Tokyo Saturday in Akiba pt 1: Maids!

Now that all that Diesel Party stuff has been blogged, I can return to Japan photos (and video!)

When we were in Tokyo last weekend I didn't have much time to do the fun stuff I used to enjoy doing in Tokyo while I was living in Japan... but I set aside one afternoon to at least do something fun...  so last Saturday afternoon I took Swang to one of my favorite parts of Tokyo - Akihabara:

まだ先週の東京の旅行の写真が在る。これは先週末の秋葉原のブログ第一部です！読めるの外国人為にアキバを一寸案内する！あなたは日本語知っているから、多分あまり翻訳要りません！；-)

Akihabara( 秋葉原aka 'Akiba')  is kind of geek-central for Tokyo and all of Japan.  It originally was a neighborhood for electronics and computer shops... there still are a lot of those kinds of shops, but it also has been overrun with anime stores, comic shops and other nerdy endeavors... most notably the phenomenon known as 'Maid Cafes' ( wikipedia). 

Cafes where the waitresses all dress in anime-inspired costumes and use super-excessive polite Japanese with their customers. These places are quite popular with socially awkward japanese men (referred to as 'otaku')  Its a extension of the japanese phenomenon of ' Cosplay' too...   in both its wholesome and not-so-wholesome forms. :-P

Longtime Etchy blog readers will know that while i was living in Japan from '04-'06 some of my japanese friends told me about these places while I was visiting Tokyo... when I found out that there was one in the city I was living in, of course I started going. (actually I would do my japanese homework at one near my class... it was a lot more fun than going to McDonalds or KFC to kill time).  I actually don't really like Anime hardly at all,  but it was still interesting. :-P

僕は2年前日本に住んでいる時、東京の出張時初めメードカフェへ行った。日本人の友達から聞知した。福岡のカフェィも在るから、僕は日本語授業後メードカフェィで宿題をした。マックより面白いよ！実は僕はアニメあまり好きじゃないけど、面白い日本の’文化’から、よく行った！

Since it was saturday it was quite crowded w/ people.  Lots of stores, and lots of campaign girls handing out fliers, etc...  but where are the maids?  you gotta walk down a bit further:

ah there we go.  Not bad, but it was better when the weather is warmer. :-P

I have seen a lotof weird things in japan, but they're always inventing new ones.  This is one of them:

Yes,  in reaction to the gender inequity of the maid cafe,  they have created the opposite,  the Butler Cafe!   Stephen didn't want to go in...  he is not confident in his heterosexuality...   too close to やおい for him I guess. :-P

バトラーカフェです。僕は見たことがない。Stephenは入って行きたくなかった、ゲイ過ぎから。。。

Actually the 'cosplay' service industry has already expanded well beyond just cafes.  The most popular seems to be Maid Foot Massage places (usually referred to as 'Reflexology' in  Japan).  Here's a scan of a flyer I got that day,  I think you can figure it out even w/o understanding Japanese:

And in case you want to learn more - go to http://mai-foot.com/.  I've never tried it actually... considering that you can get 1 hour of foot massage in China for US$5,  paying $30 for 30 minutes seems a bit steep,  even with the maid costumes. 

(maybe if I pay an extra $10+ i can get one of those foot massage ladies in Shenzhen to wear a maid costume...  hmm, not the same). :-P

中国で足マッサージは1時間500円だけから、日本の30分3000円のリフレシオロジ行った事がない、メードコスプレー在るけど。。。　:-P

I took Stephen to a cafe I had been to before,  called 'Cafe Doll' (url:  www.cafedoll.com/ not to be confused with the 'Doll Cafe', which is something completely different!!)

もちろんカフェも行った、食べました。店中写真撮れないから、メードのPolaroidを買った、400円ですけど。

You're not supposed to take pictures inside,  so but for the sake of the blog, I decided to fork out the 400 yen to take a Polaroid.  I asked the waitress how to do it, she told me to fill out a sign-up sheet.  I couldn't understand it all, so I asked her to explain it to me.   The columns you had to fill out included "customer name", "number of pictures", "maid you want to be in the picture" and "picture type"... under "picture type" there were three choices:  '1 person', '2 people'or 'other'...  　I asked her what the difference was... apparently you either get a picture of JUST the maid or a picture WITH the maid.... she didn't say what 'other' was...

She explained that in the '1 person' you could have the maid do some sort of pose in the picture... immediately very dirty thoughts flooded through my mind, so quickly decided for a '2 people' shot...  :-P

I asked her to suggest an extra cute pose for our group pic:

このメードと一緒写真撮った。「何ポースしましょうか？」と言いました、僕は「一番可愛いお願いします」と言いました。

a bit too cute if you ask me!  I think I gotta conceal my identity, lest this thing be used to blackmail (via embarrassment) me in the future. :-P

She waited for it to develop and gave some personal touches w/ the magic marker.  FYI it says "(Etchy)-sama [heart] Moyuki" (her name). 

I'm a little disappointed because the reason i picked this particular maid was because she had the hottest maid costume on, but its completely not in the picture! :-(

わーーー羞ずかし過ぎ！

pt 2 coming tomorrow! ;-)

ps addendum:  i forgot to mention - when we left the place we happened upon another cafe down the street had a huge line to get in...   there had to have been like 20-30 people in the group i saw... going down a flight of stairs out to the sidewalk.  I asked the two guys at the end what they were lining up for,  they said that this particular cafe was doing a special costume event that day that they had come for.  I asked what it was and they pointed to a sign board... it said something about 'Classical Maid day'... I was like 'what the hell is that?'  I didn't really understand the explanation,  I asked how long it would take to get a seat at the cafe, they said 'maybe an hour'.... I asked 'Classical Maid?!? Is it worth it?'  ... apparently they thought so. :-P