An Afternoon in Ikebukuro

I’ve done a lot of these “Afternoon” posts, but I think I’ve yet to write one for Ikebukuro, my hood, and so here is what amounts to a rather typical Saturday (or Sunday) with the wife.

We started off yesterday by heading out around 13-14:00 to get lunch at Cafe Add+Ress inside Parco. We pretty much go there every weekend and get one of the lunch plates, although yesterday I got an open sandwich instead — delicious — and their Dragon Chai — rather good, quite spicy, but I still prefer the one at Cafe Pause. Since the cafe is on the same floor (6th) as Graniph and the Delfonics‘ Smith store, I usually drop by and check to see if there’s anything new I like. Yesterday I picked up these 2 long-sleeved shirts. I also really liked the stationery at Ocean Union from Tsubame Note Co., Ltd. This is usually followed by slowly going down, stopping at various shops (I like a lot of the design-related shops on the 5th floor as well), with Yuko making stops at clothing stores — she’s a big fan of the new Ututu store, which is a new brand started by a young designer (I like their clothes as well).

Before leaving Parco, we stopped at Muji, and in their Muji Xmas section I picked up the black aluminum double card case, their die-shaped calendars, the Tokyo map handkerchief, and a sweater that was in the sales section (gotta love that “getting rid of old stock” area). I then wanted to stop by Bic Camera to get some info regarding the Wii launch, and how they’ll be organizing it, but the way leading there was just so crowded — Ikebukuro gets pretty nuts these days on weekends — and so instead we just walked around some more.

I wanted to stop by Uniqlo to see if they still had clothes from this month’s “Designer Invitation Project” collection by Scye (next month is Mint Designs). They didn’t have the section up anymore, but a sales corner had some of the pants left, and so I grabbed a pair for only 2000 yen. They’re also really pushing the Fantastic Plastic Machine compilation — created for the recently opened NYC flagship store — with stacks in front of all the cash registers.

I often stop by Junkudo, and we also will stop at Cafe Pause, but we were a bit tired by then, so just headed home.