Ciaran's spiritual home

Friday was the day Ciaran had been waiting for ever since we arrived in Japan. We visited Akihabara (Electric Town). This was truly a geek's paradise with shop after shop of multi-level anime and manga material. Frank's office at Harper Collins is in Akihabara so we travelled in on the train with him as he headed to work on Friday. As soon as we arrived, Ciaran was off on his own adventure. He met us a couple of hours later with a bagful of anime character statues. Akihabara is  truly a sight to be seen. Every street is alive with pop culture, cosplay characters and maid characters inviting you to dine at their restaurant.

After lunch with Frank, we headed for a Clare friendly destination. Tokyo Character Street is a whole street of shops in the lower levels of Tokyo Station devoted to the characters loved by young Japanese children. Pokémon, Miffy, Snoopy and Hello Kitty were just some of the shops we visited. It seems that, in Japan, every interest gets not just its own shop but a whole arcade devoted to it if not a whole neighbourhood.

After a full day surrounded by the incredibly vivid sights and sounds of Tokyo (not to mention thousands of people), we spent the evening with Frank, Midori and Maeve at their house in Kamakura. Maeve showed us her art portfolio which has earned her early entry into university beginning in April. We also met the famous Hanako, Maeve's cat who we have been hearing about for the last ten years. It was great to finally see them in their own environment but it also brought home the incredible distance between the places we live. Spending this week with them has been awesome but I hate to think it will probably be another few years before it happens again.