Join White Rabbit Press for our insider’s tour of Akihabara!

If you have one hour free on Sunday 14th March 2010 why not come along to Akihabara for a behind-the-scenes exploration of the area’s must see spots?!

Here at White Rabbit Press we’re looking for people who’d be interested in taking our new mp3 audio walking tour of the area, and telling us what they think of it.

To thank you for your time you’ll receive a free copy of the tour (which comes with a photo booklet and map), and a big smile.

The tour is narrated by Patrick Galbraith (editor of ‘The Otaku Encyclopedia’) – he’ll be joined along the route by a team of expert commentators who’ll all help paint a complete picture of the area.

We’ve mixed the narration, directions and commentary with sound effects and music, making it into a unforgettable augmented reality experience.

At the end of the 57-minute tour we’d like to ask you a few questions about what you thought of it, that we can then use in a short video for YouTube.

If you’d like to take part, simply contact us via our support site or comment on this blog post and we’ll send you a special download link and further instructions – you’ll need to copy that mp3 to your iPod / any other mp3 player before showing up on Sunday.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

A couple things have changed in the neighborhood which have a minor affect on the tour. Until we are able to update the audio contents, please be aware of the following:

1. Sky Heart has closed. Sky Heart was an imaginative, airline-themed, adult entertainment business which the tour discusses briefly. It’s located on the Kabukicho tour map at Map Marker #3. Please stop when the narrator says stop, but you will no longer be able to see the sign for Sky Heart at this location.

2. Host Club Casanova has changed it’s name. Located on the tour at Map Marker #11, this host club still exists, but the name is now Aida Honten, now written in kanji above the door. The tour audio says to look for the pink neon sign which says Casanova, but this sign is no longer there. Just stop half-a-block before you get to the Lawson convenience store, and you’ll find the club on your left.

Please let us know if you find any more changes in the neighborhood which affect the tour experience!

Tokyo’s red alert

The authorities are cleaning up Tokyo’s red light district for the city’s 2016 Olympic bid. But a new audio tour seeks to dispel stereotypes about the area

• Justin McCurry
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 January 2009 11.27 GMT

As I recently reported, Tokyo’s authorities have stepped up their campaign to turn Japan’s biggest red-light district, Kabukicho, into somewhere visitors can take the children without corrupting them for good. With Japan eager to host the 2016 Olympics and the city’s governor keen to clean away sleaze and crime, the ramshackle collection of ageing buildings housing bars and clubs catering to every sexual proclivity is in the authorities’ firing line.

But Kabukicho is an asault on the senses that no visitor to Tokyo should miss and, thankfully, for older tourists curious about the underbelly of one of the world’s major cities, the big clean-up is encountering fierce resistance from the locals.

To help visitors find their way around the maze of narrow streets occupying a tiny, but expensive, chunk of prime Tokyo real estate, Max Hodges, the American expat founder of White Rabbit Press, spent more than a year trawling every inch of Kabukicho to produce an audio package he describes as “a museum guide, only outdoors”.

“Kabukicho’s one of the most fascinating parts of Tokyo,” Hodges says on the website. “It has an interesting history and the most diverse kinds of places, and there are a lot of real characters in the area. You see a lot of hysterical stuff here … It’s almost a carnival-like atmosphere.” Read the rest of this entry »