Where to Shop in Tokyo

Tokyo offers astounding shopping experiences. You will find sprawling and elegant shopping malls, extensive departmental stores, elegant and stylish designer boutiques, and fashionable garment shops. Excluding these, the city also features some modern and trendy flea street markets reflecting Japanese street fashion. AsiaRooms.com offers excellent ideas on Where to Shop in Tokyo.

Apart from garments, shoes and accessories, traditional handicraft items depicting Japanese art and culture are also sold out extensively. Exclusive Japanese products like good luck charms, kimonos, karate-wear, Japanese swords, paintings, green tea and special Beanie Babies are also found in abundance in the International Arcade. Tokyo is a place for electronic items equipped with modern technology. Electronic goods like, computers, laptops, mobile phones, digital cameras, televisions, music systems, CD and DVD players are sold at best possible prices. Ginza, Shinjuku and Akihabara are the perfect places for such goods. The highly modern Odaiba Rainbow City is an attractive shopping destination.

Some major shops are 100 Yen Shops selling souvenirs, the street market of Ameyoko Arcade providing goods at reasonably fair prices, the sprawling Matsuzakaya Ginza Store, the kids' toyshops Hello Kitty and Kiddyland, the camera and electronic goods' shops Yodobashi Camera and Sony Building.

The city of Tokyo is also famous for its fashion statement. The stores of Uniqlo sell trendy t-shirts and jeans. Some designer boutiques are Yohji Yamamoto, Comme de Garcons and Issey Miyake. Apart from garments, accessories like jewelries, watches and hand bags are available at Garret. Sophisticated outfits and trendy shoes are sold out in the Minami-Aoyama and Ura-Harajuku areas. The upscale shops sell products of brand names like Versace, Prada, Chanel and Fendi. The flea markets provide stylish and classy goods at reasonable prices.

A varied Japanese handicraft items are found in the International Arcade near the Ginza station. The Bingoya area also offers traditional hand made goods. The Oriental Bazaar in Harajuku features unique items like toys and garments. The shops in the areas of Yuzawaya and Kyoto-kan display handicraft products ranging from jute bags, cane baskets and embroidered works, to puppets and goods for home decorations.

If you wish to put on a smart, casual and sportive look, the Planet Tokyo Gear is just appropriate for you. This department features two sections - Planet Tokyo Apparel and Planet Tokyo Merchandise. The former sells garments, while the latter items like coffee mugs and bags. Sports accessories are available at the shops of Victoria Sports. For booklovers, the stores like Tower Records and Kinokuniya are perfect. For music lovers Disk Union and Tsutaya are the perfect places to shop for CDs and the Yamaha Music Store in Ginza for musical instruments. Toiletries are sold out at Body Shop and Boots. Other department stores are Odakyu and Parco. Antique items are sold at Art Plaza Magatani. Tokyo also offers some specialty stores like Beishu, selling Japanese dolls, Kuroeya displaying crockery, Yushima No Kobayashi Co. selling hand-made paper of fine quality, and Shimakame specializing in traditional Japanese kimonos.