All Them Guitars in Tokyo!

This is as much as the man's vacation as it is mine. I got to chill out in Seoul and did some shopping. In Tokyo, I had better not even begin to shop because I would buy back whole shops. It's too dangerous. I'll come back to Tokyo on my own to shop and ship back things that can't go into my suitcase. On this trip, the man ought to be able to check out what he wants more than what I want. And he got it. I like guitars, but not as keen on them as he is. He can probably spend all day wandering about in these shops.

The man wanted to see if he meets a decent Ibanez dunno-what-model and maybe finally succumb to a custom-shop Fender. LOLOLOL No, no more PRS or Gibson. He doesn't feel anything for those guitars. Not in the sounds or the touch. He's more of a Fender and Suhr player. I'll stick to my trusty Tele. 

We went to Ishibashi at Shinjuku, and the indie guitar stores at Ochanomizu; the 'Guitar Street' is just two streets from the train station, including the not-so-small BigBoss. Of course we had to go pay homage to huge four-storey the Fender flagship store at Harajuku/Omotesando that opened in June 2023.

The Fender flagship store is GORGEOUS lah. The man spent so much time mulling over the Made in Japan pieces that I was almost tempted to just buy a tote bag and a bamboo cutting board in the shape of a Tele or a Strat, just to justify my time spent here. (Our own Swee Lee CQ carries the cutting boards and doesn't overprice them.)

The man was totally stoked. Since we didn't get to catch any gigs we wanted, this wandering in and out of music shops was really satisfying. He managed to find tuning pegs and other stuff at the accessories sections. As for the guitars, they would definitely be over the shopping limits set by our Customs. As a dutiful Singaporean, I had to sternly remind him to declare and pay GST before we get home.