Hard-Offs and recycle stores: 12/09/07

As the title of the post suggests, there are 2 hardoffs in Kawasaki (actually, there are more but they are to the North of the Kawasaki region and on another train line.
There is the small Kawasaki Daishi Hardoff and the larger main Kawasaki Hardoff, on higway 1 (click on the these names to go to the official Japanese page).

First, I'll give you some info on the big Kawsaki Hardoff:

This is the map, from the Japanese site:

The station on the bottom right is Kawasaki Station.

It's quite a long way to the hardoff from here.
The trouble with a lot of hardoffs is that they are primarily located next to busy roads -the majority of their customers being car owners. To walk from train stations sometimes involves treks of over 2km. This is why I always bring along my folding bike (the super awesome attacker).
This hard off is a combination of a HardOff, a Bookoff, a Hobbyoff and an Offhouse (that was 'off', not 'out'). You can find household goods, clothes, sporting goods, hardware and electrical appliances here on the second floor. On the first floor is a car park and a small but well stocked Hobbyoff. There you can find model planes, toy figures and all sorts of collectible stuff.

The store itself is quite large, although recently it hasn't been as cheap as it was in the past.

The store is good for Sports clothes, skis and snowboards, baby stuff and large speakers.
Their junk section is not bad but not great, either.
You can find the occasional bargain.
I picked up a nice little refracting telescope for 750yen. Bargain.
Their camping section is a lot smaller than it was. I think the focus has switched from outdoors to winter sports (this being Winter).
I think that perhaps some people will sell their outdoor goods soon, as they do not want them in winter.
This is the main HardOff section:

Similar to most HardOffs, they display the main expensive electrical appliances at the front of the store. The junk section is usually to be found at the back.

The HouseOff is in the the same floor and to the right side. Equipment, clothing etc are arranged in long ailses. Here's a pic of the tennis raquets and golfing equipment:

You can see the guitars of the HardOff section at the far end.

Here is a photo of the Bookoff section.

This shot shows the computer and video games. They have everything from Playstation 3 to Familycom and the awesome dreamcast games. It's best to shop around the different places to get a feel of what are good prices for different formats but I don't usually pay more than 295yen for a dreamcast game. The cheapest games are to be found in the junk section of the HardOff.

The location is smack bang on Highway 1 (North of Kawasaki Station and close to the Tamagawa river). It's over 2.5km from Kawasaki Station.
Here's a google earth snapshot of the location:

To make your own map, just google search this address(use your mouse and leftclick and drag over the address, then right click and copy and paste it into a google search), then click on maps and you can zoom in and move around as you wish:

神奈川県川崎市幸区小向町5-1

That's the main HardOff in Kawasaki.
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The Kawasaki Daishi hardoff is very small and also a long way from any station.
It's not really worth a special trip jsut to this store. However, Kawasaki has lots of other recycle stores so, if you have time, you may make an afternoon or a day of it and visit recycle stores in the double figures. Also, the Kawasaki Costco is not far from here.

Here's the map from the Japanese site:

This one is small. They've recently rearranged everything inside.
They created a patitioned off adult DVD corner, thus decreasing the available space for everything else. Not a great HardOff.