Visit the Japan Traditional Craft Center for a wonderful overview (located near Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo). You'll find high-quality dolls, pottery, fiber crafts, handmade paper goods and more from all over Japan. Along with shopping, view the craft collections on display and watch artisans at work. For more information, visit them online (see Resources).
Head to the Oriental Bazaar in the Harajuku District of Tokyo--and plan to stay a while. Its four floors offer everything from inexpensive souvenirs (think chopsticks, fans and tea towels) to antique furniture. An advantage to shopping here: the store will ship things home for you.
Finish at the Oriental Bazaar, stroll around Harajuku for a while. Among the hip, modern stores, you'll find lively crafts shops selling paper and stationery products, furoshiki (creative wrapping cloth) and tenugui (traditional fabric often used for towels but so lovely you may want to frame it).
Be sure to visit Asakusa, a gold mine of traditional crafts. Just outside Asakusa Station, Nakamise Dori is a walkway filled with stalls selling tenugui, fans, ornamental hairpins, noren (Japanese curtains), chopsticks, lanterns and so much more. For details about what to find where, see Resources.
Go to a large Tokyo department store for Japanese crafts and an amazing variety of other things as well. Start in the basements (usually devoted to beautiful food displays), head past the fabulous fashions, and don't miss the crafts and kimonos. Crafts range from woodworking to ceramics, and the department stores wrap them up beautifully.
