TOKYO DIARIES - pt.3: Electric Town

With an evening to spare and no real plans, I decided to stop by Electric Town, Akihabara, on Saturday afternoon. If you're after chasing Tokyo's neon lights, cosplay/maid culture, and electronics stores, this is the place for you (note: If you are into retro Nintendo, don't miss Super Potato). When we used to visit Japan as tourists, Kamil and I always enjoyed a trip to Akiba, always an exciting place.
This time I came in search of an art gallery I'd heard of called 3331 Arts Chiyoda, which is located in the outskirts of the area. It turned out to be a nice little walk through the crazy tourist centre of Akiba, the noise and light fading as I reached my destination.

3331 Arts Chiyoda is a gallery located inside an old elementary school. You can freely roam the various floors, and inside each classroom is a mini-exhibition. I arrived in the evening and was wandering around some of the nearly deserted floors by myself, which was kind of creepy to be honest. But creepy in the best way. The interior of the building is totally white, which on the surface does a good job transforming it from a school into a place to display art. Yet there are elements of the interior which remain from the school (the bathrooms, wash basins near the stairs of each floor, classrooms) that give the gallery a slightly eerie feeling.

On the first floor the main exhibition space was occupied with a showcase of print-makers' work from around the world. It coincided with a conference that was being held in Tokyo at the same time, and featured some wonderful pieces by skilled print-makers.

After browsing the gallery, I took myself back to Akihabara to bask in Tokyo. Tokyo is like hyper-Japan to me; totally dissimilar to any other place. Not being interested in maid cafes and gaming doesn't take anything away from a stroll through Akihabara. I took purikura by myself, ate katsu curry and went in and out of shops that caught my eye.

Thanks to this year's launch of a new Sailor Moon series on TV in Japan, you can now find Sailor moon goods in almost every character-goods shop. This is awesome, compared to only a few years ago when it wasn't popular and it was basically impossible to find anything Sailor Moon themed.

Looking forward to sharing more of my Tokyo travels.

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