Fun at Tokyu Hands (no photo)
It’s been quite a week or so. No internet thanks to NTT’s wonderful technicians who kept asking me the same questions when I supplied them answers they didn’t want to hear. These guys were completely bums. I finally fixed everything myself, but I honestly cannot see the benefit of letting one company having free reign over telecommunications in Japan. Their service and services for that matter leave much to be desired.
Anyways, I took a little trip to Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku the other day with a friend and found some neat stuff. First, while not exactly neat, is interesting enough to take photos off and get promptly yelled at by the staff:
By the looks of that picture on the right Obama is really just another white politician wearing a black guy’s face. Scary. After taking the last picture I had a clerk run over and say “No photo, No photo!” Which kind of surprised me considering I wasn’t doing anything that I thought might be wrong. My friend and I were kind of like “lolwut” and then I replied “Well, I already took the picture so it really doesn’t matter anymore now does it?” or something equally sarcastic, bought my stuff and got out. Not sure what that was all about, but PROTIP: Don’t take photos of anything in stores in Japan. You WILL be accosted. Btw, these are the same masks that James at JapanProbe mentioned in a post sometime ago.
So just what did I buy?
I bought another set of these awesome “chubby” Star Wars themed matryoshka nesting dolls and a cool little keychain featuring the tune that plays, of course, at Akihabara station. The matryoshka dolls are really fun in that they come with little extras like helmets and even a lightsaber for the Luke Skywalker model. The run about 1500 yen. Not a bad deal in my opinion. As far as the keychain is concerned, you can buy aone for just about any of your favorite stops (or if you are a super nerd, songs) on the Yamanote line for around 500 yen. If you are a fan of Astroboy I suggest picking up the Takadanobaba keychain as it plays the theme from the Astroboy tv series. Geektastic! (SPOILER: Astroboy was born in Takadanobaba)
Michael over at michaeljohngrist.com has also found these goodies and is going to send one out to one lucky person just for posting a link to his site and commenting. Get that Takadanobaba one ready Michael!!
February 19th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Fun at Tokyu Hands (no photo)…
A tale of my trip to Tokyu Hands. Despite the title there are photos in this blog post. And a rant. A rant about something dear to me: The internets. Eat my shorts, NTT….
February 19th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I asked a guy about it once when I took pictures and got yelled at. I called him over, deleted the pictures in front of him (without his asking), and then asked him to explain it to me. He seemed baffled that I was curious. I said I didn’t mean to upset him like I did, and want to know why, so I could avoid it in the future. He told me that it’s rude. I asked why, and he just reiterated. He said some places have corporate policies prohibiting it, some places do it to protect sales prices, and some just think it’s rude. The sales price angle makes sense to me. They don’t want you to be able to compare their prices with those of their competitors. I dunno. Still seems strange to me. It’s just one of those things, I guess.
February 19th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
OMG! Must purchase those keychains! Too goood!!
February 20th, 2009 at 2:07 am
@Marie: Which one would you get? I’m guessing the Shibuya one.
You recent posts have been wonderful! I loved your attempt at a short story! Keep up the great work.
February 20th, 2009 at 2:08 am
@Deas: The price shopping part was the only thing I could think of as well. That is still a rather stupid reason to ban photography seeing as I could just as easily write down the prices anyways. :: sigh :: Oh well, I guess we’ll just have to be stealthy about it!