Shop till you drop – that’s their motto. They just can’t pass a store without buying anyting and are looking out for shopping bargains all the time. So what to give to somebody who buys everything himself?

A unique Christmas gift idea for shopping queens: Shopping Bags

They are just so functional but blow you away with their fashionable look at the same time. Usually they are made of really light and strong fabric. As they are foldable they don’t use much room, but will carry all your groceries and shopping bargains home safely. And can it be more unique than a Little Red Ridinghood bag coming out the tummy of the big bad wolf?

cute Little Red Riding Hood shopping bag wolf pouch

cute Rilakkuma bear shopping bag with apple

cute shopping bag with matryoshka dolls with pouch

When you are in Harajuku, visiting Harajuku Daiso is a MUST! Almost everything costs only 100 Yen, which is about 0,82 Euro or US$1.07. Even big things like bento boxes are so cheap there. They have almost anything you can imagine: kitchen ware, stationery, DIY stuff, candy, cleaning supplies, plants and much more.

Harajuku Daiso

Entrance of Daiso, the security tried to stop us taking photos, but we were faster

one floor full with stationery

everything was really cheap

lots of candy and kitchen ware

even cleaning supplies have cute characters on them

Daiso is a huge attraction for tourists, we saw lots of them there

cute felt iron-ons

we had those 6pcs eraser set before but it is sold out now

lots of kawaii letter sets

we bought a basket full of goodies for you guys! We plan some contests/lucky draws and more for you!

Next, we went to Kiddy Land which was just amazing to see! This shop is the BEST SHOP we have been during our whole trip! 7 floors filled up with toys, plushies, stationery, licensed products and anything else you can think of. I think, I just better show you some pictures (but don’t be mad at me if you want to go to Tokyo immediately after seeing them):

one floor full with Hello Kitty stuff

another floor for San-X characters

would you be able to choose any of those pencils? It would take hours to just check them out!

we saw this crazy lady inside the shop

just one of many sticker shelves

and more Hello Kitty items

lots of hairclips to choose from

We got up early again because we wanted to see so many things again First we went to the Meiji Jingu Shrine near Harajuku. This park and shrine is famous for it’s Sunday’s traditional Japanese wedding ceremonies, tea ceremonies and other ceremonies. As it was a Sunday, we had to go there.

on the way to the subway station

me in front of the entrance to the Meiji Jingu park

inside the park

traditional hand washing before entering the shrine

Me in front of the shrine. It was a weird because it felt like you are in a Japanese martial arts movie, the scene was so typical for this kind of movies.

and finally we spotted the first wedding ceremony

another wedding couple. It took about 5mins + 5 people

traditional Japanese wedding couple. It was really hard to guess the women's age because they wore so much make up.

they have special cars which can lift the roof for the bride. It took quite long to get her in the car

Alan and me in front of the shrine

we went to a restaurant in the park to get some refreshments and found this ice cream vending machine.

After that we went to Harajuku, the most famous shopping district in Tokyo. We were very excited to see this place because we heard so much about it and we were also planning to search for some new products and inspirations for our shop.

on the left Harajuku station and on the right the shopping district

entrance to the craziest shopping street in the world (I dare say)

in front of every shop girls are promoting products

we saw this funny guy dressed as Little Red Riding Hood

the streets were super crowded

and of course cute products everywhere, this shop even had a pink plane inside

and then we surprisingly found this pretty quiet park in the middle of Harajuku

there were some really pretty blooming trees

typical Japanese garden with pond; and another wedding couple (they even got a red carpet rolled out for them)

I actually planned to check out Forever 21, but look at those crowds, there was no chance I could find or try on anything.

people, people and more people

WOW, we received the 300th order earlier than expected. I expected to get to the 300th order around 30 days after our 250th order was confirmed. So it took only 17 days! YAY The 300th order is from an old customer of us from Bad Saulgau, Germany. Thank you so much!

I will write again when we get our 400th order. See ya soon

We bought some new cute candy from Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong. We got another Hello Kitty instant noodles, lots of different Pocky sticks, panda chocolate, cute koala biscuits and many many more. Have a look at these super cute kawaii pics:

Hello Kitty instant noodles

cute Japanese bear caramel candy

koala strawberry milk biscuits

Japanese kawaii panda chocolate biscuits

Pocky coconut chocolate sticks

Today we celebrate the 1 year anniversary of our kawaii shop modes4u.com!!! YAY! Exactly one year ago we launched our new kawaii shop and it has happened a lot since then. The start was slow, as it is hard for every new online shop to get visitors, and more importantly CUSTOMERS. We invested a lot of time and effort into making our shop more “Google-friendly” and did a lot of internal SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to bring our shop to the top search results in Google. It was a good decision as our shop is now listed very well for important keywords we have. Therefore, the number of visitors and customers grew steadily since the beginning and we are almost at the 200th order mark now. Another very good decision was to allow our wholesale customers to order directly online instead of ordering from catalogs. This way, our wholesale customers are able to see what items we have in stock right now and can make their bulk orders and get the items fast. I expect a lot from our cute shop for the 2nd year: A lot more visitors, customers and of course ORDERS.

To a great, successful and fun 2nd year!!!

Your modes4u-Team

This week we got some new items we haven’t had before. We have now miniature clay items like fruits, flowers, animals, sweets, cakes, candy etc. They can be used for miniature craft-projects, miniature cakes, decorating cell phones, artificial nails, Nintendo, PSP etc. Please click on the pic to go directly to the product in our shop.

cute clay miniature fruit sticks

cute apple slices made of clay

kawaii miniature watermelon

miniature clay lime slices

mini roses for artificial nails

miniature chocolate cake slices

miniature gingerbread man

purple minature cake

miniature cherry cookies

Illustration by bleuhmeuhdesign

I wish you all a Happy New Year 2009! We are back in office now after arriving back from Austria where we spent our Christmas Holidays. I hope you all had a good start into the new year and have lots of resolutions to focus on Be sure, I have lots of goals for our cute kawaii shop for this year and I can’t wait to start.

All the best,
xoxo Sandra

From today on we have our Pre-Christmas-SALE *!
We need to clear up our warehouse for the coming season and offer every customer the following:

10% off on each order! (Coupon Code: 10xmas08)
Order items worth 70 Euro: 20% discount (coupon code: 20xmas08)
Order items worth 100 Euro: 30% discount (coupon code: 30xmas08)

Order now to make sure that your items arrive in time before Christmas!

How does it work? Very easy, just go to www.modes4u.com, add your items to your shopping cart, check out and key in the coupon code on the next page and click “Redeem”. After that complete the check out as usual.

Additional, we have the following offer in our online shop: Buy items worth 60 Euro / 95 USD and we ship your items FOR FREE! Do your Christmas Shopping now and save shipping costs!

We wish you Happy Shopping and Merry Christmas!

Your modes4u-team

*valid till 15.12.2008

We worked very hard on adding this. From now on, our wholesale customers (retail shop owners, online shops, wholesaler etc.) are able to create a wholesale account on our website and then they will be able to login and see our items with wholesale prices. This way, they are able to see our current stock, detailed photos, quantity, prices etc. and can order directly online. It is much more convenient than any other way like catalog orders or by email, fax etc. I wish I could order like this from the manufacturers and other suppliers we have.

Anyone interested in ordering from us in bulk? There is NO minimum order quantity, just a minimum order value of 300 Euro (or 474 USD) per order. More detailed wholesale information can be found here: Wholesale Information

Our items are suitable for shops selling kawaii, Japanese, Asian, Rock, Rockabilly, Emo items and other cute, crazy shops.