[Featured Image: Puppets from Indonesia]
Every year, for 13 consecutive years already, MIFA (Meguro International Friend Association) organizes a cultural-exchange festival with traditional clothes, dances, food, handmade items and so on. I had the chance to be there as a volunteer teaching my country’s alphabet, and got to participate at the scheduled events at the same time. At some point I ended up in a situation where I was shouting ‘I am Greek, I am Greek’ while wearing a Japanese kimono and having my hair done in Togo-style dreadlocks. The Japanese participants said that the attire looked all natural on me, so I guess that’s good enough.
Afterwards, I headed to Jiyuugaoka in order to buy a birthday present for a friend. If you like weird, cute, absolutely useless but irresistible thingies, Jiyuugaoka is the PLACE-TO-BE. The shops there are insane (the ones that don’t mimic France at least, I can say that I like them) and sell everything that you never thought you’d want to, but absolutely have to buy. And because we are close to Valentine’s day (Tokyo Bake Cheese Tart is a dream come true), there were a lot of special offers to hunt down.
On my way home, two unexpected design choices caught my attention. Isn’t Japan adorable?
belleelene 