Hello folks, it's a long time in the making, but I've finally decided to continue documenting my journey during my last couple of days in Japan.
This post begins as a continuation of my last, the day before I left, Thursday. After checking out the kitchen town in Kappabashi, I decided to take a thorough tour of Yodabashi Camera.
I saw many things I had never seen in my life at a brick-and-mortar store before, such as computer components on display. And a lot of them.
There was an entire section just for calculators.
And there were actually people interested in this stuff! I definitely wasn't in Utah anymore!
On the other side of this floor, they were selling software, and next to that, books about all kinds of computer-oriented things. I guess the people buying these have never heard of Google.
True to the store's name, there were many cameras, lenses, camera accessories, lens accessories, and camera accessory accessories.
Honestly, Yodobashi Camera is kind of a you-name-it-we-have-it kind of store when it comes to tech. The picture above shows a display of telescopes next to a huge array of fishing rods.
So of course there were TVs.
They had a larger collection of digital turntables and recording equipment than I'd ever seen in a Guitar Center.
They didn't skimp on household appliances either.
I spent a great deal of time in the video game section. I was planning to buy some stuff, and I was comparing prices from the Book-Off I'd visited earlier. Since the new was only ~300 yen more than the used version of this game, I opted for the new.
They had a section for western games, but it was barren. Japanese people just don't like the bald space marine, I guess.
They don't like Xbox much either. There was about one aisle of Xbox 360 games, where there were, of course, no customers browsing.
Yodobashi Camera is a huge store. It is at least eight floors, and about two blocks on each floor completely packed with electronic gizmos and gadgets.
There's even a section which rivals a genuine Apple Store in selection of such products.
They have non-Apple phones, too, of course.
Outside of Yodobashi camera, there are two 7-Elevens so close to each other that you can literally see one from the other. I only ever went to the one on the right, now that I think about it. More conveniently placed, I guess.
The Rest of Akiba
Since my time was almost up in Japan, I decided that I just wanted to crawl Akihabara to my heart's content. I visited my favorite T-shirt store next, although I never ended up buying anything there, since it was so expensive. Maybe next time.
I had done some research about Akiba the night before, So I decided to check out some of the more popular places that I had missed.
First I stopped by this place full of little vending machines. Think those gumball machines that you see in the front of grocery stores where you turn a quarter around clockwise and catch candy in your hand, but instead of gumballs / candy, it's cool mini anime figures and stuff.
That being said, most of them were labeled and contained nothing of interest to me. Also, they cost like at least 100 yen a pop. I decided that would add up too quickly, so I moved on.
I stopped by Don Quijote to buy a couple miyage for my friends / family, and to get something to drink. I found a giant Pocky box! I didn't buy it though. Even if I wanted it, there's no way it would have fit in my luggage at that point.
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| Please keep your hands off. This is Color Samples. |
Some of the places I visited weren't nearly as exciting as the internet made them seem. This small games shop on the edge of Akiba near the station, for instance, had some cool games, but nothing particularly special or cheap compared to all the other places I had visited prior.
I was getting tired, and I needed to check out early(ish) the next morning, so I called it a night. I think there was some internal clock planning going on there, too, but I don't remember for sure.
Anyway, that's all for this post. The semester is ending, so I should be able to defeat this beast in the next week or two, depending on my mood. We'll see what happens. I hope you're enjoying it, because I am, and I did.
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