Yesterday I went to Akihabara, which is one fo the areas of Tokyo. It is known for two things, Electronics, and Otaku. Otaku are sort of... Japanese version of a geek. But they are not so much computer geeks, they are more... just anti social and obsessive about things like doll collecting, anime, manga, military stuff, and being strange dirty men. One of the types of places that serves these men, are cafes that have girls in maid outfits serving them. You get to choose which maid you want after they are lined up, how you would like them to address you, other strange things like that. The services they offer in most of them are simple cafe services, but in a few you can pay for strange things like ear cleaning, getting to put your head on their lap and have a conversation, and play video games with them I am nto sure if they let you win then... but whatever... odd.
I had my picture taken with two of them at the place I went, which was just a normal cafe thank you very much, and they are being all cute and iving the peace sign with a huge smile. Me? I am kneeling on the ground, almsot as tall as them standing up, giving the metal devil horns sign. Its a polaroid... so I will post it up on here when I get a scan of it. I love this picture.
The electronics in the area were very interesting. There were lots and lots of stores. Imagine downtown San Jose, with a Frys, a Circuit City, a Comp USA, and about 20 other large stores. Then stick 50 medium sized specialty stores next to them. Then, toss in about 80 little shops thta sell.. crap. Yeah, its crap. Used moniters, used computers, used keyboard, used mice, strange USB devices that dont really do anything useful, and piles of wires that dont go to anything in particular.
One thing that I found imensely intersting, was the advertising style. Every building was covered in signage. The were all mostly dirty, they were all desnsly packed, and it was everywhere. Because of this, I found that I paid attention to NONE of them. Take a white wall, write a word on it. You will be drawn to it, and read it. Now cover the way in thousands of words. When you look at it, you just see a texture, a blur, not a group of words.
What did I learn?
Less is more.
Also, of all the stores I went to, all were usually disorganized, kinda dirty, and it made all of their products look trashy even if they were amazing. I walked into one store though, it was for Antec, a company who makes computer cases, and it was similar to an appl estore. It was simple, sparse, and clean. It made me realize just how much the display of a product matters in store.
Akihabara is also known for cheap prices on electronics. I didnt see them, and I looked, hard. They were cheaper than the rest of Japan, but the USA is much cheaper.
What did I find that I want though? Used Panasonic toughbooks. for about 350 bucks, I can get a sexy 12 inch pentium M toughbook that would be a grand and some in the USA, if you could find an importer that still has a few left over for some magical reason. Man it was hot.
Also, I met with my "tutor" today. Hes not really a tutor per se, he is more of a guide to Japan. He is a member of the Mitsui V-Net program. He used to be a risk management specialist with the Mitsui Bank... sort of like my father was, so I have in a sense a Japanese version of my dad here :). He is very Japanese though, which is really fun. He is the sort of guy who can show me all the things that the younger Japanese peop eI hang out with, just dont do.
The longer I am here, the more I find Japan strange. It was not strange when I got here... but the mroe I am here... the more I discover how really strange it is for me.
My tutor is a heavy smoker, but he recomended I eat slower because it is "healthier." Go figure.
Gai-jin smash.
2 comments:
That's a great picture of the maid cafe.
Some of your sentences don't wrap around the page, so I have to scroll to the side to see them. Makes it kind of hard to read.
It occurred to me the other day: what if you were one of the maids who worked there, and you were always the one customers chose least often? Would the other maids make fun of you?
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