There’s nowhere in the world quite like Akihabara, Tokyo’s geeky “Electric Town”. It’s like Taipei’s Guang Hua technology market–but everywhere–and with manga, porn, cosplay, and maid cafés thrown into the mix.
I spent some time there last week, and I’ll be posting some of the…stranger pics that I took about the place later this week. First challenge was getting there on the subway…
But coming out of the station, here’s what you’ll see:
Bonus pic! Android (branded as Android au–no relation to Australia) is being pushed big time over there. Still, candy bar flip phones are still noticably the most popular form factor.
Pics taken on the run with the iPhone 4. Used a free HDR app that because of the shutter delay, produced some weird (but kinda cool) time lapse-like effect in some cases.
Tokyo Funk
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 8:07 PMAkihabara was one of the weirdest and coolest places I’ve ever been in Tokyo. Some of the back alley electronics shops were amazingly cheap, and most of the Duty-Free shops were reasonable. The one thing that freaked me out was the line at the maid cafe and the seedy looking guys waiting to practice their “Kawaaaaaiiii” broken Japanese with girls being paid to give a crap.
Hoping to go back to live there longer as an ALT, seeing as so many of them bailed after the whole radiation/earthquake thing.
Mister
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 8:32 PMOh, how I miss it!
I had a motherboard die in an old Pentium II. But after trawling through 4 of the 8 locations of a single second-hand store, I found an old dual CPU server mobo that was just right.
And after much case bending and mounting it across the base of the tower, it was perfect! :D
Steve
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 8:51 PMI visited this when I was in Japan around 8 years ago. This was at a time when we were still using chunky black and white Nokia dumbphones and everyone there I saw had a phone with a COLOUR SCREEN! and a CAMERA! and they can watch TELEVISION! It was truly mind-blowing how primitive our consumer tech was. Thankfully that gap has closed significantly.
What does the ‘au’ stand for in Android AU?
Chris
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 11:16 PMAs far as I’m aware (and I’m half Japanese), it’s a pun. AU, when pronounced as separate letters, is about the same pronunciation as ‘hero’ in Japanese.
sarah
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 7:02 AMau by kddi is a line of phones/phone company. au has a student discount! 50% off. or it did back when i was a (high school) student.
powpow
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 8:54 PMI am living in Tokyo atm and visit this place almost once a week. Love it like a second home!
Daniel Minge
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 9:38 PMNot much has changed since i was there last!
Phil
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 10:19 PMI also got the sense that the tech gap is closing. Not much different from a mega mega Harvey Norman.
Danny Allen
Monday, June 27, 2011 at 10:43 PMTech gap is definitely closing when it comes to the gadgets. But even a mega mega Hardly Normal would be nothing like the multiple storeys, stores and city blocks (plus randomness) of Akihabara. Worth checking out if you ever get the chance.
Josh
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 6:28 AMI beg to differ, even when I visited in Oct 08, the difference is immense – wait until you check out Yodabashi Camera just outside JR Akihabara…
Feral
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 7:56 AMBeen there too when the Sony tr1 ‘netbook’ form factor was hot out of the factory, unfortunately I was backpacking and broke so the only thing I bought back was a USB cable.
Quin
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 9:27 AMI’d have to agree with phil and Danny. Especially with smartphones, I’d say US tech is ahead of your average Japanese stuff.
Even Sony’s Ginza “showroom” gadgets are all available in Australia.
The experience of Akihabara is unparalleled (esp. Maid cafes lol.. such a sad sad activity). But the stock of electronics there definitely isn’t much to write home about.
That said, price-wise you can do really well in Japan. But you don’t need to go to Akiba for that. Things like cameras, computers, TVs etc you can pay 10-30% less for, even in big electronics stores. If you can hack Japanese language firmware/OS/keyboards.
no one
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 at 11:58 PMAt Ginza station I watched a Japanese girl use her color screen mob phone with a camera as a mirror to do her Cleopatra eye makeup. But she then switched to some saved photos to compare the current makeup job with previous one. Her phone was a mirror with a memory! That is absorbing technology into what you do daily. I was carrying a Nokia 5110