Tokyo Shopping Guide: Okadaya
Okadaya is a great craft supplies store in the heart of Shinjuku – a great one-stop shop if you don’t have time to travel around. It’s got floors of fabric, sewing supplies, notions and craft books.
It’s about 6 or 7 floors high and each of the higher floors is split into two big areas so make sure you have a good look around if you don’t want to miss anything. Despite their bags being almost entirely in English, there are no English signs or floor maps so you just have to explore yourself. I remember a floor of ribbons and hundreds of cute appliques; a floor of yarn with a table of old Japanese ladies knitting away, and the most adorable crochet kits you’ll ever see; a floor of buttons; a floor of beads, and a floor of patchwork fabric. There were also embroidery kits, knitting patterns and all the other things you would expect in such a store. Right at the top, you’ll find a great selection of cute crafting books.
Cute appliques. There were hundreds
Embroidered snowman buttons by Kurumi Button
Bolts of fabric. Photo by laural@thimble
Okadaya, Shinjuku. Photo by laural@thimble
How to get there
Okadaya is right across from the main East Exit of JR Shinjuku Station. As you come out of the exit you’ll see the Studio Alta video screen and the Okadaya sign is visible just behind it. If you walk round the side of Studio Alta on either side you’ll soon spot Okadaya. There’s a map somewhere on the Okadaya website but it’s all in Japanese so probably not much help.
One word of warning – if you arrive at Shinjuku Station by any other means – subway, private railway – DON’T just take any exit. Follow the signs to the JR East Exit even if it means a 15 minute trek through the shopping mall. Otherwise, you will get mightily lost! Shinjuku Station has about 400 exits (I am only exaggerating slightly) and you can be wandering for ages.
Last updated: 23 April 2011
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Thank u so much
I will be in tokyo with my son and daughter for about 15 days on sightseeing visit in september 2008.
Since a very long time I was searching for a shopping guide , particularly fabric shops in tokyo .
finally I got this very very useful exhaustive itinerary of shops with detailed locations .
Now I can travel for shopping with confidence at tokyo with the help of your tokyo shopping guide.
I’ll get the printout of the exhaustive shopping guide and take it to tokyo.
Thank you many many times
srinivas (mysore, India)