There is a store, and it's name I can't remember right now, but it's huge. Imagine a store about as wide as Costco, but then another Costco has been stacked on top of it. And this store is filled with floors and floors of nothing but electronics.

One thing about Akihabara is that it may seem small, but you have to go inside. And this part is true about all of Tokyo. Like New York they build up. So one business may be on the 1st floor. But a different business is on the 2nd floor and another business is on the 3rd floor and so on.

Akihabara is the same way. Expect its the same store and on every different floor they sell different things. So the first floor might be video games, the second might be old school video games, the third might be dvd's. And every store has about 8 floors to it.

It's a very cool place and I'm excited to go back again.