... a little bit of crafty... (69/365, 10 Mar 2022)
At the risk of being a bit repetitive, today was another of those meeting days where there was 'just the one', one meeting, for twenty minutes, starting at 1:20pm. It kind of disrupts the day. I spent the morning catching up on some newspaper research* and then sat in on the meeting...
(*An actual thing for my kind of research. Yes, I read the actual newspapers, looking for articles, the kind not usually available online, that give me a little more insight into the political world. I cut them out and file them for later. Really.)
Anyway, with that meeting done and a few emails answered, I decided with the rest of the day 'free', I might finally get to visit what looked like a charming little shop on the Marunouchi subway line, not far from home. There is a TV program on Saturday morning that I like to watch when I am home. It features a different train line each week, and the idea is that the presenter gets off at stations 'randomly' to see what is on offer (I am sure it is much more planned than it looks however...). It is a mix of quirky, unusual and / or famous shops and lots of eateries. It often gives me ideas of things to do on those spare days.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, the show featured this little shop, mostly interesting little crafts (and we know, dear reader, how I have a soft spot for crafts), much made by the proprietors, and an odds and sods collection of antiques. It struck me as an ideal place to shop for Japanese gifts for friends and family at home, without having that very familiar 'Japanese souvenir' look about them.
I figured there was just enough time in the day to pop 'down the line' as we say, and then get a haircut on the way home. (This is an important point in the story I will return to...)
I went.
Truly, what a magical little place. The couple were larger than life in real life than they even appeared on tv (isn't usually the opposite?) and I had a delightful hour or so chatting, exploring, utterly enchanted. I actually went there in search of the 'aloha' shirts they posted on their Insta account (@/ kanda_chonbo) but came away with...
 |
| A 'soba' cup, from the Edo era, so more than 150 years old |
 |
| The kokeshi miniatures (see below) |
 |
| An antique piece (no I didn't intend to get into antique purchases, however...) estimated to be early Showa so around the 1920s or so. It is not very large so I will be able to get it home, eventually. |
I'll go back for the shirts another day...and perhaps more soba cups, a few more kokeshi to collect...etc and so forth.
Oh, and the haircut will have to wait. The little set of drawers, although not very large, got delivered to my apartment this evening, by the couple themselves. But wait, I said, it is evening , it is far, it is...; no, no, they said, we love driving, we enjoy it, please, allow us...etc and so forth.
And I handed over a couple of packets of potato chips, made locally (literally just streets away) to the lovely woman who makes the kokeshi dolls, who tells me she didn't make a kokeshi doll in her own image (only that of her husband) but if she did, it would be the potato chip eating one...I'll be back, perhaps we'll share another packet of chips over a cup of sake.
Tokyo is full of these little places, they rarely get a mention in the tourist guides and you can come across them quite accidentally. But they are part of the colour and texture of the place. And the conversations you can have with the owners are greater treasures than the objects you chance upon.
Pics snapped with the iPhone 12 mini, once the goods were delivered and unwrapped.
