I write this on the morning of my full second day, as after yesterday I was 100% exhausted and pretty much just went kaput back in my hotel room. Most of the day was spent in Exploration mode, as I really needed a full day to scope out the new places and changes that have happened. And I’m still not done, as theres still some more places to scope out.

The afternoon part of the day was spent with a solid Initial D session, I was able to get my car up to Full Tune… but now a whole different tuning mode opened up that I haven’t been able to play around with yet. Suffice to say the difference between 0 Tune and Full Tune is not at all like in previous games, in D8 the game was pretty much entirely different once you got to FullSpec or Ex. So its nice to see a lower hurdle… though I am intrigued by the new tuning mode… I’ll be trying that out soon.

Lunch today was this Pork Cutlet sandwich or Katsusando for short from a Vending Machine located on the southern edge of Akihabara, It was 750 yen and came in this neatly packaged box. It was pretty good and definitely more than I would have expected from a vending machine, the restaurant that supplies this machine is pretty famous and they make the sandwiches fresh each day and stock the machine, its good to get here early.. and it can sell out, I would have grabbed picture of the machine.. but there was a crowd hanging around it and I really did not want to photo some random French guys.

After lunch I set out looking at all the old standby shops around Akiba like Sofmap, which actually set up little paths to avoid walking through the 18+ hentai floors and you can now bypass them, so atleast in Sofmap you can avoid any surprises. Though thats not the case in all stores though…

I really want to try out Arsenal Base, the new Gundam card type game thats got a large presence throughout the arcade scene. I picked up a voucher for a Starter Deck and some sleeves at Leisureland, the starter decks were sold out in a few places, and none had the sleeves, so I thought it to be a good idea… Then I remembered why I rarely play at leisureland, you need to turn these in to the fourth floor staff and they give you the actual pack… However… I spent about an hour playing random games on floor 4, and well as wandering and saw no one. I asked the Third Floor staff if they could help, and they told me that it has to be the floor 4 staff who doesn’t exist. I tried several more times throughout the day with no luck… maybe things will go better today lol, or I might just cobble together a deck of the junk cards people leave at the arcade for others to use… who knows.

Rounding out the night for dinner was Teppan Oukoku, which is a little place located on the main strip, this place was one of my favorites back in the day, and I was glad to see it was still around, It’s similar to Pepper Lunch in concept, though with a few touches, they have the Jumbo Sized drinks which are fantastic after walking around all day, and was actually the main reason I dined in here, nothing like an America sized melon soda to quench the thirst. Their steak sauce is really good too.. and it was all had for 1600 yen… about 13-14$.

Looking ahead to today, as I woke up around 7 am thanks to jetlag.. and for any familiar with Japan… good luck finding anything to do until around 10am… More Arcades and exploration, I plan to focus on D and Arsenal Base if I can actually redeem my starter deck during the afternoon with some Wonderland Wars at night when it starts getting popular. I have a reservation at the Eorzea Cafe in Akiba tonight at 8pm, which is the Final Fantasy 14 cafe for dinner so that should be pretty fun.

It’s still about 90 minutes till anything opens up, thankfully the Cubs are on TV for some reason here in Japan today so I’ll watch a bit of Baseball before heading out!