Two fun experiences of the day - buying electrical appliances for my apartment, and seeing Gorillas being chauffeured in multiple flowery cars. For those of you who just went "What the f@£%!!!" I'll start with the second 1st.
As I mentioned before, Akihabara is known as the electric city, and the centre of anime everywhere. This has led over the years to two major traits of the area. 1) Anything electronic or mechanical one could think of is on hand and easy to buy. 2) A LOT of bizarre crap goes down here. And when I say bizarre, I mean the kind of things that dwarf a sugar binging child's imagination. It really is the most unusual street people can imagine, from towering arcades and shops filled with anime character figures, to the widely heard of 'maid cafe' - a cafe/restaurant where the customers are waited on by girls in maid outfits calling them 'goshujin sama' (literally 'master', and lets just say that sometimes this attracts unfavourable crowds). Sunday is a strange enough day even then, because they close the whole street to traffic, and people wander about in the middle of the road, whilst freelancers sell their anime merchandise on the street. With all this in mind, It makes perfect sense to see a bunch of flower covered, pink and yellow beetles being driven open topped with gorilla suited dudes riding shotgun and holding ad signs. What they were for, no idea, all i know is it got a great many grins.
The big ambition of my day was to purchase anything electronic I needed for my apartment. Most of this I was able to find in the famous 'Yodobashi Camera' super store. Each level of this fantastic store is packed to bursting with the latest laptops, top of the range 3D TVs, children's toys, the list goes on for 8 floors. Of course I also tried a large duty free store where I was able to get my microwave oven, but this store just didn't have the same level of customer service and friendly behaviour that I got from Yodobashi.
Since my apartment is only a 5 minute walk away, It was easy for me to buy small items first and drop them off before moving up. Of course I hadn't banked on the scorching heat and really heavy electrical junk I had to carry, but it was still a good idea, really. Started with kettle and rice cooker (after getting microwave earlier at separate store) No problem. Tv and DVD player, a little awkward in the doors but manageable. Washing machine and fridge I just lifted hulk style and ran with.....no not really. That I had to get delivered and I was presented with the same problems as furniture shopping. Namely that I could only guess at what was being said. It took two VERY patient and understanding shop workers to help explain the delivery payments and try to explain that my english phone number might not be good enough, but thats a story for a later day. Not only that, but I had to forget everything I thought I knew about washing machines - Japanese washing machines are some whole other breed of demon. Something tells me the apartment below may have to put up with a damp ceiling before I figure out what the stop button is.
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