Best way to romance a girl à la Lost in Translation

Sharing foreign experiences can forge an indelible bond, as so aptly portrayed in the movie Lost in Translation. Dazed and confused by jet lag and Japan's unfamiliar landscape, tongue, and customs, the characters played by Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson find solace and understanding in each other. Whether your love interest be a live-in girlfriend or a fetching stranger, you needn't grab her hand beneath Tokyo's riotous, towering, neon billboards -- nor subject her to your karaoke singing -- to inspire some of the same magic. At Black Ink, you'll find enchantingly strange Japanese stuffed animals similar to the gigantic-eyed toy owl Murray's Bob gave to Johansson's Charlotte.

Black Ink, 101 Charles Street, Boston, (617) 723-3883; 5 Brattle Street, Cambridge, (617) 497-1221.