On Monday, the 28th, we decided to figure out exactly where Tokyo Big Sight, the venue for Comiket, was and how to get there via the subways. On this day and the next, we purchased 1,000 yen all-day passes, which allowed us to ride the subways as much as we wanted, and made our exploring go much smoother. Tokyo Big Sight is what is pictured in the header image. The crowd in the distance appeared to be there for some kind of anime/manga-related event. We couldn’t really tell for sure though, as neither of us was good enough at Japanese to pick out what the guy who was up front speaking was saying.
Inside, they were getting ready for the convention. Here you can see the tables lined up in one of the exhibition halls. The next three days, these halls are going to be bursting at the seams.
It really was a nice view from Tokyo Big Sight, out over the water of Tokyo Bay. ^_^
This was a boat we spied out on the water from the monorail line we took to get to Tokyo Big Sight. That monorail line is called the Yurikamome. It’s separate from the subways or JR system, run by a different corporation independent from the JR or Tokyo Metro.
Of course, we made a trip to Akihabara (Akiba, for short), but by that time it was getting late and alot of stuff was closed. Though we did manage to visit Gamers. This little gem of Engrish comes from a sign posted by the stairs/elevator in the store. What it’s supposed to be explaining is that you need to pay for the stuff you want to buy separately on each floor of the store. This is actually an extremely common practice in multi-story Japanese stores.
After the Akiba trip, we headed back to the hotel to plan for when and how we would be going to Comiket. While we were at Tokyo Big Sight, we were able to pick up copies of the Comiket catalog. It’s a good thing we did, as that told us who was selling what when. You see, most of the sellers are only their for one day, so if you want something from a specific artist or group (known as a “circle”), you need to find out which day they are selling their wares. We found out that we really didn’t want to go the first day, because there was nothing we wanted, so we skipped that day, and it gave us the extra day we had been wanting to do more sightseeing. That day will be the subject of the next post in this series. As before, you can browse the full gallery of the Dec. 28 pictures if you wish to see more. ^_^
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