Ginza

I love walking around Ginza - it's part of the old Tokyo fabric that blends nicely with the city's modern side. Posh shoppers with designer accessories walk past women in elegant kimono; businessmen in black and gray suits scurry past café windows with leisure patrons in view. And gawking tourists are everywhere. International and Japanese brand-name boutiques and stores line Ginza-dori, the central street, and add to a great display of shopping bags dangling on the passing swarm of arms and hands.

Ferragamo: I love the blur of the bag against the black suit and bright orange cab

Is that a scarf hanging out of the bag?

Takashimaya

A new version of the Takashimaya bag, with a black-and-white sketch of the Nihonbashi store. The awnings, flags and the vertical store sign have Takashimaya's signature red accents. A classic department store in the grands magasins style.

The store's standard bag with the pink rose wreath, below, has been around for a very long time.

BTW-I heard recently that the Manhattan branch is closing… sigh.

Bottom photo - linked from http://entengvince.wordpress.com/category/random-musings/page/10/

Sucrie-rie

So simple, such clean design—a bag from a patîsserie in Nihonbashi, Tokyo that specializes in cream puffs. Choux à la crème in French gets bastardized into "shu cream" in Japanese, so the name "Sucrie-rie" is a play on both the French name for cream puffs and sugar.

It was my sister-in-law's birthday, so I actually bought a cake.

A neighbor gave us some treats in this bag. I have no idea where it's from, but I like the whimsical line drawings.

Shopping in Tokyo

The sheer concentration of commerce in Tokyo is astounding, as is the concentration of people (aka "the consumers") who tote around a huge array of shopping bags. The yellow bag, from a specialty senbei (rice cracker) shop in Nihonbashi, sits underneath a brightly-lit subway sign that advertises the store which is located close to the station.