As if the Friday wasn’t enough for us, we all up rather early to begin “shopping, part 1″. I think the fact that our apartments were lacking EVERYTHING was a strong motivator. We went to the Gatharia - a mall closeby the office, about a 15 minute walk from the appartments. Most of this mall is dominated by one store - the Ito Yokado, which is like an oversized wal-mart & everything store. Over 3 floors of everything put into one, and on the 4th and 5th floors? Parking garage. Yea, i was confused too. During out visit, I was somehow feeling the post effects of the night before, hence the lack of photos. I did get to experience a nuclear toilet, as mentioned in the previous entry. I bought some random stuff for the house with my Visa, but still have yet to see the charge from that day…
The day continued when we met up with Dave Brown, the other ‘whiteguy’ that works with the company. Dave also happens to be my boss, which is why i will refrain from voicing my opininon about him on a public website.. haha naw, he’s a good guy. He sometimes wears a bandana - thats when i ask him “Hey boss, where is the Harley?” to which he replies “I left it in my other pants. Anyway, we found him in some coffee shop and went to explore Akihabara - the famous electronics and *sigh* anime district.
Before i talk about Akihabara, i want to mention something: the way Tokyo is set up is completely weird from a western marketing standpoint. There are districts for pretty much anything, like departments in a department store. Whatever is sold in these districts is most likely not to be found in the rest of the city. so whenever you want object “X” you go to the “X”-district and see a street full of vendors selling your beloved “X”. Case and point: Akihabara - Electronics/Anime. There are many others, like the fish market district, or the musical instrument district, or the red-light district about which i will write in later posts. This odd marketing ploy applies to advertisements as well. I once saw a HUGE billboard for Nikon’s flagship digital camera - top of the line. This was found on a pretty busy street corner, and occupied a good third of the building it was on - very expensive advertisement. Right underneath that sign, an ad of the same size, style, and colour; Slight difference: It’s Cannon’s flagship digital camera. WHY!?!.. would they put competitors right next to each other? Took the effect of the first ad right out of my head. Another bit about marketing in Tokyo: people always try to hand you stuff on the street. I think a good 50% of college students are employed to stand outside of vendors, and yell in annoying voices about the store’s product, and hand unsuspecting passer-bys flyers. Yes, this happens in the red-light district as well. However, whenever they hand you something useless (like a flyer), they hand you something moderately useful as well, like some well packaged tissues, or candy. Also, when they yell, they use polite words.. but the tone of voice is just horribly annoying.
Akihabara was interesting to wander around. Personally, i was looking for a Keitai (japanese for cellphone) - there were unbelivable amounts of cellphone vendors everywhere. Oddly enough, there are only 3 major cellphone providers, with about 10-15 different phones each. Every one of these cellphone vendors had the entire collection of every provider’s cellphone on display, right beside other vendors who had the exact same series of cellphones, perhaps arranged in a slightly different manner. After settling on a model, i had some trouble actually purchasing the phone - as i was lacking some documentation (according to some vendors). However, after trying a few different stores, Dave was able to blurt out enough Japanese so that the clerk would agree to sign me up. They talked some more, i signed some papers. Only later on did i find out what contract i signed, how much i am paying, and what features i got. It didnt turn out too bad in the end - I got my phone. Thankfully it has an english mode :). It also has: 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS!!!, MP3 player which works off micro SD cards, a full-featured internet browser (not a mobile browser), and an e-mail account (ask me and i’ll give it to you). The other co-ops still haven’t gotten a cellphone, all for different reasons - one lacks a credit card, another lacks some official documents, and.. Annabelle just can’t chose a freaking model. Some more interesting things around Akihabara: a store which specializes in lightbulbs. Not light fixtures. ONLY different lightbulbs. Apparently there are many stores like that. There are also a few used computer part stores selling stuff for cheap, and plenty of ‘hobbyist’ (read: anime maniac) shops. Definitly a place i will visit again to buy stuff.
The rest of the weekend the four of us spent around our neighbourhood. On the Sunday, Aaron took us around and showed us a few 100yen-shops (basically dollar-stores). Alot of useful stuff there, which sells for 7 or more dollars at regular stores. Definitly a goldmine for the poor student living in a foreign country. I’ve also come to the realization that there is a ridiculous amount of temples around my area. Alot of them look very nice and truly Japanese. I took some pictures, and went home to get ready for a day of work on Monday.
