tokyo

Sunshine City in Tokyo Part 3: fabrics and fashion

by modes4u March 27, 2013

Today we show you lots of cute fabrics and fashion accessories that we discovered when visiting Sunshine City during one of our last business trips to Tokyo. Japan is the home of kawaii, so of course we saw lots of super cute outfits in the shops. Everything from head to toe is super cute, there were tons of adorable socks for example.

If you like to sew yourself Sunshine City is the place for you too, because you can get lovely fabrics, buttons, ribbons and all the accessories you need there. We spotted lots of echino fabrics that we also sell in our online shop.

Even the mannequins are kawaii: Bunnies wearing romantic outfits

A paradise for fabric lovers

You can also buy lots of fabric bundles

Everything you need for quilting!

A very wild mixture of different styles and patterns

Very pretty Asia fabrics

Lots of sewing accessories

Fat quarters are really handy if you don’t need a big piece of fabric

The most adorable socks

kawaii baby socks

One of the many fashion outlets in Sunshine City

March 27, 2013 0 comment

Incredible Kiddy Land Store in Japan

by modes4u July 25, 2012

On our last trip to Japan we also visited the incredible Kiddy Land store in Tokyo. The store has four different levels full of toys and kawaii stuff. One level is fully dedicated to San-X’s Rilakkuma and Sanrio’s characters like Hello Kitty or My Melody. The store in Tokyo was closed for quite a while and just reopened shortly before we visited. We were really surprised when we got there because people were waiting in front of the store when it was still closed and rushed in as soon as the doors would open. We can definitely see why, as it was an amazing experience to stroll past all the shelves. There is so much cuteness, you don’t even know where to start. Here are some impressions for you. If you want to see all pictures we took, visit our Facebook photo album.

People are waiting for Kiddy Land to open

A kawaii dream come true: Lots of Hello Kitty stuff

Hello Kitty dressed up as a Geisha

London is calling: Hello Kitty in a British designs, maybe in anticipation of the Olympic Games?

The cutest Rilakkuma socks

Lots of Re-Ments are exhibited so you can take a close look at the cute miniature items

Sanrio characters for your mobile phone

Every hallway has super cute designs

A cute teddy bear

Lots of items from the cute Kapibarasan guinea pig

For the boys: These stairs lead to the LEGO floor

Stationery heaven, really lots of cute post-its

July 25, 2012 5 comments

Incredible mt masking tape store at Tokyo’s Uniqlo

by modes4u July 5, 2012

Maybe you’ve heard about the collaboration between the Japanese companies mt masking tape and Uniqlo. They started a wonderful collection of shirts with mt Washi tape prints. When you buy one of the shirts you get a Washi tape on top. The shirts look amazing of course, the tape designs are really perfect to be put on fabric.

But what we want to show you today are pictures of the mt section in Tokyo’s Uniqlo Ginza shop. We were so amazed when we saw the pictures, because the whole shop is covered in Washi Tape designs. It totally shows you what a wonderful eye-catcher Washi tape can be and that you can use it as home decoration as well. We already have visions of whole walls being covered in Washi tape.

If you live in cities which have a Uniqlo store you might still be able to get one of the pretty shirts. And if you don’t, maybe these pictures inspire your creativity for home decoration.

Masking tapes and shirts - a wonderful combinaltion at Uniqlo Ginza in Tokyo

Masking tapes and shirts - a wonderful combination at Uniqlo Ginza in Tokyo

The wonderful Washi tape patterns are everywhere

A wall in the store with lots of different mt Masking tapes

Even the floor is designed in Washi tape style

What a great idea to use lots of Washi tapes to build a fence

Some of the beautiful shirts from the mt x uniqlo collection

July 5, 2012 3 comments

modes4u in UK magazine Mollie Makes

by modes4u November 15, 2011

This may turn out differently than you would have expected from the headline. Surely most of you think that one of our products got featured in the magazine Mollie Makes. But it is one of our blog pictures! We were surprised ourselves when they contacted us a little while ago. Now we got the magazine and you can check it out yourself.
For an article about fabrics from Tokyo “Mollie Makes” was looking for a photograph of fabric town in Nippori. They saw the one we added to our blog when we went to Japan in April and liked it. So they asked if they could print it in their article and as they mentioned our website, we didn’t see a problem at all. It’s a nice magazine by the way, we could take a look at it now that they sent it to us. It’s from the UK “for people who love the crafty life” and started out just this May.

the cover of Mollie Makes

the article about Tokyo

with our blog photo on the right

here you see the whole modes4u picture

November 15, 2011 0 comment

Day 4 in Japan – Part 2

by modes4u April 19, 2010

Next we went back to Shinjuku because I wanted to check out a fabric shop I heard about.

another truck with a cute ad on it

Shinjuku shopping district

some really colourful neon-colour cellphones

Our destination was “Okadaya“, a multi-level fabric shop I heard about online. We checked out all floors, unfortunately I wasn’t that excited about it as we saw a lot more in Fabric Town in Nippori before already. However, the shop opposite, which also belongs to Okadaya, is totally worth a visit. See some pictures below:

Okadaya fabric shop in Shinjuku

found a couple of cute fabrics

the 2nd Okadaya shop has a whole floor with DIY books

another floor just for buttons

lots of cute buttons

one floor is only for ribbons

ribbons and more ribbons

I found our Polymer Clay fruit slices there as well

We went back to our hotel, picked up our stuff and took the express train to the airport.

express train from Shinjuku to the airport

we saw lots of rice fields on the way to the airport

lots of yummy mochi and more at the airport shops

April 19, 2010 0 comment

Day 4 in Japan

by modes4u April 19, 2010

Our last day in Tokyo! We got up early in the morning again because we wanted to see Ginza and part of Shinjuku before hearding to the airport. On the subway we experienced the crazy Tokyo rush hour everyone talks about. Usually people are really polite and cautious, but suddenly they were all pushing into the train like mad and it was really crowded. We walked along the main street in Ginza and took lots of nice pictures. As it was 10am in the morning it was really quiet there and it was very nice walking around.

me in Ginza

there were so many pretty blooming trees

Alan and me on Ginza

Nissan has a showroom there showing a Zero Emission concept car

we saw some cute delivery trucks

another cute promotion truck

Japanese bakery in Mitsukoshi

We found a really cute shop there called “Toypark“, many floors with toys, plushies and more. We took lots of pictures in the store:

store front of Toypark

they had a Hello Kitty robot

lots of Rilakkuma plush toys

me with a big Hello Kitty plushie

lots of cute things

Totoro plushies

me with Nyanpire

DIY toys to make cakes, cookies, sandwiches, candy and more

they even had a big racing park, Fernando Alonso has been playing there before (they showed a pic of him playing)

me with a huge almost man-sized Nohohon

April 19, 2010 2 comments

Day 3 in Japan

by modes4u April 18, 2010

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

April 18, 2010 0 comment

Day 2 in Japan

by modes4u April 17, 2010

Our planned schedule for today was very busy and our day started very early in the morning. We had to get up at 5am to visit the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo. When we left the hotel we were surprised by ice, snow and heavy wind. We were used to warm spring weather and were surprised by this sudden change. First we went to the subway station to buy our tickets and we found this:

subway map for Tokyo, can it be any more confusing?

Tsukiji fish market

super fresh sushi at the restaurant next to the fish market. This is a MUST DO! Soooo yummy!

Next, we went to fabric town in Nippori to check out all the fabric shops. I heard lots of good things about those shops and I expected a lot and I was not disappointed 😉

Nippori fabric town

Nippori was really pretty, we saw some beautiful blooming treees there.

we went to Lemon first, they have lots of cute stuff for kids

some super cute children t-shirts

And then we went to THE fabric shop: Tomato! Have a look at those pictures:

fabric shop Tomato

5 floors crammed with fabrics

lots of cute fat quarters

they had lots of licensed fabrics from Sanrio and San-X

cute patterns to iron on clothes

After that, we went to Akihabara, THE shopping district for all the geeks in Tokyo! 😉 To be honest, I didn’t enjoy it that much, too many guys (geeks) who are playing TV games all day long (you can see that), but I guess it is heaven for any guy.

shopping mall in Akihabara

guys trading cards (aren't they too old for that?)

After that, we went back to Shinjuku to go to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. They have 2 very tall towers with an observation deck. We wanted to see Tokyo at night from above. Here are some gorgeous pictures we took:

Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

view from the observation deck

Shinjuku from above

Tokyo tower from far away

at the end of the day we went to Starbucks to get a coffee and check out the Japanese menue 😉

April 17, 2010 2 comments

Trip to Japan – Day 1

by modes4u April 16, 2010

Today we left for Tokyo, Japan in the morning and arrived there in the afternoon. We booked a hotel near the main train station Shinjuku. The reason why we chose this hotel was that we wanted to have a very convenient located hotel so we could explore Tokyo easily. It was our first trip to Japan and we were very excited. I don’t want to write too much, but show you our trip in pictures:

our hotel room in Shinjuku. The hotel was really nice, but hotel rooms in Tokyo are very small.

after our arrival we went to the nearby shopping mall Takashimaya Times Square

First we checked out Tokyu Hands which we heard a lot about before

Tokyu Hands had some really cute bento boxes

they also had a huge collection of cute stamps

after our shopping we went to have our first Tokyo sushi dinner. We love eating sushi in Hong Kong.

the sushi was SOOO good, we were surprised that it could be so much better than Hong Kong. I even like sea urchin (the yellow thing in the left corner of the box)

our sushi chef, he made us some really delicious sushi and we were even more excited to be in Tokyo.

April 16, 2010 0 comment