Tokyo Post #3: Ginza St.

A dear friend of mine, while giving me directions on how to spend time in Tokyo, said, Ginza is Tokyo's Park Avenue - only a much more evolved version of it. So I had high expectations of this epicenter of fashionista hipster joyful shopping fiends (yes!). And I wasn't disappointed. Where else can one find a) three huge depatos (department stores) or Haughty Happy Triplets (as I call them) - Matsuya, Matsuzakaya and Mitsukoshi - each with its own impeccable environs, merchandising, charms and attractions. All the stores have enormous numbers of staff - suited and subtly uniformed (I suspect). All are trained to perfection in making the customer feel like an honored guest. They do not show their backs at all, to the extent that I noticed one person backing her way out into an employee exit in a particularly busy section, and bowing as she went. A bit much, perhaps? I don't think so. Compared to these, the treatment that a customer gets at Nordstrom is kind of erratic, even somewhat dismissive...! And then there are shop-within-shops alongside several full-size stores for Prada, Bulgari, Longchamps, Hermes, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, Lanvin...the list is endless.

What is amazing is that the stores are full, absolutely crammed full. Of people buying stuff. On a stormy wet typhoon-beset Saturday evening. Perhaps much more so than ever in Manhattan, San Francisco or Beverly Hills. It is perhaps one of the surest signs of the ongoing democratization of luxury...or the prevalence of a globally extended consuming class.

But again, there's also this - a slow-walking, softly-chanting monk threading his way through the mass of fashionably-clad shoppers...how about that?!