Tokyo, Mon Amour!

Well, I'm back from Japan. It was my third trip in 3 years and as enjoyable as ever. We survived a Typhoon (slept through it, in fact), visited Kamakura and ate enough "Cake sets" to sink a ship. Once again, the book shops of Tokyo did their best to land me with an excess baggage charge (handy tip, stick all your books in your hand luggage. They don't weigh that.). Where else can you buy a book which is described as "A journey around Europe with matchbox labels", see a Jan Svankmajer retrospective in a department store or have an extensive choice of Czech animation DVDs in almost every book/DVD shop? It's a place where anyone who has an interest in illustration/design/architecture should visit at least once. I lost count of the number of times I wandered into shops which appeared to exist just for me. Dick Bruna seems to be as ubiquitous in Japan as Victoria Beckham is in Britain. I finally managed to acquire a Print Gocco in the brilliant Tokyu Hands (imagine a store where art supplies rub shoulders with dart boards, magicians supplies and stag beetles) and visited Ito-Ya, a six storey stationery store in Ginza. Below are just some of the items I brought back with me. So many pens, pencils and sketchbooks! So little time. Dave Shelton, if you're reading this, I think this is where you'll go when you die. Hopefully, I'll be posting some of the fruits of my purchases in the near future. Mata ne!