Tokyo Shopping Guide: Itoya
By Marceline | November 1, 2007
Ginza is the high class shopping area of Tokyo, full of designer clothes and jewellery stores and thus of little interest to us. However, it is also the home of an amazing paper and stationery shop so we had to go. Itoya is so big it is split into 3 buildings all huddled together. Itoya 1 has eight floors of stationery and office supplies with some pretty cute stickers and stampers in the basement. Itoya 2 is mainly scrapbooking supplies and Itoya 3 is full of handmade and handprinted paper and calligraphy supplies (and model boats, bizarrely). I’m only mentioning Itoya 3 here as there wasn’t much in the other buildings that we hadn’t seen elsewhere.
The bottom floor of Itoya 3 is full of handprinted chiyogami paper hanging on the walls, in drawers, displayed in glass cabinets and in cheap rolls. It was all so beautiful and in every size you could want. I eventuall decided on the papers above – 3 rolls for around £1.50 each and a huge sheet of amazing bunny paper for £5. It was all expertly rolled by the nice salesman. On the top floor is the handmade paper which is all beautifully textured. They have lots of sizes and colours here as well as a huge range of printed origami paper packs. I bought a pack of roughly A4 size washi in various patterns for about £4.50.
If you have any interest in handmade or Japanese papers then this is a must see, although we did discover they have a branch in the Tokyu department store in Shibuya (just beside our hotel!) so you don’t necessarily need to make the trip to Ginza. Look out for pretentious tourists though – we had a couple of Americans snootily bitching about someone they know who didn’t appreciate how they’d wrapped her gift in Japanese washi according to strict giftwrapping and etiquette rules blah blah blah. I wanted to stab them.
Handmade textured washi in various patterns
A bigger view of those lovely chiyogami handprinted bunnies
Cute bunny and lucky cat stickers
Beautifully wrapped – they made it back to the UK with zero crushing
How to get there
It’s pretty easy to find, if you can figure out the correct subway exit (I find this very difficult). It’s on Ginza Dori/Chuo Dori which is one of the main roads in Ginza and intersects Harumi Dori inbetween the subway stations of Ginza (beside the Sony building) and Higashi-Ginza (beside the Kabuki Theatre). The Mitzukoshi department store is right on the intersection.
Follow that road up until you see the Apple store on your left and the Matsuya department store on your right. Itoya 1 is just on the next block before Tiffany. Itoya 2 and 3 are out the back. The helpful staff will give you an English map of the stores and floors if you look even momentarily confused.
** According to NY Star Cards, Itoya 3 has now closed and the washi has been moved to the top floor of Itoya 1. **
What else to do in Ginza
The Kabuki Theatre mentioned above is well worth a visit, either for a performance or just to admire the lovely building. There’s also a pretty good toy shop called Hakuhinkan at the opposite end of Ginza Dori next to Shiseido and the Dai-Ichi Hotel.
Topics: Tokyo Shopping Guide |
1 Comment »
March 17th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Hi,
Have just read your description of Ito-Ya! Spot on!!! We went there in April 2007 and are off there again next week! We will be based in Kyoto but have rail passes and will be visiting Tokyo via Bullet Train specially to stock up in Ito-Ya!! Do you know if they stock Miyuki beads? A friend has asked me to get her some. I agree with you the Washi is wonderful and I bought such a lot and still have some left but just must have more!!
Angela