A pleasant surprise were the power points in standard class inside the N700-series of Shinkansen trains. Too bad Hikari and Kodama N700 services are uncommon (most of them are on the soon-to-be-replaced 700 series) unless you take late night services often.
First stop was Ueno Park, which was quite nice but crowded (especially the Chinese tourists) along the main walkways.
And it wasn't really raining at all - not even close to what I would call "spitting" either - yet the umbrellas were out in full force. Real rain was what I would call Vancouver a few weeks ago. This was nothing.
Next was Shinjuku Gyoen, another famed cherry blossom spot. A lot more spacious and less crowded, I thought it was the better of the two major Tokyo cherry blossom spots. Both places had petals starting to fall off (you could see quite a lot of it on the ground underneath the trees) but there was still plenty on the trees, which made for some really beautiful cherry blossom scenery, especially at Shinjuku Gyoen.
Afterwards, given I had a bit of time before heading out to meet an online acquaintance from the fandom, I decided to head down to Akihabara for lunch. No prizes for guessing where.
Crowds were massive, although in hindsight, it was a Sunday, and school holidays at that, which explained the number of mums with kids waiting to get inside the shop and the cafe. Thankfully, the cafe queue was shorter, so I could get inside after a short wait. Inside, I picked the viewing room, with fairly comfy red leather chairs and a giant monitor airing recent stage performances and PVs on request from customers.
As for food, I went for the Mayuyu udon. it was okay for idol cafe fare, but I didn't have high expectations of quality in the first place.
Afterwards, I headed out to Shizuoka to meet up with someone that I met online, related to the fandom of course. It's actually quite a nice, little (by Japanese metropolis standards) city, and definitely not regional/rural in the slightest - kind of like a larger Geelong but with about the same population as Brisbane. Chatted about quite a few things over a couple of drinks and a karaoke session, some related to the entire 48 fandom and others not. Thus I spent the rest of my day there.
A little funny incident on my way home boarding the late night Shinkansen back to Nagoya: I went and checked my Google+ as usual, only to find this seemingly innocuous post.
Now SKE48 had a national handshake event that day in Yokohama, so I was figuring they'd be going back home after that weekend. On closer inspection of that photo though, I was initially a bit surprised. I, too, was on a late night N700 train (that seat colour and design was straight out of an N700 train, no question), and given that time of day, there weren't many Shinkansen services running simultaneously, let alone many services at all. So the timing of her post was rather striking. Which led me to wonder, "Is she really on MY train?". I checked the train schedules and, of course, reality struck. There was an earlier N700 service to Nagoya, which would've fitted in more neatly with the timing of her post.
But, knowing me, I wanted to be a bit more sure. So upon arriving at Nagoya, I intentionally slowed down my usual walking pace and started scanning the entire platform area, pretending to be lost (so as to not look suss) wanting to see whether there indeed were any SKE48 members around. Obviously, common sense and logic prevailed: there weren't any that I encountered. Funnily enough, after the "innocent, little" search, I ended up being actually lost in Nagoya station trying to find the subway entrance. Luckily I managed to board the last subway trains on time and arrived back at my hotel without trouble.
A small lesson I was reminded as a result: never try to intentionally seek out idols in public places. You will almost always fail, whether due to wrong train service or the members strategically avoiding the public gaze as much as possible through various means. XD
Managed to catch the latest episode of Mieriino Kashiwagi on TV before I slept.
Breakfast: Onigiri
Canned coffee of the day: Georgia Emerald Mountain Blend (3.5/5 - slightly deep coffee flavour, leaning towards the bitter side of tastes)
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