Mogu Takahashi-Japanese Artist

I recently fell in love with Mogu Takahashi's blog, a wonderful Japanese artist. I love Takahashi's whimiscal work, especially when she uses materials like cookies and clothes pins to express herself. Here are few pics from her blog you should take a look. I wish I was in Japan to see one of her exhibitions, she's showing her solo show "Kawaii Ugly San" at Cafe Drole in Nakameguro. Watch her video below it's super cute!










Getting there:
Cafe Drole
1-23-4,1F, Nakameguro, Meguro-ku
03-5722-6083
Take the Tokoyu Toyoko line to the Nakameguro station.

Tokyo Day 9: Clothing, housewares, and Zakka, OH MY! Nakameguro & Shinjuku

I don't want to take away form the seriousness of the events happening in Japan so I struggled with this post. In light of all that I experienced the last couple of days while in Tokyo I felt that I should remind myself of how much I love Japan and not to think of it as the scary place that almost killed me. With that said my heart goes out to all those who have suffered tremendous loss and those who survived at the epicenter of the disasters who now have to carry on and start a new life with heavy hearts. So here's my last day full good day before the earthquake and all the wonderful things I experienced. I will have one more post about the last happy events before the quake too coming up.



I started my day with a trip to Shinjuku to Odakaya one of my favorite fabric and crafting stores. The store is super easy to get to because it's right outside of the East exit at Shinjuku Station, near the Studio Alta building. Odakaya has two buildings, one consisting of 5 floors of fabrics and the other 7 floors of all sorts of crafting supplies, from felting to knitting to pattern books.






After my excursion through a crafters fantasy land I picked up lunch from the 7 Eleven and headed home to drop off my finds and eat. When I was satisfied, I grabbed my cameras and set off to the other side of the Meguro river for some more Nakameguro exploring. I found a slew of tiny stores mostly vintage clothing and housewares and some zakka stores. The buildings and small stores hidden from the main roads were wonderful to photograph and some of the popular places were a also a delight.
Before crossing over the river there were just everyday scenes of Nakameguro in the back streets of my immediate neighborhood and the main commerce street.

This was a great restaurant near the train station.








After crossing the river I found this store which I had scene on google street view before traveling to Tokyo I originally thought it was a restaurant but it was a men's clothing boutique called, VASE, they also carried handmade jewelry and handpainted bags for women, plus all sorts of cute little housewares. There was also, Tokyo Lampoon, a women's vintage clothing store.






If you walk along the river towards the train tracks and pass under them you will come to this Izakaya, which I wanted to try but didn't get a chance because nature had other plans for me. Anywho, if you make a left on this street and walk until you reach another underpass you will see a large ugly red brick building in front of you, this houses a few vintage stores and a cute Zakka store. Here you'll find, Attic Antiques, SIIGE, USA Sundance, Loop, and a few other places,one of the vintage stores had only wares associated with airlines and travel, plus they had a super cute dog working there.








After checking out the stores I came across I lovely cafe/bar called Square Hedges just past the underpass about two blocks. The proprietor, Marie, is a Japanese woman who speaks perfect English and her friend Chel from Arizona hangs out there all the time. They make a delicious Green Tea Latte. Upstairs she rents out to an Aussie, a New Yorker, and I think a guy from California and they have a bike shop/bar. They have total hipster bikes and at night it dubs as a bar.




Getting There: Take the Tokyu Toyoko line to Nakameguro, to cross the river- when coming out of the station cross the street to the opposite side of the station, then turn left and then make the first right and keep walking you will cross the river in about 5 mins.

VASE: 1-7-7 Kamimeguro, Meguro

More addresses to come.

Tokyo Day 4: Margo under the train

-A Walk in Yutenji and a sneak peek at Gakugeidaigaku.

Today I made my way from neighborhood into the two neighboring areas, Yutenji and Gakugeidaigaku, mostly Yutenji. It's a sweet neighborhood where people were really friendly, one woman made a huge effort to speak to me to find out why it was so interesting to me to photograph Yutenji. Luckily, I have a million apps on my phone to get me through a baby conversation. I was able to tell her "I'm an artist and I live in nakameguro for one month", not that smoothly though, nor with that much sentence structure. Yutenji has a two main shopping streets, one runs parallel to the train.





This is the street I found Margo, a tiny adorable restaurant, run by one woman. Again, I was lucky that her English was amazing and she was able to run the lunch set menu down to me. I settled on the pancakes, that came with two teeny-tiny saugages, a tomato quarter, a slice of daikon radish, three potato slices, a smear of what seemed to be mustard seeds in a vinegar, and a teeny carafe of syrup. The pancakes were just plain pancakes with a slab of butter, but the sausage and tomato were heavenly. The tomato might be the most delicious tomato I've ever had, it actually tasted like fruit which is what we have been told tomatoes are. The set came with english tea served in a beautiful glass cup with a stone bowl filled with finely ground brown sugar with a small wooden spoon to serve. The most amazing thing about Margo aside from the decor and food, is that the owner is the wait staff and cook all by herself, and she's lovely to boot.






I spent the rest of the afternoon in Yutenji just walking the streets and hanging out at busy spots like the train station getting shots of people. I sat in front of a supermarket for about half an hour, people kept looking at me funny, but I shot them anyway.





When I was done in Yutenji I meandered along the streets near the tracks so I wouldn't lose my way while I headed into Gakugeidaigaku (yes, it's a mouthful). I realized I must be in Gakugeidaigaku because I was nearing the next train station along the Tokyu Toyoko line. I stopped in this really cute store called modern pets has nothing to do with real pets, they basically remade Dream Pets which is are stuffed animals from the 60's, they also carry all sorts of Astroboy stuff. I picked up to tiny creatures super cute.






These two tinies came home with me, so kawaii!

I made an attempt to go to a gallery opening this eve but I was unsuccessful. After taking three different trains and getting on two wrong trains, and navigating some dark alleys the place was closed! The gallery is in Ryogoku(pronounced Yogoku) which where the Edo Museum is so I got to see the building it's pretty impressive looks like a giant spaceship. All that traveling took 2.5 hrs! I got back to my hood and went to a delicious izakaya, Kushiwakamaru, that basically makes yakitori of all sorts and serves mega size beers. I had a quart of beer, I kid you not. As an appetizer they brought out a bowl full of pureed daikon radish with teeny fish sprinkle on top, I tried it, it tasted as bad as it sounds. For dinner, I ordered entirely too much, because I was basing it on the size of yakitori we get in NYC, but it's all mega size at this place. I ordered two screws of beef with peppers, two chicken with scallion, one scallop with salsa, two asparagus with bacon. Let's just say, I would like to stick a finger down my throat because I ate so much. This place is super gaijin friendly the whole menu is translated into English and you will see plenty of gaijin faces. It's really busy and you have to put your name on a list because people come form all over to eat here, it's suppose to be the best yakitori place in town.









Getting there:
Margo Cafe in Yutenji- Take the Toyku Toyoko line to the Yutenji station.

When you get out of the station make a left at the KFC at the corner, walk down the Terra Shopping Center to the end right before you hit the train overpass. Margo is right across from the train overpass and it's the last little store at the end of the shopping strip. About a 5 mins walk from station.

Kushiwakamaru in Nakameguro- Take the Toyku Toyoko line or the Hibiya line to the Nakameguro station. As soon as you get out of the station cross to the opposite side of the street, make a left. Then make a right at the next corner, and one more left at the next corner. The building says YAKITORI in the front. Put your name down on the list and number in your party and take a seat.

Tokyo Day 3-Nakameguro, Daikanyama, and Beeru!

I spent the day trolling around Nakameguro and Daikanyama with my Canon and Nikon hanging from my neck. I walked along the meguro river in Nakameguro into Aobadai where I had a delicious lunch set at Aoya.



Aoya is located in a sweet Showa era house tucked away from the street with a lovely narrow garden path to it's wooden sliding door. The only way you know it's there is by a tiny lantern at the entrance. I was really fortunate that the young man who seated me spoke English so he explained the three options on the lunch set after showing me to the counter where I took a seat and I could watch them prepare the meal. The restaurant prepares Kyoto based food, and my choices where a one-plate Kaseki style dish with lots of veggies and a fish, a curry bowl, or a Korean inspired tofu spicy stew. I went with the Korean tofu stew and it was delicious. All the meals come with side dishes, mine had a bowl of 5 grain rice and a salad.





After my meal I headed out and walked some more around Nakameguro, I went to stop in at Nill style/Bonill cafe which is on the corner from Aoya but they were closed, it's one of my favorite stores/cafe.




Then I trekked up a very steep hill into Daikanyama where I saw the Egyptian embassy which is a very strange sight in the middle of Tokyo with all it's gold and Egyptian sphinxes and such. I walked a little fer onto the side streets filled with tiny stores and I went shopping for socks at Kutsushitaya where they carry all the Tabio socks which are made in Japan. I scored, they had 60% off all the winter socks! Then I went into CA4LA (pronounced Kashira), a hats-only store hoping to replace some of my older winter knit hats from here, but alas they were onto spring.




Next stop, Chez Luis, a patisserie, where I had me a sit-down with a cup of tea and a yummy custard filled pastry.

Time to head back to the apartment to relax for a bit before heading out for the evening. On the way back I stopped at the cutest looking take-out window from the restaurant Mahakala which seems to serve squid and chicken dishes including okonomiyaki and chicken sashimi, but the take-out window has a refrigerator filled with yummy puddings and custards in adorable containers. I picked up a matcha flavored pudding for after dinner.

Went home relaxed, then got ready to head over to the Taproom, a beerhall with twenty-something beers on tap, including a really good imperial stout which is what I had, I paired that with a nakameguro burger which was very seasoned and had onion rings inside. They definitely need to learn to make their fries better, they were steak-cut potatoes that were limp and wet with grease, yuck, left those alone. I sketched while I was there, not many people to sketch since it was early only 7pm, but there were interesting faces around including a lot of gaijin (foreigners). Around 8pm I strolled back to my place had my pudding and got to bed by 10pm, I know lame but I'm still jet-lagged.

More pics from the day walking around

AOYA 1-15-10 Aobadai, Nakameguro, Tokyo