Review: My Tokyo, by Eloise Rapp

As I announced here a few weeks ago, 5am je t'aime was hosting a giveaway, which, luckyly, I won!

So here's my review of it.

My Tokyo is a 28 pages long, din-A5 sized booklet. But don't let its size trick you, it's full with more than 90 art galleries and shops of all kinds.
Author's words:

All the information in this zine comes from the point of view of a textile and graphic designer with a love for fashion, music, contemporary art, innovative design and of course, Tokyo.

And in my opinion, this is part of what makes this guide so interesting. It's not the same getting a guide written by someone who just loves to travel than getting it from someone who loves art, design and shopping.
This guide made me want to write one about Barcelona! haha this is really inspiring!

The guide is divided into shopping areas, with clear instructions on how to get there, and each area has a map with all the shops located in it, so you can find everything really easy.
You can also find the keys to categorize every shop: from vintage to furniture, from music to books. Love the selection of bookstores!

I really wish I got this guide back when I was planning my first trip to Tokyo!

I need to talk about the design too. Eloise aside from being a textile designer (which I really find very interesting) is also a graphic designer, and you can really appreciate that in the guide.
Inside, you can find a really pretty zine, carefully designed. Easy to read and understand, and let’s say this clearly, pretty to look at.

Shops are presented in a packed BUT understandable way, which makes the zine contain a lot of information in a few pages, but still, readable. Which I love. And you can carry it around with you since it's not heavy and doesn't take up a lot of space.
You can also find summaries, pictures of the shops/items, websites and addresses. Very helpful, this really is a complete guide.

You can find both the paper edition and a pdf version of the guide, and you can get them here. A really fair price for a nice edition, design and selection of places.

And I really recommend you to get it if you're planning going to Tokyo soon (or not so soon). You'll find in this guide cool shops and interesting places to visit that won't be packed of tourist and you'll still be around popular areas like Harajuku (really, if you just step into 3-4 streets away from Takeshita-dori, you'll find a completely different place).

Find more info about the guide here, in her etsy store and about Eloise here in her blog.

Thank you so much again to 5am je t'aime for the guide. And don't forget to read their blog if you're into Asian fashion. Lots of interesting posts await you, really!

Japan time-lapse videos.

I love Time-lapse videos. All of what I've watched until now has been amazing so I have nothing to say agains them.
People who makes this kind of videos just seem to have somekind of talent to choose the music and compose the images.
I specially love how, at some points of the video, the landscape look lie a miniature.

Hayaku: A Time Lapse Journey Through Japan from Brad Kremer on Vimeo.

Here are some other videos also featuring Japan. Not as long as the one above but beautiful nonetheless.

remanence : variance from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.

static : pulse from Samuel Cockedey on Vimeo.

Also, don't forget to enter the giveaway! Only 3 days left!

Polaroid are inspiring, and always will be

Note: I made some changes in the comment form, now disqus is enabled and blah blah blah, I don't know if it's working alright, so if you have any trouble commenting on this entry, leave a comment in the previous one or send me an email at headphone_child[at]hotmail[dot]co[dot]jp Thank you!

Tokyo polaroids is an amazing place, where, as far as I've understood, five people post their polaroid pics, and I love it! You can find really nice things.
With a stillness feeling, it's a place where the time really seems to have stopped, and where you can enjoy your holidays at the beach a little bit more.
For example.

I don't really know for sure since my japanese isn't better than a 3 yo's native speaker, so if you have more information about this site, please share!

Here are some of my favorites.

This place is really amazing. It gives you so much with just one picture. They're all so powerful! I could spend days just looking at them all.

Shoes

If I had the money, I'd be a compulsive buyer.
But since I don't, I only can dream of being one.

But one hability I certainly have is this one that allows me to find the prettiest of the stores on the web.

So yesterday was that time of the week (sometimes month) that I find pretty stores.

Then was when I started my list of ...

Just a quick list (only 3 pairs).
Just 3 on my wishlist?? obviously no XD Just wait a bit and you'll see the rest.



This are from Rapty (http://www.rapty.com), a super nice japanese store that sells lots of clothes and accessories too.
Nothing really new, super classic. But I've wanted a pair like that for quite a long time now.

This site's not english-friendly, so you can't order directly from them if you don't know japanese (doubt they send overseas anyways). But I'd like to buy from them anyways, not expecting much about the quality, the price is pretty cheap.



Rowky is a corean shop with lots of nice things too (http://rowky.com). They copy quite a lot of japanese clothes and accesories, they even use magazine pages and spank! logos, but they also have original pieces.

First pair, I saw similar ones at H&M once, and fell in love, but when I came back to get them, they weren't there... I've been thinking about them since then.

And about the second pair, I've seen that kind of shoes often in magazines, and I think they combine nicely with quite a lot of things.

Unless you know corean, it's best to use a shopping service, since the whole site is in corean, and I can't even find if they ship internationally (I suppose they don't, since they don't have an english version of the site or the shopping cart).


That two sites were my yesterday's big find. Another store where I could go broke.
Do you have any interesting online stores to share?