Category Archives: Photo

After Tsukiji Market we wanted to keep our day going, bust most of Tokyo isn’t open until later. We ended up waiting twenty minutes for a Starbucks to open at 7 AM so we could nap for an hour before we headed out onto the town.

If you look at the way the Japanese dress, it’s fashionable but also very subdued. There are no bright colors. I felt like the odd man out with my yellow shirt.

Stores seem to be one-stop-shops, carry everything. It’s GAP on the first floor and IKEA on the second floor.

The stores there are huge on aesthetic appeal, even using  items they don’t seem to sell. like these plants.

Inside Muji, they had an eating area for shoppers to stop and have a beverage and a wide variety of pastries.

Next door was Loft, another store carrying just about everything from notebooks to cosmetics and travel gear.

Options are not lacking. Here is the notebook/3-ring binder section.

There are some really cool things, including Moleskine notebooks with actual LEGO pads so you connect your LEGO figurines.

This is the first place I’ve actually seen these Moleskine notebooks.

While Michelle was busy looking at fake eyelashes, I contemplated a new look for myself too. Creepy Perv 2.0!

You can’t rock a mustache without the beard or so I’ve heard from people that can grow facial hair.

I wish department stores in America were more like Japanese stores. Although there are no benches where I can sit and wait while my wife spends all my money, there is enough variety that allows me to also drain our bank account at the same time. That way Michelle can spend all the time she wants looking at clothes and makeup while I look at electronics and toys in the same store. It’s like having an Apple store combined with a Nordstrom’s!

With no real plans for the first day, Michelle and I wandered around Shibuya and poked our heads into different stores to see what was going on in the world of shopping in Tokyo. We stopped into Tokyu Hands, and it was an eye opener. For any given product, there is never a lack of options.

They have a crafts floor that has a section just for masking tape.

Yes, I said masking tape.

There were lots of stickers in the craft section, some of which were a bit risque.

There was an entire floor dedicated to cleaning supplies. Sprays, rags, dusters, trashcans, and detergent. They’re also pretty hot on the Roomba too.

I think this section was for bath salts and bubble bath, but they had children’s cartoon character packaging mixed in with some very suggestive adult themed packages.

They toy section had an excellent selection though.

There was a whole floor dedicated to bento lunch boxes.

When I say a whole floor, I am not exaggerating.

The Japanese are consumers in every sense of the word. While they tend to follow trends as a society, they still hold to their own unique styles with a market that provides so many options to the same concepts. It creates a sense of community while allowing individuals to have their own identity.