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Mar 09 2015 14 Comments

Eccentric Tokyo salesman

The purchase of sensible work shoes is never pleasant, but the pain can at least be partially eased when the seller is a fella who wouldn’t know sensible if it sidled up to him and said hello.

Tokyo eccentric

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Matt Talbot says

    3/9/2015 at 9:04 am

    Well, you can’t say he didn’t see you coming.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/9/2015 at 10:53 am

      Haha, that’s very, very true!

      Reply
  2. Once An Expat says

    3/9/2015 at 5:02 pm

    Smart man; he’s won 2/3rds of the battle in making a sale-getting the customer’s attention.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/9/2015 at 8:01 pm

      He has that. His is certainly a shop that you won’t forget.

      Reply
  3. Al says

    3/9/2015 at 6:49 pm

    Fun shot! He’s quite a character!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/9/2015 at 8:03 pm

      He is. Seen him loads of times, and he has loads of different guises. Definitely not a man who likes to look the same every day.

      Reply
  4. john says

    3/9/2015 at 10:22 pm

    and was he wearing sensible shoes? .. or platforms

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/9/2015 at 10:34 pm

      You know what, I don’t recall at all, which leads me to suspect they were sadly sensible in the extreme.

      Reply
  5. Hans ter Horst says

    3/11/2015 at 12:32 am

    Love the fact how he looks rather grumpy underneath the fancy ‘hat’ and oversized glasses. I see doubt in his face, I’m sure that he is thinking of taking the weirdness to the next level; I’d keep an eye on him 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/11/2015 at 1:02 pm

      That wouldn’t surprise me!

      Funny you should notice his grumpiness. Seen him be very brusque with people trying to take his photo. I definitely got lucky.

      Reply
  6. Gerald says

    3/13/2015 at 8:13 pm

    Marketing genius. Talk less to get attention. Does he sell ‘guise’ gear as well?

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/13/2015 at 9:05 pm

      Unfortunately not. Just shoes. Seems he keeps all the good stuff for himself.

      Reply
  7. Anne says

    3/16/2015 at 2:58 am

    Was this taken by Nakamise-dori? I may have seen this man during hatsumode but he had on the black version of those huge specs. Kids were crowding around him and were taking photos. I wanted to talk to him but the pushing and shoving was too much and I had to get out of there.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      3/16/2015 at 6:38 am

      Yeah, that’s the fella.

      That’s funny. Must have been a real treat for the kids. Perhaps not so much for him!

      Reply

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