NISHI-OGIKUBO WITH ROS

NISHI-OGIKUBO WITH ROS

Monday, 10 March 2014

There are some interesting towns along Chuo-Line but I have never really been so familiar with this area, the west side of Tokyo. Last week for the very first time in my life I finally got to set my feet on Nishi-Ogikubo a fun little town with many lovely and unique small shops for zakka and antiques. There still are so many great places I haven't been to in Tokyo although I am from here. Ros showed me some of her favourite spots in Nishi-ogikubo, like when she showed me Yanaka Ros always introduces me to a new and exciting parts of my hometown Tokyo. Ros has a very deep understanding and excellent appreciation for the Japanese culture both modern and traditional and how she sees Tokyo and Japan is always very interesting and inspiring to me. Many people think she is Japanese but she's from Singapore who manipulates Japanese and Mandarin (and Cantonese too?) on the equally high business level to her native English. Such an amazing person!

Ros is also a great fan of Kokeshi, a Japanese folk art wooden doll, and she took me to this really cute cafe called Nishiogi Itochi Tea & Kokeshi seen in the photos above. It was a perfect spot to end our Nishi-ogi rendez-vous! Pop over to Ros's blog to see great shots and read about this place.


And here are addresses for some shops we went:

ていねいに。Teineini - cafe
1-18-1 Nishiogi-minami Suginami-ku

FALL - gallery & zakka
3-18-10 Nishiogi-Kita Suginami-ku

Poefu - selected women's clothing
3-2-3 Nishiogi-Kita Suginami-ku


There are many more to check out, Mogu-chan gave me some of her favorites too so I really need to go back again hopefully soon!

Comments: 0

Nihonbashi

Nihonbashi

Wednesday, 26 February 2014

A couple of weeks ago I had a roll of film developed finally after so long. I think it was October last year when I loaded that film, or so I thought. Negatives came out all blank and there was nothing there. There was a lot of fun things happening in autumn, I met up with many lovely people I met through my blog and took pictures here and there. I was excited to be finally sharing them here but there is nothing.....

Oh well, I hope this will not happen again. Must be more careful.

The photo is from a lovely little art supply store in Nihonbashi called Yubendo. Obviously it was closed on the day I went, I quite liked how it looked when the store is closed, looked as nice as when it's open.

p.s. Today I've been playing Priscilla Ahn's new album that has just been released, This is where we are, it's really nice and I love it. You can watch the videos on her website :)

Comments: 3

NEW SPACE

NEW SPACE

Wednesday, 17 April 2013

I don't think I have mentioned here yet that I moved my shop to a new space in the same building last month. I'm enjoying it.

I love having some great works designed/produced by some of the really wonderful creative bloggers I have met through my blog and been in touch with for a while such as: Renilde of at swim-two-birds (she makes the loveliest potholders and seat cushions!), Hanna Konola (I fell in love with her work when I went to see her exhibition in Tokyo in 2010, and I was lucky to have met the lovely Hanna and Jukka last year!), Mary Gaudin (one of my favourite photographers who lives in a beautiful city in South of France), and sweet Ros of Polkaros (talented zakka designer/artist based in Tokyo - she's been so amazingly supportive for my shop ever since I opened last November, such a kind and sweet person she really is!!) My Japanese customers enjoy seeing their works that are not so easily found elsewhere in Japan.

I also really enjoy meeting many people here in my shop coming from all over the world. To me it's a great complement when people come in and say "I read your blog!(!!)" (or when I have past customers from my online store), I feel so lucky and happy that people find my blog and find it enjoyable or some information from here is useful to them for their trips to Tokyo, AND how they take their time to come and visit my shop when most of them must have such limited time to spend in Tokyo (and I only open Fri-Sun.... I know some people can't make it because of this too)!!

I would really appreciate it if you could tell about my shop to your friends who are coming to Tokyo, if they enjoy visiting small shops that are not too famous or are not in any guide books (yet), or if they might enjoy seeing a unique and beautiful historical building that is rare to be seen in Tokyo. In my shop they can find selected Japanese paper goods, crafted items, stationery, masking tapes, kitchen linen, some jewelry and zakka made by local artists as well as lovely items by the above mentioned international artists that are not so easily found elsewhere.

There are some really interesting museums and galleries in the neighbourhood such as Mori Art Museum, 21_21 Design Site, The National Arts Center Tokyo (they have an amazing design store downstairs!), and some great design bookstores such as TSUTAYA Tokyo Roppongi,  Aoyama Book Center and BIBLIOPHILE at AXIS all in the walking distance. I will do an area guide post soon!

Hope you are enjoying the spring (or autumn)!!

UGUiSU the little shoppe
Room 7, 3-3-23 Azabudai Minato-ku 106-0041(location map or google map )
Open Hours: Friday & Saturday 12pm - 7pm / Sunday: 12pm - 5pm
Stations: Roppongi 1-chome (Namboku Line Exit 2), Azabu-juban (Ooedo Line Exit 6), Roppongi (Ooedo Line/Hibiya Line Exit 3)

Comments: 18

AFTERNOON IN YANAKA #2

AFTERNOON IN YANAKA #2

Monday, 15 April 2013

I said that Yanaka (or Yanesen) is full of beautiful traditional stores but there are also some really interesting shops and galleries run by young creatives. Seen in the first 4 photos is a new art house that had just opened when we went there called HAGISO (thanks to Ros for finding out about it!).

HAGISO used to be a shared apartment which had been loved by students of the neighbouring Tokyo Geidai (Tokyo University of the Arts) for a long time but this 57-year-old building was planned to be demolished to be a car parking space after the 3.11 earthquake from 2011.

Fortunately, the demolishing plan was replaced by a huge renovating project by some of the graduates of the Tokyo Geidai and the new life was put into the beloved HAGISO! Now it has a cafe and gallery space on the ground floor, and on the second floor houses an artist's atelier, hair salon and a design office. This is a really interesting space that is innovating and so modern yet mingling well with the local community in this lovely shitamachi atmosphere.

In the Yanesen area, you can also find some cute & pop retro shops including Biscuit Yanaka and Hitoyasumi Kichi Nanaco.
There are so many more shops I want to check out in this area so I really need to go back for a good exploring around Yanesen soon!!

HAGISO
3-10-25 Yanaka Taitou-ku 110-0001 (google map)

Comments: 12

AFTERNOON IN YANAKA #1

AFTERNOON IN YANAKA #1

Thursday, 11 April 2013

OH I AM SO IN LOVE WITH YANAKA!

Yanaka made me feel as if I were somewhere like Kanazawa, it didn't feel like Tokyo at all to me and that feeling was quite interesting. It has all the shitamachi (areas where we find old Tokyo*) feel everywhere, but still it felt so much different from other shitamachi areas that I have seen in Tokyo like Asakusa, Nihonbashi, Kanda etc. Not just because there are many traditional shops, but there is definitely something that is so unique about Yanaka, I don't know what it is I need to go back to get to know more about this lovely quaint neighbourhood. (I should probably say Yanesen area not just Yanaka, which stands for Yanaka, Nezu & Sendagi.)

I enjoyed strolling around every street around Yanesen Area with Ros and Kat, what a fun afternoon we had there!
There are so many traditional shops scattered around everywhere, 2 of my favourites seen in the above photos are Isetatsu - lovely washi chiyogami paper store since 1864, and Koishikawa Kintaro-ame - the. best. lolly. shop. ever!  We all loved that man at the lolly shop he was so sweet.

Matsuno-ya (top photo) was one of the shops I had always wanted to check out. Great place to find non mass-produced well crafted daily goods for home made by Japanese artisans.

More from Yanaka in the next post!

Isetatsu
2-18-9 Yanaka Taito-ku 110-0001 (google map)

Koishikawa Kintaro-ame
1-22-12 Nezu Bunkyo-ku 113-0031 (near Nezu Shrine) (google map)

Matsuno-ya
3-14-14 NishiNippori Arakawa-ku 116-0013 (google map)

Comments: 22