Kappabashi-Dori - A Shopper's Paradise

Lately, my friends and I have been obsessed with flatware (tea sets in particular), so my friend Marissa suggested we take a Sunday shopping trip to Kappabashi-Dori to see if we could find anything we liked.  Kappabashi-Dori is definitely a shopper's paradise - if you happen to be shopping for flatware, serveware or kitchenware, that is.  Kappabashi-Dori (also called Kitchen Town) is a street located between Ueno and Asakusa in Tokyo and is famous for having tons of shops that sell flatware, kitchen items/tools/gadgets, and basically anything needed in the restaurant industry...including fake food! Although many restaurants have their fake food specially made for them, that can be pricey so apparently a less expensive option is to buy premade fake food from Kappabashi.  Word to the wise (and I'm speaking from experience here) it's not a good idea to go in any of these shops when you're hungry.

We arrived at Kappabashi around 10:30 a.m. and as usual, we were starving. Finding a place to eat in Japan on Sunday before 11:30 a.m. is, as we discovered, incredibly difficult. Since we couldn't really focus on our shopping until we ate, we decided to have coffee at Doutor while waiting for restaurants to open.  Doutor is the "Starbucks" of Japan and although their coffee is actually really good, there is a haze of cigarette smoke throughout the entire place which makes it quite unpleasant for non-smokers (there is a designated smoking section but it's useless since it's right next to the smoking section).

An hour later and stuffed from the delicious dim sum we had at the restaurant across the street from Doutor, we were ready to take on Kappabashi. I will admit, this shopping experience was slightly overwhelming because there was just so much stuff to choose from.  Seriously, you walk in a shop and there are just rows and rows of stuff.  One thing you can count on, if it's related to cooking, serving food or the restaurant industry, you'll find it here. If you ever wondered where you could buy a taiyaki maker (the fish shaped pancake that comes with different fillings like azuki beans or custard), now you know.


There's also a wide range in terms of price - from teapots for 500 Yen to a single cup/saucer set for 15,000 Yen (um, not really in my budget).  I think we were all a little cautious with our purchases because we didn't know what the next store might have and perhaps the next store might have something we'd like better.  A few good things to note about many of these stores:  (1) many of them take U.S. credit cards; and (2) many of them will ship your purchases worldwide. 

At the end of the day, none of us really went too crazy.  I had my eye on this teapot that matched the pink teacups and plates that I got from the 100 Yen store a few weeks ago, but for whatever reason I didn't get it.  Well actually I do KNOW the reason - the reason is that I thought I might see something better at another shop and I didn't want to be stuck with it if that were that case, but it turned out that I didn't find a better one, so I ended up with none. In fact all that I left Kappabashi-Dori with was a bundt pan (which I've been wanting), a plain white teapot for a single cup of tea, and a mortar/pestle (which I've been needing).  However, a day or 2 later, I got a text message from one of my friends expressing regret over not having bought everything she was considering buying....oh well, guess it looks like another trip to Kappabashi-Dori is in our future.

Afternoon Tea

Afternoon tea is one of my favorite things to do.  When I lived in The Bay Area and I was in charge of throwing a birthday party, a shower or a plain ole girls' get together, you could always count on me to host afternoon tea at The Ritz-Carlton San Francisco.  There's something so relaxing about enjoying a cup of tea and scones with clotted cream (you can't forget the clotted cream) with your girlfriends.  And of course you can't find a more elegant atmosphere than The Ritz.  Ah but I digress...thoughts of San Francisco are thoughts for another day.  Truly though, I really do love tea.  I once went through a phase where I was obsesed with loose leaf tea. I'd get different types and flavors, I got metal cannisters to store the different flavors and I got every tea-related accessory I could find.  These days I'm back to regular tea bags, and I even gave away tea sachets from my favorite tea maker Harney & Sons Fine Tea as favors at my wedding.  Moral of the story = I really like tea.

Afternoon Tea at the shopping plaza where I frequent quite often has a tearoom/restaurant, a small bakery where you can get fresh pastries/desserts to go, and a shop across the way that sells a lot of cute tea, lunch/bento and kitchen-related merchandise.  I constantly have to restrain myself from buying everything in sight at the shop.  I would absolutely love to buy a lunch set from Afternoon Tea (food containers, thermos, chopsticks, musubi holder, ice pack - depicted in the picture to the left), but for one thing I don't have anywhere to take it and for another, the containers really don't hold much food at all (that's probably a good thing).  Although, my new favorite website is a site "dedicated to the subject of simple bento lunches," both traditional and not so traditional.  I've already found some recipes I want to try and I really think I need to get some cute bento containers to put my creations in.

Given that I like tea, it is a little strange that it's taken me 6 months to visit Afternoon Tea.  Recently, my friend and I were arranging to meet up for coffee and although I suggested Starbucks for lack of something better, in the back of my head I knew there was somewhere I wanted to try but I couldn't think of it.  To my delight, she responded "how about Afternoon Tea?"  We met at Afternoon Tea and both got the Cream Tea Set which comes with a pot of tea and two scones (complete with fruit preserves and cream).  I ordered chai tea which was perfect.  I have since been back and tried their signature Afternoon Tea blend which I also really liked.  Since it was lunchtime, people around us were ordering actual meals (pasta and salads) which, as is customary here, looked delicious and impeccable.  On my next visit, I plan to try one of their meal sets and I'll report back.

Who Says You Can't Get Anything For $1.00 (Or In This Case, 100 Yen)

I was inspired to write this blog post after a recent visit to my favorite 100 Yen Shop.  Who am I kidding, they're ALL my favorite.  If the exchange rate between the Yen and the Dollar was 1 to 1, 100 Yen would equal $1.00 and on that basis, these shops which are located everywhere in Japan, would roughly be the equivalent of the U.S. Dollar Store (currently 100 Yen is equal to about $1.30).  However as with many things in Japan, in my opinion, 100 Yen Shops are far superior to any Dollar Store I've ever been to (let's ignore the fact that I've only been to maybe one Dollar Store in my life). 

Although we haven't specifically discussed it, I'm fairly certain the following words make Rich cringe every time he hears them: "honey, I've found a new 100 Yen Shop!" (to Rich: there are thousands of them in Japan so I've got a lot more discovering ahead of me).  I know exactly what you're thinking: what's the big deal, things are only $1.00 there.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not really sure which) the low price combined with the fact that you can find almost anything at these shops is what makes them so dangerous.  And one can easily leave having spent a ton more money than one intended.

Oh, and when I say you can find almost anything at these shops, I really do mean anything...and not cheap stuff either (well maybe some cheap stuff, but they definitely do have some high quality products).  From kitchenware to tools to office supplies to snacks, they have it all.  For example, at a birthday party I was at recently, for her upcoming trip to China, the birthday girl got a bag filled with travel items purchased from the 100 Yen Shop, including a 3-pack of "disposal bathrooms."  Who knew there was such a thing?  Well now you know, and if you ever need them, you know where to go.

There are several different chains of 100 Yen shops but my favorite is The Daiso, particularly the one close to base (but only because it's the only one I've been to; I hear the one in Harajuku is the mother of all Daisos so you can bet I'll be making my way there one of these days). Some of you might say that there's just as much stuff in these shops as in Don Quixote which I blogged about a few weeks ago, and while you may be right, the shopping experience is TOTALLY different.  The Daiso and the larger chains tend to have very large stores with lots of space and because there are so many stores, they usually aren't that crowded, which makes for an overall more pleasant experience!

 A well known fact about me (see previous blog post) is that I'm a shopper.  A little known fact about me is that I have a thing for containers. I recall one night a few months ago while looking for a container to put dinner leftovers in, Rich opened one of our kitchen cupboards and started laughing.  I asked him what was so funny and he said, "seriously, do we really need a container for the containers?"  So you would think that I would be in heaven shopping at The Daiso (see picture of containers above).  The problem is that everytime I go into the Daiso, I'm literally paralyzed with indecision over what size, what color, and how many containers to get. Luckily I have a lot of time on my hands these days and I can afford to spend 30 minutes standing in the container aisle just staring at all my choices.  Then when I get home and have to answer for my container purchases, I just use the trusty "but it's only 100 Yen" line, which has worked for me so far (although it probably won't be as successful after this post).

People blog about 100 Yen Shops quite frequently and at the end of one blog post I saw on the subject, the author issued a disclaimer stating that if asked, no, they don't buy gifts from the 100 Yen Shop.  I'm not sure why he/she would say that, but I on the other hand have absolutely no qualms about getting gifts from the 100 Yen Shops.  So friends and family back home, if you get gifts from me on one of my trips home and you happen to ask me, YES your gifts more than likely came from one of these shops.

Don Quixote: Madness or Magical Shopping Experience?

I'm a shopper, plain and simple.  And not just for clothes, purses or shoes either.  I mean, I'll shop for almost anything - office supplies, books, kitchen gadgets, bedding, you name it and I'll buy it.  I'm not sure how long into our relationship Rich learned this about me, but I first realized that he

had discovered my penchant for shopping when one day, as a result of me being in a funk and in an effort to cheer me up, he said to me, "Honey, why don't we go to Ala Moana?  You know shopping always cheers you up!"  I'll admit, I was a bit shocked and mildly embarassed by his statement, but also quite impressed with how perceptive he was.  The offer was so endearing that it alone was enough to get me out of my funk (note that I did not say I didn't take him up on his offer).  If you've ever shopped with me, you know that I'm a no nonsense shopper.  I will generally take a quick stroll through the shop and if I don't see anything I want or need, then I'm out. I don't like waiting in lines, I'm not a fan of having to go through piles of stuff to find that one shirt, and stores that have too much stuff or too many people in it give me anxiety.  In sum, I don't do well in places like Ross' or Nordstrom Rack or Costco on the weekends for that matter.

On one of my recent Tokyo trips, we stopped at the Don Quixote store in Akihabara.  Coming from Hawaii, I was familiar with Don Quixote ("DQ"), which has always intrigued me.  Seriously, what do Don Quixote and a blue penguin have to do with each other and more importantly, what do they have to do with Japanese/Asian goods?  According to the DQ Hawaii Website, the answer is: nothing.  The website does, however, state that DQ's three pillars are: convenience, discount and amusement. Let's analyze this:

• Discount:  I am not yet familiar enough with Japanese prices of specific items, so I can't comment on whether DQ's prices are low enough such that it lives up to this pillar.
• Convenience:  There are DQs everywhere in Japan, including one about 5 minutes away from my house, which I suppose could support the convenience pillar.  DQ puts themselves out there as a retailer of everything, which would support this pillar if it weren't for the fact that, as discussed below, it could very well take you between an hour to....oh, um, possibly NEVER to find what you are looking for.  Plus, some people don't do well with too many choices - I'm not naming names, but you know who you are. 
• Amusement:  This particular DQ was 8 floors and as soon as we got off the escalator, I started to feel claustrophobic.  As you can see from the pictures, there's stuff literally piled from the floor to the ceiling and little (to no) rhyme or reason as to where things are located.  In fact, I didn't want to stray too far from my friends for fear of getting lost in an aisle filled with fake eyelashes and never seeing them again.  On balance, I think the hoarder-ish quality about the store combined with its anxiety inducing (mine) environment = not amusing.

Notwithstanding that analysis, I will continue to patronize DQ as they are the only locale that I know of for purchasing certain items, namely this cheese that my friend recently introduced me to and Pareso (lychee liqueur).  Alcohol and cheese...you know, the important things in life. :)