Tokyo Post 14 April

 Today was quilt shop day.  

First up was Mother's Dream quilt shop, home of well known Japanese author and quilter Reiko Kato (you have probably seen her Sunbonnet Sue variations in magazines). The shop is in the right hand half of the building.

It's not that big inside but stuffed with many samples of her work and creations from her books. There are quite a few kits packaged up for sale, selection packs of fabric for applique, some fabric on bolts, and a selection of hardware and quilting tools.  I was helped by two friendly staff who didn't volunteer any English. One of them may have been Reiko Kato but I don't know, she was definitely in charge but also very nice.  I quite enjoyed looking around and picked up some kits to make small applique bags and some packs of fabric for applique.

Then it was over to QuiltParty, which is Yoko Saito's shop.  This was a much bigger affair, surprisingly big for Tokyo, bigger than many UK quilt shops including my local one.  

There was a copious amount of fabric on bolts, including both Japanese and American fabrics. Also large quantities of fat quarters. There were some packets of precut fabrics. Not so many kits here, although they had kitted up what looked like the fabric only to go with some of the projects from her most recent book.  Quite a wide selection of hardware, bag handles, quilting tools, some stabilisers, and more speciality projects such as heavy papery drawstrings, homespun woven webbing straps, some beads and embroidery threads for embellishment, and of course a lot of her books.  Again, I think the staff mainly spoke only Japanese but they were quite helpful. And the fabric seemed so cheap compared to the UK! I was especially after the textured homespun wovens that you see so much of in Japanese books but are quite scarce in the UK.  Their FQs were only 220 yen each which I think is only around £1.40 - you can't get a cheap print fabric FQ for that in the UK.  So I piled up on various colours of the textured homespun, and also picked up a couple of half meters plus some packets of precuts. They had the wooden handles I see in the Japanese books, much more reasonably than at Yuzawaya, so I got some of those. I also got some of the webbing and drawstring.

It's hard to buy for future projects without any specific details, but hopefully I've covered the bases to try out some more of the projects in my existing Japanese quilt book collection.

I had some time before meeting a friend for supper, so I headed over to Harajuku and Takeshita Street. I remember when we briefly visited here in 2016 on a guided tour, the guide said that the balance was tipping away from the trendy young Japanese visitor in favour of tourists. Well the balance has definitely gone all the way now, it was a mob scene of tourists thronging the length of the street and almost all the shops now are food shops, sweet shops or souvenir shops.  Although I couldn't resist buying a small version of the multicoloured candy floss that you can see being made in the picture, the larger ones were as big as umbrellas.

I did a trial repack tonight and put all the heavy fabric in the suitcase, and pulled out the lighter clothes to put in the folding bags. I get the train to college on Sunday thankfully so I won't have to fight the rush hour.  I haven't actually been on one of the trains where they squash you in, but a few times I've been in a pretty tight squeeze when I've been travelling early in the morning rush.  Still better than commuting in London: everyone is wearing a mask, everyone is immaculate, they are all silent, and all trying to be very considerate about any bag or pack they are carrying.

Tokyo post 13 April

 I ditched the pre-planned itinerary today and had a leisurely morning so I feel a lot better now. I started with a journey across the bay to visit Small Worlds, the much-hyped Tokyo miniatures museum. 

I enjoyed parts of it but overall I wouldn't say it was amazing. There was a heavy focus on technology and transport like airports and space ports which I'm not so interested in.

Launching space rocket which was kind of cool

big room recreating Kansai airport - literally just a room full of runways and planes driving around slowly, the Japanese visitors seemed fascinated

The best room for me was the Global Village, a sort of fantasy take on various world architectures. Unfortunately this was also the most dimly lit room, making it really difficult to see a lot of the incredible detail. They are very into whimsical touches, and every nook and cranny has something twee or unusual going on, like octopus dancing under bridges, or sea monsters surfacing in the bay. The global village had a wizard's village and a steampunk town and a sort of Bladerunner asian city.  There are buttons to push everywhere but many of them only add a sound (hard to hear over the blaring muzak in every room) or initiate some miniscule movement somewhere in the vast modelscape (like the octopus waving two of its legs) which could be quite hard to spot. Some didn't work at all, there seemed to be some derailed trains. Others were more satisfying and turned a ferris wheel or lifted the roof of a house.

Towards the end there were some classic miniature room boxes such as this bakery.

All the exhibits are mainly one large floor, although there are also a few in the cafe area (where I had a surprisingly-for-Japan truly mediocre meal).

Then it was back on the train to head over to Cohana, the luxury sewing accessory store that keeps running full page ads in my quilting magazines. This is not a cheap place, but everything is exquisitely made and so tiny and cute. I succumbed first to a Sakura (cherry blossom) special edition pair of tiny scissors, and matching pins, and it was a downhill slope from there to include two pincushions and a wee little wax canvas work tote to put them in. My luxury treat from Japan. (I'm sorry about how awful my loot pics are, the lighting in my hotel room makes it virtually impossible to avoid shadows and/or glare)

I walked the short distance to Ozu Washi, a 360 year old traditional washi paper store. It's huge, over three floors. On the ground floor are displayed goods from paper (I picked up a couple of lovely wallhanging scrolls but they're packed in a tube so I haven't unwrapped them) and all kinds of paper sheets, some displayed like fabric (I asked and they let me take a pic from a distance). On the next two floors are galleries of paper art, museum artefacts from their history of papermaking, and a film in English about how paper is made. You can also pay to try papermaking yourself, I watched a few other tourists having a go. Really interesting.

I haven't really been doing the 'tourist trail' but from here I wandered into Asakusa which is tourist central. I don't really enjoy seeing streets thronged with tourists and all the accompanying hot dog stands and fast food etc., but down a side street I did stumble across a quiet shop selling better quality goods, particularly furoshiki, the Japanese wrapping cloths that I bought some of on previous visits.  She had some lovely things and also books in English on ways to use them.

I also saw this poor guy, a giant spider crab, which I instinctively find repellant but at the same time I felt sorry for him, destined to be someone's dinner.

Tokyo post 12 April

 I'm getting tired now - it's been 23 or 24 degrees for a few days, and the constant exertion of trying to exist in a land where I can't read the signs and can only understand a little of what is said, is very wearying.  I think I need a holiday from my holiday! It's still great to be here though.

Monday was a sumo day, walking around the area where a lot of the sumo stables are located, and the Tokyo arena, and buying sumo souvenirs.  Tuesday I went to Nezu Shrine where there is a beautiful hillside covered in flowering azaleas, really amazing.

In the afternoon I went to Nippori fabric town, and tried to walk straight to Tomato fabrics without looking right or left. But I did get sucked into a few of the many haberdasheries and fabric shops. These are some leather zip pulls and leather sew-on flowers, and some woven ribbons. Then I went straight to the Tomato store on the left hand side of the road and resolutely did not cross to the other branch opposite nor any of the enticing stores over there. I was very conscious that I didn't have DH and his muscles for carrying the purchases, and fabric is heavy. Not to mention that I am beginning to worry about getting me and all my loot to college on the train.

At Tomato I was looking for bag fabrics.  There is a heavyweight cotton here, almost like a light canvas, which is great for bagmaking and comes in many lovely prints.  I got a mixture of half yards for pouches and 1.5 yards for bagmaking.

cats in a sushi bar!

Today after watching some sumo practice, I headed over to Noe cafe. It was a bit of a trek, two trains and a walk, but turned out to be so worth it.

The owner, whose name I don't know, is a big-time collector and visits all the big shows such as London, Paris and America and must spend a fortune.  She also seems to have subscribed to every Betterley series ever released and builds all the kits herself superbly, as well as kits by many other artists. The upstairs of the cafe is her exhbition room which is just crammed to the gills with the most amazing mixture of scales and themes, all mixed in with antiques and laces and dolls and needlework tools etc etc. You hardly know where to look. Everything is exquisite and in the best taste. She is an artist by training and has arranged everything so beautifully.  I took so many photos but can only show you a few.

loved this half-scale box with the ribbon - she had another one in a different theme

she made the houses on the right and left, and taught them as classes I think

Then I went to Ikebukuro to visit some of the geek shops in Sunshine City, and on the way back stopped into the branch of Yuzawaya in the Tobu department store where I picked up a Clover magnetic needleminder, a threadcutting ring (which I hope will expand to fit my big fingers), two little bag handles and some 'cat sushi' fabric that I will make a gift from.

I've done so much as I am out and about every day, but it seems pointless and boring to give you a big list of where I've been. One of the more amazing things was a sound and light show of cherry blossom around a big area in Shinjuku Gyoen park. They had lit up a lot of the trees, and also were using laser effects on some of them which made it look like petals were falling then rowing back. Everyone was given a lit lantern to take on their walk through the dark park on paths outlined with lamps, really quite magical.

Tokyo post - 9 April

 Happy Easter - I'd forgotten all about it until I got a few emails from home. It's just a normal Sunday here of course. And the sun was out but not too hot, so a nice day for walking around.

Yesterday was a lot more blustery with a bit of rain. I headed over to the Japan Open-Air Folk House Museum which is one of those places where they have relocated a lot of traditional buildings and bunched them together as an open air museum.  Quite interesting to walk around although the houses are pretty empty for the most part.  Volunteers lit an open fire in one which immediately filled the house with smoke (no chimney) which was very evocative - but reading the English descriptions of what life like, it sounds like it was pretty harsh for most people back in the day - especially women.  They do indigo dyeing workshops at the museum and I was able to buy this lovely dyed cloth with traditional motifs.  I think it is a 'tenugi' which is a multipurpose cloth that can be used for everything from a head scarf to wrapping presents. The fabric is like a coarse cotton - I might make a bag or pouch out of it.

Then I headed to Shinjuku to visit a few craft shops.  First of all, Odakaya, a multi-floored labyinthine sewing and craft store which has expanded into a nearby building since I last visited.  It is quite fun just to poke around all the different departments, everything from hatmaking to macrame to dressmaking to cosplay, jewellery making etc etc. I bought a few things here and there, like a little quilting ruler marked in centimetres, some little metal samurai helmets and demon masks for my Japanese dollshouse, some more little bag zips and so on. I also found a sashiko printed cloth for a sumo wrestler so I had to get that, along with some sashiko threads and needles. I've never done Sashiko before because I didn't think I could master the geometric perfection that is normally required, but they had a sample made up and this one looked a lot simpler.

I got some rustic bag handles as well, for making Japanese style bags from the books I already own at home.

They've moved their fabric department into the new space next door.  I didn't see anything I couldn't live without, especially once I saw the queues for getting yardage cut. Japanese people love to queue even more than the Brits I think.  But I did see these strange panels printed with large food items to make up lifesize baked goods and cakes (pictured) and there were also sushi and raw meat panels which was a bit bizarre. I guess they are for children to play shopkeeping with.

While walking around Shinjuku, I saw this display of plain canvas totebags but in all different shapes including a few we don't see in the UK like the styish drawstring version.

I headed over to the large branch ot Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku, which bills itself as the home of creative living.  Tokyu Hands is a bit like IKEA without furniture only more upmarket, floor after floor of attractive little bits and pieces including stationery, toys, home decor, all kinds of craft items, Muji-type items and so on.  Quite fun to wander around in.  I was quite tempted by their display of Chinese dollshouse roombox kits, especially this tea room. But it would be too big and heavy to pack and I expect I could order it in the UK.

I enjoyed looking around but didn't really buy much apart from some cherry blossom stickers and a zipper pouch for my knapsack.

Today I headed over to a neighbourhood called Monzen-Nakacho and  wandered around a big outdoor flea market/antiques fair in the grounds of the Tomioka Hachimangu Shrine. Very interesting, although a bit strange to see all the stalls set up amongst the gravestones and sub-shrines in the grounds.  I had a good rummage in some secondhand kimono stalls but couldn't find any cotton yukata, everything was polyester or silk.  I did get some little remnants of synthetic and cotton kimono fabric which were only about .64p each.

I also found this adorable little mini Japanese cast iron kettle.  Apparently it wasn't actually used for tea or sake, I couldn't understand the vendor's full explanation but judging from the miming, it was used for something to do with brush painted calligraphy. Maybe for adding warm water to mixing inks?

After that I headed over to another even bigger temple, the Narita-San Fukagawa Fudo-Do Temple where I followed the tour route around the inside.  I bought two luck charms, one has a miniature version of the classic Japanese school child's leather knapsack which I will put into my dollshouse.

I also enjoyed visiting the nearby Fukagawa Edo Museum, which is a life-size recreation of an Edo-period town that you can walk around, quite neat.  They had a dollshouse-sized room box replica of a early 20thC shop.

And in the exhibition area, this beautiful sampler of classic Japanese joinery typically used for sliding screens or for room divider panels.

You won't be surprised to hear that I popped into Daiso (equivalent to a £1 shop) and bought another small folding bag because I am beginning to doubt that all of this stuff is going to fit into the folding bag I brought with me.

My big adventure today was to visit a public baths not too far from my hotel.  Bit nervewracking but they are used to foreigners (no English spoken but some English signs). Womens baths were a variety of temperatures, some too hot for me at 42C, others more like a jacuzzi, but it was really nice to just relax after all the sightseeing.  Nobody looked funny at me even though I was the only westerner in there at the time. I don't want to get my blog flagged for language so I will just say that everyone was equal and happy in their natural state, quite liberating in a way. I might go again if I have some more free time.