It’s been a while since I shared some other Tokyo Shopping Guides with you. Moshi Moshi Tokyo is a new-ish guidebook from the Space Shower TV show and features its hosts’ (primarily Kyary Pamyu Pamyu) favourite shops and places in Tokyo.
Despite being written in Japanese, it’s a great guide for any kawaii or fashion fan looking for some quirky places to visit. Many of the shop names use English words and there are numbered images of products from each shop so you can see what kind of things they sell and the prices. Even better, each listing has a photo of the shop front and the maps at the back are easy enough to understand when compared against an English map. Plus of course, you can just google the shop names and someone will probably have a blog post somewhere with directions or more information about their wares.
The book is split into area sections which include Harajuku, Shibuya, Koenji, Akihabara and Asakusa. The majority of shops are fashion and accessories, but there’s also Zakka, Toy & Hobby and Culture, plus a huge amount of cafes and restaurants. There’s even a page about zines!
There are also photo sections showing Kyary as a Japanese tour guide visiting various shops and attractions like Meiji Shrine, Tokyo Aquarium and the fake restaurant food shops. If you do read Japanese, you’ll get even more out of this as it includes personal tips from Kyary and other quotes and tips.
There are loads of shops in here I’ve never heard about and I can’t wait to do some research and add some to my next itinerary.
You can buy Moshi Moshi Tokyo from CDJapan, Amazon Japan, JBox and more. The list price is around £8 but obviously shipping will bump that up a lot. I got my copy from CDJapan, when I was ordering my annual issue of Zipper magazine, so it didn’t work out too bad overall. Plus books have no import duty!
I hear there are plans to make an English language app so it might be worth holding out, but it’s definitely worth picking up the book if you’re heading to Japan soon, or look out for a copy while you’re there and save the shipping!
