As gleefully noted here it snowed yesterday (!!!) so we wrapped up in extra layers before heading into Shibuya. This is one of the big shopping areas of Tokyo and we had several stops in mind, particularly Loft – imagine a department store, where all the boring things are taken out and replaced with awesome things – and Tokyo Hands – imagine a store where you can buy anything. Seriously, anything. Theremin? They’ve got one. Beakers and other labware? Yep! Fourteen different types of thing to separate your toes while you paint the nails? No problem. It’s pretty amazing, though it makes me a little sad not to live near an everything-store.

We stopped at a Japanese curry house for lunch, and I can barely communicate the deliciousness. Perhaps it was just that we were cold and wet and hungry, but the tonkatsu and rice with curry sauce seemed to be the best thing I’ve ever eaten.

Spoils for the day included a large, soft body pillow in the shape of a disgruntled monkey, who will be excellent for taking couch naps with, and some “Breath Palette” toothpastes. They offer 32 flavours! Having learned my lesson with the cheese chocolate we did not get the curry or soy bean options, but I’m looking forward to brushing with grape, orange and pineapple.

Today we checked out Nakano Broadway, which is an amazing mall that is the hub of vintage, retro and second-hand toys and figurines in Tokyo. There were so many stores selling amazing wares you’d never find anywhere else (except maybe eBay), including “cube” spaces where people can rent a portion of a glass case and run their own mini shop. Some of those had hand crafted toys and accessories, and I’m sure some were professional dealers, but most seemed to be collection overflows. I’m nosy so I love to see people’s focus and what kinds of things they were selling. The other interesting type of store that I haven’t seen elsewhere were those that opened up lots of capsule and blind box toys, repackaging them into clear bags and pricing according to rarity. I would like to run one of those shops!

We also stopped in at Nekobukuro, the “Cat’s Playland” in Ikebukuro. After paying an entry fee you enter a series of rooms with perhaps 20 cats running, climbing and sleeping. You can pet them as much as you want! We petted a lot. There were lots of different kinds of cats, but our favourite was the biggest cat we have ever seen. Sitting in the normal cat stance he must have been at least 45cm tall, and I bet when he stretches out he is over a metre! We thought Mr. Kitty had been a big cat, but this guy was easily half his size again. We couldn’t read the sign but I looked him up on the website and Google translation confirmed that he is a Maine Coon – I think there may be one in our future…

We’re suffering quite a bit from sore feet, after days and days of walking, but hot baths and resting at night is keeping us up and about. Tomorrow we will visit Harajuku!

We’re sitting in the cafe at the entrance to our hotel, having breakfast and using the wi-fi, and GUYS, IT IS TOTALLY SNOWING!

This is super exciting – it doesn’t snow where we live, and I’ve only experienced it three or four times before in my life. It’s very light and melting as soon as it hits the street, but there are little flakes wafting hither and yon. Snooooooow! It doesn’t even seem that cold, but it’s been coming down steadily for the last half hour or so.

Best. Trip. Ever.

Tokyoooooooo!

We’ve been here for two days now and it is AWESOME!

The flight and trip to the Sakura Ikebukuro Hotel on Tuesday both went very smoothly. Our room is nicer than I imagined, given that it was the cheapest one I could find that still had a private bathroom (albeit one of space-station-worthy compactness), and the bed is surprisingly comfortable. The pillow has a regular smooshy top, with a layer of beans underneath that forms to the shape of your head, and I really want to buy one for home…

Yesterday we started off by visiting the Ginza and Marunouchi areas. Ginza is a high-end fashion district and wouldn’t generally be our cup of tea, but I wanted to visit Hakuhinkan Toy Park, and JSR needed to stop by the Apple store to buy a new charger for his laptop. The Apple store was full of clean young people in brightly coloured t-shirts, and met our shiny white requirements. I was slightly disappointed by Hakuhinkan, which didn’t have anything I wanted to buy, but I knew there would be other toy stores on the trip.

We ate our very first macarons from Dalloyau in the Mitsukoshi department store. Nobody sells macarons in Auckland and I’ve been dying to try them after reading so much online. They were delicious, with a lightly crispy outer shell and a soft chewy center, and now I know what they are meant to be like I’ll try and bake my own at home.

Trying to get lunch in Marunouchi was mildly disastrous, with lots of wrong turns and renovation work in stations changing the exit layouts and confusion about whether landmarks were above or below ground. We finally got to the conveyor sushi place I had been recommended – conveyor sushi is excellent for skirting the language barrier, and even the cheapest kind is amazing. We also visited the Meiji 100% Choco Cafe, who make 56 varieties of chocolate. We bought little blocks of six kinds, two of which we’ve tried so far. “Maple” was yum, and “Cheese” was, um, not so much. But who could pass up the opportunity to try cheesey chocolate? Four more to go, including “Black Pepper” and “Lemon Salt”….

Today we headed to Yamashiroya in Ueno, another large toy store. This one was much better than Hakuhinkan and I made several small purchases – some San-X stickers, tiny Rody figurines, a blind-box toy of the Capybara character who amuses me so much, and a couple of presents. I also succumbed to a gashapon capsule machine (no doubt the first of many), again for the Capybara, and ended up with a little plushy. Capsule machines are a lot of fun – they’re cheap, and it’s kind of like a game, but you’re guaranteed to get a prize. Whee!

We spent the rest of the day in Akihabara. This is the district famous for its “Electric Town”, and it has all the geekery you can imagine, from alleyways of tiny, absurdly specialised outlets for various types of electrical component to enormous multi-story anime and manga stores. JSR was entranced! We don’t need any more gadgets, so it was pretty much browsing only, but we each went for another capsule toy.

Tomorrow we will be visiting Shibuya and I’m really looking forward to Loft and Tokyu Hands! The promised internet access in our room has not eventuated and we have to go down to the lobby to use the wi-fi, so I may not blog again for a little while, but I’m still checking my email at least once a day.

P.S. Photos will be coming once we get home – I forgot to bring the cord to connect our camera to the laptop! Oops! I could buy another one but it seems like a needless expense as we already have two at home, and our memory card is large enough to store a trip’s worth of pictures.

We are married now!

We won’t have the professional photos until we get back from honeymoon, but this is one taken by my friend Andrea. I’ll write a full post about the wedding later on – it has been an exhausting day – but it was a lovely ceremony and we are very happy :)

Nut and Bee is now closed! All outstanding orders will ship tomorrow, but any new orders placed from now on will ship on March 9-10th. I should have regular email access so please write to annette@nutandbee.com if you need to get in touch, and I’ll be posting fun stuff from Tokyo here :)

Thank you for your patience while I’m away. I’m quite nervous about leaving the site for this long; it’s the first time I’ve been out of town for more than a few days since I started Nut and Bee – but that was more than three years ago, so it’s probably a good idea to take a holiday!

P.S. I realised today that I’ve been working on Nut and Bee full time for a whole year! Ah, lovely.

A little preview of what will be coming once I get back from holiday: more rubber stamps! The sheets arrived today and I think they look great. There’s nine new designs, and some of the existing ones that have sold out will be restocked.

I’ve also figured out how to make selling individual stamps work out, which wasn’t possible to start with, so once these are launched you’ll be able to buy a single stamp if you like. And the new packaging is so nice!

I must admit my hand aches a little thinking about cutting all of these up, hee. (Don’t worry, I’ll take it easy and just do a few at a time. I’m quite careful about not straining my hands or arms since they’re so important for my work. I might try and buy some of those special rubber stamp scissors in Tokyo, which will make the job a lot easier!)

The wedding is getting very close now!

Last night was my hens party and I had such a good time. My bridesmaids came up with some excellent, non-embarrassing games for us to play. A particularly good one was the lovey-dovey pet name mad lib, where each person wrote down the first half of a cute name I could call JSR, folded the paper, and handed it to someone else to add the second half; then I read out the names to much hilarity. I cannot reveal the winner yet because I promised to use it during the ceremony and I want to surprise JSR, but it’s pretty silly, and all the ladies from the party will laugh when I say it, so that will be fun for everyone :)

On the Nut and Bee side of things I am probably not going to have time to do Sketchbook Sweeties from now on, so they’re on hiatus until we get back from honeymoon, but I will still be shipping orders for a few more days.

To have your order sent before I close up, please place it before midnight on Wednesday 18th (New Zealand time).

Which is:
10pm on Wednesday 18th in Sydney
11am on Wednesday 18th in London
6am on Wednesday 18th in New York
3am on Wednesday 18th in Los Angeles

After that shipping will resume on Monday 9th March, and I’ll be working hard to get everything out as soon as I can!

#342 Llama Field

#341 Inky Splotcher

I made a delightful amigurumi piglet over the weekend!

He is from a pattern in Amigurumi: Super Happy Crochet Cute by Elisabeth Doherty. I don’t often work from patterns, but this one was so sweet I couldn’t resist, and it used some interesting techniques. I love the snout shaping! This is my favourite crochet book, as it contains more complex and nuanced patterns than any other I’ve seen; no surprise considering the author is the genius behind Gourmet Amigurumi.

P.S. Of course, since this little guy isn’t my design he is not for sale. I’m keeping him for myself!