We Gonna Rock Down To Electric Avenue

DSC08722litcanyon.JPG


DAY 338: Japanese technology can be seen all over the world, from a mobile phone in a remote town in Africa to a big home theater in Chicago, USA.  Chances are that the very computer you are using right now to read this very Blog has some Japanese parts in it, if not all Japanese parts.  Japanese technology has put the “modern” in “Modern World” as many everyday indispensable things originate from the electronic über-companies that are based in Japan, particularly Tokyo.  In fact, Liz’s apartment was just across the street from the backside of Sony World Headquarters, with a windowless R & D wing guarding so many secret prototypes like a secure fortress—you couldn’t even park you car on the street outside.

Sony’s secret products eventually are made public and leave the factory, along with other hi-tech products produced by the other Japanese electronics companies, for worldwide distribution—as well as in the home country of Japan.  In Tokyo, all these electronics can be found in the Akihabara neighborhood, a district full of so many multi-level electronics stores and video arcades that it is also known as “Electric Town.”

Going to Electric Town was a major culture shock to me, having been in really undeveloped places the past several months—Ethiopia and central China for example—and walking through its canyons of neon lights (picture above) I was reminded of a TV special in the 1970s, Rescue From Gilligan’s Island, where the castaways of the popular syndicated TV series are finally rescued after fifteen years from that uncharted desert isle and must adjust to life back in modern society.  I remember the Professor (who never had a real name, am I correct?) was having an especially hard time trying to get back into inventing new things in his lab because he had missed out on so many leaps in technology since he left for that ill-fated three hour tour (three hour tour).  Why he had problems I don’t know; the Professor could make radios and metal detectors out of dried up palm leaves and a couple of coconuts. 

Anyway, one scene that came to mind was when Gilligan (played by Bob Denver, who will always wear that stupid fisherman’s hat if he wants a steady income) goes to visit the Professor in his lab.  The Professor is sitting there in a lab coat, still stumped on ideas, probably due to the lack of coconuts.  Gilligan tries to cheer him up by showing him something that had been invented since that the day the tiny ship was lost: a frisbee.

MY METAPHORICAL “FRISBEE” CAME NOT in the form of a flying disc but in the form of a mobile phone.  Mobile phone technology had skyrocketed since I left New York in October 2003 and as I walked on through Electric Town I saw just what cell phones in Japan are now capable of.  Not only could a cell phone be a low-resolution digital camera, an MP3 player and a PDA, but now it could come with optical zoom, simulated surround sound and videophone technology.  One flip phone I saw actually doubled as a camcorder; the top part opened up then swiveled to the side so that you could use it like a traditional camcorder since the lens was mounted on the side of the hinge.  Another phone I saw was actually a color television (antenna broadcast only though).  My stroll through Electric Town showed me that phones are getting smaller, sleeker and smarter and one day we might push buttons through an easy-to-use interactive menu to order a pizza with mobile internet technology—so that we may never have to actually use the phone function to simply call and order that pizza from an actual person.

ELECTRIC TOWN WASN’T JUST ELECTRONIC STORES but electronic playgrounds with multi-level video arcades from Taito and Sega.  Inside were titles of each respective gaming company, both new and old, attracted not only teenage boys and girls, but suited businessmen on their way home from work.  Most of them went to play MJ2—Mahjong 2—although I had to wonder if they were really there to try their luck at a skill crane where one could win a dress.

After wondering around the video arcades and stores and with items I couldn’t yet afford to buy—but definitely drooled over (hey, I’m a guy)—I met Liz by the train station near a couple of street performers, a girl wailing out Japanese lyrics to the riffs from an electric guitar.  Liz and I took a crowded rush-hour train out of Electric Town, sitting next to a middle-age man reading the porn section of a regular Japanese newspaper, and then went out to eat tonkatsu (food breaded and fried Japanese style) for dinner—real food that is, not the convincingly real plastic kind seen in the window of almost every restaurant in Tokyo.  (Japan even has technology to make fake food look real.) After dinner we took the train back to the apartment using the train system’s electronic sensor debit cards—cards that will soon be placed in cell phones so that one can just use his/her cell phone to get around. 

I may have been thirteen hours ahead in the future of North America’s eastern seaboard, but being in Tokyo felt like I was at least two years ahead.  I’m sure if any company from another country tried to surpass the leaps in Japanese technology, they wouldn’t be able to do it.  And even if they did, the Japanese would come back and surpass them again anyway—no matter how many coconuts they have.


Next entry: Things to Do When Your Wallet is Missing

Previous entry: Fugu Me



Comments for "We Gonna Rock Down To Electric Avenue"

back to top of page

Next entry:
Things to Do When Your Wallet is Missing

Previous entry:
Fugu Me


This blog entry about the events of Tuesday, September 21, 2004 was originally posted on September 28, 2004 on the blog, "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World (Or Until Money Runs Out, Whichever Comes First)," hosted by BootsnAll.com. It is one of over 500 entries that chronicled a trip around the world from October 2003 to March 2005, encompassing travel through thirty-seven countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe, and Asia. It was this blog that "started it all," where Erik evolved and honed his style of travel blogging. (It starts to come into focus around the time he arrives in Africa.)

Praised and recommended by USA Today, RickSteves.com, and readers of BootsnAll and Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree, The Global Trip blog was selected by the editors of PC Magazine for the "Top 100 Sites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without" (in the travel category) in 2005.





SBRs? WHMMR? 1981ers? Confused at some of the jargon that’s developed with this blog and its readers?  Try looking them up on The Global Trip Wiki.

Spelling or grammar error? A picture not loading properly? Help keep this blog as good as it can be by reporting bugs.




SUBSCRIBE TO THE RSS FEED HERE






THE GLOBAL TRIP PLEDGE DRIVE

Show support and pledge a donation to Erik by buying official Global Trip gear and apparel! CLICK HERE!

All written and photographic content is copyright 2002-2008 by Erik R. Trinidad (unless otherwise noted).
"The Global Trip" and "swirl ball" logos are service marks of Erik R. Trinidad.
TheGlobalTrip.com v.3 is powered by Expression Engine