Electric Town

Maybe it's Electronic Town. I can't quite recall but knowing the Japanese fondness of Engrish my guess is that it's probably the former. It's the unofficial name for Akihabara, one of the stops on the Yamonote line. It's supposedly the place to go if you have any particular electronic desires and want to get them cheap. In that respect it was fairly disappointing because I didn't see anything that I couldn't get as cheap or even cheaper in Ikebukero, the closest 'big' stop to me. What you can find though is anything you want. They have stores that just sell wire and little metal clips that must go into some type of electronic. They did have a few cool things though, such as:


1) Automobile Nav Displays
Or whatever you call them. They're the little computer that's inside some cars that show you
where the heck you're going. I've seen them before in Canada and I know I've commented that someday, these things will come standard in cars. Well in Japan, someday is today. I don't know if they come standard or if people just buy them as accessories but these things blow away what I've seen in North America. Instead of just having a basic map with roads and rivers it actually shows the little buildings. Or why even bother with a map when you can just follow along on a 3D generated map from your point of view. It's amazing to watch a virtual world go by as you pass buildings that have their own signs such as "McDonalds." Or if you want you can have a split screen with half of it being the map and the other half being a local TV program that you're picking up. Yes that's right TV- people are watching the news in their cars on the way home from work.

2) Computer/televisions
I've seen the future of home entertainment. Computers that also act as televisions. Take a computer, give it a huge 300 GB harddrive and a nice big 26" 16:9 LCD monitor and a remote control and you've got yourself a great entertainment center. Work on the computer and if you want to change over, just hit the TV button and it will switch to the TV and just like that you're flipping through the channels. No doubt you can probably save all your shows on that humoungous harddrive. The monitor also comes with audio/video inputs so if you want you can also hook up your PS2. Now many of you may be thinking, 'Bah! If I'm going to have an entertainment centre then I want a lot bigger TV than 26 inches!" Well believe me when you're used to watching TV on a 14" little box then a 26" widescreen LCD seems like heaven. Especially since a regular TV like that will cost you close to 2/3 of what the whole computer deal will. The cost? All this can be yours for only 300,000 yen.

3) Anything else
You want collectables? Figures? Models? They got 'em. You want anime? They got TONS. Including anime that comes in the pastel coloured cases. If you've been to Japan then you'll probably know what I mean. You can tell which floor is the "bad" anime floor without even going into the room-you can just observe the pink glow that permeates from the front door. I found it quite funny that often as not, the same store that is selling TV's, fridges and washer machines on the 1st floor is selling anime movies of ill repute on the 6th floor.

I was there for half a day but I doubt I managed to see even half of what Akihabara had to offer. And they didn't really have much of what I was looking for-import video consoles and video games. The consoles were expensive as were the games as well as being of poor variety. So be wary, my Canadian contacts, I'm going to be asking for favours. I really have to learn Japanese. It's such a damn shame that the Japanese have so many amazing things that are essentially worthless to me because I can't understand them.

let me get to sleep