GO Shopping

I've taken up playing Go as a hobby over that last few months. After all that time, we still don't have a home set to play with. I've always been fascinated with the big thick go boards and the traditional slate and shell stones since I saw a set in the Japan exhibit in the 1974 World's Fair. I figured that since we're living in Japan, this was the opportunity to find such a thing. I've been researching on line and found that the truly traditional go board like I'd seen in the World's fair can cost on the order of $15,000 or more. Mainly because it is made from a huge block of a rare old growth tree called Kaya. They do make cheaper versions out of more easily harvested (and renewable) trees that look and act almost identical to Kaya such as Katsura or Shin-Kaya (which is actually spruce). I'd found a set on line that was 120,000 Yen ($1,100). I hadn't seen one in person yet, so I figured I needed to go look at some of these sets in person to see what they look and feel like before paying that kind of money.

I'd looked around in bazaars and furniture stores, but I never saw Go stuff. I eventually asked one of my Go teachers, Mori-san, who lives up in Tokyo about where to go look at Go equipment. He was very generous and offered to meet me outside the Tokyo station and we'd go look at a few places. So, yesterday I headed out to Tokyo on this adventure.

I actually met up with him without too much problem. He'd sent me a map in Japanese which was some help, but I ended up talking with a guard in one of the buildings in the area and asked him where the building was that I was looking for on the map. He spoke no English, but with my very basic Japanese and a bit of showing and pointing, we figured out that I was just one building over. That was good. It was truly possible that I was on the wrong side of the Tokyo train station which is probably close to a kilometer wide.

We headed down into the Tokyo subways headed for a Go shop that had been in business since 1866. We were going from the Tokyo station to Edogawabashi. Can you find it on the map? Can you figure out how to get there? I'm not sure how we did it, I just followed Mori-san and even he stopped to ask directions a couple times. We talked about the web site that I'd looked at with the set for 120,000 yen. He said that it was most likely from China and one issue is the shipping which might add another $300 to the price.

We eventually found the shop which was a block and a half from the Edogawabashi subway station. It was a very nice little shop with some fascinating Go gear. We looked through the Go boards in the display. If you look behind me in the picture, you'll see most are 300,000 yen ($2800) or higher. There is even one that is 740,000 ($7000). In the case in front of me, there was one that was 1,330,000 yen (around $12,000). It was pretty nice. I really didn't think I'd see anything at my price in this little, high class, store. But Mori-san showed them the page from the web site, told them what I was looking for, and they went to the back of the shop and brought out a big 17.5 cm thick Shin-Kaya board like I'd been looking at on line. They pulled out some slate and shell stones and some really nice bowls and they said that they would compete with the on-line price and even throw in free delivery (I was wondering how you'd carry a 60lb block of wood on the subway...). I was shocked. I was unprepared. I was just going to look at stuff, I wasn't prepared to buy anything. It was a great deal, though, so I agreed.

It was a good enough deal that they didn't want to do a credit card and most Japanese deals are made in cash anyway. They asked about personal money transfers and cash withdrawals, but I wasn't set up to do any of that. We eventually agreed that I'd come back with the cash on Monday or Tuesday. The bowls that were the right size were on back order, so it was going to be a week or more before they could deliver it.

So, in the next day or so, I get to navigate through the subways of Tokyo by myself, find the store, give them the money, and hopefully arrange a day and time for delivery. They don't speak much English and my Japanese is very limited, so it is easier to figure that out with a calendar that you are both looking at rather than over the phone.

We'll see how that goes.