Ellen Isaacs: Travel journal: Harajuku, Asakusa

Today the work group was free to explore the city. Bo had a meeting in the afternoon, but before that he wanted to go to Kiddy Land, a famous 6-story toy store. He has three small kids, so it was the perfect place. Walendo, Mike, and I joined him, hoping to find those goofy Japanese electronic toys you hear about. When we got there it was closed, oh no! But we saw a sign showing it would open an a half hour so we went to a little coffee shop nearby and sat on the second floor looking out and checking out the scene.

Toy shopping at
Kiddy Land
Soon after we finished, the store opened. The first floor had a few silly items, including some small cubes with LED displays showing a stick figure person hanging out in a room. If you connect two together, the two people move across and visit each other. The display had about 10 of them attached on the sides and tops and bottoms, so they dropped down and climbed up and visited each other and did silly things like hug and eat and fight. It was cute and totally useless, exactly what we were looking for. There wasn't quite as much of that as we'd expected, though. Instead, there were tons of stuffed animals and lots of action toys, including Spiderman and the Pirates of the Caribbean characters, plus Barbie and various other pink and purple girls toys. My favorite thing there was a row of tiny Disney characters, maybe two inches tall, each on its own little stand. The stands were connected on the sides, and the characters were doing a kind of dance where they tapped one foot or the other. The cool thing was that they were synchronized and syncopated. A song was playing and some characters would tap in one pattern and others in another to get a kind of Irish river dance kind of effect. It was pretty cool. The only problem is that you'd have to buy a bunch of them to get the full effect, which got expensive.

Walendo buying stuff
at Kiddy Land
Walendo wound up getting three other dolls that consisted of a body and a big round head with a vacant smile painted on, and all they did was slowly rock their heads side to side in a kind of happy, dazed way. You can't help yourself from tipping your head side to side with a vacant smile as you watch them. They're solar powered, so they should go forever as long as they get some light. He got three of them and figured he'd put one on his monitor at work, the goofball. We also got a little powered bath toy for Cassie to put in her pool. It's a little round plastic thing shaped like a frog with holes on the top and it spins around and sprays water up and out. She'll either be intrigued or freaked out by it. Oh, and Walendo also got a remote control styrofoam airplane, certainly a must-have.

After getting our fill (and the usual parting greeting of many words ending in ashimaaaas) we finally all made it out of the store. It was still pretty early, so people wanted to walk around a bit. It so happened that we were in the same neighborhood where I'd walked around yesterday, in Harajuku on Oemote-sando Dori (street). So I showed them the funky little side streets with the cool clothing. Mike even bought a pair of cool leather shoes, taking about a minute 30 seconds to try them on and make the decision to buy. We stopped in a hat shop and tried on a bunch of the hats, having fun laughing at our new looks.

Bo, Mike, and Walendo trying on hats

At around noon, we found a little noodle place that had a sort of Italian slant to it. I wasn't hungry so I didn't order anything, but Walendo's pasta carbonara was so good I had some of it. Then Mike gave me some of his cold pasta pomodoro, which was also good. Other than that first meal, I've been pretty happy with the food so far. After lunch, Bo headed back to the hotel to get ready for his meeting. Mike and Walendo wanted to go back to Akihabara to buy some electronics. After doing some scouting on the first day and then doing research on the Web, Walendo had some ideas on what to buy. We'd found that the prices there were not necessarily better than what you can get in the States but the selection is larger and they sell items not available at home. I wasn't interested in going back there, so I split off from them with plans to hook up again at Kappabashi Dori to buy pottery and plastic food.

Trading desk at
Tokyo Stock Exchange
First I went to the Tokyo Stock Exchange building. I thought that it might make for some good stock photos (no pun intended). After taking a bunch of shots of the outside of the building, I wondered if maybe I could go in. There were several entrances so I followed a group of businessmen in, but quickly noticed some guards and an Xray machine, so I stopped, figuring I wasn't allowed in. The guard looked at me and my questioning gesture and said, "Visitor?" I said yes and he indicated I should go in another exit, as welcoming and apologetic as could be. I went in that entrance and after confirming I was a visitor, they happily put all my camera gear through the Xray and signed me in, allowing me free reign in the public areas of the building. I explored and quickly found what seemed to be the one area where the action happened. I'd read that all the trading is done electronically now so there's not the chaotic bustle of people making trades on a floor, but they did have one pod with a bunch of people at stations and a giant blue display showing the stock prices. It was a little difficult to get a good angle on it, but I did what I could, pleased that I'd even been given access to the building. There was a video camera crew for a news station setting up there, so I tried to work around them, feeling a small kinship with them.

Next my plan was to go to a fancy department store, Mitsukashi, which I'd been told sold elaborate traditional kimonos. Once in the giant store I had to ask where to go, but as always, the staff person was extremely polite and walked me as far as she could on her floor. There was a young woman in a uniform and white gloves operating the elevator, and on each floor she stepped out and called out in what had become a familiar sing-songy high pitched announcement voice. On the fourth floor were indeed fancy kimonos that were in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. I found a nice display and asked if I could take a photo but was told no in an apologetic way. Oh well. So instead I wandered around the floor and just admired the fabrics and the patterns. I would think it would be a cool thing to have the option to wear a kimono at a formal affair. I think I'd own one or two if I lived here.

Souvenir shops on
Nakamise Dori
By now Walendo called to say they were getting close to finishing up at Akihabara. I still wanted to go back to Asakusa to buy some of the (much cheaper) kimonos as gifts, so I boogied down to Nakamise Dori and quickly found the stall I'd been to before and bought two more. Again the staff was enthusiastic and helpful. After a while, Walendo and Mike joined me at the Kaminarimon gate leading to the Senso-ji temple, having coordinated the reunion through several phone calls. What did we ever do without cell phones when traveling in a foreign city?

Pedestrian mall
in Asakusa
I was astonished to learn that Walendo had still not bought a single thing at the electronics store. Everything he'd considered was not quite right for some reason (not a good price, no English version, too big to bring home). Mike had bought a case for the camera he'd bought earlier, also not a stellar display of consumerism. After all that not-buying, they needed a rest so we stopped in a little shop for some coffee and then we wandered through some of the covered pedestrian malls radiating out from Nakamise Dori, the street leading to the temple, and then made our way to Kappabashi Dori, the restaurant supply row. We wanted to get a fake food display as a gift, so we check out the options in the two stores I'd found earlier and made our selection. They were surprisingly expensive - something like $100 for one rice bowl dish, and yet we see dozens of them in front of restaurant displays all over.

Pottery shop on
Kappabashi Dori
Meantime, Mike was eager to go the pottery shop I'd found on Tuesday so that was our next stop. He made his selections while Walendo held his bags outside (the aisles in the store are very narrow) and I scouted some items for us. When Mike was done, he held Walendo's stuff and we bought with abandon, not worrying much about how we would get it all home. The prices were so cheap it was hard not to get things. We got three nice serving dishes, a set of 8 tiny bowls for holding cooking ingredients, and a tea pot. It all came to about $45. When we went to pay, we gave them a credit card but they said cash only. The total came to about Y5,500. All of a sudden I completely forgot all I knew about converting the money and I thought we didn't have enough. "Oh no!!!," I said. I got Walendo confused and we both started pulling out several Y10,000, Y5,000 and Y1,000 notes, ready to give the store all our money. The woman behind the counter started laughing at us, kind of playfully mocking us, mimicking our "Oh nooooo!" She took pity on us and just took a Y5,000 and a Y1,000 note and gave us change. What a bunch of dopes they must have thought we were. With the sound of "Oh nooo!!!" ringing in our ears, we left the store laughing and happy with our booty. They had packed the items very well, so we figured we'd be okay getting them home — somehow.

We took the metro back to our hotel, once again bushed. Today I took advil before my legs got tired, so I felt pretty good but Walendo and Mike, both achy, decided to take baths. After a nice long rest, we joined back up again and went out for sushi at a nearby restaurant called Sushizanmai, which we think is the same chain as the one we went to at Tsukiji that first morning. We sat at the sushi bar and got to see and point to the fish we'd be eating. I loaded up on all my favorites and had a ball. Walendo, who doesn't like raw fish, even managed to find some satisfying dishes with (cooked) shrimp and eel.

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