amsterdam three – shopping

day four in Amsterdam. a trip to the Nordmarket flea market with mina perhonen. shopping and walking, hopping on and off the bus that runs up and down the Princes Graft, the first of the old canals near Tamago.

we found buttons, very useful, I got a bag full of big vintage plastic ones, suitable for hats,

and handmade paper made into books with wonderful shabby pieces of leather for covers, and a cord to tie them closed.

I bought three .. Akira and Naho bought quite a lot. the vendor gave them a couple of tiny books for free.

then we wandered off down some of the tiny back streets, near where I found this entrance on Saturday;

all very pretty, and we found a shop full of American forties and fifties industrial furniture down here.

perfect for the new addition to the Mina store in Kyoto.

the more Akira looked the more he added to the list of things to be shipped to Japan.

the young Dutch guy was quite taken aback, he hadn’t expected to sell everything so quickly.

Akira explained that they were going to make patchwork quilts and cushions from their fabrics, and this sort of furnishing would be perfect to show it off. to fit out a shop, it would not be so much really. of course shipping to japan is an expense, but in a shipping container, packed well, which the owner explained he would do himself ….. he was falling over backwards to be helpful.

after this excitement we walked back to Tamago, and I started my rather protracted trip home – the train back to Eindhoven turned out to be problematic, and it took me an hour longer than it should have, but the rest of the journey went smoothly. I was sad to leave my friends, but inspired by our weekend.