with 4 days in Tokyo followed by 3 in China I'm well and truly noodled out!
It's been nearly 3 years since in was in Tokyo last, so I was super excited to see what was going on in the stores and get my chopsticks into some yummy food.
Tokyo doesn't have a great choice of hotels, we wanted to stay at the The Claska but the location for us for work was a little out of the way...so we ended up at the Excel which is directly opposite Shibuya train station, a great location for shopping and getting around the city.
Loft - you can lost in here choosing which pen, notebook or lunchbox you want to take home.
Tokyo Hands - is of a similar genre although not quite so well presented as Loft.
Marunan - We can then get lost in here deciding which Quilting thread colour you can't live without.
The location is next to Shibuya Station with blue awning (very close to Hachiko exit).
Parco Part 1 For japanese magazines and books head to the of basement of Parco Part 1.
Apart from the jetlag...and not having a great appetite eating is always a pleasure in Tokyo, with only 3 nights we managed to get in 3 food types Sushi, a traditional Raman and a Japanese pub style Izakaya.
If you love vintage and japanese style fashion you cannot miss Kapital, it's one of my favorite places to hide away for an hour and believe I can get away with Japanese style and generally realise when I get home this is not possible on a 5ft 9 frame, I can only accessorize.
China was all about working & eating, Dalian is not the prettiest city, but we certainly ate well.
Bypassing the dog & serpent restaurants, they really do eat everything in this city, but being on the coast gave huge influence to the seafood. A highlight for food was definitely the white tuna sushi - I know we'd just come from Japan and I was eating Japanese in China...but we spent a wonderful evening at a teppanyaki restaurant trying everything from sea cucumber to frog.
Chinese Fondue...YUM!!
OD'ing on Dumplings.