[Tokyo] Exploring Ginza: Uncovering the Secret to Japanese People's Endurance in Wearing Masks for Long Periods

Teacher Huali comes to Tokyo N times a year. Speaking of Tokyo's Ginza, it can be described as a shopper's paradise. Besides high-end brands and department stores, Ginza also hides a highly popular lifestyle goods store, which is Ginza LOFT!

Ginza LOFT, spanning six floors, offers a wide variety of cosmetics, daily necessities, stationery, and light luxury niche brands that are very popular in Japan. This seems to be the newest flagship store among the hundred LOFT stores!

The first floor is a café and food sales area. Here you can buy incredibly beautiful chocolates, organic foods, imported teas, coffee beans, etc. OLs working near Ginza love to come here to pick up all kinds of delicious snacks.

The food sales area not only offers many specialty snacks from all over Japan but also a variety of tempting Western-style desserts. It's truly a paradise for foodies who love aesthetics!

The second floor is the beauty and skincare products area. In the NATURAL CARE section, you'll find various plant-based skincare products sold exclusively at LOFT. It's rare to see such a comprehensive selection of pure plant-based skincare brands in other stores.

This section covers many well-known European and American pure plant-based brands as well as many Japanese ones, from facial care to hair products. The latest new product releases from many brands can also be found first at Ginza LOFT!

Besides the unique NATURAL CARE section, the second floor's beauty and skincare area also includes oral care products, body care products, cosmetics, and health products, all carefully selected by LOFT for their high quality.

Here I also discovered a great find, which my Tokyo bestie recommended I buy this time: the ST Chick's MoriLabo Pollen Protection Stick. I have an allergic constitution, and every year during the seasons with heavy willow and sycamore fluff, I often sneeze and have teary eyes. According to my Tokyo bestie, this pollen protection stick is a very popular item in Japan for preventing pollen allergies, and it's very convenient to use, perfect for frequent travelers like me. It's small and portable, easier to carry than the sprays I've bought before. It's as light as a lip balm in my bag, so I bought two to try.

This ST Chick's MoriLabo Pollen Protection Stick, according to my Tokyo bestie, is very effective against hay fever, a national affliction in Japan, and also works well for sneezing and runny nose symptoms of rhinitis.

The ingredients of MoriLabo's Pollen Protection Stick are natural and it doesn't directly touch the skin, so it's safe for children too! Not only is it sold at LOFT, but later when we went to Shinjuku, we also saw it in drugstores. Currently, it's a very popular pollen prevention item in Japan.

The body care section on the second floor of Ginza LOFT has many cherry blossom season packaging products—all pink and lovely, making me want to buy everything!

Not just beauty and skincare, but the cosmetics section also has many spring limited editions. If you come to Japan for shopping before summer, you can still find many cherry blossom items that are full of girlish charm~~~

The packaging of several Japanese fragrance brands was just too cute, and the scents were lovely too. I bought two as souvenirs for friends—perfect!

The third floor's fashion accessories area even has a MOMA design counter, where you can buy many popular Yayoi Kusama merchandise. Fans of the polka-dot grandma must come here to hunt for treasures!

The fourth floor's household sundries area has everything from large items like humidifiers and rice cookers to small items like lunch boxes and thermos cups. Compared to typical home appliance stores, the items here are much cuter and more aesthetically pleasing.

The fifth floor is LOFT's pride—the stationery floor. Various planners, stationery items are all available. I bought Shiba Inu postcards to send spring greetings to my friends~~

On the sixth floor, you can buy all kinds of game and anime merchandise, as well as various unique designer brand art items, many of which cannot be found elsewhere! At Ginza LOFT, you can pay with UnionPay, Alipay, and WeChat, and purchases over 5,000 yen are eligible for tax refund!

Finally, don't forget to go back to the first floor and try LOFT's trendy blue ice cream!

This almond-flavored blue ice cream uses spirulina as an ingredient, which gives it such a special color! It's fun to shop and delicious to eat. When in Ginza, you must not miss Ginza LOFT!

These are the things I bought during my Ginza shopping spree~~~ Some are my regularly repurchased favorites, and I'll share recommendations with you all one by one later.

First, let's unbox this MoriLabo Pollen Protection Stick, which is most suitable for spring. After reading the instructions, I found out that it contains fir essential oil extracted from natural fir trees in Hokkaido. This ingredient can envelop pollen, reduce the activity of allergens, and the natural scent is also very pleasant.

Usage is very simple: just apply it to the outside of the mask. Remember, it's the outside of the mask! Similar to using a lip balm, twist out 1 to 2 millimeters and apply a thin layer about 4 to 5 centimeters long around the nose area on the outside of the mask. Be careful not to twist out too much or apply too hard, as it may break.

I bought the MoriLabo Pollen Protection Stick this time as a preventive measure for the upcoming spring. Spring has already arrived, and domestically, we can gradually go outside. Applying this pollen protection stick before going out means no more sneezing or runny nose due to pollen allergies~~~ During this special period, wearing a mask outside sometimes makes me feel stuffy inside, or after a long time, it even develops an odor. The fragrance of the MoriLabo Pollen Protection Stick can also make the mask feel fresh, and naturally, my mood improves! Wearing a mask for a long time is no longer a concern.

And the scent is very pleasant, a natural fragrance that makes you feel like you're in a forest, as if breathing becomes smoother, giving a feeling of forest breathing! The MoriLabo Pollen Protection Stick is also very convenient to carry. Whether at the office or outdoors, it's easy to apply. One application lasts about 3 to 4 hours. If used 4 times a day, one stick can last about 45 days!

When my bestie and I finished shopping at Ginza LOFT, it was almost dark. This newly opened flagship store was so enjoyable to browse. From now on, every time I come to Ginza, besides visiting department stores, I'll definitely include LOFT!

If you choose to have dinner in Ginza, Teacher Huali recommends this restaurant full of ritual, "Robata Shion," a very popular Japanese restaurant in Ginza.

This restaurant is located on the top floor of the Ginza 745 Building. The head chef is Shintaro Fujino, vice president of the Japanese Cuisine Research Association. The restaurant has a counter seating style similar to an izakaya, where you can watch the chef prepare every dish fresh. They only serve dinner, and mostly set meals, but you can also order some premium ingredients individually.

We chose the "Shion Tajima Tada Beef Set Meal," consisting of ten courses, incredibly lavish! The ingredients were also very refined: the caviar was sturgeon caviar, the green peppers were from Kyoto's Manganoji, the sea urchin was Hokkaido's Bafun sea urchin (one of Japan's three major sea urchins), the salmon was Norwegian Bredli salmon, and there was Kobe beef... The robata grilled fish used Japan's highest-grade Hokkaido nodoguro, the eel rice used Aichi eel, the pufferfish was the best wild tiger pufferfish, and even the dessert used Miyazaki muscat grapes and Hokkaido melon. Each dish had impressive ingredients.

We also ordered an extra king crab. The crabs were killed live; the raw king crab legs were extremely fresh and could be eaten raw or grilled. The crab gills were surprisingly delicious, topped with caviar and gold leaf, giving a luxurious feel!

The ingredients and flavors at this restaurant were amazing, and the experience was fantastic. There are already three Michelin-starred restaurants in the Ginza 745 Building. "Robata Shion" has great potential to become the fourth Michelin-starred restaurant!

Although due to the recent epidemic, many friends who planned to come to Japan for cherry blossom season have postponed their trips, how can we see the rainbow without experiencing the storm? Although we might miss this year's cherry blossom season, Japan still has April's moss phlox, May's wisteria, June's hydrangeas, July's lavender and sunflowers waiting for everyone to see... When the epidemic subsides, we can head to Japan again!

Original text and images: @J调de华丽, reproduction prohibited.

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