So far I am enjoying my time traveling on the extensive subways of Tokyo. People-watching is fun on the trains. People have a quiet sense of purpose as the wait for the ride to their destination. Train staff do their duty with stoic efficiency.
I gave myself a rather difficult task. To find a used camera shop called Kawamasu Camera located in Kotobuki 3-12-6, Taito. There was a typo in the web information I found because the station listed nearest to the shop was "Akasaka" station. When I got to Akasaka, the station staff helped me locate the address in their giant street diretory and it was actually in Asakusa station, further north, quite a ways from where I was. Darn it, back on the train I went.
Finding the shop was not easy even when I got to the Asakusa area. It was not the kind of shop located in the malls but tucked away in a quiet street. To add to the difficulty, the rain was particularly persistent that day. Wet and lost, I wandered the streets of Kotobuki 3 and the rest of the Taito area.
After several tries, I found it, and truly it was filled with old cameras and lenses of all kinds. There was an old man there who looked like the owner. I put my wet umbrella in the umbrella stand, placed my bag and rain jacket down, and just browsed happily.
I found an old lens I liked and asked to see it. When I decided it was in a good condition, I paid the old gentleman. He even found me an old Leica cap that fit my not-Leica lens.
I decided that my final stop would be the Yodobashi Camera main store in Shinjuku. Yodobashi Camera is a huge electronics chain store in Japan and their Shinjuku store has five floors of camera stuff. They even have a floor just for tripods and another floor for Medium format and Large format cameras. The prices are not always cheaper than Singapore's but the variety is incredible.
Dinner was a meal of pasta at First Kitchen, a fast food chain that sells burgers, pizza and pasta. It cost about 950¥ for a small bowl of shrimp salad, ice latte, and a plate of bacon pasta.
I returned to my hotel, tired, a little damp, but satisfied with my day.
