Sunday, July 5, 2009

Japan Day 34 - Ginza

Today we went to go see Ginza another shopping area with some significant buildings. This is area was were foreign stores first open in japan and has become a high class shopping area. On the weekends they close the street to traffic and becomes a giant outdoor mall. I think some of the companies wish that their American stores would be as crowded as some of the ones we saw today were.

Japan Day 34

First we saw the Tokyo Forum- It's a big convention center. It had a very nice public space.

Then we saw a bunch of different shops

Japan Day 34
Mikimoto

Japan Day 34
De Beers

Japan Day 34
Tiffany's

Japan Day 34
Cartier

Japan Day 34
Armani

Japan Day 34
The center glass block one was designed by Renzo Piano

Japan Day 34

Shops for Several Watch Companies in a building designed by Shigeru Ban. Each shop has it own glass elevator that takes you to their store inside.

Japan Day 34

Next we went to see The Capsule Hotel. This was any early experiment in modular and prefabricated construction. In the end it didn't work out very well so its mark to be demolished soon.

Japan Day 34

Then I went to see a few more camera shops, camera shop is a bit a misnomer, they were more like department stores for men with 8+ floors of cameras, computers, tvs and other electronics but they also had sporting goods, power tools and home appliances.

Japan Day 34

At Yodobasi camera, they had all of the most popular SLR lens out on the floor with some mounted on demo camera's and some out where you could try then out on your camera body.

Japan Day 34

They had two of the Canon professional white lens mounted on tripods that you could demo- one of them had an $8000 price tag on it. I was surprised about the lack of supervision. You could pickup cameras and play with them with out a worried sales rep looking over your shoulder. The reps weren't too concerned about people messing up their stuff. They also didn't seem to care when I was taking pictures...

Japan Day 34

I went to their food court up on the 8th floor for dinner. I had a peppered steak dish. It was another variation of the cook it yourself model. They bring your food on a super hot skillet and the meat is cooked by the time the dish cools off.

Japan Day 34

Then I went to see the night life around Shinjuk and try and find the Timesquare of Tokyo. The guide book didn't list a specific location but I assumed it would be near The Takshimaya Times Square Department Store. Not the case.... After looking it up online the place I was looking for is actually three districts south of where I was in Shibuya. Oh well. This area still had crazy lights and screens.

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