HoneyJam

Hello friends! Long time no "see". I can't stop listening to Songs: Ohia. Their album Magnolia Electric Co. is awesome... You should definitely check it out.

Today and after a thousand months I'm going to talk about a slightly cheese toy store. Well it's just cheesy in a few areas, and I mean, everybody has different tastes, so I don't even know why I said anything in the first place. It's a nice store and it has nice toys.

 

HoneyJam is a store that opened in 2006 in Portobello Street. It is located just in front of the Café Garcia (you can see its reflection on the above picture), where you can go have some churros if you miss Spain. Because, you know, I have churros everyday while I'm here... 

Anyway, what I like about this store is that it focuses on vintage toys instead of all the new technologic toys you can find everywhere nowadays - the store itself looks old, with its wooden floor and shelves full of toys that remind me of my childhood (although I have to admit that I like After Noah better...).

Maybe something I don't like that much about this store is the obvious difference between the boy and the girl sections: on one you will find pirates and the like, and on the other most of the toys will be pink and purple. 

But as I've said many times, we all like different things so maybe you won't mind that, and so maybe you'll find there the most awesome (pink and purple) gifts. 

In any case there is more HoneyJam than the girl section so browse for a bit and you'll probably find nice and small items (including the beautiful wrapping papers) that could make for good presents.

And if you get bored, you can always go out and check Portobello Road, a street full of stands, which I'll talk about next time. Now I'm going to play some guitar.

After Noah

Generally in life people tend to look at the bad things that happen everyday. It is understandable. Rapidshare, for instance, is a complete scam. But sometimes we have to look the other way to realize that there are tons of awesome things in life as well. A good example of this is the Irish band God Is An Astronaut. Another perfect example is After Noah, a CLASSY shop full of furniture, toys, stationery and more. And because this shop is so cool, I'm going to upload a thousand photos, give or take.

Part of the window display

After Noah opened for the first time on May 11, 1990, at 121, Upper Street, close to the Angel tube station. The idea was to mix old vintage objects and furniture with contemporary homeware. Little by little, many shops began to appear in London selling small gifts and homeware items that looked more or less the same. After Noah's goal then was to always have something interesting and unique to offer, items that couldn't be found just anywhere. And I think they've managed to do it. Everytime I go into this shop, I get really excited.


Years after they opened, they started adding new items to their catalog. If in the beginning After Noah was a little store on 121, Upper Street, they soon decided to add toys to their shop and this proved so succesfull that they opened up the adjacent store, number 122.

Here you can find many kinds of toys, from teddy bears to musical instruments for kids, some books, marbles, and more. They also have a lovely little shelf near the entrance with some sweets that look quite vintage (but they taste good, don't worry) (HAH). All this and the fact that it looks so crowded makes me think of the Diagon Alley (of which I am a complete fan).


And, obviously, they have a wide selection of Schleich figures, which I've loved since I was a kid:


Besides all these wonderful things (I insist - this place is a PARTY), there's another area where they have some carefully selected stationery, including stamps, notebooks, sets of envelopes and letters, and, of course, maps (I may have already mentioned that I LOVE maps) and other beautiful papers:


I have to say though that this shop is quite expensive, but these kind of places usually are, at least from what I've seen. In some cases it's completely understandable (some furniture, for instance), but these maps were £3.50, so if there's one you like a lot, I'd suggest you go to Stanfords (a map and travel shop of which I'll talk about in the future) first to see if they have it there, as they are about a pound cheaper.

In spite of this it is a really nice shop and you should really go see it if you ever happen to find yourself wandering around Angel. And if you're looking for old furniture, there's also another floor downstairs with more homeware, vintage phones (with awesome color combinations) and more maps.


--

I'll finish this SHORT post by saying that my brother and I have a cooking blog where we post nice recipes. He is studying to be a cook, and I take the pictures. I am translating them to English now, so if you ever run out of ideas when cooking, don't hesitate to check it out and post some comments if you think about recipes we should make!
It's called COULANT.