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Yamaha Asian Beat Asia Grand Finals Yokohama 2009 Part 7: Guitar Conquering Day in Tokyo

Jan 22, 2010 Events, Gallery, News
Posted by admin

read older related posts here:

Part 1: Ohaiyo and First Taste of Japan
Part 2: Interesting Yokohama Bay
Part 3: InterContinental Yokohama Grand
Part 4: Rehearsal Day and the Retarded Bitch
Part 5: Competition Day
Part 6: The After-show Party

Good morning, this is a view from the hotel room at Yokohama Grand, we are going to check out in less than an hour’s time. The lads were still sound asleep while i sat beside the window savaging “final moments” of this breathtaking scene.

when will i see you again… i dont wanna go to the theme park, but wish to walk along the stretch of bridge, park and all the way back to yokohama pier where we paced along on the first day.

however, something more attractive, temtping has distrated me from the scene by now, cos Mr Ng has told us today he’s gonna bring us to the guitar market, ya, guitar market. in malaysia, you heard of pasar ikan (fish market), pasar tani (agricultural market or sort of), pasar malam (night market), pasar pagi (morning market), but in japan, it has guitar market (pasar gitar)…. isnt that so cool…

i was probably thinking 1 kg of guitar RM50, so 10 kg only RM100…

so, without hesitation, i woke up every one, and start packing and go straight to the LRT hotel restaurant for free breakfast…

Wind Rising did some stupid but funny stuff at the restaurant… but it’s not really nice to write here, if you wanna know what happened at the breakfast you can PM their respective facebooks.

after eating i have a little trouble, bcos i had to take 3 of them to the LRT station (about 25 minute walk from Yokohama Grand) and get the train to Ishikawacho meeting up with the rest of the gang. and i aint having  maps with me after reaching there.

finally we arrived at Ishikawacho station after riding the train for about 6 minutes only. although some japanese addresses are hard to remember, but this one is easy, you see, Ishikawacho, the word if translated into hokkien is （她是跟我做）, it means… haha… u know what i mean…

so, we got down from the train station, but, got lost in the neighourhood… which road leads to the A Silk Tree Hotel?… so i took them for a mini tour… above is the mini post office.

with bright sunlight, but cool weather. this is a small lane full of restaurants but very quiet. you can see lots, i mean LOTS of beverage vendor machines all along japanese roads, main road, small road, sub road, or no road, lots of them. above picture you can see one just outside the further building.

after some wrong turns taken, we finally met up with everyone, checked in extra rooms and kept our luggage well, its time to ROLL…. to Tokyo

many public places in japan are smoking prohibited, including open-air main roads. the above sign says “终日禁烟” which means when the day ends, you cant smoke, means day time can smoke lolzzz…

this way to tokyo, but before going to tokyo, you must go through the next station called “see breast”, see the signboard above? “看奶“, and before Ishikawacho station, its “Yamate”.. hmm.. that sounds familiar in many japanese-produced movie clips right?

even riding on the escalator is an experience in japan, it is divided into left lane (static lane), and right lane (express lane) where commuters walk or run up instead of waiting for the magic stairs to take you up.

after about 40 minutes of train ride, we finally were now very near to GUITAR MARKET..
thanks to Mr Ng, he had been here before so, we din have too much trouble in our treasure hunt.

soup anyone?

it was about 12.45pm when we arrived, you will be surprised, when it was later 8pm in the day we were still shopping for guitars and music gadgets…. why? read on…

all the shops there so tempting… in terms of u just ate your breakfast, walked out  and you already want to eat your lunch, and dinner, and supper.

no smoking on the road yeh…
so, to make full use of this rule, there were many restaurants which offer “in house” smoking, where you can dine and smoke inside… but since you cant smoke on the road, then where do all the smoke go if you smoke inside the restaurant???? wont it be sucked out to the open air as well??

CAUTION: WHOLE LOADS of GUITARZZZZ AHEAD…

this is the first shop (of many many many many…more) we stepped in.

aint it crazy? the shops there made “Bentley” in malaysia looks so average…

before i continue, i need to clarify a few things, my initial purpose of coming to the music market is to “have a look” and not buying anything, since nothing i was missing. so i just look here there, take pictures, try playing out a few guitars… and slowly, very gradually, the desire took over the logical mind…

you see? its like really stupid if you dont buy at least one guitar back home… cos they are much cheaper compared to malaysia, and the choices are countless, it was like if you can find thailand, china, indo, local chicks in alor star, well, in japan, you see united nations…

from shop to shop, and this corner shop, i was thinking of grabbing a few guitars and run away through the side lane… you see the word “Part-2″ on the sign board? this shop which has 3 floors of guitars has 5 branches, two located on the same street.

this is one odd-but-nice looking building located at the corner of one of the guitar streets…

this is Ming Zhi (translated) University, 明治大学，located in the middle of these busy streets.
it shud be a guitar university to make it a perfect match.

we must have at least walked through over 8 shops, saw hundreds if not thousand of guitars, and its time to be tokyo raiders…. tokyo food raiders to be precise.

well, surely i aint gonna eat here, this is for the memories… very attractive deco infact, you can see the fish from afar… as i also said in the first post about one month ago, almost every japanese restaurant has their menu displayed outside, only trouble is…. we dont read japanese.

so much for the restriction sign, this guy showing how cool he is by parking is bicycle EXACTLY in front of the ‘no bicycke parking” sign… and chained it to the metal railing beside the road, just outside some restaurants.

finally seeing one… this typical japanese toilet bowl was found in the restaurant we dined in, all the others we utilized was automatic ones…. this made me remember crayon shinchan…

after a 45minute, lunch, here we go again… next shops till i see what’s worth buying…
as we visit more shops, the accessories i bought increased. first, fancy guitar picks, knobs, and almost bought some never-seen-before japanese BOSS effects.

LARGEST Gibson collectino in Japan… although they are expensive, but still cheaper than you buy it in malaysia, how much fire insurance has this shop invested??

u see u see? these babies are testing my resistance, see how long i can refrain myself from taking out my wallet. p/s: these are all GENUINE USA Gibsons, not some Epiphones or china imitations…

ESP custom shop, you can order your guitar here, from pickups, to wood, neck profile, hardware…
lets see what’s inside…

wow…. it’s a…

…hot chick
i told her, hey, “i know you, you are the superstar on TV”
after taking photo, i overheard she told her friend “these guys thought i am an artiste.”
well, you certainly looked like one…

PRS custom, RM32000… want to buy ah??? i mean, can afford to buy ah?

Forest Brothers, guitar in guitar…. price: ASK

you can really see some weird weird de gutiar designs, some which i think will not help in playing at all but only for collection purposes. this shop cannot stay too long, must move on…

this is from another HUGE (5 floors) guitar store, which tai suan and chin sing eventually bought their new Italia guitars here. displaying on the front panel are three awesome out of this wolrd ESP custom guitars. i not quite like this one, the next two are better. the above shown is like a normal guitar body kena acid and the body started deforming…

this one looks nicer and the deformed ESP… but not practical too because you will have trouble playing it for long period if you notice there is no arm rest, you have to rest your picking arm on the arrows… not ergonomic design, but if the guitar is priced at RM500, i will consider buying it, sadly, it was over RM20000.

now this is the best among the three on display, i will definitely buy it if the price was about RM4000, sadly…. it is a not-for-sale item and priced over RM40,000… siao eh, buy a car better la…

can somebody teach me how to stop myself from about-to-buy a guitar at that time?

so, it was over 7 hours we walking all music shops, and the sky was already dark, my feet were very very pain, as i only wear very thin RM18 sports shoe. Chin Sing Jr has stopped walking as he could not bare the pain and exausted. so, i sat down and started thinking which guitar to buy after over thousands of them flashed before my eyes…

i have narrowed my options down to three:

(1)
Fender aerodyne, which i craved for two years back, kaevin eventually bought it years ago after i suggested, the guitar is thin, neck profile suited me well, nice white colour lining surrounding the body, with matching head stock colour. but Suan said, what the heck, buy la something different which is not common back in malaysia…

kaevin’s aerodyne

(2)
Edwards Guitars, weird shape designed guitar, i think the look is more appealing than the playability of the guitar itself, i think i din really click with it.

now u see why i no like, if u look carefully, it looks like a black cat stretching out his front legs, with his ass up behind farting…

(3)
Burny Hide Signature, this is the likelier guitar that i might part my money with (in this case, part with my credit card credit limit)

after some running here there to a few shops, finally put my misery of dilemma to rest by buying the Hide guitar.

wow! she’s a beauty, i made the right choice. MG145 S, costing RM4,900

job done!!

wow, by this time, i was really thirsty, luckily in japan, the drink vendor machines follow you every where

and as you noticed, the sky already dark, and time for dinner.

now this is really called Pasar Malam Gitar (Guitar Night Market), sky dark liao still no want keep and left at road side, i wish i had a lorry in tokyo, and take all of them away while the shop owner inside having dinner…

well, eventually, we (Chin Sing Sr, Haris and Me) all went back to the same restaurant where we dined for lunch, reason is simple, it serves Chinese food!!! more local (malaysian) taste =  more acceptable

outside the restaurant got photoshop, yeah, auto photo shop, not that software, the chinese wordings “证明写真” means prove to me you take sexy photos. LOL!!
but in japanese is ID photo machine

i got a little drunk after dinner, though no alcohol consumed.

you must see these beautiful beautiful night scenes!

if only S90 and its owner were here…

why time passed so the fast…. 2 days to go and everything back to normal…

kaevin also wants to be with Hide…

ok, its about time to head home (Hotel A Silk Tree), lets look at the LRT map…

certainly we are not going to “My Grandson’s Place”, or “Take Hand”

and not going to “Tai Suan” becos it’s a dead end…

here comes the train

let’s hop on to the train, but if you wanna stop it, just press the “VERY STOP” button.

we still have some time after arriving at Ishikawacho, bought some sweets, junks, ice cream, and tai suan bought a rare souvenir in book form for metal sow.

ok, gotta leave right now, below are the colourful packaging sweeties keavin bought for his girl friendsss.