Shopping

This ace arcade under the JR tracks (its name refers to the distance from Tokyo Station) offers an eclectic range of stores selling Japanese-made goods – everything from pottery and leatherwork to cute aliens, a nod…

While you’re in Nishiki Market, have a look at this store – it has some of the best kitchen knives in the world. Choose your knife – all-rounder, sushi, vegetable – and the staff will show you how to care for it bef…

This company has been making its canvas bags for over 110 years and the store is often crammed with those in the know picking up a skillfully crafted Kyoto product. Originally designed as ‘tool’ bags for workers to …

Zōhiko is the best place in Kyoto to buy one of Japan's most beguiling art and craft forms: lacquerware. If you aren't familiar with just how beautiful these products can be, you owe it to yourself to make the pilgr…

Step into this partially open-air market paralleling and beneath the JR line tracks, and ritzy, glitzy Tokyo feels like a distant memory. It got its start as a black market, post-WWII, when American goods were sold …

Mitsukoshi's venerable Nihombashi branch was Japan’s first department store. It's a grand affair with an entrance guarded by bronze lions and a magnificent statue of Magokoro, the Goddess of Sincerity, rising up fro…

This well-designed shopping mall at the foot of JP Tower incorporates the restored facade of the former Tokyo Central Post Office. It is notable for its atrium, around which is arrayed a quality selection of craft-o…

Spread over three buildings, this stylish development hits its stride at Coredo Muromachi 3. This section houses several well-curated floors of top-class, Japanese-crafted goods including cosmetics, fashion, homewar…

Outside the south exit of JR Karuizawa Station, this gargantuan outlet shopping mall has most of the big names. There's a high likelihood of finding bargains and hard-to-find or only-in-Japan merchandise. Shopaholic…

This DIY and zakka (miscellaneous goods) store has eight fascinating floors of everything you didn’t know you needed, including reflexology slippers, bee-venom face masks and cartoon-character-shaped rice-ball mould…