At the Heart of It

Ok, so today we're going to go somewhere good.

It's in Ginza, the poshest part of Tokyo:


　 But its on the other end of Ginza, so we need to walk past...

A giant woman stuck inside a box:


　 A massive Chanel store with teams of bowing women sales assistants.


　 A big "Bvlgari" (is it me, or has anyone else spotted the typo?)


Audi trying to sell cars into the Japnese market (good luck - so far I haven't seen a single non-Japanese car anywhere):　


　 Alfred:


And a gold-plated Cartier store:


　 Ok, we're nearly there. Just wait at the junction while checking out the dog in the pram:


　 Here we are - the Sony building !

If Ginza is the heart of Tokyo, then surely the Sony showroom is the very pulsating heart of Japan.


　 Now, with three floors of showroom, you are almost guaranteed something good.

When I was here some four years ago, the Playstation Portable (PSP) had just been released (months ahead of America, with Europeans just left to drool from afar). They had several rooms where you could play on one.

This time there seems to be a lot of slightly wider, slightly more energy efficient TVs (including one which displays of how many Watts its doing relative to a non energy efficient model - turns out that the colour of the picture displayed significantly affects the power use).

There also were several rooms of incrementally better cameras, recording equipment, music players.

Robodog (or whatever his name was) was a notable absentee.

However, there was a Rolly, which is a dancing audio egg. Difficult to explain - just look at the link to the youtube video.

Also, a mobile-phone sized picture-perfect tv and radio:



　 $380. Local Japanese say this is "ordinary" (boring).

So, how about a Bravia (TV), which you can put in the shower?

　 Unfortunately, this isn't cutting-edge (anymore) either:

　 They also had this:
　



A shaker table with two video cameras on it. One of them is the latest anti-shaking camera. On the split-screen, you can see the difference, but I was kind of left wondering how much I need it. Still, if it catches on, it will absolutely kill the market for tripods.

However, in terms of genuine slap-in-the-face/stop-and-gawp factor, there really only was one condenter:

Does this look like a flat tv to you?


　
How about now?

If it wasn't for the fact that they are $2,000 apiece, I would seriously consider buying one, at least to shave with. However, it seems that you need the hands of a museam curator, or an average Japanese electronics fan, in order to not break it by the time you take it out of the box.

I Never Realised How Much I Don't Need That

Now, we've had a soak in the acidic/alkine/radioactive water, soaked in the communal pool, dressed up in traditional Japanese clothes.
So, what now?

Checked out the refresh salon space capsule?
　

　
It plays music, makes smells, and generally relaxes you. After you're done you get a vitamin-enchanced drink.


　 Unfortunatly, I was a little too big for the machine.

So, we're done at the onsen?

Wrong!

It is a Japanese custom to go shopping for tourist stuff we don't need.

So, lets start with the hotel shop. Here we have a bucket of premium daikon. Each of these is about a meter long.

　 Daikon ("big root"), is like a massive carrot, but white and slightly sharp-tasting. You get a little dish of the stuff pickled in restaurants. Tasty and crunchy, but you most probably don't need a kilo of it in a hotel onsen.

According to Wikipedia, daikon is "Mu" in Korean and "Moolah" in Nepali.

Now, I'm still trying to figure out why, but if you search for 大根 (DaiKon) on Youtube (I'm unemployed), you find loads of videos of cat and dog owners feeding Daikon to their pets. You can also check this production: "Nyanta kun (Miaoy), how is the raddish?".

Not only that, but you can get ...

... Renkon (lilly root) slice coasters! ("Kousta"), hand-made by a local old guy in the shop:



　 Made of real wood, $4.72

Or how about some lilly root chopstick holders?



　 Only 420Yen! Your chopsticks will look so much more...topical.
　
OK, OK, you want something a little more practical. I mean, you proabably already have coasters.


So how about some ear srapers?



　
If you want, you can also get them with shiny stuff hanging off.


　 Or some sweet-sticks. You use these to pick up sweets with.


　 Also available in the back-to-the-1930's, (aka just-found-them-in-the-forest) look:


　 But, if you want to go for the ultimate niche product, look no further:

Now, I'm sure you already knew this, but just in case - a wasabi scraper is something like this:

　
This is, of course, the old-school way of making wasabi.

Naturally, it results in a tasty, spicy but natural taste.

But the wasabi-scraper has one cruelly ironic flaw:

The wasabi gets stuck in its scraping mechanism, meaning that we need....

...yes, a scraper-scraper.

So how about a wasabi scraper-scraper made from completely natural material !

　Now, almost anywhere in Japan you can get gooey red-bean paste sweets. These can be tasty and delicious:

But you really need to understand the local market before you play this game - look at what happened with the carboxylic acid cracker with green paste.　
　

So lets try outside:

A lot of toys are strongly-represented:


　
Including a sumo-panda!
　

　 I would have bought this one if it didn't cost the same as my entire wardrobe.

Plus haircut.

Shop of the Day - Relaxed Bear !

　 Now, while busily marching across Tokyo station, you come aross this:

Rilakuma. This is an amalgamation of Rilakusu and Kuma. Relaxed Bear.

Such a cool name.

And check out the bear:


He's so relaxed!

So relaxed, he's got a yellow bird on top of his big head.　



　 They've got plenty of cute animals:

　 And they're doing good business...


　So, not only are the bears cute, but it turns out that relaxed bears are a defensive industry.