Tokyo shopping
I had very clear ideas about what I wanted to buy on my Tokyo trip. With a limited budget I wanted only to get a specific coffee pot, and the nicest notebooks I could find. Wonderful Tokyo-based blogger Hello Sandwich pointed me in the direction of a few stationery shops. The most chi-chi was 9-storey Itoya in Ginza, which stocks these, the most sumptuous range of notebooks I ever saw.
Life notebooks are made in Japan, and you might be able to buy some for yourself here – I love the coral ones. My brother displayed the patience of a saint during the epic notebook shop, and his friend Hatomi even took me to a stationery wholesalers in Asakusabashi. A dream come true. I bought these.
Just can’t get enough of the old turquoise and coral. The best shopping of all though was my brother’s suggestion. Kappabashi – or Kitchen Town – is a whole street selling kitchenware and front-of-house gubbins to restaurants. Here I found my Noda Horo enamel coffee pot – much cheaper than in the department stores – and bought what I thought were 25 disposable tablecloths.
The tablecloth negotiations were a bit hairy, bought as they were in a shop selling menus and paper cups by the 100s, and the old guy communicated with us solely through a calculator. Later Hitomi told us that Japanese restaurants don’t really use disposable tablecloths, so goodness knows that this thing on my table really is – but I’ve got a further 24 to experiment with.
The Japanese theme, especially the coffee pot is very beautiful.Shall you be continuing this theme into your garden? I guess importing a golden carp in your luggage was out of the question.
Cow Parsley + coffee pot + tablecloth = so pleasing!
*jealous face* I’m a lot in love with your coffee pot and ‘tablecloth’ but I am left wondering if it is perhaps intended for giant origami.
Hmmm. It’s soft – no good for folding – and oddly fibrous, like a deluxe paper towel. Hitomi thought maybe it was for wrapping bottles…