I start the day with a trip to Akihabara, which is the place to be in Tokyo if you are after computers, games-consoles, phones or any other small electrical device, such as a detonator, however, I am not suggesting for one moment that the three shady-looking muslims blokes in the shop at the same time as me were after anything other than a soda-stream.
Akihabara is also home to Japanese pop phenomenon, girl-band AKB48. Forget the vomit-inducing clones that X-Factor force feed a catatonic audience every week, the Japanese (as usual) have taken it to whole new level, in the form of AKB48 who, at the last count, had 56 girls in the band – just imagine the bill for toilet roll on that tour!
The manager – who may or may not be called Fagin – has the band (only around 12 of them at any one time) performing several times a day in their very own sweatshop – sorry theatre, to the obvious delight of the huge crowds that are always queueing outside the auditorium.
The scary thing is that there is already a rival band (of 60-odd girls) ready to be unleashed.
The really frightening thing is that their is also a boy band on the way.
And the truly terrifying thing is that one day it will happen in London.
In the evening I inadvertently find myself in Tokyo's red-light district – I only had to take two trains, a bus and several wrong turns to inadvertently get there. Whilst admiring the faux-Englsih names of the various ladies of the night (Rabbit Bar, Bar Honey being amongst the more obvious), my attention was drawn to a sign featuring the obligatory scantily-clad Asian girl lounging over the lettering of the quite superbly named Bar Keith. Perhaps Keith was from Thailand.
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