Our Kawaii Tokyo

I hope this post is okay! I am currently away from home and I haven't been able to put as much time in to my blog lately. I am hoping to get some quality blogging time a some point soon. There are lots of posts I have planned, but it is finding the time to sit down and actually write them!

Our Kawaii Tokyo is a project by Kaila, Ashley and Allie. It is basically an e-book with guides to popular areas in Tokyo and all the cute things you can do there. For quite a few years now, I have been following Kaila, who runs rainbowholic.me and her story about moving to Japan and all of her adventures there. As somebody who is unlikely to ever go to Japan myself (I have a really bad fear of flying which resulted in an incident which delayed take-off when I was a toddler. Even with sedatives, I think 12 hours is a bit much...) I find myself having to live vicariously through other traveller's blogs and photos. I especially love the level of detail Kaila goes in to when photographing everyday life, catching even the small little details you may otherwise miss. 

So when I heard they were doing an e-book called Our Kawaii Tokyo, I was curious to see how it turned out. I should point out that obviously I mainly got this for the photography, but I wanted to have a look and see what they had to offer for travellers.

I don't wish to put up too many photos, as I feel that people should support the e-book by buying it. I placed my order through the Rainbowholic store (you can find it on via the link I posted above) and checkout was super easy. I was able to download my e-book very quickly. The book is 60-something pages long and it is mostly photographs. However, there is advice on how best to enjoy the popular areas of Tokyo. I personally wouldn't have known to go to the tourist bureau by Takeshita Dori for a free map and advice in several languages. On the whole though, if you are more than a casual fan of Tokyo, chances are you will already know about most of the places recommended. There was some helpful information, but overall this is quite basic knowledge. Near the back there was some basic level Japanese phrases which will be very useful for any travellers who don't know Japanese.

I think a lot of where this book succeeds is with the presentation. The photos are of a good quality and it really shows off Tokyo in a good light. It really does make you want to go and visit the places in the pictures. The text that is there is very easy to read in small bite-size chunks. What I really like is that it is divided in to sections on different areas and at the end of each section you get a handy checklist of all the places that get shown in the photographs. Rather than being like a stuffy tourist guide, it is more like a scrapbook, but it is a very well organised scrapbook. A lot of thought has gone in to the layout.

To be honest, this e-book was probably a little bit expensive for what you get. This book only covers Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku (I believe further guides are planned). But it is a really fantastic visual experience. You can really tell that this is a labor of love and the author's passion for all things kawaii really comes through. If you are planning a Tokyo trip, you are probably going to need a much more extensive guide, but if you like looking at pretty photos there is a lot here to gawp at. I don't think I will be buying any future guides, but I did enjoy looking at this book. If you are looking for ideas of things to do in Japan though, it would be worth checking out various Youtube channels (there are loads out there dedicated to all things Japan). I am really content to just continue reading Kaila's amazing blog.