4 May 2010
Shibuya
I thought I was staying in the busiest place in Tokyo by staying at Shinjuku. It may still prove to be that once people go back to work on Thursday, but until then Shibuya is twice as ridiculous as Shinjuku.
It seems a lot bigger as far as dazzling multi storey neon buildings goes, still with lots of departments stores, fancy food in the basement etc. But also a lot more streets of regular stores, arcades, back alleys, restaurants of every kind etc.
Theres also lots of flyovers between buildings, some of them very high up, not sure how to get to them! More importantly theres a heap of guitar stores, the biggest and most impressive I have ever seen. The prices were better than Australia but not enough for me to consider buying one now. Still if I lived in Japan, I have no doubt I would be in a lot of trouble through guitar purchasing.
The first of the multi storey guitar stores. Disappointingly the window has decals for fender and gibson, the worlds 2 crappiest guitar companies specialising in fake fotoflame guitars of designs now 60 years old. Or specialising in sueing for patent infringement, im not sure what their main business is these days....
....but inside its all awesome guitars, caparison, fernandes, music man, bc rich (including american custom neck thru ones I have only ever seen in pictures before, and they were cheap too! under $1000 australian), schechter, grassroots, edwards, jackson stars...ok I will stop now.
I had dinner at Sukiya, which is the main competitor to Yoshinoya. This is Japanese fast food, you sit down, order, and it appears within 30 seconds. Everything in front of me (beef bowl on rice, salad, miso, strange bread thing in sauce) cost about $5 Australian. I could not eat it all.
To give you an idea of the sort of place it is, theres an island up the middle you sit around, the people in the middle run up and down to bring the orders out. The condiments are plentiful, different chilli things powdered and fresh, pickled ginger, various other sauces and oils. You also get free ice tea as much as you want, which was very refreshing.
This is apparently the worlds busiest pedestrian crossing. Those people are all on the road, coming from all directions. If you click the picture you will see Darth Vader on one of the billboards with the caption 'Who is my boss'. I have no idea what that is all about but I am seeing it everywhere. I wonder if George Lucas gave permission?
The photo was handheld, 1/40, iso only on 250. Fast glass is awesome.
Here I am risking my fancy new camera, perched on a shaky overpass, left unattended, 20 metres above traffic. All so you can see my ugly head.
Inside another guitar store...
...the amps and effects floor is just as impressive. Some really top quality brands amongst that lot.
Waiting on the subway to go home I spotted this ad. Those are guys. Im sorry I missed them on the 4th of April. However I am now inspired to wear my hair like that. If its cool in Japan it must be just a matter of time before its cool in Australia. I can be ahead of the trend instead of 10 years behind...finally!
The vending machine on the right is a new kind. Seems to have disposable coffee cups in it. Its too late for me to have a coffee but I have loads of change (when you must use cash for everything that happens).
I picked this strawberry thing, assuming it would have no coffee. I also assumed it would be a hot beverage. How wrong I was, again. Its actually a frozen strawberry slushy type of thing.