Japan Trip 2012, Day 2 - Idolm@ster Cafe
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that all my readership is going to be interested in this part and want all my photos. I'll post some here, but for the rest you'll have to go to my online photo album.
Public photo album: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/100
So, after we got back from the Ushiku Daibutsu, we had a few hours we could run around Akihabara. Seeing as most stores close at around 8 PM, we decided that would be our meeting time to go to Good Smile Cafe at Akihabara (which did not close at that time), where they were doing their Idolm@ster Cafe.
It took a little bit of time to seat us, but we eventually got to sit down in a corner. Photographs were allowed, so I... had to borrow my friend's backup camera since I left mine in the room. (D'oh!) Before I released my limiter, I took some time to look at the menu so I could order.
Every table had a plastic mat on it, featuring one of the characters from the game. Our tables had Miki and Makoto on them - here's our table after we were done.
We were waiting quite a bit to get our food, so in the meantime I just went around and tried to fit as much of the cafe as I could inside an 8 GB memory card. Everywhere you looked, there was some sort of Im@s paraphenilia sitting around for your eyes to feast on. The ceilings were laden with tapestries, the walls had all sorts of merchandise, and some showcases to the side had rough keyframe and storyboard sketches of the last episode of the anime.
Our food finally came around after some delays, and I nearly dug in immediately before I realized, courtesy of the other camera-wielder in the group, that taking photos of the delicious little morsels I was about to fill my stomach with was a good idea. The first part of my order consisted of a Ryuuguu Komachi Plate, a cake-like thing with some tart, blueberry sauce swirled around it, with chocolate-topped whipped cream mounds to the side. The other part was the Namassuka!? Sunday Set, consisting of ice cream with cookies, and a cup of coffee. Both came with a little extra that I got to keep (like all items on the menu): the Ryuuguu Plate came with a can badge, and the Sunday Set with a coaster of choice (Haruka, Chihaya, or Miki). I chose Haruka.
About the time we finished eating, the TV in the back came alive and played a Shiny Festa commercial. Now, it had been playing things off and on throughout the entire time we were there, but I managed to snap some photos of this commercial in particular.
That was pretty much it - we gathered our stuff and headed to the front to pay. We had the bill split between us, and took off to the street... where upon we were greeted with this. Not Im@s-related, but still cool.
The whole thing was a nice experience, and I don't think the food was price-gougingly expensive so I'd say I rather enjoyed my entire time there. The rest of the photos you can find on my public Shutterfly album - there's 80 or so of them, so I think I succeeded taking the entire place with me as I left.
Public photo album: http://caelk.shutterfly.com/pictures/100
