The needle shop, Kyoto.

After waiting for it to open, to being completely overwhelmed by the contents of the tiny place, from listening to the owner who is the 18^th generation of over 400 years of the same family, to sell sewing needles, in this tiny place – down an alley in a shopping mall – to restraining myself and replacing the initial selection. Then, after buying my painstakingly considered choice, I sit in the zen garden in front of the tiny shop hoping for the jade green bird with the white circles round it’s eyes to return.  A steady stream of women visit and ponder the wonders of sewing needles.  Not just any sewing needles but French ones and Japanese ones for silk kimonos, long ones for denim and then, the very special hand made ones which are so very expensive that I still don’t think they pay enough for the skilled craftsman who hand-makes a steel needle with an eye for sewing thread.

I ponder the wonders that I have just seen – some of which, I cannot see well enough to see the eye at the end of the finest needles hich a Japanese seamstress uses.  The owner, explains to me he lost his hair in 2000, whilst he is pulling out small cane woven baskets from under the counter, containing sewing needles in their neat rows related to sizes, which are placed inside a neatly fitted cushioni. So when I look and try to figure out which needles my friend in Shetland might want, he patiently tells me the story of each size and what they are for.  I choose us both the same – French needles – sizes 6 and 7’s then we have a hope of threading them.   I buy a pack of 8’s and also a tiny hand-made pin cushion and one of those wire things to aid threading a needle with a tiny eye, which he promptly tells me is not special ( you can buy this anywhere) and it will break.  But, the needles are another story – fine packaging is the appeal too.  The owner counts up how much I owe him but I don’t really mind.  A Japanese lady, about my age, and he mother, in her 80’s are in the shop with me.  The mum is so lovely – I hope not to sound patronising, which I also say to the daughter when I say that her mum is adorable.  She has shrunk to tiny and she is as sharp as a pin herself.   This is their first time in the shop although the mum lives close by.  Her nifty hands feel the needles, as did mine. 

The shop is a tiny explosive experience of need/ want/ desire management which requires restraint. After all, they are only needles and only a pin cushion, aren’t they?

As we three customers chat, the owner points out the marvellous bright green little Kyoto bird that has flown into the garden for the oranges. It is exquisite, so after I have paid, I move to the bench in the garden, waiting for it to return while a new stream of buyers file past, into the tiny shop. This exquisite little heavenly garden fronting the shop is a dream – granite bird water baths, large stones covered in moss like the moss gardens in the temples, small low growing lilac flowers, deep red camelia, berries and two trees.  Irises too. 

No bird returns so I finally haul myself off the bench and head back down the tiny alley to the crazy life outside this calm oasis. 

The needle shop is Misuyabari, located on Sanjo Dori inside the shopping centre – it is closed on Thursdays.  It might take you till then to find it.