| Ikebukuro |
Ikebukuro is the electronics zone in Tokyo, so of course I had to go out for some shopping. The place is full of neon, and quite fun to just wander around. In general the electronics didn't seem all that cheap to me, although there was certainly stuff I hadn't seen in the US (and therefore lots of stuff that I wouldn't see in Australia). For example, the cool Toto electric toilet seats (link points to site with lots of pictures of bums) that we have at work were for sale there, and seemed to vary in price from about $40 US to about $1,000 US. Who pays a thousand dollars for a toilet seat!?!
I got to Ikebukuro on the JR Yamanote line, which I paid for with a Suica stored value card. Even tha train payment is cool here -- the Suica card is one of two options that is a contactless payment system for transport. I suspect there is a RFID token or something in the card, and you just wave it in the general direction of the turnstile at the train station. It works on all the train networks (of which there are four or so), as well as buses, some vending machines, and even in some stores. My first card was defective after one ride, which resulted in a lot of patiently not speaking Japanese customer service people, but it was sorted out in the end.
Mobile phones are cool here too, and thats what most of the cool stuff in the electronics stores were. For example a lot of the phones support live TV streaming, although I am told that is old school here now.
Anyways, lots of fun.
posted at: 19:16 | path: /events/pictures/20080522-ikebukuro | permanent link to this entry