@homecafe - A match 'maid' in heaven

Today I was lucky enough to make my first trip ever to Akihabara, famous electronics haven, otaku gathering point, and home to a ton of maid cafes. For the uninitiated, maid cafes are simple restaurants where pretty girls in incredibly cute maid outfits serve you food and have cute conversations with you in Japanese. As you can probably tell, cute is a word I will be using heavily throughout this blog entry. This trip, which I made with my friend Hikari, was the first time for either of us to go to a maid cafe.

There is a strict no photo policy! Food photos are fine though

The maid cafe we chose was @homecafe, considered by many to be the original maid cafe. Currently @homecafe is so popular that there are different locations all over Akihabara. We chose the original (本店) location on the fourth floor. In that building alone, 4 of the 7 floors were purely dedicated to @home maid cafes. Hikari and I were both pretty nervous waiting in line, which even during the least busy time was still impressively long.

Yes, that is four floors of @homecafe and a goods shop

After finally making our way into the maid cafe amidst cries of いらっしゃいませ！ (irasshaimase!) we were seated in a packed bench with elbows touching. Surprisingly the guests were roughly fifty percent female and fifty percent male. Even getting in to a maid cafe is about 500 yen, and combined with the dessert set, which includes a dessert, drink, and photo with a maid of my choice, the total came out to about 2100 yen. Not cheap, but its not every day you get to be referred to as お嬢様 (ojou-sama) either.

My 'Tsundere' parfait. Half sour (tsuntsun), half sweet (deredere)

Upon receiving my dessert, complete with the necessary "moe, moe, kyun!" and heart shaped gestures, Hikari and I ate our desserts, until "Sarah Ojou Sama" was asked to come to the front stage. I was pretty nervous, but luckily my Japanese hadn`t failed me yet. After some negotiations on which set of ears to wear, (I chose bunny) and which pose, (I chose heart), I took a picture together with the maid of my choice (つなさん）．Hikari and I had to leave soon after, as due to the popularity, there is a strict one hour time limit. After being presented with bronze membership cards, and called Ojou-sama one last time, we were led from the maid cafe. An expensive outing, but one that can only be found in Japan, and is truely worth experiencing at least once!