Tokyo Midtown

Went out to Tokyo Midtown tonight, the new shopping area development in Tokyo. It has a very nice, modern design with Japanese influence. Everything is done in blonde wood, with lots of open, airy spaces and light, and it uses metal as an accent in railings, etc. Even 7-11 has modified it's sign to fit in with the decor, rather than having the normal bright red and green colours.s

Actually, we (me and friend Cal) ended up there fairly late, and it was great to wander around without all of the people. It allowed me to appreciate the architecture of the place. One of the things that I hope to do in the future is go to Coppola - a restaurant that serves Coppola wines (yes, the famous movie Coppola). They have fun names like the Skywalker Ranch Chardonnay. You have to go just to say you drank that!

The best, and most amusing store in the entire building has to be the dog store. It includes the "dog deli" serving such things as ostrich and fish, a dog beauty salon, and an assortment of organic dog food for sale. Yes, not just one brand of organic dog food, but several. Of course, the store wouldn't be complete without the wall doggie outfits. (You can find pictures of all of these on my Flickr account).

While the complex was really nice to wander around, I can't say that I would do any regular shopping there. The tenants offer extremely pricey goods, and about the only thing interesting for me was the food stores in the basement (got a wide variety of tofu to try, including some that had karashi spice in the middle of tofu balls) and an aroma therapy shop in the "spa" corridor.

The aroma therapy shop was great actually. They have these little plastic envelopes of essential oils that release scent gradually over about a week. You can put them in your pillow. They smell wonderful, and I found that I am sleeping better with the night time scent.

The other interesting store in the spa corridor was the men's skin care store with attached spa. For "only" 14,000 yen (I think that was the cost) you can get a hair cut and a shave in this super-padded, bright red barber chair in a private room. You can then relax in a room with subdued lighting while perusing one of the many men's magazines... including a wide selection of business themed ones. If you want to make it day, you can always get the manicure / pedicure and massage done as well. Who knows how much that costs! Actually, it was really interesting. We got to take a tour of the facilities because no one was in there at the time. So, as a woman, I suppose I got the secret insight. It was nice to see - essentially all spas cater exclusively to women. This is "the" place to go for metrosexual men wanting to spend a day getting beautiful too.