Tokyo 2019 Abridged

Hello everyone and welcome back to Tiro Finale! Recently, I had just concluded a short five day trip to Tokyo with the main objective being to attend the 2019 Summer Wonder Festival. But rather than just focus on that one particular day and leave the other four days to wayside, I made sure to setup those days to as much as possible too. While I would be detailing each day in a separate post, here is a quick breakdown of what is possibly my shortest yet densest visit to Tokyo thus far!

Day 1 - Nakano. We hit the ground running on the first day by paying a visit to Nakano's Broadway Mall also known as the birthplace of Mandarake. Having landed on a morning flight, Nakano was the perfect place to visit seeing as it only opened at midday. Ergo little time would be wasted upon arrival in Tokyo. Despite my multiple visits to Mandarake, this hobby mecca never ceases to amaze me. 

Day 2 - Wonder Festival. Rise and shine early in the morning as the main event of the trip builds up like the summer heat. Having attended Wonder Festival two times prior, I had more or less completed my mental preparation on what to expect from the event. True enough, many things stayed the same from the way we orderly queued up in the morning to the general layout of the halls. What did catch me off guard this year was the sheer amount of merchandise and exclusive figures that were on sale. Always a more showcase-centric event, I was very pleasantly surprised at the amount of event exclusive items/figures that were on sale and even managed to nab one myself! What could it be? Well stay tuned to Tiro Finale to find out. 

Day 3 - Akihabara. Having completed Nakano and Wonder Festival, it only made sense to visit Akihabara next. While there is an argument to be made about going to Akihabara first (before WonFes), I generally prefer to go after (WonFes) as this avoids the weekend crowd. At the same time, it is always nice to see how much the WonFes exclusive figures had been marked up the following day. Needless to say, it would be an entire day dedicated to Akihabara and by that, I mean when the first stores start to open at 10 am all the way up to closing time. 

Day 4 - Kyoto. Here at Tiro Finale, we had initially planned on paying a visit to Numazu on Day 4 of our visit but, in light of recent events, we decided to take a short trip down to Kyoto to pay our respects. This meant taking a bullet train to and fro Kyoto on the same day. It was one of the more tiring travel experiences I have had in a while coupled with the scorching heat of that particular day but, an incredibly memorable one that I would not soon forget. Writing my two pieces from the visit there would not be simple but, it is something I am planning to do nonetheless. 

Day 5 - Kanda Shrine. On the last and final day, it was time to pay a visit to the most revered shrine in the whole of Akihabara and the spiritual home to Muse, Kanda Shrine. A quick trip to Shimbashi in the morning followed by the final rounds in Akihabara to cover any shops we might have missed then, it was time to bring it to a close in the Kanda Shrine. I was expecting things to be very much the same as to when I last visited but, in fact, major works had been done since my last visit. More on that in a coming article. 

Just like that, five days came and went in the blink of an eye. While I would have loved to fit in more sightseeing into the schedule, the ultimate objective at the end of the day was hobby-focused and I am glad for all the things we got out of it. In the coming weeks, we will be releasing many new articles focused on this trip so, we hope you look forward to that. Until then, thank you so much for reading and have yourself a wonderful day ahead!