Kewpies and More in Shibuya

Hellooo from Japan!

Today was our first full day here. We had planned to do both Shibuya and Harajuku, but the former proved to be more than enough for us.

We spent a good part of the day in Loft, browsing the latest in stylishly cute housewares and zakka. Then we ogled delicious food at Shibuya station.

Kewpie dolls continue to be all the rage in the cute department. Here they are advertising a new TV show:

I love love love this ad! Each Kewpie is dressed up as a food or animal or other thing of Japan. Wouldn’t it have been fun to make all these outfits? They’re also selling cell phone straps of Kewpies incognito as various foods and animals—I picked up a Kewpie beer and a Kewpie mushroom today. So cute!

Here’s Kewpie dressed up as the horse character Rody.

If you look closely and can read Japanese, you’ll see that this particular crane game has a sign proclaiming it the “second most popular!” What a crowning achievement.

The “Kapibara” character is still going strong too, with a few new varieties added to the mix. Do these guys remind you of someone?

Perhaps a certain toupee-wearing mouse?

Now for edibles. We came across a counter with the most gorgeous, exotic varieties of honey.

Yuzu, lemon, thyme.. those are the ones I can remember, but there were dozens of flavors. I think we could have gotten samples, but we were too busy buying them up to think to ask.

Finally, yummy bright green sweets.

Made of sticky rice, sweet bean paste, and unidentifiable squiggly green thingies.

We’re heading off to a few days in Kyoto tomorrow, where I’m not sure if we’ll have internet access or not. I’ll be back when we do!