In Japan, second-hand stores are called recycle shops. There are three main recycle stores in Misawa. Hachinohe has a ton more. Some stores are really tiny, crammed and hard to see anything. Others are better, wider and lighter. We have never bought anything but some toys, sports gear and furniture at the recycle shops here, although you can find plenty of other interesting things at some of them.
I wanted to mention just a couple of most interesting stores in my post. One is located in Towada City. It is a store that is called “500 yen kimono shop” or “stinky kimono shop”-haha. Basically, here, you can find used kimonos for $6, obis (beautiful Japanese belts that go around your waist when you wear a kimono) and yukatas for 100 yen (a little bit more than a dollar). Yukatas are those light robes that people wear to summer festivals, or what we wore at our hotel when we went away on our anniversary trip last year.
The reason why it’s also called stinky is because the people who run this store smoke inside, not caring about all that polyester fabric around them. When we stopped by there a month ago, I spent about 45 minutes sifting through hundreds of obis and yukatas. At that point, I simply had to get out and get some fresh air. This store is very popular with the American women who want to buy a very valuable Japanese souvenir for little money. Truly, new obis and kimonos cost hundreds of dollars.
The guy said 500 yen (which is around $6). So yes, I bought them. Robert and I laugh every time we look at these horns. We still cannot really figure out why they are significant and whether or not they are even Japanese-haha. They seem real to me. And they are being displayed on top of my piano at the moment…through Christmas. Then we’ll put them in storage somewhere and wait till Robert has an office or something, where he can display them properly.
I want to hear about your craziest “recycle” or second-hand store purchases! So hope to see some comments.
Good night!
Lyana
I wanted to mention just a couple of most interesting stores in my post. One is located in Towada City. It is a store that is called “500 yen kimono shop” or “stinky kimono shop”-haha. Basically, here, you can find used kimonos for $6, obis (beautiful Japanese belts that go around your waist when you wear a kimono) and yukatas for 100 yen (a little bit more than a dollar). Yukatas are those light robes that people wear to summer festivals, or what we wore at our hotel when we went away on our anniversary trip last year.
The reason why it’s also called stinky is because the people who run this store smoke inside, not caring about all that polyester fabric around them. When we stopped by there a month ago, I spent about 45 minutes sifting through hundreds of obis and yukatas. At that point, I simply had to get out and get some fresh air. This store is very popular with the American women who want to buy a very valuable Japanese souvenir for little money. Truly, new obis and kimonos cost hundreds of dollars.
This is the store. Lovely, isn’t it. It’s about 30 minutes away from our house.
Katya is fascinated with the announcements on the door—someone told me the guy has different hours for American visitors than for Japanese. Interesting.
All right, no more stinky stuff.
About 40 minutes away from North Area, one can find this very unique place that we call Salvage Yard. I have given directions to it many times, but it’s a very tricky thing in Japan to recognize buildings that have no English name on them. Now I can refer them to my blog. This is what it looks like.
What you don’t see on this picture is five or six more small buildings around this tower that have a ton of unique old things. I am not sure why we call it a salvage yard, since it’s not really a junk yard. It is a place where you can find a mixture of household items, dishes, toys, old-old furniture, antique Japanese decorations, picture frames, random items like cart wheel. Anyway, some things that are displayed outside are for sale as well—for example this boat which Mark wanted to purchase.
Oh! Oh! But the prices! The more you buy, the more of a discount you get for all the cool things. Prices that are on the items are not real prices.
I must share this purchase with you. I would never ever buy anything crazy looking like this for a full price. But when I saw this and thought of how GRAND it is, I decided to ask the guy how much this was. Any guesses?
I want to hear about your craziest “recycle” or second-hand store purchases! So hope to see some comments.
Good night!
Lyana
LOVE the horns! As soon as Doug opened his office, I loaded up the
ReplyDeleteSamurai helmet and Samurai swords and took them to him!