When I was in Tokyo I visited the Tokyu Hands store in Shinjuku. It\’s a 7-story department store that carries a huge variety of goods. I was amazed at the obscurity of a lot of the stuff they have.

On the 1st floor they have umbrellas, nothing weird there. But behind the umbrellas there was an entire section of shelves dedicated to umbrella replacement parts. Need an umbrella handle? They had about 2 dozen handles in wood, plastic, metal. There were probably 30 different replacement tips for umbrella ribs.

Upstairs I found a shelf with 6 different watch winders. When\’s the last time you saw a watch winder in Wal-Mart? Then there was a display of 10 tabletop planetariums, neatly displayed in a shelf hung with a black curtain. Do enough people buy tabletop planetariums that they can carry 10 different models?

Near the top floor I found the barometer department. An entire department dedicated to barometers! And there were people browsing them! The aisle was crowded with two guys intently studying the barometers, comparing, I dunno, mercury versus aneroid models. I wouldn\’t know where the hell to buy a barometer in LA. Home Depot? Radio Shack?

I also stumbled upon the tissue box cover department. Yes, a department entirely for boxes decorated with little dioramas to make your tissue box look that little bit prettier.

Anyway, I could\’ve spent hours in that store. We\’ll never see anything like that in the States. This site has some good pictures of Tokyu Hands.