Japan
Bridge of the Brocade Sash
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008“I lay down in a state of happy exhaustion, and not for the first or last time could hardly believe I was in Japan”
I bought this book (a first edition, no less) from a secondhand book shop near Forres when I was visiting my dad earlier this year. I like a good travelogue and it [...]
Tokyo Shopping Guide in print!
Monday, August 25th, 2008I am so pleased to finally announce the print version of my Tokyo Shopping Guide. It’s by far the most popular thing on my site and makes me happy every day to see how many people find their way here from search engines, and knowing they’ll find the answer to their query. I get so [...]
Japan Crafts
Monday, July 28th, 2008Good news for anyone planning a trip to Japan (like you need any more good news) - there’s a new blog called Japan Craft Journal where some awesome crafty bloggers have joined up to collect together all the info you might need about Japanese crafts and shopping. They’re already posting up some great tips for [...]
Ghibli Museum
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008I’m a massive fan of the anime films of Studio Ghibli (creators of Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princes Mononoke etc.) so the first time we visited Japan in 2006 a visit to the Ghibli Museum was top of my list. We were on an organised tour but managed to schedule a [...]
Tokyo Extras: souvenir stampers
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008When we were planning our second trip to Tokyo, we kept reading mentions of souvenir stampers. These are large custom stamps situated at major attractions and the suggestion was that you should give your child a notebook and get them to collect stamps during the visit. Now, call me childish, but I love stampers so [...]
Tokyo extras: Mori Art Museum
Thursday, January 31st, 2008A few extra Tokyo posts coming up that don’t fit into the main shopping guide.
Although we were organising everything ourselves this time (last time we went on an organised tour with just-bankrupted Travelscope), we did sign up for an organised Evening Tour of Tokyo to re-introduce us to Japan. It went to two famed Tokyo [...]
Shop Indie: Chocolate Swirl
Friday, September 21st, 2007The best thing about being part of the Gifted exhibition is that I’ve had to buy more amazing fabrics so that I would have twenty different purses. Etsy really is a wonder for this. I can’t remember what I was searching for but I found lots of new cute fabric sellers setting up shop. [...]
Shop Indie: Sakura Fabric
Thursday, August 30th, 2007If I had to pick one thing as the greatest part of selling my crafts online it’s that it provides me with both money and an excuse to buy lots of amazing Japanese fabric. I really am obsessed but at least I pass a good part of it on to my customers and don’t [...]
Shop Indie: re:makeables
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007re:makeables is a lovely online shop based in Malaysia selling amazing Japanese fabrics, trims and books plus handmade buttons and beads. Everything is gorgeous and they specialise in pretty flower and cute animal patterns. I had a browse a while back and spotted some adorable trim with bunnies and flowers which was sadly sold out. [...]