The last day in Tokyo. As I dine on my breakfast, I contemplate whether to go to Comiket again.

 

If rumours has it, Day2 of Comiket is full of Touhou, which, while I do like the mikos, I’m not that big of a fan of.

(Turns out Day2 actually had some of my favorite artists :/ not that I’d be able to find them I suspect)

I decide that standing once more in the queue might just be too much. After check out, I head to Keisei Ueno station to first offload my luggage in a locker.

 

Then it’s a casual stroll down the shopping street toward Akihabara.

It’s the second last day before the New Year, and the market is packed with vendors and people shopping for the New Year feast. The fashion of the day is apparently giant crabs with 30cm long legs….. evidently I ate some 20000Y worth of crabs during my previous trip to Hokkaido O_O

 

 

Walking past the Matsusakaya department store near Ueno, I accidentally discover there’s also a Harbs here – the cake shop I failed to visit a few days ago at Roppongi. Perfect, I got time to kill!

There’s still a queue, but at least this one is tolerable. After some 10min wait I showed a window seat. The server immediately recognized I’m foreign and switched to speaking in English (perfectly too, a rarity so far in this trip). I hazard a guess that due to the department store’s location (next to a fairly famous shopping street for cosmetic bargains, something Taiwanese tourists love), the man has plenty of experiences with Taiwanese.

They do not have the most famous strawberry cake here, I pretty much rolled a dice on the choice of cake and tea.

 

 

Decent… not sure it’s worth the fame. Might be I picked a bad cake choice.

After cake it’s down to Animate and it’s only now do I also discover it has a back section where they have Guilty Crown concept arts on display. I also went up the stairs to the anime info center where they have PVs of upcoming animes on show. One of which, Aquarion Evol, stood out to me. (And one of the ones I currently follow fervently)

One truly needs to be left with too much time to be forced into exploring and finding little surprises.

At last it is time to head back up and catch the Keisei express to the airport and say goodbye to Tokyo.

The Keisei Skyliner runs on a new route directly the Narita, instead of detouring south like JR’s NEX. Going through mostly countrysides and running parallel to the motorway, it does it in 40min instead of over an hour like the NEX.

 

 

Narita is a small disappointment, very compact with few shops to explore. I suppose I’m too used to Hong Kong’s airport with all its shops and utilities. Or Sapparo’s airport with its huge row of arcades connecting the international and domestic terminals.