the tall blond guy goes to japan

Beck's Coffee Shop, Akehabara Station

Akehabara

Beck's coffee is crap. I think my new mission in Tokyo is to find one really good coffee shop. In Vancouver, it's so easy. Even the Starbucks places will do if you're desperate.

Theory: Perhaps it's only bad coffee that stunts your growth.

I'm a loser, baby, so why don't you drink me.

In my short time here, I learned that all is not always as it may first seem. I took a quick glance around this small room labelled "coffee shop". Everyone was eating too! Glancing quickly at the selection of food pictures, I pointed and said "hot dog". Hey, it was the easiest thing to explain if the need came up.

Advice: Do not order a hot dog in Tokyo.

For those who are not familliar with the ledgend, Akehabara is an area of Tokyo famous for its wide selection of electronics. And there were tonnes!

Some big street outside Akehabara Station

Every one of the stores in this picture (and more becides) were selling more or less exactly the same stuff. There were smaller stores in smaller streets selling the same stuff at lower prices. Then there were mom-and-pop booths selling the same stuff for even lower prices (but still not cheap- after all, this is Japan).

Some small street in Akehabara

It's at all the coolest stuff was either too big to bring home (an amazing space heater), or incompatible with whatever we use at home (cool widescreen TVs, and billions of cellphones). The cellphones are stunning. They double as toothpicks, come in a few thousand different colours, and have little plugs to plug into little computers (like the super-thin Sony model I kept seeing and drooling on). Everyone seems to have one already, but the stores seem to be doing a brisk business on them.

People kept talking at me and handing me flyers. One flyer was even buried inside a package of tissues.

After walking around Tokyo and managing to survive buying food and train tickets, one question keeps wandering through my head:

Do all these very nice people know that I have absolutely no idea what they're saying to me?