Tokyo Trip Day 6: Daikanyama

Back into the swing of the hard-core shopping, we started out our 6th Day in Japan (Wednesday) with a trip back to Shinjuku. This time, it was only myself and ainead as L had come down with a nasty head cold and cough by this stage and all she desired to do was take it easy for the day and sleep. Our aim was to find the Odakyu fabric and craft store not to far from the JR Train East Exit. Our first trip around the block and we ended up walking right past the entrance. Back-tracking we found that it is in fact two stores with multiple levels; one for craft and the other for fabric. We hit the craft one first. Working our way down from the top, I think I ended up getting something on each floor; from craft books, to gorgeous buttons and printed laces to hair pieces. We then hit the fabric store where I got the cutest strawberry fabric and an alice printed tartan fabric. I am going to make me some skirts.

After filling my little suitcase with crafty goodness, we made our way to Ebisu. From there we strolled our way over to the Daikanyama area where our goal was to find the trendy zakka stores of the area. Zakka is a Japanese term meaning 'many things'. The Zakka aesthetic movement focuses on simplicity and authenticity in design, decor and fashion. It relies on the use of natural or basic materials and natural fibres. There were some great stores we browsed through, and I bought some of the cutest Alice inspired jewellery, but much of the items that we loved were made of glass or breakables and it was just not feasible to get them home to Australia in our suitcases. We actually found that the Daikanyama area looks to be something a little like Paddington, in that it was once just a small suburb but now it is starting to become a trendy and high income sort of area with lots of little cafes and restaurants and high priced designer homewares sort of stores. It was interesting to see though.

Once our feet were starting to ache from our travels, we hopped on the train and made our to Asakusa, our home for the evening. We had dinner at the local McDonalds where *culture shock* smoking is allowed inside (EW!) and then perused the department store across the road, where I managed to find the clay for making Deco sweets at 30% off. Our last stop for the day was the post-office. I had been a little worried over the amount of heavy items I had purchased so far on the trip; ie all my books, magazines and writing paper; so we stopped for me to post them on home. Turned out there was 6 kilos of stuff that I was sending, and I am rather pleased that I did.

We then made our way to the capsule hotel where we would be spending our evening. We stayed there so that we could say that we had stayed in a capsule hotel, however I would not recommend it. We had to stay in the one in Asakusa because many of the capsule hotels do not allow women; this one happens to have an entire floor devoted to women only. But it was definitely not the best night's sleep I have had. I bashed my head on the TV on the way in, but found that it was surprisingly spacious inside. Unfortunately I do not thing the mattress had been replaced in quite some time. While warm with clean sheets, the mattress had a definite hollow our in the centre so it pretty much felt like sleeping on the floor. Not to mention that whole place reeked of cigarette smoke from the years of people smoking inside. I was actually rather glad to get out of the place the next morning.