Thanks Sly! I love traveling and seeing neat stuff and having great food and drinks. I was expecting to see cool old cars, boomboxes, killer stereos and state of the art electronics everywhere but you really do have to search for them. Luckily my crew was having just as much fun as me, and sometimes I had to pull them away from the stores. I did not see any MD or DAT, and I love both of those formats so I would have noticed them. My buddy is in the radio business but he says they throw out old electronics because they love new gadgets and they also have very limited space. I would have loved to find a DEVO or Cars Album on MD but didn't see anything. Communication stinks and there's not a lot of talking outside of bars, even then it's a struggle. My buddy says they get extremely intimidated if they can't talk to you, almost like very shy or aloof, I just smiled a lot and said hello. They have a lot of machines and electronic waiters, all multi-lingual. The trains are a lot easier than European Trains, if you miss your stop just get out and jump on one going the other way, and I always thought Germany was clean, they have you beat, everything is spotless over there, I didn't see the robot janitors at night but they must have a million of them. We were out pretty late every night, there was a ton of nightlife and it seemed very safe, I didn't see anybody yelling or mad or even a lot of police.
Apparently it is really expensive to have an old car in Japan due to the cost of annual inspections etc. As both countries are Right Hand Drive, loads of them ended up in the UK. At one time it was rumoured that there were more Mitsubishi FTOs in the UK than Japan, despite very few ever being officially sold here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_FTO
In the 90's when I made it over to Europe there seemed to be a good supply of classic cars driving around but they are far and few between now. We have them everywhere here with car shows all over town, just about every night but I rarely get to see imports, classic USA cars still dominate.
They had a garage for future displays, and if you like to see what tools they use, here's the workbench.
Man I miss Japan. I went there on my honeymoon late last year. It my favourite destination. So many things to do for all ages. And the food is out of this world in terms of quality.
Finally, I bought something! I found three books about cassettes and tape decks, this bookstore was really neat, it had everything and it was at the mall. I like bookstores but some of the ones over here don't even compare in selection.
Yamaha Headquarters is in Ginza, an incredible area with all of the high-end retailers and banks. Yamaha's building was extremely beautiful with the diagonal windows and the gold accents. It probably has a meaning if you look at it at the right angle. The first floor has a few ultra cool pianos, maybe one of a kind, more like sculptures and over in the corner is some contemporary electronics. I asked where the boombox museum was but they don't have one. The basement has a huge store with a ton of band equipment, guitars start pretty reasonable and go up to several thousands of dollars. They have keyboards, drums and just about anything else you'd need. The keyboards were very impressive, just like the old days checking out the Casio's and Yamaha's at the local department store but much more powerful. Even though the equipment is new, it's not the same as I typically see, there was much more variety with a ton of high-end mid-line stuff, things we just don't get.
Few people outside of Asia know that Yamaha still make Electronic Organs, the STAGEA range, as nowadays they are only sold in Asia.
I was checking these out, the Yamaha reface line of Keyboards. So much fun to play with and look, they have a nice blend of buttons, knobs and LEDs. These go for a little under $500.00 USD.
In addition to two pianos, this is the only display in the Yamaha Lobby. The quality is nice on these items and not the licensed plastic junk I usually see over here. Some more of the boombox/component hybrids that seem to be getting popular.
Awesome story!! Was totally consumed reading. May I repost some of those for my fellow forumers? And in parallel listening to this: Nobuo Uematsu - Final Fantasy: Symphonic Suite Never heard of this famous Japanese video game though
I thought I had some Technics Stuff, this is the only photo I can find but it looks pretty cool and some serious money.
Awesome photos Mister X! Tokyo is a dream destination of mine some day, I actually learnt hiragana and katakana (and have begun learning kanji) in the hopes of understanding the lyrics of some Japanese songs I liked when I was younger. I am thinking of saving up to go to Kyushu next year though, as that is a smaller island, less inhabited and probably a bit less expensive. I'd like to experience their culture! Fantastic photos, I feel like I'm living vicariously through you.
Thanks stereomecha99, I'm hoping to go back this winter. Now that I know the lay of the land I can do some more immersion excursions. I was always told it was extremely expensive, it really isn't, Minneapolis is a lot more money to go out. The only thing that was difficult was the hotels, they have "love hotels," places where 20 somethings, living at home, have a place to impress their dates. It's so dense that they don't have many isolated spots to hang out. Love hotels will only let you, the non-local, check in at night, they do big business during the day and right after work with the local population. You need to leave in the morning, I'm sure you could pay big dollars to stay the whole time. Other than that the usual chain hotels are pretty expensive and there's not a lot of them. Some of the photos were taken with my little crappy Nikon, sometimes it works great but when I take boombox photos inside it sucks. I just bought some LED lights to try to get it to work better, some of these photos look more normal but I'm still trying to get a better quality. I used to skateboard a lot, when the local concrete park closed I built a halfpipe, me and my two buddies were the only guys around doing it so seeing some of this late 70's equipment was pretty cool. This awesome shop also had a crapload of BMX bikes and parts. They love importing these old relics, just like we like their cassette decks. That Kryptonics Deck is really cool, the Stacy Peralta G&S Deck is also a real slice of history. Stacy Peralta went on to form a company with George Powell known as Powell-Peralta, and yes one of the first members, Tony Hawk was recruited for the Bones Brigade, although a very young Caballero used to get close to 18' off the top of the ramp and he gave Tony a run for his money.
Some of the members are big into BMX, here's another of the cool little BMX and skateboard shop, yep it's address is 1977. I tried to find out where he gets this stuff but no luck. Is that Gordie Howe? Some of this is priceless NOS from the mid to late 70's. I've never seen the wheels with the cross-hatching on them and I had a skate shop for a few years. Check out the TOYOTA Chemicals, is that a real company or from James Bond? No pool rider was safe unless they had their Rector Pads on, these NOS wrist guards were ok but there was another better brand. Did they work? if you could get your wrist to slide, you might avoid a broken arm. I remember the gloves, I can remember who made them, they were popular for a very short time.
Check out this wild National RRQ-559 (Panasonic). It look like a mono-boombox with some weird calender on the side. I should have looked at it closer, are the numbers digital or more like an old flip clock radio? Found at the Waltz.
It looks as if someone crossed a Panapet Calendar https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=p...UIHTxqD7UQ9QEwAHoECAYQBg#imgrc=A64U6HguVdM7uM: with a Radio Cassette. The display looks to be a VFD as used in most VCRs and many 70s calculators However they are normally put behind dark perspex so you can't see all the elements inside. Our quite recently bought cooker has one and it is still very bright at night.
