07/02 - Book Parade

I will venture far

and get lost, but always know

I'm home around books


On Wednesdays I try to do something interesting after work. It's a nice way to break up the week and make sure I'm doing and seeing lots even when working long hours. This week Aykut and I hopped on a train to Jinbōchō. Jinbōchō is an area in Tokyo famous for having tons and tons of bookstores, many of which just place books out on the street in front of their shops. They use tarps when it's raining, but often the street just has books lying on the sidewalk or on shelving units out in the street. The books for sale are mostly Japanese, but you can find English titles as well. We wandered around for a bit and checked things out, although it would be nice to go back on a weekend as a lot of stores were closing or closed when we got there. It is interesting how there are segregated areas for specific kinds of shopping here. Not all the time, but Jinbōchō has an area with tons of hiking/outdoor activity stores and then the street that is just bookstore after bookstore.

Other than just standard books, there are a lot of manga (Japanese comic books) and a ton of pornography. It is really quite odd how there is animated pornography and regular pornography just sitting on the streets in plain view, with children walking by. Definitely not the norm in western culture. Some of the pornography is super weird. It makes you feel odd just looking at it. For those not faint of heart I posted a few pics below, but not even the weirdest stuff I saw. I also saw one of Japan's infamous used panty vending machines for the first time. It actually looked more like one of the machines you'd beg your parents to let you put money in to get a toy or a keychain from when you were a kid than a vending machine. Slightly disturbing, but very interesting.

After traumatizing ourselves enough Aykut and I went and had a nice Indian meal at a small restaurant where the service and food were fantastic. When we left, just metres from several porno shops there was an empty lot with tons of jagged concrete in it, broken up just sitting on the ground. Of course there was a group of about 8 children playing on it with two women supervising. They were all jumping around in what looked like a competition to see who would maim themselves first. Not sure if they wouldn't have been better off in one of the porno shops playing hide and go seek behind the racks of naked lady magazines or inventing a game using the dildos.