Day 3: Dan Does Electric City
The sun comes up really early here in
Tokyo. I took a gander at a time zone map and they are on the extreme
East of a really huge Time zone (includes Korea and a big hunk of
Russia). So I am blamming that early sun on the fact that I am still
up at 4:00.
Our plan for today was to go and find
“Electric City”. You know, the place that you can find all of the
really cool gadgets and stuff. (“My feet are pretty sore”, says
future Daniel to past Jon). We decided to go via the subway (there is
an entrance a block from our hotel). We took the light green line for
a few stops to the Iwamotocho station, which is only a couple blocks
from the Akihabara (e.g. Electric City) district. I could have gotten
us closer, but we would either have had to walk further to a
different subway or changed trains. At the time, I thought this was a
good idea.
In fact, it was only a 5 minute walk to
the Akihabara station. Didn't impress us much. There was this one
building that was the book tower. But it didn't open until 9:30. Then
we found this other huge building that looked good. It was a
department store and it was loaded with Cool electronic and misc.
goodies. We had a good time walking around. Daniel found a JPOP
(japanese music genre) section of CD and promptly dropped a few
thousands of Yen on some CD's that he couldn't get in the US.
This one if for Chip |
THat is REAL FILM !! |
They have this cool came where you play subway conductor and drive down this tunnel for hours. Go Japan. |
It is very strange that there are these
artificial barriers to the exchange or electronic data. Take this
example, Daniel would like to buy some songs by some of his favorite
japanese artists (which all happen to be hot looking young girl
groups, but we will let that pass for the nonce). He can only find
the songs on the Japan Apple site through the Japan itunes. (He
corrects me, he can also find some of it through Amazon Japan). There
is, ready for download, but he can't buy it because he doesn't have a
japanese credit card. HE HAS MONEY. HE WANTS TO SPEND IT. But “they”
won't take it.
Daniel complains about these
“artificial oceans that some CEO has constructed to keep me away
from my digital content. What is up with that, Dad”?
“Frak if I know, Son”.
I have no idea why we wouldn't be
allowed to download any digital content that we are willing to pay
for. Want to charge us some extra tax or something. Go Ahead! Hell,
we can buy Crack from Mexicon on the street corners, why can't we
download the latest background music from “Full Metal Alchemist:
The Brothers Return”.
And even weirder thing. Dan has a Hulu
plus account. He logs in to watch an episode of one of his shows, he
can't watch it because we are at a Japanese IP address. I blame this
on the republicans. They want to much governmental control.
I now return you to your regularly
schedule blog, In progress.
…. doesn't look right, Dad”, Daniel
insisted. “I think the main street must be back that way”.
“Ok, this is your day trip. Let's go
that way.” I agreed.
We didn't find anything much over that
way either. We did find an interesting looking restaurant. It had the
plastic samples of the food in the window out front. “We can bring
them out here and show them what we want.” I say.
“I have a better idea”, says
Daniel. He snaps a shot with his camera.
“ooh”. I agree. And snap a shot of
my plastic lunch.
The nice pretty thing japanese girl
inside the shop thought our pictures were very funny. But she did
know what we wanted, and she brought us a very nice lunch. I had
this:
There were a lot of restaurants in this
area. It was more english friendly and better prices than in the area
around our hotel.
Having not found any spectacular
electric city, we headed back to the book tower. That was fun. If you
ride the zig zagging elevators all of the way to the top of the
(rather small round but tall (hence tower)) building, you get to the
porn. Quick, 3 levels back down to the Manga. Ah, there are the
titles we were looking for. Daniel wanted some Japanese copies that
matched some American versions he has. As collectables.
We came out of there and headed toward
some interesting shops. “Ah,” Said Dan. “Look Dad, that is a
Cos Play store”.
A Cos Play store is a place where you
buy Costumes of your favorite anime characters to dress up like them
and cavort. To me all of the costumes being shown (in the windows for
8 floors going up) looked like school girl or french maid costumes.
But what do I know. We went into the store.
Around the second story Dan finally
became convinced that he had taken his Dad into a explicit Sex
Paraphernalia shop. This upset him a lot. Especially the part where
he had a hard time getting me to leave.
Wow. This was way cool.
I remember when I was little, my Navy
Dan would return from a tour to Japan and he would always bring the
latest cool Japanese Electronic gadget. He brought me a tape
recorder. My brother and I were the only kids that ANYONE knew that
had a real portable tape recorder. I used to bring it to school and
tape kids voices and let them listen to each other. This thing was
bout the size of a small microwave oven and was a real to real
recorder that could hold about a 30 minute recording. It was SO COOL.
(I think my brother still has it and it still works, 50 years later).
I kept up the tradition by bringing my daughter, Shannon, a Discman
MP3 player (that would play an MP3 encoded disk with like 100 songs)
before they were out on the American market (after a buisness trip to
Japan).
So Daniel and I were on the lookout for
the same sort of thing this time around. I don't think that is going
to happen.
Why? Because the only electric gadgets
that are on the market anymore are Ipads, Iphones, and Laptops. We
already go those. There just doesn't seem to be a “new thing” out
there. God Apple must be making the money.
One cool store we did find was a hobby
store (Laox.com) that had all sorts of cool anime and models and
things. I got a few Gundam models to put together when I get home.
They had some REALLY cool ones but the boxes were just too damn big.
Oh well, maybe I will talk myself into them over the next few days of
tour and then go back and get some more when we are back in Tokyo
next week.
For the ride back to the Hotel, we
jumped in the first metro station we found and this time we did the
trian change. Pay attention, look at the signs twice, remember to
walk on the left, and it ain't that hard to get around in Tokyo. Of
course, it helps that whenever you make a mistake and stand around
for a few minutes looking confused, a nice man in uniform will walk
up and help you solve your problem. Japan is very nice that way.
So let me ask you this, What is the
significance of the Sex industry being so intertwined (at least in
commercial store front sense) with the electronics industry? I mean,
walking down Electric City blvd for a few blocks there you would have
Electronics Store, Sex Store, Anime Store, Pachinco Parlour, Sex
Store (well, maybe that one was an Anime store too, hard to tell
without going inside. But not for more than an hour or so). Are we
showing that Japanese culture is super open about sex? Or super
repressed? And why do the costumes that the girls on the corners
dressed in the Anime Costumes and handing out fliers for “something”
(no, I didn't get one. Next time) look suspiciously like the school
girl uniforms the (much younger) (high school?) girls are wearing?
Who is the sicko here? The observed or
the observer?
<Picture go here. Once again. No
picture of Anime girls or school girls. I will try to work on it
without getting arrested>
We road the Ginko (light green) line to
the Tozai (light blue) line on the return trip. I love the Tokyo
Metro. So Clean. So many nice people who help you out if you look
confused. Though I am pretty sure that I am stepping all over some
well known manners. For instance, our guide told us that the first
car in the trains is reservered for women only. Ok, that evidently
doesn't apply to the subway because I saw men on the first car there.
Also, I think you are always supposed to face out toward the windows.
Don't face in and therefor make eye contact with the people behind
you looking out. I felt some hostility there for a while until I
figured out that I as probably the pisser-off culprit here. Have to
ask about that one. (of course, this could be one of those things
that people don't actually know is good manners. They just do
it by default.
When we got back to our room there was
a fax there from the tour company getting us set up for our 3 day out
in the country tour. We are having our big bags sent on ahead to
Kyoto and are supposed to just bring our carry on packed for 2
nights. Well, we don't have a carry on. Why don't we have a carry on?
See the day-1 blog. (can I hyperlink?). Well, I will make do with our
dirty clothes and souvenir duffle bag. The note also said to bring
plenty of cash as there wouldn't be ATMs in the country and most of
the shops would only take cash. Now they tell me. So I go out to
secure some cash at the local 7-11. Luckily the machine had a
“English” button. Unluckily, it denied my transaction !! Dammit.
Try the other card. Wrong pin. Double Dammit. I went and got Daniel
and had him try. That didn't work either. So I called Wells Fargo
emergency Help line. Told the lady that I had gotten this card JUST
FOR THIS KIND OF THING FOR THIS TRIP AND IT DIDN”T WORK. She told
me that, yes, she could see that I had been denied. That was because
I went over my daily limit of $310 on withdrawel. Triple dammit, the
exchange rate had gotten me again. I don't have pictures of any of
this. Just as well really. Here is a random shot of something to end
things on:
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