Sunday 12 June 2011

Korea Town

I went to Shin Okubo.

It's located about a five minute walk north of Shinjuku. Just behind Kabuki-cho. OH, now you know where I'm talking about ;)

Usually the only time I go there is to check out the TC Gakki music store. Before that I went back to try out that Behringer Hellbabe wah again in Shinjuku. Nope, still a piece of junk! I also had a play of the POG2, which does similar octave things to my PS-6. For the money it cost (over 50,000 yen), I expected a LOT more.

This place is often referred to as a prominent Korean precinct of Tokyo. The place was bustling with people mostly eating at the amazing amount of Yakiniku (Korean BBQ) joints. Often you would hear me grunt, "MEAT!!"

This would actually not be such a bad place to live. It just so happens that this place that I thought was getting torn down is actually being restored! There is a strong geek part of me that wants to live here, if only for dubious bragging rights. Surprisingly we got inside easily, and up the escalator to the roof, but were thwarted by security-coded locked doors :(

Anyway, other surprises in this area was another Don Quijote store that I never knew existed. I was looking for certain spare parts, but unfortunately were not available here. I DID see some LCD reproductions of "Crazy Climber" by Pocket Toy, and a racing "Hang On" by El-Spirits at 880 yen. There was even a pretty crappy looking panarama screen rip-off that looked like a cheap toy.

These Sakubai scooters caught my interest. Kind of a cross between a bike and a scooter. The idea sounds great, but I don't know how well these would ride on Tokyo sidewalks.

There are a lot of cheap korean supermarkets here. My FAVOURITE noodles here are these Nongshim noodles. They are nice and spicy. The red of the package gives it away right? Ever so slightly cheaper here, so we stocked a bit on those. Bring on the MSG! And we got some special Korean pancakes packed with calories, and red pepper paste snacks that I'm addicted to, for good measure.

I could not come here and not go to TC Gakki, just looking of course. I tried a Fishman Rare Earth single coil acoustic pickup *face palm* I've been toying with the idea of putting all my gizmos through my effects acoustically so this would be necessary here (not back home where I have my semi though). It sounded nice and warm, but do I need it? Do I REALLY need it?

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