Japan Trip 2018 - part 1: Akihabara, Pokemon Cafe, Mori digital art museum, Odaiba & Karaoke

In Autumn 2018 we had a vacation planned to Japan again! It was our third time going to Japan and of course I had planned to write about it but after I got back I had lots of things to do (which you could read in my last post). So eh, yeah I I feel a bit nostalgic and thought why not still write about it. I am not sure how much I will write, but I don't want to make the posts too long, so we'll see.

This journey was going to be a little different than the ones before, because we asked our friends to go with us. It was more like a 'dream' we talked about before but then they gave it a serious thought and agreed to come, how awesome, I was so excited! 

Another different thing was that my husband and I both agreed we wanted to see more places where we did not go before, so besides some standard days in both Tokyo and Osaka we also planned to go to Hiroshima/Miyajima and some day-trips out of the cities into nature. Which made the journey a bit longer in total (3 weeks!)

In the Summer of 2018 Japan was striked by several extremely heavy natural disasters (floods, hurricanes, earthquakes) so at certain points we were thinking if it already would be possible to travel, but it still was some time before we would go in October so we waited patiently and it turned out to be reasonably safe again by then. It still strikes me that Japan is such a 'fragile' country when it comes to natural disasters and last years they seem to have more and more of them. It is interesting also when you look at how the culture is build around it quite naturally. But that is food for thought for another day.

Photo from the Keisei website

Hello Tokyo

We flew with KLM again, after our second trip we had a good experience with it. This time because we were with four people we sat all next to each other in the middle lane. The flight was totally fine. In the morning we arrived on Narita airport safely. It was funny, when we waited in the same-old line for the passport check you usually get some people helping and asking/mentioning to have your forms ready and so on and there was one funny guy who asked where we were from and then started to say something in Dutch, haha, so then I said something in Japanese back and we laughed a bit.

After that I think (? there are some holes in my memory) we got some Suica (public transport) passes for our friends Sanne and Tim and then went to get our tickets the Skyliner train to Ueno, Tokyo which brought us there in less than an hour. Or either they got their passes in Ueno, because we had to top-up our old cards as well. From there on we travelled to Iidabashi, because that is where our hotel would be, just some minutes away from the station. Iidabashi is quite a big station, because it is a transfer for multiple lines. It took time to discover where to go to, after one week for example we discovered there was a direct faster line to Akihabara that we did not use before, just because it was a very different entrance on the other side of the station. Typically for Japanese stations.

Akihabara

Anyway, we checked in at the hotel, dumped our stuff, refreshed a bit and then decided to keep our tradition alive to go to Akihabara on the first day. Also to let our friends deep-dive into the experience. Because this was a different train, we arrived at a different part of Akiba-station and it took a while again to orientate and discover where we had to go.

As usual Akihabara was still the same-good-old atmosphere. I am not really sure why anymore but Nick invited our friends to go see it for themselves, also because Nick wanted to go to certain shops again that we weren't sure they would like. Of course we had to get a nice Magikarp taiyaki first that we had seen on videos some months before.

I do feel like a lot did not change and so maybe I felt a bit more satisfied of it early on. As we grew older we also had less urge to buy cheap figures and so just because they are cheap, but of course we let ourselves be amazed by the grant variation of merchandise again.

Pokemon Cafe

On the first day we also had reserved a place at the (by then still quite new) Pokemon Cafe. I think they moed the shop from Tokyo Station to a new place in Nihonbashi (still close-by the station btw) with the restaurant right next to it. Nihonbashi is a place with a lot of high business buildings so it felt almost a bit weird that there would be a shop and restaurant in the midst of it. We first had to go into a fancy looking building and then take the elevator to go there. We looked around the Pokemon Center shop (DX). To me it felt a bit different than the experience in Ikebukuro or other shops somehow so I did not really feel like buying a lot in the first go but looked at a lot of things of course. Might also just have been tired.

 

Then time for the restaurant, where we had the chance to meet a larger-than-life Eevee, since it was the time of the Switch game Let's go Eevee and Let's go Pikachu. It was supercute of course! The meal was typical for a theme cafe, very nice to look at but just very average taste-wise, but still we had a great time of course.

My internal clock though got messed up a bit. The others still wanted to eat something later on so we went for a walk around Shinjuku, got into some shops, arcades and checked the gachapon machines at Yodobashi Camera and later ended up at a small place in the famous Omoide Yokocho where we had some yakitori (and an umeshu for Nick and me). It was a nice first day of the trip.

Purchases of the day

MORI digital art museum

The second day we travelled to Odaiba to go see the Mori Digital Art museum by TeamLab Borderless. I think by now a lot of people already have seen things from this museum. It is a builsing full of different rooms full of video/sound/light experiences that are sometimes also interactive. It was simply an amazing experience I have never had before. Afterwards I heard that we were lucky with the waiting time, as we went there it was I think about 10 minutes waiting, but some other people on other days had to wait for hours (!). I am not sure why that was. I'll post some photos of my favourite expositions below, one of them was actually at the cafe where you could have tea in a cup with around it an interactie projection that you could influence by moving your cup up and around. I would not have expected that even in a museum (although it was hardly like a traditional museum and more like an experience). Anyway, it is a big must-see if you go to Tokyo. Do purchase the tickets beforehand at home though.

 

Odaiba

While we were at Odaiba, we visited some shopping centers too, we walked into Venus Fort which was reasonably quiet. Venus Fort is known for it's over-the-top old-European (like Rome-esque) look, which was both pretty but also funny at the same time. Took a look at some fun shops like Kiddyland, went into some arcades and had some typical Japanese meals there (Yakisoba, Okonomiyaki).
Next to that we went to see the new unicorn Gundam statue of course, which was as cool as the former one. I then searched for the Axes Femme store in the DiverCity shopping center but it turned out that it wasn't there anymore. I was a bit confused by it because of course I had looked up on the internet before that it still existed but apparently it did not. We did visit some other shops (like the Hello Kitty shop where I remembered I bought a birthday card for Poppy Noir) and tried out some of the gachapon machines.

Nick busy with his by now all-time-favourite arcade machine

Sometimes it was hard not to buy stuff such as the Disney store.

I almost totally forgot but for food afterwards we went to Genki Sushi in Shibuya. I don't have any nice photos of it, but somehow it also felt a bit less exciting this time? Even though we brought our friends and it was fun of course, I am not sure, maybe it is also because we have our bullet-train sushi place in our own city now (which is crazy awesome)!

Karaoke

That evening we wanted to go try karaoke and searched for a place near our hotel. It wasn't one from the companies we knew, so it was a bit of a guess but I think Nick looked up that they had at least als English options for choosing the songs and so. Of course we got into an interesting conversation (or non-conversation) with the desk lady that did not understand our English or what we wanted and asked some help. In the end I think we might have paid a bit more than I had expected but in the end we had lots of fun doing karaoke with our friends!

Some fresh melon-soda at last!

Read on to Part 2: https://dreamsweetie.blogspot.com/2020/07/japan-trip-2018-part-2-hakone.html

London & DMC Part 2

The day was finally there! We stood up early to prepare, two of my roommates were models so they had to be there even earlier than the gold ticket holders. It all went pretty well in the end, as two others also had a silver ticket just like me so we could travel together (in one of those cool red buses)!

The coordination

Planning my outfit for the Dream Masquerade Carnival main event took a while. You probably remember me buying Toy March, and I thought it would actually be a pretty good choice for the theme (although it has nothing to do with a masquerade, it is a bit dreamy (stars/moons) and Carnival-ish, because of the festive march on the print. That, and I think because Angelic Pretty was the main guest, I wanted to wear AP dresses on both days. However, it was a bit of a challenge to create a good coord, because it's hard to find the right hue of blue and red. This is how it looked in the end (outfit photo was taken by Poppy I believe, thank you!):























The red shoes I bought quite quickly after the dress got here, I thought they were the perfect color and are also a bit more mature looking (in comparison with my other sweet shoes). They were on sale at a 'normal' online clothing shop, happy I bought them! For the socks, I bought some diamond/checkered socks first, but the blue was not matching at all. Lots of dark-blue hues in clothing have a green-ish undertone instead of the royal/purple-like tone. I found these AP socks with golden crowns/bows on it at a Japanese auction website and took a shot, and they are a bit darker, but at least the right sort of blue, yay!
Then I needed a short-sleeve red blouse to match it. I made a long-sleeve red blouse some years ago for a christmas outfit, but it was quite wonky, so I made a new one. Every time I make a blouse I get a little bit better at it, but it is still a challenge. As you can see it's not perfect, but in the end I was pretty okay with it.
The matching wristcuffs and headbow were made by me as well. To be honest I wanted to do something more impressive for my headpiece, like tiny felt animals that look like the characters on the dress, but as said I was ill for two weeks just before we left, so I just had enough time for the other things to be finished.

The event

It was time: a lot of lolita's lined up next to the Institute of Directors, right in the heart of London. It was so exciting to all wait together, see familiar faces, do hugs and chat until we could go in. What do you do when you have one our extra shopping, and everybody wants to buy the prettiest items?
Well, some vendors interested me more than others, so I went to those first. I walked around to see what was where and arrived at Tokimeki Teikoku no Momoiro Gabriel's table first, that one artist who makes cute artistic raisin jewelry of animals and such. Last year I bought a bunny necklace at Under the Sea from them, but after staring at everything for a long while I just couldn't decide what I wanted.

Next to them was Triple Fortune, and oh their creations are gorgeous! But actually I don't wear bonnets a lot (I just bought one this year from Meta to try it out, but haven't worn it yet). Their tights are pretty too but I wouldn't know what to wear it with. Then, actually I had really hoped they would sell those new fairy-themed dresses (see the photo on the left, it was published in MELT). I showed them to my husband before and there was one he really liked too, but it wasn't there unfortunately (maybe it's not even out yet? If anyone knows please tell me!)


So I quickly walked to the other rooms, finding Angelic Pretty & Kira Imai in a crowded corner. And yay, they had something I liked! Otk's from AP (yellow easter-themed, matching with the Happy Garden jsk I hope). It was waaay to crowded at Kira Imai's table so I headed to the Bring-and-Buy room. I found some pretty nice (and cheap) blouses that I loved so I immediately took them with me. At the remote vending table I found two brooches that I wanted for a while, the wine & cheese themed ones from and Mulberry Chronicles! You might not know it but I like wine and brie quite a bit :P, however I was too late to buy them online, I think I was quite lucky finding them at DMC! Later I also bought a new AP blouse at the Bring-and-Buy, but it was wrapped in plastic. It said to be from their last lucky pack and I searched for the size which looked okay, but in the end it was from a different pack I think and it was just too small for me, so I'm selling it again.

With Maki! Sorry for the weird pose.
Photo by Emily Valentine

It took a while to pay for everything  at the Bring-and-Buy (because it was via PayPal and one by one, so I missed the Q&A with Maki and Asuka. I think it was okay though, and luckily someone filmed it too! I walked back to the Kira Imai booth to look and buy some things. I'm going to be honest, from the start I was not always a fan of her work. It's very well-made and detailed, but a lot of her art don't have that 'kawaii' feeling to me, sometimes it is even a bit creepy, so it's not 100% my taste. Over the years I started to appreciate it a little more though. I already bought some of her work in Tokyo (at Fewmany in Marui Annex, Shinjuku) and it was really nice to meet her too.

Then I saw the amazing photo props/place next to it and Maki (from AP) was taking pictures with/from people, so I asked her too and she took a photo of me as well, how nice! I think Maki looks really sweet, I wish I was better at Japanese so I could've talked to her. Then after a drink and lovely piece of cake (for lunch, haha) I went to see the fashion shows, which were awesome.

Afterwards came another round of shopping, and taking pictures with people and then I chatted a bit with the other Dutch people there, there were really quite a lot more than last year, it was fun!

A selfie with the cute Liv and me
while waiting for the raffle to start.

Photo with some friends!
Made by Jatzu from
Freefall Creation

After that it was already almost the end of the day. It was really fun seeing the 'Fashion Fix' and also the 'Ten years of lolita' fashion show with old and new Angelic Pretty pieces, very nice. We were quite tired when the raffle started. to my surprise my number was called in one of the first minutes, but then it turned out there was another person with the same number. Apparently there were two different series, one with a border on the paper and one without. I didn't win anything after all. Then after some more minutes they discovered that there were very few people getting prizes because of the 'bordered' series and then they gave some people different tickets so everyone had a better chance.

After some speeches and a big thank you, the saturday of DMC ended. We were tired but walked through the city to another vegan buffet place. I was so happy to finally get some food and after that some delicious frozen yoghurt. It was quite late when we arrived at the hostel again. It was a wonderful day, but I was happy that the Sunday would be a bit more relaxed.

Here are the hings I got (the silver tickets also got a bag filled with presents) or bought:

Amazingly filled bag with a mug,
coloring book and small DMC/AP mirror <3 !

                      

London & DMC Part 1

Last year I was a vendor (Risu Rose) at Wicked & Whimsy, you know, the big 2016 lolita fashion event organized by the Tea Party Club. While being a vendor, I also had an amazing time and I didn't go to the tea party on Sunday last year, then I decided I'd love to go to their next event in 2017. So I did!

The pond at Kensington Gardens, there are always plenty of birds nearby. I love London's parks! 

It took a while to find a construction with other people and/or being there some extra days, because I needed to work the monday after, but found a great solution in the end. My husband decided he wanted to come with me to London for some days before (and then go to a friend) so we went there on Tuesday and spent our days with nice food, shopping, walking and games (we went to one of the ClueQuest escape rooms and it was supercool!!). Honestly I was very happy I could, because just before this certain week, I was ill for two weeks, and couldn't get out of the house a lot. Fortunately enough it cleared up!


London is a huge city where there is always something new happening and its looks never seem to awe me. Especially in the summer there are lots of festivals and events, small and big. I wouldn't mind living there at all (if it weren't for Brexit and the general higher expenses).

A Ben & Jerry's icecream store where we enjoyed dessert after
a nice dinner with my father-in-law and his girlfriend.

There was a huge M&M World store, with all kinds of stuff.

The Lego store had amazing displays, look a this
lego ' painting' of London!

Nick had fun at a Star Wars arcade game pod.

Before we knew it, it was Friday and I met up with my roommates Poppy, Alexander, Liv, Ayumi (and mom) and unpacked at our hostel room near Elephant & Castle station. Afterwards we went to some cute shops near Covent Garden, bought cupcakes and then went for dinner at Dou Dou, a vegan buffet restaurant in Camden. I was really surprised by the quality of the food for such a good price, it was really tasty too! After finishing up we went back to prepare for the following day (and do lots of chatting :P ).

A selection of M&M's from M&M's World

My purchases from London (before DMC):

A merry-go-round moving musical cookie  jar and some unique tea
from Fortnum & Mason. I saw these cookie jars last year and
really wanted to have one myself!

Nick bought me this surprise troll pack, haha. So cute of him!

Lego character surprise packs!

I forgot my hairbrush, so I bought a new one at Pylones.

Adorable Cinnamoroll shirt bought at Artbox!

A pencil and ring from Artbox. I was happy that I found the ring
in between a tiny box of accessories. It was only £4!

I finally have a straw boater hat. Found it in Camden!

Birbs magnets/clips from
the Japanese bookstore.

An awesome Toothless mug from the 'Shrek's Adventure store' .