Really Cool Japanese Stuff

In the southeast corner of Tokyo there is . . . I guess you'd call it a futuristic island. It's called "Odaiba" and you take this special unmanned train to get there. The island has a ton of things to do from a maritime museum, to an artificial beach, a huge shopping mall (of course) and a special exhibition center for Toyota.

The Toyota exhibition (they call it Megaweb) is three airplane hanger-sized buildings. One has all the newest cars - including concept cars. The second building is a history of motoring museum, and the third is called "universal design." This building covers the how and why behind car design and layout.

Here are a few photos of the new (Japanese) cars from Toyota and some of their concept vehicles.

!Mira! This car is called The Mira.

Your own personal Scout Walker!

The red car (shown above and below) is part of the Corolla family.

This little car is called the "E-Com" for Electric Commuter. You can test drive it around the complex which, of course, I did.

Odaiba and Toyota's Megaweb is a MUST SEE if you visit Tokyo. Warning: it's closed on Mondays.
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Pictured above is a shot from Uniqlo's "UT" store. First, you pick out the item you want from the center rack. Then, you check the tag for it's price and item code. So, let's say the code is UL07. You look at the codes displayed on the shelves, and pick up a tube containing your item.

Totally bitchin'. They recently opened a Uniqlo in NYC, but it's a standard Uniqlo.

As I'm sure you heard, the Tokyo subway can get very crowded. On some lines, they have Women Only subway cars during rush hour.

No one rocks the RAZR in Japan and I have yet to see one iPhone. What everyone has is a white cell phone. From what I can tell, it's a standard flip-phone except it's longer by about an inch and a half.

The iDear is a very small wooden speaker that attaches to your phone or iPod. Photos were not permitted in the store; I grabbed this image off a Korean website.

This is both sides of a hallway in a huge Fuji camera store in Roppongi (Tokyo). At the end of the hallway was a small museum dedicated to the history of photography and Fuji cameras.