The first two stops we made were Tegami-sha. We all fell in love with their concept of stationery meets lifestyle meets amazing food... They have 2 locations with different cafe/stores which was about 15 minutes walk from each other. If you are analogue enthusiasts like us, I think you will enjoy visiting both locations.
We enjoyed our very slow lunch at Tegami-sha "Tsutsujiga-oka" after meeting the creative duo of Kata-kata (which happened to be next door!)
In a very Japanese fashion their lunch menu sells out often (!!!) so I recommend visiting there for early lunch. We totally took our time to indulge their delicious food and their sweets. The inspiring space really sparked some great conversations. I have a fond memory of chatting with Eunice and Nerine about the possible future of Baum-kuchen and where we might or could go next. In some way, stepping away from our everyday operation really helped us to breathe some big dreams and to me... that's what traveling is all about.
Our second stop was the Tegami-sha 2nd Story. We enjoyed their take on artistic display. Creating unexpected experience... encouraging us to feel more curious.
From there, we took a 30 minutes taxi ride to cross the town. (If we had more time, we would have taken trains... but we were quite pinched with time!) Next stop was Nakamura Bungu Ten. I had to smile when I looked them up online to check their opening hours. Their opening hours is like ours! (You know what I mean... if you have been to our shop in Glassell Park)
The 3rd generation owner of this stationery store curates mostly unused vintage stationery from Japan. When I walked into the store, I felt like I had time slipped to my grandparents house. In their living room where they kept old notebooks and binders... my grandfather's house on Yakushima island with his stationery...
Frido loves Vintage graphic and it inspires quite bit of our BK aesthetics so I was over the moon to be in the space picking every single vintage stationery I could find... and admiring them.
From there we took JR "Chuo-line" train to make our way back to the city and stopped by 36 Sublo store. This boutique store was like stationery lover's dream. The space is small but a lot of little items to go through and discover... In some way, it felt like walking into an amazing flea market booth. I am glad we visited a big stationery store like LOFT on the previous day. We knew exactly which item(s) were hard to find anywhere else.
If you are visiting Tokyo and LOVE analogue items, I highly recommend visiting these little stores!
