This is my hotel lobby. You select which cylinder you would like to be freeze-dried in for the night, and the lady in back there administers the seaweed-derived brain emulsion.
Or, uh, actually, that’s the Nissan Experience showroom in Ginza. They actually had a couple of cars there, too, but they were sort of lame. I was hoping for a Fairlady Z, at least, if not an older Skyline, but it was not meant to be. I need to figure out where they keep the good cars in this joint before I go. I’d love to see some blown out driftu rides in person.
We went to the Apple store in Ginza, but let tell you something: it’s an Apple store. Except for the admittedly cool aluminum-clad building (or at least that’s what it looks like), the store itself is no different than any one anywhere else. If you want to see a picture of that, consult Herr Google.
Then we went to Akihabara.
I was told that the best way to find your way to Akihabara’s electronics shops was to follow the crowds of young men. This proved to be good advice, as turning just a few corners soon left us in a large plaza, each side of which was crammed with vendors. The Japanese have a very specific retail style, which usually involves cramming as much stuff into as little space as possible, then setting up a cheap but blaring sound system in front, manned by either a plaintive, mustachioed man in a cheap coat, or a shrill woman in some sort of costume rocking a microphone while her companions press flyers into your hand. Multiply this by a new store every ten feet, plus the bleeping and blooping of a thousand demo gadgets, and you get audio hysteria (and not of the pouring of sugar kind).
It’s going to take another trip, for sure. This was just a scouting trip, at best, despite the fact that I went into something like 30 or 40 stores. You see, as we came through that plaza it opened up into a street that went on for at least a mile, branching off into dozens of alleys and streets just as clogged with gear as the plaza was. And while the selection of electronics was in some ways disappointing—partially because many stores carry the exact same inventory and partially because we’ve ruined so many of the prizes talking about gear on Gizmodo—I’m sure there are countless gems like these custom-painted G4 cubes sitting in some out-of-the-way nook or in a sixth-floor showroom.
