Tokyo, Japan

[SweetSweetLeroyBrown]

So who's been there?

I heard there was an "electronic district" where you can get mad gear. Where is that?

Also, what's the best hotel to stay at under $300/night

Thanks

 

[pray4mojo]

Google Akihabara for the location of the "electronics district".

 

[THELAIR]

Im in Tokyo right now

It's a kewl place. Crazy, chaotic (to us foreigners at least) urban concreate jungle. But the most advanced place I have ever been.

And yah Akihabara is the tech town area, although I was somewhat disapointd with it. There isn't a hell of a lot of new gear there that you cant get at home, and the stuff that is unique to Japan usaully is only Japanese or works in Japan etc.

 

[vegetation]

Yea Akihabara isn't what it was years ago. Going through the yen conversion I couldn't find a single item that could come near beating the price at the local compusa or newegg. There's even shops selling used pc junk at insulting prices, like a 486 laptop for $200. Give me a break! The cell phones they have are the coolest but none of them will work outside of Japan so no sense at even looking at 'em.

 

[SweetSweetLeroyBrown]

oh damn I was hoping to get some cool gadgets...

 

[Soujiro]

Actually I think it depends on what you're looking for© If you're trying to buy a computer or most computer parts, then it's about the same as here, but for portable CD players, electronic hot pots, digital cameras, etc, I think it's a little cheaper©

One of the big draws are the super slim sony MP3 CD players that they don't sell in america© If you shop at big places like LAOX you won't get a deal, but you're supposed to goto the smaller shops nearby and BARGAIN©

Without saying anything you should be able to knock a 10-20%© Do this by standing next to the item you want staring for a long time, eventually somebody will come up to you and take out a calculator and start showing you prices© If you're adventerous you can play stupid and point to some other store and then enter a lower number in the calculator© I speak decent japanese, but somehow I found this easier because you don't waste time if they figure you can't understand them© They just enter numbers, and you can either say yes or no©

IMHO the best things to buy ¥since they are either much cheaper or are unavailable in the US¤:

- English-Japanese Electronic translators ¥I got a canon wordtank IDF 3000 for like $60, otherwise the best deal is a guy on egay who buys them for $60 at akihibara and sells them for $110© + shipping from japan¤

- Electronic Hot Pots ¥check the voltage tho or you'll have to buy a step up transformer, which you don't want to do©©©You can get a good hot pot, like zojirushi, for $30 in japan, as opposed to $100+ here¤

- Rice cookers ¥same deal as above¤

- Digital voice Recorders© ¥Also a lot of good onces not available in the US¤

-CD players - Sony DNE9 and similar models, the latest RIOVOLT, etc© Everything the US has plus more, and cheaper if you bargain©

 

[randomlinh]

i didn't think the cd players were all that much cheaper, not the MD's even.. but you had a wider selection of MD's... and mp3 cd players. but in general, I didn't find anything worth lugging over since it was the same/cheaper here. They had a LOT of cool tvs and stuff like that... taht was just fun to window shop Then again, i didn't haggle, i wasn't looking for anything really.

As for the hot pots, i could not find any that cheap over there. I don't think I was looking in the right places. It was maybe a 10-15 savings, not worth stuffing into my luggage.

I stayed at a hotel that was $80/night (June). I can't remember what area it was in, business area i was told by my friend. Kinda outta the way, and a pain to carry luggage to tho Ni...something.