Sony, Sumo and Jairo

My week-long amble around Tokyo started at the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

To me, stock exchanges involve billions of people frantically climbing over each other to buy and sell stock, with umpteen phones per ear and very sweaty armpits, sometimes accompanied by sweaty foreheads. But not here. No. In fact, the entire financial district consists entirely of me. Little me. Yes, Monday morning and I'm all alone in downtown Tokyo. What the bloody hell is going on?

I crossed the Stock Exchange off my list and headed down to the Sony building in Ginza. This is essentially a giant plug for Sony but quite a good one at that. Everything is very hands-on: HD camcorders, computers, cameras, all nicely presented. The entire building had an aquarium theme with massive tiled plasma displays creating virtual acquariums. Even the 'rolly' MP3 players were playing the sound of the ocean.

It was here that I met Jairo, a 27-year-old Australian backpacker. We looked around the Sony building then headed off to Electric Street and Kabukicho in Shinjuku. Electric Street is exactly what you'd imagine: supermarket after supermarket, stall after stall, of electrical and electronic gear. The prices, however, are comparable to home so I resisted getting a wide angle lens for my camera, as tempted as I was.


We zoomed across Tokyo to the sumo stadium in the hope of catching a fight, but of course, the stadium was closed, like most things today. It smacks of a bank holiday. Apparently, it's not sumo season but maybe we'll catch a baseball game before the week's out.


We've arranged to meet tomorrow at 5am outside Tsukijishijo station to check out the fish market. This wasn't something I'd circled in the booklet I got from Tourist Information but this is one of the biggest wholesale fish markets in the world and I stand a chance of getting some decent photos. 5am is 9pm back home - sigh.