A new side of Shimokitazawa

Hello dear readers! How are you? The weather is warming up nicely in Tokyo, I hope it's pleasant where you are too!

Today I'll tell you about a recent visit I made to Shimokitazawa. I first heard about the area because there is a second-hand Lolita shop there, Grand Bazaar. They usually have a nice selection of Jane Marple pieces so I like to go there, however I haven't found so many other nice spots when I visit. 

Here's what I wore:

Knit: Vintage

JSK: Metamorphose temps de fille

Tights, shoes: Offbrand

I wanted to try something new this visit so I searched the internet for a nice place to have tea in Shimokitazawa, and came up with a place called La Palette. It turned out really lovely, and there's a nice pasta place next to it! I had a big bowl of seafood pasta for lunch, and then crossed over to La Palette for tea and cake. Luckily for me I don't put on weight easily, but I don't recommend this kind of lifestyle for everyone!

Apart from discovering delights for the appetite, I also discovered some other nice things. La Palette is on the north side of the station, the opposite site from Grand Bazaar Lolita. Well, all this time I had been going to the south side, but the north side is ever so much better!

It's a bit like Brighton Lanes and a bit like Camden Market, a bit like Ura-Harajuku and a bit like Daikanyama. So all in all very nice! A relaxed atmosphere, not overly crowded, cute vintage and used clothing shops, and sweet little boutiques and things. 

After exploring the north side I went across to the south and to Grand Bazaar. I tried on a few things but couldn't decide on anything particularly so I left empty handed. By this time I was getting hungry again. These 50s/60s film posters caught my eye.

It turned out that on the second floor there was an old-fashioned izakaya. There was a long wait before I could go in but I really wanted to so I was patient.

The inside was decorated with all sorts of old advertisments and magazine cuttings. The fare was not particularly good, but very cheap and besides the setting more than made up for it.

I had to resist the temptation to pull out those little tacks holding up the posters!

I really enjoyed this day in Shimokita though it was very full and tiring. I hope you enjoyed my account of it! Thanks for reading.

See you next time,

Sapphira

Disney Ambassador Hotel and Ikspiari

 Hello dear readers! How are you?

Here's the second part of my Disney trip, which is really the first, because I took these on the day I arrived at Maihama.

We checked into the Ambassador Hotel, which is decorated in Art Deco style with Disney motifs, and went shopping in Ikspiari, a mall that is connected to Tokyo Disney resort.

Here's my outfit for that day:

Hair accessory: Handmade

Blouse: Vintage

Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute

Others: Offbrand

Here's a close-up of my hair accessory.

The ribbon is from Laduree! It's so pretty, I had to use it for something.

This is the view from our room. It's lovely isn't it? And you can see the volcano at Disney Sea in the distance! It was much to cold to enjoy the swimming pool though.

We had tea in the hotel cafe. These were some of the desserts on offer.

I had the smoked salmon and cheese pancake set. It was really good! Plus the Mickey-shaped cheese was too cute <3

I ordered the Alice dessert to follow. Inside the cup is Earl Gray flavoured mousse. Delicious! 

We had dinner in the Rainforest Cafe in Ikspiari, and I took a picture with my lookalike. Ikspiari is like a little bit of Disneyland, there's all sorts of fun things there. There were animatronic elephants, butterflies and monkeys inside the restaurant!

This was also in Ikspiari. It's pretty as you can see!

There were all sorts of funny things going on in that big mural behind me, like this lady with a note for 'Big Daddy Iizuka'. I don't know who Big Daddy Iizuka is but he sounds scary!

Have a look at it if you visit, it really is strange!

Oh, and there was a concert being given by school children outside the Disney store. It was so adorable! The four couples at the front were doing a little dance where the boys gave the girls flowers. So cute! I think English boys would be much too bashful to do something like that, which is silly of them but there you go.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Thank you for looking and see you again soon.

Sapphira

xxxx

Tokyo Disneyland

Hello dear readers! How are you today?

The weather has been so warm lately that I was able to have a picnic with other other lolitas yesterday. However, today's post is from when the weather was much colder a month or so ago. This was when I visited Disneyland!

I arrived in Chiba the day before going to the park, and stayed at the Disney Ambassador Hotel. This meant that I could start the day by having breakfast with my favourite characters!

Me and Mickey! I was so happy to meet him <3 I'm a big fan of Mickey Mouse, I  think he's cool!

Me and Donald. I wanted to grab his tail, it was so cute! Probably not good behaviour though....

Minne was so pretty!

You can see a bit of the hotel room behind me, it was lovely, and much bigger than my entire apartment! I got this hat in Disney Sea last year. If you go to Disney or Disney Sea you will see lots of people in Disney hats of different sorts. This leopard one is pretty popular! I recommend getting one if you go, you will feel left out if you don't and probably catch a cold too.

I love the buildings at Disneyland! This is in the World Bazaar area.The ice-cream colours are so cute!

I went to watch this crazy Michael Jackson short film from 1987 called Captain EO. Michael Jackson is Captain EO and he and his crew of robots and aliens go to give a present to a scary tentacle lady. Their present is the gift of song and dance! Touched by their performance, the scary tentacle lady turns into Angelica Huston is a pretty gown and all is well. It is certainly a curious thing and I enjoyed it!

Near Cinderella's castle. There were lots of friendly ducks waddling around on the grass or having a swim.

Another cute building in Fantasyland. Fantasyland has rides from all the classic movies like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. I prefer rides where you sit in a little car and look at things much more than rollercoasters and things so I like this zone the best. I don't recommend the Pinocchio ride though, the car goes so fast you can't see anything and it's awful to queue for ages and then finish the ride in about ten seconds.

I went to Cinderella's castle for the first time. It was closed for refubishment before. I'm so glad I went in, I really loved it. It's so pretty inside! Here is one of the stained glass windows. You can see 'It's a Small World' at the bottom of the picture.

Inside the castle there are little displays telling the story of Cinderella. They are all different; this one had moving parts so it was as if the mice were really working on Cinderella's dress! My favourite display was the one where the Fairy Godmother transforms Cinderella and the pumpkin, but it wasn't possible to take a photo. I don't know how they did it but it's really like magic!

In the throne room there are murals, and if you take a photo of them with a flash, a secret message is revealed!

 Ta-da!

And of course you can do this!

 I hope you enjoyed the pictures, there's some more coming next time so please look out for them!

Sapphira

xxxx

Harajuku Fashion Walk/Vampire Cafe

Hello dear readers! Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been busy, but I will try to catch up from now on! I have lots of nice posts I want to write :)

This post about Harajuku Fashion Walk is very belated, because I wanted to time it with the broadcast of Cool Japan, who were filming it. It turns out that they didn't feature the walk very much in the program though, but there is apparently a glimpse of my friends so I will watch it later.

Here are members of the Tokyo International Lolitas that attended the walk (photo wickedly stolen  from Tokyo Fashion)

We all tried to go for a vampiric theme in honour of Ni (the beautiful gothic lady in the centre) as it was her last Fashion Walk before leaving Japan to continue her studies. I miss her!

I don't have much gothic in my wardrobe, so I tried a sort of retro/aristocratic look instead. 

I did something slightly different with my make-up too. I usually do a 'cute' look but this time I tried to make my face look sharp. I angled my brows a little upwards and drew thick winged eyeliner without any shading on the lower lid, to focus attention upwards. I also put blusher only on the outer part of my face to look a bit paler, and used red lipgloss for a vampiric look.

Well, I have to admit I don't particularly look like a vampire, but I quite liked this outfit!

Hat, stole, gloves: Vintage

Earrings: Vivienne Westwood

Onepiece: Handmade

Others: Offbrand

Here we are all walking down Omotesando:

And near the station, which is the first meeting point:

Top hats! 

Amazing ladies! I want to frame this picture to always remember how wonderful Lolita can be <3

The camera crew filming:

After the walk a couple of us got crepes. This was the first time I had eaten a crepe in Harajuku, can you believe it?

It was Ni's farewell party at the Vampire Cafe that evening. It was too dark for my camera to take good pictures, but I have to say it wasn't the most fantastic place I have ever been. Apparently we weren't in the best room, but I don't know that it would have been a great deal better. Also the waitress almost set me on fire by creeping up behind me with a flaming desert that ended up tasting of lighter fluid or something....

The menu was a bit unimaginative too (they just added 'vampire' to the name of the dish, or set it on fire it seemed), but at least my pasta was yummy! It had a tortilla bat on it. You can also see the coffin-shaped drink menu in this photo.

It was a very nice day, even if the restaurant wasn't quite up to scratch and even if we are not famous tv stars now! I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

See you next time,

Sapphira

xxxx