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

Toshimaen

Hello dear readers! How are you?

Today, as promised, I'll show you the pictures of the lolita meet up I went to at Toshimaen. Toshimaen is an amusement park in Tokyo, and our chief reason for going was to see the El Dorado carousel.

It was built in Germany in 1907, lived for a long time in New York, and in the 1970s it came to Japan. It's also been imortalised in Baby's El Dorado series, though of course the real one looks quite a bit different to the applique version.

It's a lovely carousel, with the most beautiful Art Nouveau decoration. I've never seen anything like it! 

You could ride in a carriage, on a velvet bench, on a horse, or on a pig. I choose a horse, of course.

It was also unusual in that the horses didn't move up and down, and there weren't any moving figures or mirrors in the centre, and it seemed to be going ever so fast which was a bit worrying given it's age and the fact it's made of wood.

This carousel was so beautiful once you were sitting inside it. I'd like to go round and round for hours!

 

Of course we took outfit shots! I wish I had worn something more fitting for the scenery, but in winter I  can hardly think of anything but being as warm as possible.

Here's my makeup:

And Mr Piggy:

After the carousel, we went skating! I haven't skated for years, and I was pretty bad at it then. I kept having second thoughts but once the skates were on my feet there couldn't really be any going back, and after dragging myself round the edge a couple of times annoying everyone, I got the hang of it again! It was great fun, and the other lolis looked so cute on skates! 

Finally, I want to say thank you very much to the maker of my valentine this week. It means a great deal to me to receive one- thank you, thank you, thank you!

See you next time,

Sapphira

International Lolita Day

Hello dear readers! How are you? Perhaps you know about International Lolita Day, that happens on the 1st of June and the 1st of December, giving lolitas a chance to wear summer and winter outfits (providing they such things exist where they live!).  Did you do anything with your lolita friends on the 1st of December?

I went to a meet up in Tokyo to see an exhibiton of the Lichtenstein collection. I wore my new bonnet in honour of the occasion!

Lichtenstein is a principality in Europe with close ties to Austria (the Lichtenstein princes acted as advisors to the Habsburg family, according to the information at the exhibition). I've always thought principalities seemed like the most romantic sort of countries! I'm not sure why, but perhaps because I can imagine princes getting up to more exciting things than kings, haha. 

Outft shot with the exhibiton posters

The exhibition constisted of pieces collected by the Lichtenstein princes, very fine European art, mostly Baroque, including a splendid collection of Rubens. I wasn't a particular fan of Rubens before, but having seen those works I now appreciate him a lot better. When his paintings are on a very grand scale they certainly are majestic, and there was a one of the Lamentation which was very affecting. They used a portrait of his daughter for the poster (the picture on the right) which I have to confess I don't like at all and I actually find her face quite scary. I suppose I am a philistine, but he has this fleshy style which I think doesn't really suit tender subjects like a child's face.... Sorry Mr Rubens. But I do like him better than before!

The other lolis were very taken with Bruegel's The Triumph of Death! Maybe, just as with our clothes, it was all the little details that appealed to them. There were also tapestries, sculpture, ornaments and furniture, including a Baroque sofa that one of our group pointed out would have been perfect for a group photo! If the Prince of Lichtenstein had been there, I'm sure he would have let us, in fact I think he would have offered to take the photo.

We took another set of outfit shots outdoors, this one is a little clearer so I'll put the rundown here.

Bonnet: Triple Fortune

Coat: Victorian Maiden

Onepiece (you can't see it!): Juliette et Justine

Others:Offbrand/Vintage

After the exhibition, we hit Harajuku for shopping at Closet Child and Usagiyouhinten, purikura and tea at Christie's, a cafe off Takeshita Dori that's popular with local lolitas. 

The cafe is really nice! My cheese on toast was great too, even with the funny spongy bread they have here.

We managed to fit 8 lolis in the purikura booth! Quite a feat.

We also marked the occasion by taking a group photo at the famous bridge. Poor old bridge, I hope we brought back some memories of it's golden age to it. A sweet and mysterious person made the photo into a valentine!

Thank you very much to the dear secret maker and to all the wonderful people in our community. It was the first Loliday I've spent with other lolitas, and I'll keep it as a special memory always. I'm looking forward to the next meet up I go to!

I hope you had a lovely International Lolita Day, whatever you did.

See you next time,

Sapphira

Junichi Nakahara and autumn colours at Hiro-o

Hello dear readers! How are you?

Today I'll show you some pictures from a lovely day out last week. Aviva had the idea to go to a park to admire the beautiful autumn leaves, and I suggested Arisugawanomiya Memorial Park, since it's close to a shop I've been wanting to visit.

The shop's name is それいゆ (Soleil) and it's the official shop for the artist Junichi Nakahara. Even if you don't know his name, it's likely you've seen some of his pictures of beautiful girls. He was producing work from the 1920s into the 1960s, as a fashion designer, illustrator and doll-maker.

Entrance of Soleil.

The shop was full of pretty things, prints, postcards, clothes made from Nakahara's designs,  useful good like umbrellas, mousemats, notebooks and so on decorated with his images. I wanted to get a book, and there were lots to choose from! Luckily the shop was not too crowded or cramped so we had time to pore over the items and decide our purchases at leisure.

I settled on a book which is a nice A4 size with lots of great pictures and a wide selection of his work. I'm sure I'll never tire of looking at it! His work captures the essence of the era in which it was made, and it's so stylish, nostalgic and sweet all at once. I even felt inspired to make some drawings of my own again (it's been ages since I drew anything properly), they are rather dreadful but I might show you sometime. 

Here's a few pages from the book:

For my outfit, of course I was inspired by Junichi Nakahara! Since I like retro style and have black hair and a short fringe, it wasn't much of a stretch for me but I was still pleased with how the outfit came out. This photo was taken in the park.

Doesn't the park look lovely? All those different shades of red, rust, amber and yellow!

People were fishing in the lake. I expect they have to throw the fish back, but it must be pretty stressful for the poor old things. But I think a lot of people come to feed them too, so it isn't all bad.

I loved this bridge!

Here's a collage of my outfit (getting a bit addicted to doing these collages) so you can see my teddy bear tights from swimmer! This outfit is more on the retro side, so I thought it would be fun to put in a cute detail like that.

Coat: Victorian Maiden

Skirt, necklace: Innocent World

Tights: Swimmer

Bag: Metamorphose

Others: Offbrand

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! See you again soon,

Sapphira

Teddies to Teddy's

Hello readers!

Today it's another coordinate post, with a brown and bordeaux colour scheme. Although spring is in the air, it's still rather chilly so I was in a wintery mode at the weekend.

~Rundown~

Headbow, JSK- Innocent World

Cutsew- axes femme

Tights, boots- Offbrand

I wore this to have lunch in a cute cafe in town called Teddy's, hence the title.

I realised that I haven't taken a picture showing with the cape that came with my VM coat, so I took a picture by the little church. 

I really love the cape, though of course it makes it all the more fiddly when you have to take it on and off. It makes the coat more gorgeous right away, and it makes quite a difference in heat besides!

I hope you liked my outfit. Thank you very much for checking my blog.

See you next time,

Sapphira

xxxx

Yoyogi Koen and Meiji Jingu

Hello everyone!

Today's post is another installation of my trip to Japan. I'm coming to the end of these posts- I feel quite sad. However, it's nice to relieve these memories, and this particular day was one of my favourites.

Here's my coordinate:

~Rundown~

Hat: corgi-corgi

Blouse, scarf: Vintage

Skirt, socks: Innocent World

Basket: Disney Sea!

On this day we went to Harajuku again. This time we took a walk in Yoyogi Park and visited Meiji Shrine.... aaaand did some shopping!

I took a photo here the first time I came to Japan! Somehow this picture came out looking as if it was snowing. I don't know how it happened but it's pretty! The coat is Victorian Maiden and the muff is Innocent World.

Meiji Shrine is so beautiful, this picture really doesn't do it justice. It has the loveliest atmosphere, so romantic!

We took a walk in the imperial garden. January is seldom the best time to see any sort of garden, but it was such a beautiful clear sunny day that even though the plants were sleeping it was a very charming place.

Empress Soken used to fish from this jetty. I never imagined empresses fishing, but this one did!

Once again I went to Laforet! I'd seen some adorable wrist cuffs in Baby previously; as luck would have it they were still there! I really like the delicate tulle lace with a rose pattern and the cream colour. These will be so handy in summer when I wear short sleeves. The shop staff was so kind and wrapped them very carefully, and let me choose between an Alice and the Pirates bag or a Baby bag.

Then I got a handbag in Metamorphose too! Again, the shop staff was lovely. I took a while to decide between this one and a smaller one with rose embroidery, and she explained their features with great care which was very helpful. In the end I chose this one because it holds a lot but because of the shape it doesn't look too hefty. 

The most charming point is this metal plate. The scallops are so pretty too, and this particular shade of matte brown was just what I wanted. 

The zips are also adorable! Look at the tiny Metamorphose swans.

The lining is cream and brown, very handy. No chance of losing things in here!

I still sort of want the smaller bag too, the square one. There's a red version that's really lovely.

Thanks for looking, and I hope you enjoyed the pictures. Oh dear, I really do miss Japan!

Sapphira

xxxx