Temotoasobi

I love this new packaging design for chopsticks!! Exactly the kind of thing I would do if I were given them in a restaurant! 

Designed by Takeshi Hamana and Yuya Iwagaki,  they have come up with a solution for what to do with your chopsticks when having dinner in Japan, that is clever and also culturally correct. There are many table manners in Japan, and it’s hard to remember whats right and wrong! For example, you shouldn’t pass food chopstick to chopstick as it’s usually a ritual performed in funerals. Also, where you place your chopsticks has many rules.

I think it’s a great idea, as it makes use of the paper case, and means that it is not just thrown away,  but made into something creative and useful!

Delicious うなぎ！

I went for a really delicious 鰻 eel lunch today! It was soo good, and something I never usually eat as it’s really expensive. It was a really nice restaurant and the eel was served in a beautiful box. I loved the restaurant’s logo too.

無印良品 fun!

Love these books that they have in muji at the moment! They are so much fun, and really creative for children. You get a series of different blank faces and lots of different eyes, noses and mouths to stick on them. The faces are fruit or vegetables, different shapes etc. Endless fun!

Omotesando Koffee

I went to Tokyo last weekend and visited Omotesando Koffee. It’s the second time I’ve been there now, and I love it! It opened last year sometime I think, and is a pop-up style cafe. It was opened up in an old wooden traditional style Japanese house in Omotesando, that was due to be demolished this January. However, due to its popularity it has been given the go ahead for another year or so I think (?) Anyway, its a great little place and the owner is really sweet. He makes great coffee and even better sweets! He does only one kind of sweet, a baked custard type sweet, and it’s soooo good! If you’re in Tokyo, go and visit!!

The branding and concept for the shop is really simple and nice. Inside the main room, he has installed a simple, metal frame which holds the counter and coffee machine. I love the way he uses coffee filter papers as flyers for the cafe, and also as a wrapper for the sweets.

100yen gem #2

Here’s another gem from the 100 yen shop! A cute sponge to brighten up your kitchen. This one even has a name, it’s マッタリさん(⌒▽⌒) and its sparkly!

Matsuzaka Ekiben

I’m currently traveling around the ise and wakayama peninsula in Japan, and the other day we changed trains in Matsuzaka. I’d heard it was famous for beef so in the train station I went to see what bentos they had. Each area in Japan usually has an “ekiben” which is a bento that you get on the train or from the station (eki is station in Japanese). The bento will usually have whatever food that area is famous for in. This one was particularly funny with it being in the shape of a cows head, and even played a tune when you took the lid off!

More sweets….

More pretty sweets from Kyoto! Although these don’t really taste of much, mainly sugar, but they are so cute! and I love the packaging.