Sony Showroom

After a morning of zen greenery, I headed to Ginza, one of the posher districts in town and filled with department stores and luxury brands a la Fifth Avenue. Forget Dior and Prada though, I headed straight for the Sony building, where their showroom is open for public browsing. The first room featured a joint display with Lego of World Heritage Foundation sites. I am not sure what this has to do with electronics (the signs were mostly in Japanese), but it was still pretty cool.

Maybe this is a model of the Imperial Palace. I wouldn't know, since I didn't get close enough to see it. :(

A close-up of one of the building entrances

Here we have the Colosseum in Lego form.

Upstairs, in the midst of a display of PSP games sits an Egyptian pharaoh. One floor was dedicated to duty-free and foreign model items. The signs suggested that we should be thinking about buying Christmas presents. To the Japanese: capitalism much?

Lots of computers were on display, and stations were set up where people could customize their machines and cases.

For the audiophiles, listening booths were set up so that you could try out headphones.

I was most fascinated with the digital camera section though. The globe above was there to demonstrate a new 3-d technology in cameras. The new DSC-WX1 low light camera featured in the NYT was also on sale (for ¥34,800). And as I strolled from room to room, shutter noises would periodically sound and my face would be plastered in high-definition on a monitor. The ones that used smile detection would zoom in and focus on your face, and as soon as your mouth upturned, snap a photo. I purposely tried frowning and the camera resolutely did not photograph me. I imagine they wouldn't be using these cameras in prisons.

Finally, here is the RollY, an mp3 player/entertainment system/dancing robot. I know, how much had they been smoking??