For a month back in 2000, my wife and I lived four blocks away from where this store is opening. More than a year away from the launch of the iPod, Apple was still clawing its way back with candy-colored iBooks and iMacs. These were catching on a little with the Japanese as well and one of the stores in Akihabara had a whole floor dedicated to Apple products. Omotesando is a high-rent area full of premium shops (I was living there temporarily thanks to a gap in expat managers at the company I was working for) and that Apple can open a store there speaks to its gains in Japan in the last decade. If you had told me back then that they’d one day open a store four blocks away, well… well, I would have burned you at the stake for being a witch, is what I would have done. Because back in 2000 we believed only those with demonic powers could see the future.

Those were different times.