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Since I’m in front of my laptop and packing is proving to be more daunting than I expected (there’ll be a post on that later), I decided to take a break and gather my thoughts on the whole trip.

Fourteen days on the road. Five in Singapore and nine in Tokyo.

Singapore was interesting for all of the reasons I didn’t expect it to be. The food was great, the hospitality endless and… well… it’s pretty Americanized, so it didn’t really feel like visiting another country. It was like a really hot/humid trip to the Asian neighbourhoods of Vancouver. That may be generalizing it a bit, but it definitely wasn’t what I expected.

The meetings in Singapore went well and if the Singapore office has its way, it won’t be my last trip to the little island that could.

Tokyo - OH TOKYO! For the past 10 years, I’ve been trying to get to Tokyo. The Tokyo Game Show or for the KOG BMX flatland contests would have both been great excuses to travel to the land of the rising sun. After years of effort, I managed to wrangle myself a trip, and a reasonably long one at that.

Tokyo is an endlessly facinating city, and once you figure out the subway, it’s reasonably easy to get around as well.

The city itself is any media geeks wonderland. Video game/DVD shops are all over the place, and when you get to the Akihabara, it’s not unusual to have a floor dedicated to an entire console or genre of movies. As a gamer, the trip was especially hard. So many great games that will likely never get an English release are just begging me to pick them up. Tons of wonderful RPGs, strategy games and crazy rhythm games. Plus, a surprising amount of indy PC titles, and not just the ‘adults only’ variety.

The good news is that I know that the big players will be released in North America - the Pokemon’s, Final Fantasy’s and occasional puzzle game. The new Pokemon on DS looks great - trading Pokemon over wi-fi and VOIP to help you haggle. Until I learn to read Japanese (which is moving up on the priority list), I need to have patience and realize that there are many games that I’ll simply never play.

The contrast to this is the surprising lack of western titles on the Japanese shelves. Many shops import titles, but translated versions are few and far between. For every RPG that we miss out on, there are some great FPS’s and action games that the Japanese will never play in their native language. I know that Japanese localisation is tough, but with the emerging Chinese market, it’s time for more publishers to prepare for Japan, Korea and China from the start and go for a simulaneous release.

The technology highlight for me was definitely the phones. I’ve got an N71 - it’s a great phone. (it’s no N95 - google N95… it’s HOT!) My N71 pales in comparison to the phones that every single person on the subway was using. Their screens were huge and bright, the design was clean and bold and the functionality was deep. Because of consumer culture and carrier subsidies, the Japanese get phones that would simply be too expensive to release in the west. There were definitely a few other cool gadgets, but between Apple and the Korean onslaught from LG/Samsung, it’s painfully obvious that Japan is no longer the solitary leader in the electronics world.

The arcades were great and ate my 100 Yen pieces up left right and center. Despite a few different attempts, I never did get the hang of the CCG/Arcade Game mash-ups, but playing the latest fighting and shooting games was great.

The rest of my change went into capsule machines aka: gotchapan! They have machines for almost everything and even a few stores dedicated to capsule machines (and stores upstairs where you can buy what you need to round out your collection). This also made souvenir and gift shopping easy. With something for just about everyone, it means that just about everyone is going to get something random from Japan. I even bought a few gotchapan toys for myself.

Toys - oh the toys of Tokyo. Between Kiddie Land in Harajuku, the Nakano Broadway mall and the insanity of Akihabara, I saw so many crazy toys it blew my mind. I even managed to pick up a few (hence the problems packing).

I can honestly say that this trip would have been 10 times more expensive if I was a big Gundam fan. EVERY single model shop had a ton of Gundam models. Many stores only stocked Gundam models. There must be a lot of Japanese people who do nothing all day but build Gundam in order to support the Gundam industry. There are some serious Gundam models too - I saw a few in the $2000.00 range.

On the ‘if I had all the money in the world’ tip, there was a first gen Optimus Prime in the box for a little over $500.00, some great classic Robototech toys, 2 foot tall Shogun Warriors and a ton of RC goodies that would suck the money out of my wallet. I almost cashed out for a $200.00 yo-yo, but managed to resist.

I did pick up a few super posable Evangelion figures that are infinitely cool. I only found a couple of stores with Machinen Krieger - hard to find even in Japan, so I grabbed pretty much everything I could find under $100. Micronaughts, Zoids and random lego type toys took up the rest of my money (and space).

The coolest toy that I picked up was a $25 remote control plane. Similar to the little pocket cars, you park the plane on the controller to charge the battery and then you let it go. There’s a huge atrium at work that I think will see a few plane crashes over the next few weeks. Once I master the little thing, I’ll be YouTubing my flights.

Fashion in Tokyo is simply off the hook. And, like the video games, is just as much punishment as joy. Generally speaking, most stores only stock up to size 11 shoes. I’m a 12. Jeans were simply out of the question - it wasn’t even funny. There were a lot of great t-shirts, but sizing was tough and prices were even tougher to swallow. Despite my best efforts, the clothing shopping ended in futility.

And then there’s the Tokyo Game Show. Wow - so many great games, especially on handheld. I spent more time looking at DS screens than anything else. Again, I just keep my fingers crossed that these games will make it over the pacific.

The PS3 was taking a lot of slack. A lot of people were complaining that the controls felt loose. It’s true, a lot of games felt laggy, but my guess is that it wasn’t the developer or the PS3, but rather HDTV lag. This is definitely something that all HDTV makers struggle with. Even TVs with a ‘Game Mode’ often have lag problems. At the end of the day, the PS3 trailers drew the biggest crowds, the playable demos drew the longest lines and after a disapponting showing at E3, Sony managed to redeem itself a bit at TGS.

Gaming culture is really interesting in Tokyo. DS games have been dominating the Japanese sales charts for almost a year, but when I rode the subway, the only DS’s to be seen were in the hands of westerners. The PSP is the obvious communting platform of choice. I talked to a few Japanese people about it and they all had the same answer - DS is for home. With so many of the best DS games requiring talking, tapping and a lot more movement than the average PSP game, I wonder if there is an embarrasment factor coming into play. Nobody on the subway wants to get a bad Brain-Age score.

Well, it’s time to finish packing, watch some Sumo, Anime or MMA on TV and crash out for the night. My one take away from this trip is that I’ll be back. And ideally when I come back, I’ll speak a bit more Japanese (surprisingly, being able to say ‘It’s a big truck’ and ‘I saw a sign’ don’t get you very far) and ideally be able to read a bit as well.

This has been a great trip and I’ve barely scratched the surface on one of the worlds most interesting cultures.