. : Gaijin-Ninjin a Photoblog in Tokyo : .: 1st day out -Akihabara aka Electric Town

Id read and heard so many storied about this place, that i was so excited, lucky we had just made it off the train when they announced there were some rail problems. As we took a toilet break, we saw two women crying in the subways, being escorted by police. Charlie heard they saying "I saw, I saw". We came to the conclusion there had been a suicide, something i am told happens on a daily basis. Overworked/under rested salary man suicides are a big problem in Japan, i once read it was around 50,000 a year. At the edges of the platforms there are blue lights, which are meant to "calm" people.

But anyway back to Akibra!
I walked outside and was rushing straight into a store, which sold so games. The first thing i saw was a PS3 slim for ¥28,000 which is about £190. Eamon and Chalie have been going on about Monster Hunter for the PSP ever since i met them, they are so hooked its like crack to them! and they are persuading me to get a PSP, but i cannot get the same in english. A secondhand PSP racks in at about ¥14,000 which is only about £100, it will make traveling more fun playing 3 player.

Journeys take quite along time, Eamons girlfriend has to travel more than 2 hours to get to his house, as we are planing to travel to Koyoto and also so Fuji Q a theme park close to Mt Fuji I will end up getting one.

As night closed in the place was totally different, and was so much better then in the day! We spent about a hour just in one shop looking at rows and rows of collectible figures. Some of which cost ALOT of money!
The whole place was full of 'otaku' similar to geeks, but Japanese anime freeks.

I never took my camera out with me as i thought i would use my iPhone but i only really took afew photos, you seam to get sucked into it all and really forget about shooting. Some photographer I am.

Before i even came to japan tho i knew i wanted something from Akihabara. A GF-1 20mm f1.7 Panasonic camera racking in at a weighty £680. In Japan the same camera costs ¥67,000 which is about £458. I did the math and then wapped out the bank card, it was a deal which was inevitable and i am now a proud owner of GF1! One problem is that all the menus are in Japanese but i figured it all out fast enough with some help from my translators Eamon and Charlie ;)

This means that any posts after this should contain a lot nicer images. My mum will kill be as i am technically replacing my NikonD70 but that thing is old, and i have so many problems, from the card not reading, LCD errors and buttons sticking.

I will be visiting Akihabara again - no doube e&c will drag me there and force me to buy a PSP!

here are just a few shots of today

My first meal of the day :)