Kinshicho

My parents' home is located in eastern Tokyo. It takes about one hour (15 minutes by walk to the nearest station and 45 minutes by train) to major districts of Tokyo like Shinjuku and Shibuya. I finally understand why I got exhausted everytime I stayed in Tokyo for a couple of weeks. I'd go to such major districts of Tokyo almost everyday. My travel time was as long as 2 hours every day.

The situation has changed a bit. Kinshicho, another district of Tokyo just 30 minute away from my parents' home, has become a trendy spot during the past couple of years. And I'm quite satisfied by the shopping experience in this area today.

The Kinshicho branch of the Marui department store is not that different from other Marui branches in Shinjuku and Shibuya anymore. I manage to find good-looking pieces of clothes at Rupert (a dark turquoise t-shirt with long sleeves and a zipper neck hole), Michel Klein Homme (a khaki flax jacket with slightly short sleeves), TK (a white t-shirt with Japanese traditional patterns), and Comme Ca Men (a white t-shirt with a black and purple abstract art print).

And I visit Olinas, a recently opened shopping mall in Kinshicho. Quite a few fashionista girls walk into the mall, a scene unthinkable for Kinshicho until a few years ago. The mall is crescent-shaped with a double-height structure (you can see the top ceiling of the building from the ground floor), designed by RTKL. Although women's wear boutiques form the majority of the shops, several interior good stores are also found. There are some cafes I haven't seen before anywhere else in Tokyo. Surely this is a better shopping mall than the Brunswick in London, which just collects all the major, boring high street shopping chains.

Kinshicho beats London.