Zakka & Cafe FuFuFu

This is my absolutely favorite place in Kyoto, Zakka & Cafe FuFuFu. It's tiny and perfect, they serve coffee, tea and lovely tasty treats. They have a small handmade goods(zakka)store on one wall of the cafe, and the opposite wall acts as a gallery for some of their crafters' pieces. They have a little seating area where you can enjoy your beverage or snack and just wile the hours away reading or just lost in a daze of a crafter's dream. I highly recommend checking it out.

The hidden treasures in Omotesando and Aoyama

2007©janneserojas "Opatoca"

Omotesando and Aoyama are very high class area just around Harajuku, with high end fashion shops, and restaurants. With names like Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, just to name a few you'll find gaggles of young shoppers with beaucoup bucks to spend. But with the the larger designer stores you'll find gems like Usagi Pour Toi, H.P. France, with exquisite pieces of jewelry, handbags, knits and just some really unique pieces which is what a lot of foreigners are expecting to find in Tokyo.







Location:(it's listed as the Harajuku location)
150-0001 1F, GB., 5-17-24 Jingumae, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo, JAPAN
TEL: 03-5766-3011 / OPEN: 12:00-20:00 Open everyday, except for beginning and end of year.





A sweet little place for a snack is Opatoca which is a bakery chain, but none the less homie. Their website says they are closed as of August 31, 2008 but I was there in October and November of 2008 and they were opened. This is a japanese blog with info on it style-arena to get the more info on them.


Location:
4-26-28 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
TEL:03(3478)5890 TEL: 03 (3478) 5890



In the evening we stumbled upon this delicious izakaya, Samukawa, which you would have no idea that it even was a restaurant, there's no sign it's on one of the tiny streets off of Omotesando dori. We were the only foreigners in the whole place, but they did have a menu in english. The food was delish! But the place was super smokey, I guess you have to expect that from an izakaya, I will find out the exact location and post it later.

Location:
Address 4-28-21 1F 4-28-21 Jingumae,
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Building 1F Harajuku Harmony
ＴＥＬ TEL 03-3470-3901 03-3470-3901
ＦＡＸ FAX 03-5414-7671 03-5414-7671
Hours 17:00～24:00 (Mon-Fri)
16:00～24:00 (closed on Saturdays)
Getting there:ＪＲ Walk from JR Harajuku Station 5 Chiyoda Line Meiji Jingumae station walk 3 minutes

Shimo-Kitazawa, a little hip, casual haven in Tokyo

Shimo-Kitazawa is a delightful area in Tokyo that is laid back and filled with sweet stores and dog friendly places. This is the place where the young Tokyoites most want to live. It has great cafes, restaurants,and music venues.

One of the attractions to Shimokita is that it has a lot of small streets and alleys where cars can't go and only small mom and pop shops line the streets, so walking around can be a real adventure.

tiny izakaya:


A favorite store of mine is Marble Sud, it's a small boutique shop carrying beautiful apparel and accessories. I got a pair of lovely wool fair isle fingerless arm warmers, and sweet mushroom key chain there, plus great pin buttons. There are also lots of vintage stores, selling from furniture, housewares, clothing, toys and lots of records. You'll be amazed that you can find some real amazing stuff for decent prices.

One of the many small store, cafe, and bar filled streets:


Another great place was a vintage store, unfortunately I can't find the business card,but it's filled with wall to wall furniture, housewares, toys and just everything you want from the 50's, 60's and 70's. I found I great Japanese ceramic dog from the 50's and my partner found a beautiful Japanese Blenko style blown glass bottle also from the same era. They owner is super cool guy.

A great way to take a break in the afternoon after weaving through all the streets is heading over to Bubbles/Cookie Lab, dog cafe for a snack, coffee, and doggy watching. This cafe is for people and their pooches, dogs are allowed inside the cafe and there is also a really nice outdoor area where you can watch the overly obsessed poodle owners pose their puffy pooches and snap away with their cameras. Next door is their grooming shop where you can look in at the pups getting primped, it's kinda sad to watch.

The train to Shimo-kitazawa


Outside the station:



Dog Cafe







Getting there: From Shinjuku Station take the Local Odakyu line to Shimo-Kitazawa station, it's two stops.

Marble Sud:
2-27-11 Kitazawa
Setagaya-ku
Tokyo, Japan 155-0031
phone# 03-3481-6001

Cookie Lab Dog Cafe:
D*O*G BLD. 2-38-Kitazawa
Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 155-0031
phone#03-3460-1139

Videos I took of Shimokitazawa:

Streets and stores:


Dog Cafe:


Cafes and stores:



***While writing this I just found out the Japanese Government has been planning on putting a large expressway through this lovely little neighborhood, please read more here and sign the petition to stop another neighborhood devastation.