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March 3rd in Japan is a holiday called Hinamatsuri or Dolls Festival. It’s a holiday where families erect displays in their home for with traditional Japanese dolls reflecting the Imperial court. The dolls an be very pricey and are passed along within the family from mother to daughter often augmenting the collection along the way with more or nicer dolls.
I remember having one of these displays in the house that belonged to my sister. But what do you do if your little girl is more into lightsabers and spaceships than fancy dresses and princesses? (other than receive constant high gives for having the coolest daughter ever)

Well I found a shop in Nihonbashi that has you covered. Cool dolls here from an entirely different Imperial court there are Vaders and troopers with full Samurai armor and what I am sure are laser sword Katana.

But get it fast cause at $4,000 for a 1 meter high Sith Lord Doll I’m sure they will sell out fast!

Still scheduled to be completed this year, the renovation work on the Marunouchi side of Tokyo Station is still under way. The new domes over the North and South entrances can now be seen popping up from the scaffolding surrounding the building.

For as long as I have known it, Tokyo Station has been an underground building. The Marunouchi side was a quick post war knock off of the original building and has for all intents and purpose been a condemned building for years. This new renovation is supposed to return the building to its pre war original state. I’m dreaming of a new, but classic design that will add visibility and access to the tracks and bring ye station out of its underground cocoon. Tokyo needs a signature station like Grand Central in New York or Moscow subway station. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to see this landmark rise again in a few months.

Read more on Tokyo station here. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tōkyō_Station

On a walk this afternoon through the Akihabara area I found a neat little space. About three blocks north of Akiba station, hidden under the tracks is this gem. Last time I saw this area, it was a dark and kinda scary storage space. Actually I thought about using it as a backdrop for some photography projects. Now, it’s been cleaned up, painted and converted into a mini artspace.

There is a large open gallery, lots of small boutique shops typical hipster goods. Even a cafe with free wifi, power plugs and free to use iPads! With comiket in town, Akiba is even more packed than normal, but just a few hundred meters off the main drag this space is quiet and cool.

Not sure how long this will last, but if you need a quiet break near Akihabara, might be fun to check it out.

2k540 AKI-OKA ARTISAN
http://www.jrtk.jp/2k540/

One of the downsides to living near Akihabara is the last of good markets and shopping streets (商店街) that make daily shopping for household needs easy. I tend to head up to Okachimachi when I need to do that kind of shopping. But one concession is the Iwamotocho/Higashi Kanda Family Bazaar held every few months. For a few consecutive weekends, a backstreet I blocked off and local and gypsy stores can set up shop right on the street. Lots of clothes, shoes, cleaning products, used computers, etc. Basically a big flea market. Not your typical Akiba style event, you see mostly housewives looking for a bargain. Still it brings a fun family style atmosphere into a normally quiet industrial area. It’s set to run all weekend just south of the Kandagawa Izumi bridge near the Showa Dori exit of Akihabara station. Worth a stop if you are a garage sale/flea market fan.

About to slam into Okinawa at full strength, typhoon Songda (known in Japan as Typhoon #2), is on a direct course to hit Tokyo sometime tomorrow. By passing over southern Japan on the way, some of the strength should dissipate, and typhoons are notoriously difficult to predict, so it could be nothing much by the time it gets here, but either way we are expecting dark skies and lots of rain this weekend.
Been trough quite a few typhoons in Japan and they can get pretty scary. High winds have been known to blow cars and trucks around and they can turn the stone tiles used to shingle Japanese roofs into 5 pound projectiles. Typhoon season can go well into late fall, so it’s looking to be a dramatic start to what will surely be a very interesting summer.