We ended up arriving at around 9am (peak hour) and dropped our bags off at the Hotel. Recalling back to my May 2023 trip, I was EXHAUSTED at this point from the flight; but my flight this time around had really given me some good rest for the trip.
We encountered our first real hiccup actually upon landing – the ANA flight had brought us to Terminal 2, which was essentially the Domestic Terminal for Japan (with some ANA international flights). We had to figure out how to get a Suica card for transport. After some back and forth wandering, we actually ended up needing to head to Terminal 3 (via a free shuttle bus) before being able to buy our Suica. Terminal 3 was far more familiar as that was where I originally landed in May (flying Qantas).
Once we got the Suica cards, we were good to go thankfully.
Annie was thrilled about Akihabara — “Nerd town” we affectionately called it. We promptly made a stop at RadioKaiKan a popular figurine, trading card and hobbyist store. There was plenty to see and do – even beyond the Hololive and Final Fantasy nerding out.
We were on the hunt for Hololive Merch – specifically, Ceres Fauna, one of my Oshis who is graduating soon (January 3rd, 2025). I’m not one to buy merchandise crazily (foreshadowing) – but Hololive Myth and Hololive Council (now Promise) were all that I could watch on YouTube when I was looking after my mother in her final weeks of life. For some reason the Wifi in the Hospital and 4G/5G reception was absolutely rubbish – and all that would load were these anime girls.
So nowadays, I catch the highlights of what they’re up to and have a chuckle every now and then at their shenanigans.
The store was a huge experience for Annie, who was pretty meticulous and dogged in how she did all the shopping for stuff. She checked every floor, and nearly every shelf in the place haha! It was exhausting 😱
We found a Hololive English section of shelves!
After a super long day of hunting though, we finally found a single little acrylic block stand of Fauna, that I could sit somewhere on my shelf to remind me of her soft spoken cheery times 👍
Final Fantasy Eorza Cafe
Shop Link: https://en.pasela.co.jp/paselabo_shop/ff_eorzea
Final Fantasy has been a near and dear game series to Annie, and Final Fantasy XIV is my MMO addiction that I had migrated to from WoW. It’sa pretty special game to me, and I’ve spent more than a decade playing it. Made a lot of friends from the game!
But whilst it’s significant to me sentimentally; I don’t think I was ready to spend so much time IRL with it. I like the merchandise and the memorabilia for sentimental reasons; but I was ok with just experiencing. I can now say “I’ve been there” haha…
I won’t spam the insane number of photos I took, but there’s a great 3D photo on Google Maps of the store interior without the faces of strangers clogging up the photo. I’ll attach some of the photos of the food and drinks (so MANY drinks all non-alcoholic) that Annie and I had. The Fat Cat and Fat Chocobo buns were actually amazingly delicious.
The drinks were INSANELY sweet – as is mostly everything in Japan that’s a snack or confection 😂but overall, the food wasn’t horrible. Even at “tourist” prices in Japan, it only came to something like $30 AUD for the stay!
The merchandise however…. I ended up picking up all the class pins, plus a few extras for friends, as well as the Endwalker soundtrack LP for a friend.
What a haul. That was an extra $70 AUD on top, I believe.
Dinner in the Hotel!
We finally made it to our Hotel for check-in with pretty good timing actually, at around 3:30pm Tokyo time. We were staying at Tokyu Stay Aoyama Premiere – a fantastic hotel we stayed in last May with the Snacks gang too; so I enjoyed staying here again.
We were both pretty weary after a big day of what was essentially a full day traveling + shopping so we decided to be a couple of oldies and grab dinner at the nearby Family Mart conbini so Annie could check out all the food there!
Dinner was hilarious, it set us back about $30 AUD and honestly, I enjoyed one of the best sandwiches of my life by combining a spicy famichiki (fried chicken) piece, with my egg sando.
😋and so ended day 1 in Japan 🙂