Akihabara
On a trip to Japan, one place I always have to spend at least a day in, is Akihabara. The electronics district.
It's easy to spend the entire day (and night) just perusing the latest gadgets, looking for retro games, finding he most random little knicknacks in the junk shops, freaking out at weirdness that is the anime stores.
I usually have a set route of walking down the main road, visiting all the big stores, then moving into the backstreets to seek out the junk shops and finding bargains on some really useful and also really useless stuff. Imagine an open street marketplace environment, but instead of baskets of fresh fruit and fish, you get transistors, memory sticks and tiny remote control cars.
Akihabara has changed alot though in the last few years, they built the massive Yodobashi Akiba, which is without doubt the most comprehensive Electronics/Camera/PC Shop in Japan, and most likely, the world. Its 9 massive floors, each floor dedicated to a very specific section (Home Theater, Video Cameras, PC Hardware, etc etc). This superstore I think is killing the general crazy little shop culture of Akihabara, which is a real shame, cause thats why I've always liked the place.
Things have to change I guess.
Here are a few photos.
This is Super Potato, a famous retro gaming store, the top floor is a cute retro game arcade.
I've taken a lot more photos since these, but I can't upload them because I've reached my flickr limit.
So you'll have to wait.
I'm in Osaka now - which is very foreign to me. It's like a parallel universe, upside down version of Tokyo. People stand on the other side on escalators, they talk really differently, almost a different dialect alltogther. It's fun getting lost here though.
It's easy to spend the entire day (and night) just perusing the latest gadgets, looking for retro games, finding he most random little knicknacks in the junk shops, freaking out at weirdness that is the anime stores.
I usually have a set route of walking down the main road, visiting all the big stores, then moving into the backstreets to seek out the junk shops and finding bargains on some really useful and also really useless stuff. Imagine an open street marketplace environment, but instead of baskets of fresh fruit and fish, you get transistors, memory sticks and tiny remote control cars.
Akihabara has changed alot though in the last few years, they built the massive Yodobashi Akiba, which is without doubt the most comprehensive Electronics/Camera/PC Shop in Japan, and most likely, the world. Its 9 massive floors, each floor dedicated to a very specific section (Home Theater, Video Cameras, PC Hardware, etc etc). This superstore I think is killing the general crazy little shop culture of Akihabara, which is a real shame, cause thats why I've always liked the place.
Things have to change I guess.
Here are a few photos.
This is Super Potato, a famous retro gaming store, the top floor is a cute retro game arcade.
I've taken a lot more photos since these, but I can't upload them because I've reached my flickr limit.
So you'll have to wait.
I'm in Osaka now - which is very foreign to me. It's like a parallel universe, upside down version of Tokyo. People stand on the other side on escalators, they talk really differently, almost a different dialect alltogther. It's fun getting lost here though.