Shopping in Japan - Nakano Broadway

While in Tokyo in March I visited a shop recommended by one of my wife's cousins that I had not been to before.  As the title of this post suggest, it is in Nakano just a few blocks north of the station on the JR Chuo line.

The building is several floors of many shops featuring all kinds of things.  The floors are connected by escalators and I had the feeling that this building may have at one time been a large department store.  The shop I was interested in was identified by it's railway crossing colors on the front.

I had been looking for the Kato HB-E300 Buna set but it was out of stock here as it had been in all the other shops I checked on this trip.  But, I did find something that I had been looking for since my wife and I rode this train in 2017.  With the great exchange rate right now I am really happy with this purchase.  Lots of the items in this shop are resale but the operator of the shop was very good about letting me inspect the models carefully and test everything on the test track in the shop.  This will be running on the AsiaNrail layout setup next week.

Adding to my Tokyo taxi fleet

While in Hong Kong, I spotted a tiny shop at the Kowloon Star Ferry Terminal called 80M Bus Model Shop.  They had all kinds of bus and vehicle models in several scales.  I picked out a couple of 1:160 Hong Kong taxi cabs.  The cabs in Hong Kong are basically the same model cars that are used in Tokyo so I thought they would make be a good stand in.

The 80M Bus Model Shop has several locations around Hong Kong and this English web site.

Having seen this new TomyTec set out on ebay before we left on this trip, I thought I would look for it while in Tokyo and found it at TamTam in Akiharaba.

I had always thought that Tomytec would come out with a big set of taxis the way they have with other vehicles but so far just these small sets.  This new set like the one before it, has two Crown models and two Prius models.  I hope they do the green one next.

At another Akihabara hobby shop I was also able to find this set of Showa era taxis that I was looking for to use on the Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module.

I took these first three photos while packing to come home.  Our luggage situation was such that I had to take all of these out of their packages to consolidate things.

The 80M Bus model actually a tiny bit larger than the TomyTec model. This would not be noticeable unless they are side by side.   It also has rear view mirrors and a bit more painted detail. Overall it's a very nice model.

The layouts at the new Kato Store

One of the things that makes the Kato shop different is it's operating N and HO scale layouts.  What better way to promote your products than to show them set up and operating.

This view is of the largest N scale layout.

That's a lot of Unitrak !
It would have been great if they had a lot of trains running on this layout but when I was there they only had a couple of trains running.

As most of my photos of moving train models tend to come out blurry, I chose to photograph some of the many detailed scenes on the layouts.

Modeling a station scene in Tokyo, you need taxi cab models and lots of people.

In the upstairs part of the store, there were several smaller layouts and displays along with enough room that they could host club setups of modular layouts.  I have no idea if they actually do that.

One thing that caught my eye was this display of a section of clear acrylic pipe with a platform inside wide enough for a double track section of Unitrak - for a Subway ?

While not all of the buildings on the layout are weathered or detailed, this small group of older style buildings were very well done.  Are those solar panels on the roofs ?



The Kato Hobby Center is certainly a great place to visit when in Tokyo.  In my previous post, I show a map of how to get there from the nearest subway station.  Here is another link to a great collection of photos done by John Sing in 2008 of  the old store and also has photo directions on how to get there from the subway station.

Shopping at the new Kato Store

My first visit to the Kato Hobby Center in the Shinjuku ward of Tokyo was in 1999.  I went again in 2005 and both those times I took the Sebu-Shinjuku line from Shinjuku as I was not yet comfortable with the subway system.  This required a bit of walking up hill from Araiyakushimae Station.  The past couple of trips I used my shopping time to explore some the the hobby shops in other parts of town such as in Akihabara.  On this trip I was aware that the shop had been complety rebuilt since the last time I have visited and was better than ever.  Also I needed to find a replacement for a broken coupler on one of my Japanese Shinkansen trains so this was high on my list.  By now being more comfortable with the subway system, I took the subway this time only needing one transfer.

This map shows my route from the Toei Araiyakushimae station to the Kato Hobby Center.

It's a short walk on level ground from exit A1 of the station to the Kato store.

This is the view approaching the shop from the subway station.

This was an entirely new building since the last time I had been here.  Only the railcar in front is the same.

As I was looking for a replacement for a broken coupler on my N700A power car I was drawn to the parts aisle.  In the old shop, much of these parts were behind the counter but it seems it's all self service now.

And I was not disappointed.  I found the part in this aisle, picked up two packs of each type of coupler for this train so I would have some spares.

As these seem to be positioned in the aisle by part number, it's helped that I had the part numbers for what I wanted written down.

Besides having Kato products, this is a full line hobby shop.   It's quite spacious inside with wide aisles.

As they did with the old shop, there are also operating N scale and HO scale layouts.  I will show something of that in my next post.

Tokyo Train Shopping

In my past trips to Tokyo, I had always visited the Kato Hobby Center near Shinjuku and Tenshodo in Ginza.  This time I wanted to visit some different shops and thanks to information posted on some of the blogs I follow and by members of the Yahoo Groups JR Forum, I was able to find some good shops.  Most were within walking distance of the Akihabara JR Station with one being close to Tokyo Station.  In addition, our friend Tamami took us to a shop in Naka Megruo but that turned out to be an all HO shop.

This is part my haul from visiting about 8 hobby shops.  Most of these items are also available on ebay but I thought I did well on price and of course no shipping charges.  In addition to the items I bought, Tamami gave me several other items so I brought home a good load.

Normally I will purchase a model set of a train we rode on the trip.  This time it was the Kato 7 car set of the E257 Azusa / Kaiji which we had ridden early in this trip.  These were available at most of the shops that I visited but found the best price by far at Hobbyland near Tokyo Station.  This shop only had sets, engines, and cars and no buildings or scenery items.  I got this for 10,500 yen while all of the other places I visited it was 12,000 to 14,800 yen so I was quite happy with this particular purchase.

This is the Hobbyland store near Tokyo Station where I bought my Kato Azusa / Kaiji set.  This photo I pasted from Google Street View which Nona and I find very helpful in finding places in Tokyo.

Here is where to find Hobbyland in relation to Tokyo Station.  It's quite close and is a quick walk if you know right where it's at and don't have to walk around looking for it.

I'd seen the Aoshima parking garage kit on ebay and noticed that they were in most of the hobby shops I visited.  I was impressed with how large these kits are.   Compare here to the stack of Green Max building boxes.