a quaint little Japanese cafe

camera: LC-A+, film: can't remember, but it was cross-processed

One of the places I had to go to when I was in Japan (*sigh* how I miss it) was the charming little Hattifnatt cafe. I had it written in my must-go-to list ever since seeing it in Spaces magazine and Hello Sandwich. The entrance door is only 150cm high, the wooden staircase are tiny, the ceilings are pretty low, so there'a bit of ducking in to do (but not to the point of it being claustrophobically tight), and the decor uses a lot of timber and colourful murals. It felt like entering a child's playhouse, or better yet - the house of the 7 dwarves or the 3 bears (if they ever decide to open a cafe in a Japanese suburb)! Unfortunately this was one of those awkward times when not knowing a word of Japanese was very challenging. Yet somehow I managed to order a piece of cake and iced tea from their fabric-covered book menu, and learnt from observation that to get the staff's attention, we had to tug on a wooden handle in the middle of the room that didn't make a sound (the kitchen was downstairs), and when we were done, we had to bring the wooden spoon with the painted number on it that was on our table (obviously our table number) down to the cashier downstairs. Quaint and foreign - it was quite the experience!

These photos were my first experiment with cross-processing (which kind of fit the theme of trying something different!). If you'd like to see better photos and descriptions of the cafe, hop over to Hello Sandwich!