www.nickhodge.com

Exits are numbered and are import­ant in the Tokyo sub­way sys­tem. A1-10, B1-12, C1-16. Yes, there are that many exits.

Thank­fully the organ­isers of Japan have nice maps vir­tu­ally every­where, and you should not get lost.

Ginza is the home to shop­ping in brand-name stores. Today we vis­ited the Sony, Nis­san, Canon and Apple stores.

After vis­it­ing Yodo­bashi, and the Sony store, I am of the belief that we get the crap­pi­est stuff in Aus­tralia. The Toshiba and Sony laptops in Japan are beau­ti­ful. In Aus­tralia, everything is grey and hor­rible. The above is a small PC with wire­less, bluetooth, TV and a whole bunch of things run­ning in Vista. Do Want! Oh, that’s right. Not in Australia.

Buy­ing food from pic­tures is one thing, but phar­ma­ceut­ical items? It’s a hoot — you are likely to get almost anything.

Paul Macart­ney play­ing in the Star­bucks, Ginza Matsuya-dori is put­ting every­one to sleep. (note: this Star­bucks in now 10 years old!). Why Star­bucks? You can taste the dis­tance between the cof­fee in Japan­ese cof­fee. Star­bucks is denser.

The new Canon store just a way down from the Star­bucks has excel­lent pho­tos, and dis­plays of their devices. Above is a paper model of Pir­ates. Excel­lent way of selling more print­ers, inks and paper.

And yes, before head­ing back to the hotel, I vis­ited teh Apple Store Ginza and refrained from pur­chas­ing any­thing. Might get one of them new Mac­Book Pros when I return to Aus­tralia if I can find a new owner for my old one. The store looks a little bare without the iPhone. Way more sales people than cus­tom­ers. Very non-Ginza.