The Bemusing Shopping Districts of Tokyo

I found my way to Akihabara, Tokyo's electronics district. Every guidebook describes this as the place to buy the latest up-to-the-minute gadgets, but my poor understanding of Japanese and electronics in general made things difficult. Large portions of shop floor were dedicated to Japanese cell phones, a technology so far ahead of every other country, anything I bought would have been useless back in New Zealand (except maybe the sparkly keypad stickers). The biggest stores had 11 or 12 levels packed full of everything from GPS devices to kitchen appliances to gaming equipment. With no English signage it was pretty much impossible to locate the headphones I had come to shop for, and I left bewildered.

The book district was also quite confusing. I wanted to get reading material for the flight home, preferably in English. For such an international city as Tokyo, this proved surprisingly difficult. My Lonely Planet guide directed me to a several mega-stores, obviously Japanese equivalent of Borders, but I was utterly unsuccessful in finding any English language books that weren't tourist guides. The last shop I tried specialised in second hand non-fiction foreign language books, and was full of foreign tourists obviously on a similar mission to my own. In a dark corner I discovered the English fiction shelf and a disintegrating P G Wodehouse novel, which I quickly grabbed. If anyone is thinking about setting up shop in Tokyo, I would recommend starting an English language bookstore. It would be a thriving business.

Plastic meals in Kappabashi doori.

My final destination was Kappabashi doori, the kitchenware district. Many tourists come here just to visit the slightly bizarre 'plastic food' shops, of which there is an impressive number. Plastic food is used as a sort of visual menu in most Japanese cafes and restaurants, and everything from udon noodles from hamburgers to tikka masala is realistically represented. It's skillfully crafted and not cheap - I paid around NZ$60 for two circular tangles of soba noodles. Besides plastic food, there are countless shops selling everything you might need to run a restaurant except the (real) food. Any kitchen gadget you can imagine is available, as well as bulk quantities of takeaway containers, tableware, coffee roasting equipment, furniture, interior decor and endless shelves of Japanese lacquerware and porcelain. After a few hours the shops started closing but it was a truly interesting place.