Best Address: 5-24-2 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo (Shinjuku metro station)

From its humble origins as a kimono shop almost two centuries, Takashimaya has risen to become one of the Japan’s leading department store chains.  The flagship store in Nihonbashi (near Ginza) is quite traditional and somewhat in need of a facelift.  The Shinjuku store, in Takashimaya Times Square, just reopened in 2007 after major renovation and it has almost everything you’d want in a department store – innovative goods and excellent service.  From cutting edge United Bamboo or Viktor and Rolf to the more muted Nanette Lepore and Burberry Blue Label to Japanese labels like Tao Comme des Garçons and Jill Stuart, Takashimaya has them all draped across several of the lower floors of this 15 floor edifice.  They’ve also tried to recreate a little bit of NY with a shop-in-shop version of Kirna Zabete (and Lady Mendl’s Tea Salon across the way).  It doesn’t work as well as the original in NY but judge for yourself! Talking of cafes and restaurants, there are a host of them strewn throughout the building, often between the apparel racks.  Best of all, you can shop to your heart’s delight because you can leave he-who-hates-shopping in the adjacent Do-It-Yourself store Tokyu Hands, the famed Kikokuniya bookshop in the complex, of in the Imax theater upstairs!

PS. See below the location map in English. Tokyo maps provided by Google and showed at the "Location Map" section are in Japanese.