Image Courtesy of info.aia.org
I’m not a huge fan of Ginza (too many chain stores and tourists) but it is worth a visit for the new Lanvin store, which has two floors of magic.

Time your visit around lunch or afternoon tea at the Gucci Café. You don’t have to be into the brand to enjoy this [...]

It’s been a while since I visited Japan and enjoyed the amazing assortment of packaged sweets on offer. Even Muji sells amazing pinwheel cakes and delicately packaged candy.
Fortunately my friend’s Tristan and Yuka have just returned from Tokyo with a truckload of Japanese lollies to satisfy my sweet tooth.
I especially like the long thin white [...]

When you’re in Japan, eat Japanese and only Japanese. And for the real deal the best place I’ve ever been in Japan is Toufuya Ukai. Traditional private dining rooms all open up onto beautiful gardens that are quite magical to walk through before and after dinner. It’s a sensational place for lunch or [...]

Photo by Mikhail Gherman
Shibuya is an easy area to spend a day. Start the day with an early lunch and some great retail at my favourite spot: Margaret Howell (1-13-8 Jinnin-Shibuya-Ku) for great clothes and home wear put together in a lovely way. The café serves wonderful light lunches outside on the terrace.
Allow a few [...]

After a few days in the metropolis it can be nice to escape. A perfect day trip is the Kamakura area an hour’s drive or train ride south west of Tokyo. The series of 5 or 6 beaches lining the coast from this point are refreshing after the heat and intensity of the city. [...]

On my recent trip to Tokyo I had the pleasure of staying in Shimotakaido a suburb in the Setagaya Ward, a couple of stops west of Shinjuku, on the keyno line.
There is something so cute about the suburbs of Tokyo. The small streets and compact houses seem almost doll like. Pedestrian pavements are indistinguishable form [...]

Gas masks. Ex-American Army clothes. Life jackets. Tutus. Helmets. Victorian corsetry and bonnets. Dominatrix gear. All this and more can be found at Dog in Harajuku, and they encourage wearing it all together.
Harajuku remains the favourite playground for cool kids in Tokyo. Everyone there is about seeing and being seen and this culture of voyeurism [...]

Visiting Tokyo for my first time I was expecting my head to be filled with ‘Geisha’ or ‘Tokyo Pop’ imagery, for everything to be either super modern or super traditional. I loved these garage doors in Asakusa - Tokyo’s traditional market area as they are practical, beautiful, traditional, modern and unexpected all at the [...]

Words by Kirk Owers
From December to March it barely stops snowing on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. They sweep the airstrip so your plane can land. Mountain roads are banked 15 feet high in pure white. You go to bed, it’s snowing. You wake up, it’s snowing. Ski the same run twice and fresh powder has [...]

Words Adam Blakey
Photo Keith Ng

Not that it was a big secret or anything, but you just know Gwen Stefani Harajuku’d the fruit out of all of us by getting on her knees and shamelessly licking the place clean on her last album. Regardless, style messiahs will still head straight for Cat Street, a mecca for [...]