Takeshita Street – Tokyo

Takeshita Street was my favourite place to go in Tokyo. We used maps.me to navigate us there from the Shibuya scramble intersection, it was very easy to do and it took us through some really cool narrow windy streets with little homes along the way.

Takeshita Street is a pedestrian street (no cars) with shop after shop of cute kawaii products and sweet foods. Kawaii is the Japanese subculture that is pretty much anything cute. Girls were wearing colourful short skirts with tall socks and platform heels, pig tails and frills, nail polish and extra long eyelashes. The guys wore suspenders and polka dots, baggy shorts on top of patterned tights, oversized floppy hats and colourful hair. And they all smiled and laughed and enjoyed the little details of cute.

We saw plenty of hello kitty items, even a few stores dedicated to this simple cat. It was tempting to walk out of there with key chains and notepads and compact mirrors and pens and chopsticks with cute characters on them.

Japan has no shortage of purse stores and socks. The purses are beautiful, great quality with all the practical pockets you want in a simple efficient design. I would love to buy a purse here but they are expensive so that will be a last day in Japan type of purchase. We’ve seen several purse “workshops”, just a few doors down from the purse stores, so you can look through the window and watch the hand bag makers expertly craft their pieces of art. Although we didn’t see any of these workshops on Takeshita Street, I knew that the purses sold here were locally made.

The socks sold along Takeshita street were very cool. Some had separate toe holes or maybe just one hole just for the big toe. I’ve noticed people wearing these types of socks, once when we watched an older Japanese man walking the outdoor reflexology park, he had the individual toe socks. Another time when we watched a tea ceremony, the girl performing the ceremony wore the single big toe socks with her kimono. I realize that these socks are perfect to wear with those wooden flip flops that geishas wear, as the thong fits between the toes this way. I’m sold, and now a bunch of people in Canada will get some toe sock souvenirs from Tokyo.