Akihabara is world-famous Electric Town among both Japanese and foreign travelers as the place to go shopping at hundreds of electric stores selling home electric products and digital appliances. Also, there are many duty-free shops where you can buy overseas standard products.

Recently, Akihabara has gained widespread recognition as the center of Japanese pop culture such as manga (comics), anime and cosplay (contraction of "costume" and "play").

Moreover, Akihabara Advanced Knowledge Field (4th floor of the UDX building, Akihabara Cross Field) links the ongoing life and industry with cutting edge technologies and know-how in the state-of-the-art showrooms that create a neo-futuristic lifestyle.

The attractions of Akihabara

Duty-free shops
Overseas spec electric appliances and electronic devices of top brands could be purchased. Multilingual staff are ready to attend foreign travelers. No communication problem, as over 20 languages are available in the area.

Akihabara UDX Building
IT-related public and private sectors are sending out the state-of-the-art hi-tech information to the rest of the world. You may meet a brand-new technology you have never seen at Advanced Knowledge Field. Also enjoy shopping at Tokyo Anime Center full of its original anime character goods.

Born in Akihabara
Oden can : Canned Japanese pot-au-feu is the new local specialty of Akihabara.
Maid cafés : The service staff dresses in elegant maid costume and treat the customers as their master. Now spreading over Asian countries such as Taiwan, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Singapore, etc.

The Tourism Industry Association of Japan is conducting the "New Discovery of Akihabara", a free English tour, every Saturday until January 19, 2008.

For more detail of the tour, please click here.

Illustration (c) Jun-ichi Nakamura 2006 All rights reserved.

For the list of accommodation in Tokyo, please click here.

For more information of Akihabara area, please click here.

Published 2007/08/15