ショッピング

In case you're wondering and your katakana skills are as rusty as mine, the title of this post translates to "shoppingu". I thought I'd show you a tiny fraction of my purchases from Japan. Let's begin with a picture of yours truly on the hunt at Tokyo's best-known shopping area, Ginza:

The bag I'm holding is by Shiseido. More about that later...

Same as last time, every single place we visited had shopportunities galore and I was very grateful that Austrian Airlines had recently changed their baggage restrictions for flights to and from Japan and now allow 2 checked-in baggages of up to 23 kgs each: yay! Guess who took full advantage of that and brought an extra bag with her for the return journey.

What I love about Japan are the little typically Japanese things - you can live without them (as you have done so far) but once you see them you know you need to have them...such as the "bottle bags" that have become very popular and can be of a variety of materials. I got one made of what they call "gauze". So kawaii and so, erm, utterly neccessary:

 

Japanese cosmetics hold a special fascination for me and on my first trip Chiquita and I would spend hours in drugstores, marvelling at the endless variety of nailpolish and other make-up items, many of them unheard of in Europe. I really restrained myself this time and only got two things I had planned to buy, both by sub-brands of Shiseido: an eyebrow kit by Integrate that I had bought last time and wanted a backup of and a "gel coat" type of top coat that I didn't buy last time and really regretted. I also got some small travel-sized stuff such as nail polish remover wipes:

In Sydney I loved to look at the Japanese magazines with really nice goodies at Kinokunya Books and made a mental note to buy at least one of them in Japan, where they would be considerably cheaper. Well, I bought two magazines with very nice little tote bags, one by Cath Kidston and one with a Snoopy cartoon print, both of which I got with somebody in mind. The respective magazines I also brought back home to give to Japanese friends. I'm keeping both this magazine and its freebie, a little sewing kit, for myself:

When MM and I visited Ginza I did not leave with just the tiny paper bag pictured above. It contained a pink tote bag (Japanese ladies all walk around with those tiny bags) to commemorate Shiseido's 140th anniversary. Shiseido has a totally different image in Japan and possibly other Asian countries than it does abroad. Basically, it's what Beiersdorf (maker of NIVEA) is to Germans and Austrians plus they also sell other products under the Shiseido brand, such as cakes and confectionery (!) right next door to their cosmetics store at Ginza. The pink bag is at the back of the picture below. The rest of what you can see in the photo is the outcome of my little spree at Uniqlo's Ginza flagship store (12 floors if I remember correctly). I love this brand: good quality at a reasonable price. I bought a supersuper-lightweight rain jacket - really, it's the lightest piece of garment I've ever had in my hand - a long striped shirt, an Orla Kiely limited edition scarf (present for Amica) and two linen blouses. I got a white linen blouse from their Paris branch last year and was really pleased by the excellent quality. When I saw that they had a special "Ginza offer" (1.900 instead of 3.900 Yen apiece) I grabbed two of them. If I had not arranged to meet MM in front of Mitsukoshi department store I could have easily spent another hour at Uniqlo Ginza. Maybe it was just as well that we split up for less than 30 minutes and I didn't even have time to queue for the changing rooms:

As I have said, this is only a small part of my "Japanese Haul". In case you are wondering if it is difficult for European women to find clothes to fit in Japan: I'm 170 cm tall and wear a German size 36. With the exception of the jacket which I got in size Large I always go for Medium in Japan and this seems to fit me well. Japanese changing rooms, however, are a pain as you are requested to take off your shoes outside. This means that even if you only want to try on, say, a blouse you need to take off your shoes. In my case, I often wear comfortable trainers with laces when travelling that take some time getting in and out of. I have never bought any shoes but my shoe-size (European 38) is not too freakishly large for Japan and I know that I could find footwear, too.