Ian takes you on a tour of Tokyo’s Akihabara Electric Town. Via DangerousProto:
Akihabara is a giant neighborhood of electronics stores in Tokyo, Japan. This weekend we exported the markets with Tokyo Hacker Space on the first leg of our Global Geek Tour.
The SEG Electronics Market in Shenzhen is definitely bigger, but Akihabara is a lot easier to get to. Americans can visit Japan with just a passport, you need a $200 visa to visit SEG in China.
If you want to visit Akihabara on your own, this Akihabara Google Map layer will help you find everything. Add it to Google Maps on your phone before you go.
In the words of the great Liz Lemon: “I want to go to there.”
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Akiba from Freaklabs says: [Like when we brought Ladyada here, she’s like… testing all the buttons, like “uhh that’s gunna break, that’s gunna break so easily”]
Those SMD perfboard stick-on adapters are genius! Does anyone know if any US suppliers carry them? I checked the website of the manufacturer, Sunhayato, but they want 3000 yen (~ $37 US) for overseas shipping.
As soon as I saw this on YouTube, I immediately said to myself, “you lucky SOB!” 😉
I’ve watched all of these amazing videos before… so I recognized what Akihabara is!
http://www.tokyohackerspace.org/akihabara/
Living there would be a freaking DREAM COME TRUE.
@k – in japan, when someone is sick they wear a mask.
http://www.quora.com/Why-do-Japanese-people-wear-masks
@kscharf: also, he explains that in the video towards the end.
Hmm, I never knew that about the masks. Very smart! I can’t see Americans doing that because we are too concerned with self-image, unfortunately.
Super junk … of, the memories of cheap 10uF ceramic caps. 🙂
Kevin
Hahaha!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DHX2FruBog#t=259s
Akiba from Freaklabs says: [Like when we brought Ladyada here, she’s like… testing all the buttons, like “uhh that’s gunna break, that’s gunna break so easily”]
Those SMD perfboard stick-on adapters are genius! Does anyone know if any US suppliers carry them? I checked the website of the manufacturer, Sunhayato, but they want 3000 yen (~ $37 US) for overseas shipping.
My FAVORITE line of the whole video:
“I’m not sure what I’d do with it, but it’s kinda nice..”
Enter, my office. (and garage, and truck, and attic, and other space I can find…)
@BrettW:
Ha ha ha. LadyAda is very strict about components. I like that in an engineer 🙂
Didn’t akiba from freaklabs do a huge video tour of akihabara?
🙁 wish there were places like that here, surplus stores hardly compare to it.