Sugoi Natsukashii

 One of my gifts from David this year was a virtual trip to Tokyo, to walk Ginza and go shopping at my favorite stationary store, Itoya. Here are some photos from our "trip" yesterday:

 It was a beautiful day in Tokyo. Look at that sky!

 

We started out across the street from this building, where I used to work on the fourth floor.

 

This is walking past WAKO, the store that I went into looking for a wallet and found the cheapest one was a tiny leather thing for around 45000 yen ($450). That was the first and last time I ever went into WAKO.

 

We went shopping here, at Itoya. They've changed the front entrance, I think. The red paperclip used to be about twelve feet tall and sat on the pavement. I used to love shopping at this store on my lunch hour. EIGHTEEN stories of all things stationary. What's not to love?

So I shopped (and paid for things via Amazon).

 

This is what I was interested in, Fish Market, a collection of notebooks and other things with Edo-style illustrations of fish. Then I selected a host of cards and a furoshiki. That took about half an hour of my time. (I'll post pictures when they arrive in a couple of weeks.)

After shopping, the host(ess), Meg, a Japanese woman who was raised in Brazil, took us on a walk around Ginza, showing us some new things. She took us down this tiny alleyway:

The alley twists and turns, snaking through the buildings and ends up here:
 

At a shrine wedged in the narrow space between the buildings.

Two foxes guard the shrine to Inari. Inari is the Shinto goddess of rice and prosperity and the foxes are her guardians and messengers. The fried tofu pockets stuffed with rice are also called "Inari" because they are said to be the favorite foods of the foxes. (I think because they resemble the tiny, rice-stuffed mice that the foxes eat, hence guarding the rice harvest.) People bring Inari sushi offerings to the shrine along with sake.

You can see the plate and sake cup at the fox's haunches.

 

Go-en (a five yen coin) buys the attention of the gods. Pray for what you want (this is a shrine devoted to prosperity, so that's probably a good bet.) Then it was back onto one of the tiny backstreets at the very outer edge of Ginza, where it starts to bleed into Shimbashi.

 

 And say goodbye to our virtual guide, Meg.

Sayonara, Meg-san! Arigato gozaimashita!