LOVE Omotesando – Kaori Square Feet

The Super Everyday Ordinary Exhibit by Grace Lee

I was lucky enough to stop by the happiest little gallery in all the land!

After our afternoon sakura hunt through Yoyogi, my friend F and I headed over to L’illustre Galerie LE MONDE, a small gallery in Harajuku that specializes in illustrations. F just happened to be friends with Grace Lee, who’s exhibit Super Everyday Ordinary was ending that day. And I am so happy we made it there in time to see everything!

Grace was the most charming person ever and she showed us around the gallery. This gallery was actually a photo-friendly place, so I started snapping away! Her drawings are so quirky but also wonderfully relatable, just like her. And I mean that in the best way possible, she is a gem!

F and I almost fell over from delight when we spotted an illustration of a striped tshirt, just like the one we were wearing! So of course we had to take a photo with it! ;D

By the time we were done browsing through everything and chatting with Grace, it was time for the gallery to close. And because we were there and didn’t have any plans, F and I stayed behind to help Grace and the gallery owner Yoshi (who is an illustrator himself) clear the gallery.

As I’m not an artist, I wouldn’t know how it feels to take down your art at an gallery…but I can imagine it would be bittersweet. Everything was so perfectly placed that it was hard even for me to take down the artwork. How I wanted it to stay just as it was!

After everything was done, we all went out to eat delicious Thai food down the street to celebrate a successful exhibit. The great thing about having a Thai friend is that they know where the good Thai restaurants around town are! F even spoke to the staff to ask for “regular” spiciness. Yum yum!

Both Grace and F are artists and it’s always really interesting, not to mention inspiring, to learn how they bring to life their creativeness. Kudos to these girls for going doing what they love! xx

Here are some photos:

(photo by Grace Lee)

(Left photo by Fai)

L’ILLUSTRE GALERIE LE MONDE

201 Dormi Harajuku, 6-35-5 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

東京都渋谷区神宮前6-32-5 ドルミ原宿201

TEL: 03 6433 5699

HOURS: 12:00pm-8:00pm (Closed Mondays)

KAFFIR LIME (カフィアライム)

2nd Floor, 6-1-5 Jingu-mae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo

東京都渋谷区神宮前6-1-5 2F

TEL: 03 3400 2918

HOURS: 11:30am-3:00pm, 5:30pm-11:00pm

The Afternoon at Granny Smith Apple Pie & Coffee

Did you know that ‘bestie‘ is now officially a word in the Oxford English Dictionary?

I use it all the time and I know some people cringe over the word…but I like it! It’s so easy to say. Although that could just be my Japanesey side taking over. You know how we love to abbreviate everything! ;D

Well, I mentioned all of that to say…I went to eat pie with my bestie!

M loves apple pies something fierce so we decided to stop by Granny Smith Apple Pie & Coffee, a small cafe in Aoyama. And when I say small, there are literally only 4 tables-for-two and 1 table-for-four. But the store concept is take-out pie and coffee, so I guess they don’t need as many tables.

The pies all looked delicious! There were so many choices that it was hard to decided (see menu here). Very hard. But I had absolutely no problem deciding that we were just going to have to keep on coming back until I’ve tried every one of their pies. Every. Single. One.

I ended up ordering the Apple Cobbler (because you could only get it when you eat inside the cafe…I really AM Japanese. Ha) and a cappuccino. M got the Dutch Crumble and a latte. It was scrumptious and we had a great time chatting in the cafe, surrounded by the lovely fragrance of freshly baked pies in oven. I’m already pondering over what I’ll order next time I’m there!

Here are some photos:

My Apple Cobbler.

M’s Dutch Crumble

Isn’t my bestie gorgeous?

Granny Smith Apple Pie & Coffee

Aoyama Store

5-8-9 Minami Aoyama

Minato-ku, Tokyo

東京都港区南青山5-8-9

03-3486-5581

Hours: 10am-9pm

The Lunch at Panino Vino

This weekend my college friend M was in town!

She currently lives in Australia and is newly engaged! (Whoop whoop!) So you can imagine, we had a lot to talk about. A LOT. We were literally there for hours.

It felt good to talk. I know how we have technology now so we can phone, email and/or skype each other even though we live far away. But still, there’s nothing like an official gabfest face to face, don’t you think?

We had delicious panini and tea while we caught up. I love the bread they use here. So good. We also had dessert, which I didn’t even have time to take a picture of because we scarfed it down so fast 😀

M brought me my absolute favorite Australian omiyage, Tim Tams, but even better, she also gave me one of her drawings!

I love it. M draws so beautifully. Her drawings are always so sweet and kind, you can really see who she is through her work. I already have this drawing up on my wall and smile every time I see it! x

Happy long weekend everyone! (Also, happy regular weekend for people who aren’t in Japan!)