Japan Trip 2018 - part 2: Hakone

On the third day of our vacation we planned to spend a day and night in Hakone. It was one of the highlights of the whole trip so I'll write a whole blogpost for it! Hakone is a town in the Kanagawa prefecture and is a famous travel destination, because of the onsen (hot springs) amongst some nice scenery. 

Nick had planned this trip out for us and I had promised to not look stuff up beforehand to be surprised. When we were at Shinjuku station we went in a special limited express 'romance-car' of the Odakyu railway. Which means you have a nice way (I think bigger windows?) to see the panoramas along the way. Unfortunately our reserved seats were at the very very front of the car, meaning we actually had only a small window, sigh. I think other passengers liked it though, there were some older pairs of Japanese people that were quite enjoying the trip (you know, when Japanese people start talking a lot in the train, it is probably because they are going on a trip or holiday or something because they usually don't do so).

Famous bridge on the Tozan railway. Photo from here.

The train brought us to Odawara where we changed to another, much smaller train, to Hakone itself. I think it was called the Hakone Tozan Railway. We couldn't sit because of how crowded it was, so we kept standing. This train was a very interesting experience, as it goes up the mountain by stopping at certain points and switching direction (like if you have a hairpin turn, but then the car would go backwards at the turn ;) ). We also had a stop (or a slow pace) around a high bridge with a very nice view. To be honest, the train was a bit old-looking and it felt a bit wobbly along the way at certain points but it was quite the adventure. We got off at Gora, which is a pretty town on a hillside. Visited a nice souvenir-shop and bakery near the station there and walked up to see Gora park which had some nice flowers and scenery. We then took a cable car to Sounzan. The cable car was on a slope, so it had something like a 20-30 degree angle, it was pretty cool! 

  

From Sounzan on you could go take the Hakone ropeway to Togendai, which was even more awesome. You can sit in a gondola with about 8 people or so if I remember correctly. It is pretty high in the air and goes actually over a big sulfur field/hill called Owakudani (translates to "the great boiling"). Hakone is a volcanic zone (erupted 3000 years ago), hence the hot springs and rivers a well. Owakudani is also known for the black eggs which are cooked in this naturally heated water and sold here to eat. No, we did not buy them. You know the smell of sulfur compounds? Yep, rotten eggs. I don't really feel like eating that :P even when it is a famous black egg and traditions says eating one adds seven years to your life. Still a nope. But what a sight the sulfur fumes made, so cool!

The last part of the ropeway brings you to lake Ashinoko, where from a dramatic ship departs to Hakone-machi. The ship is pretty cool and is made in European style (I'm not sure why?). They call it 'pirate style', I guess because Japanese kids know the kind from Pirate-like movies and such and they decorated the ship alike. It was fun and the sight of the hills from the water is pretty too. I've read that on good days you can see Mt. Fuji from here too.

 

From Hakone-machi on we walked through a cedar-tree lane to the next station, where we took a bus that had to go around the mountains again to our stay at Hakone. We stayed at a ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel/inn) called Fukuzumiro and had a very luxurious place (it was like a studio) for ourselves at the edge of the building, looking out over the Haya river. It all looked very tradionally Japanese, like from a movie, it was amazing, absolutely beautiful! 

The river next to Fukuzumiro

   

The view from our windows

Our 'studio' 

The studio consisted actually of several rooms you could close with sliding doors if you wanted, one of them was next to the river with two relaxing chairs. You get assigned one chambermaid that explains things, helps you and serves you the food and so on. They are very polite in Japan, but luckily it was quite relaxed talking with her, and perfectly English too. First we ate delicious mochi we got for free as a welcome gift. We slipped into yukatas (which are usually worn around ryokans) and then planned to go for a bath!

Of course, the ryokans around Hakone are famous for their onsen (hot spring baths) and what was special about this one was that it had a private bath. Whereas usually there are two public baths for women and men in a ryokan, a private bath means you have it to yourself and can go into one with your husband or family if you like. It was an absolute delight, the water was very warm and relaxing. The room was decorated with some natural stones with a small high outlook on the trees next to the river as well. Only thinking about how relaxing the bath was makes me want to go back.

Fukuzumiro also had a nice Japanese garden which you could walk into. Although it already got a bit dark and the doors were closed, we asked if we could see the garden and so we did!

Then it was time for dinner, which is served in your room of course. When she started to serve some plates we thought she was done but then said it was only the first course of in total five (!) haha. Of course we never could finish that much food so we tried a bit of everything. With the emphasis on tried because you might know I am not so much a fan of all the Japanese fish, but all the seasonal specialties were very interesting and all also very pretty to see because the way it is served is almost as important in Japan.

 

We slept on a futon (japanese-style bedding), which was nice but I remember that the sound from the river was quite loud and because of the many windows we were up quite early and took the chance to go in the bath again. The water was way too hot for me now though, I guess it cools down a bit later in the day. Nick tried it very shortly at least. Then we had breakfast and although I really wanted to ask for a western breakfast I thought this would be the only chance for a real full traditional one, so let's just try it. But then you get served a fresh grilled fish yeah,... so eh I guess we were happy we just could buy some bread the day after that. 

 
We only went there for one night (mostly because of the costs, but that was very much worth it for the special experience). The next day we took the bus back to the station where we could take the train to Tokyo again.
Anyway, Hakone is a really nice place to visit when you are in Tokyo and want to see something different and very Japan-like, I can of course also recommend to spend at least one night at a ryokan with onsen there, I would not want to have missed it!

Read Part 3 here: http://dreamsweetie.blogspot.com/2020/08/japan-trip-2018-part-3-ikebukuro.html

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

Two years later...oops

Hi all,

It's been a looooong while. It is now Summer 2020, I have already had 2 weeks of holiday and 4 more weeks to come. I missed blogging, so even though my energy is going up and down at the moment, I am going to try to write a long post with a long update (so if you don't like reading long stories, just skip it or skip to the parts you like).

What happened?

There were some reasons why I stopped blogging here:

From September 2018 I started doing a course for coaching. In spring 2018 they had no plans to prolong my contract as a teacher (at the applied university), so I had to think of other stuff. Looking back I think I was both slightly frustrated with not getting a contract and determined to start/keep doing work I love that I wanted to make sure to 'get there' and not give up. And because I got more and more interested in personal development and coaching, I chose to follow a professional coaching course that would provide me with a decent level of skills and a certificate that proves I can actually do it. And so I learned a lot of things and finished it in September 2019! It was amazing, but of course it took quite some hours to do the work. Meaning less hours for hobbies. You can also take into account that I actually paid for the course myself and if I calculate it back I could have bought at least 20 brand new lolita dresses for it. Think about that. I even started selling some dresses, because I felt like I had to balance it out at some point.

The funny thing was that by the end of the academic year in 2018 they wanted to keep me after all (yay), which means that I got a permanent contract for three days a week and had to follow a training for teachers throughout the following year as well, which also costed a bit more hours (not as much as for coaching though). So because of both the coaching course and the training, by the end of the day/week I would just have less energy and time for lolita fashion and/or blogging.

At a certain point I did not feel comfortable anymore to put my blog on public, even though I had plans of making posts about our holiday to Japan in 2018. I also had my instagram on private for a while. I'm not sure but I felt that maybe now I am a 'real' teacher and coach I should not show this side of me. I got afraid for students or colleagues to judge me or something, even though I just wear it around in real life certain times as well. Later on I felt more comfortable again, because I do believe that I should just be myself and if others want to judge me that says something about them, not me. Then again, I also started to wear slightly more classic or casual coords so that made it a bit easier I guess. It is an interesting thing though in hindsight... I never really was ashamed or afraid to wear the fashion. Maybe it was something more psychological that I was going through.

Last year

In 2019/2020 I started to be more active with the fashion again. I met up with lolita friends a bit more and I went to the Summer Tales Boutique event Strike a Pose as well which did still make me happy. I did not go to a lot of general community meetings though. Around December 2019 I got less energy and motivation again (work-related) and that influenced me quite a bit. Then around Spring 2020 it got better again but you know what happened then already: Covid-19.

Anyway, in the last year I made four new dresses for myself again, two of them were for the Strike a Pose event.

The grey one I also made the print myself. In the end I was a little less happy about it, but I just wanted to try something different. I always wanted something like a landscape painting on a dress, bu maybe next time some different colors would have been better.

The black one with butterflies was made with a fabric from Timeless Treasures. The gold lines around the butterflies are of a shiny gold color. It inspired me a bit to do something with a Japanese/Wa-like silhouette, in the end I was pretty happy with it. It is versatile as well since the butterflies have all kinds of color, for example I wore it with a blazer on top for another (non-lolita) event.

The other ones weren't really made with something in mind, I just liked the fabrics when I saw them. The brown one I still want to coordinate in a more steampunk-ish way one day. Both also can be worn pretty casually, which fits into my current 'style'.

I also made some accessories to go with it of course:

The dangly headdress (actually probably has a different name?) was for with the misty mountains jsk. The rest can speak for themselves I think. I also made some resin necklaces again, but I don't have good pictures of them at the moment.

For the rest I did not touch my sewing machine a lot. Last thing I made were some masks for when we had to travel with public transport (did not happen until now, since I worked a lot from home and for traveling we use the car until now, we did not go away a lot anyway because of corona).

Purchases

At the Summer Tales event in 2019 I bought quite some things (well in my perspective). I was actually happy, because usually at events I get overwhelmed and always start thinking "I don't need this". But I think because I did not do a lot the year before I thought it was okay to spend some money. I bought some jewelry from Angelic Pretty, a bolero from Summer Tales Boutique and some accessories from Triple Fortune and Violet Fane. In july 2019 also bought my first item from Innocent World, the Forest Harvest Festival skirt in beige. I have been looking for either the dress or the skirt quite a while so when I saw it I was happy to buy it. Then later in October or so I also saw a nice (sweet!) print from Alice and the Pirates and someone selling the skirt for a nice price while it was brand new. By husband thought it was cute as well so I bought it and already wore it several times. But..I don't think I can wear skirts for a while (I'll tell why you below). Then a friend of mine, Charlotte, also offered to sell her BtssB cardigan since I've been looking for a light-green cardigan and it was perfect <3. Besides that I bought some minor things like tights/accessories.

Coords

Here are some coordinations I was happy with:

Skirt: Innocent World - Forest Harvest Festival

Left - Blouse: Bodyline, accessories handmade, rest offbrand (Ebay/AliExpress)
Right - Cardigan: Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Necklace: handmade by me
Brooches: Mulberry Chronicles, Rest is offbrand.

Skirt: Alice and the Pirates  -  Jewelry world on the clouds

Left - Blouse: Angelic Pretty, Blazer/coat and shoes: Bodyline. Star-clip was made by a friend, necklace by my mom-in-law. Button was a mirror that I glued a pin on, it was from the Dream Masquerade Carnival event in London. Rest is offbrand.
Right - necklace and ring: Angelic Pretty, Rose-brooch: Triple Fortune (won in a raffle!), otks from Baby the Stars Shine Bright. Both coords with headbow from Summer Tales Boutique. Rest is offbrand.

Coord to the left - Jsk and headdress handmade by me. Bolero from Summer Tales Boutique, otks from Alice and the Pirates. Rest is offbrand.

Future

Now for something different: talking about the future. It's been a while since my husband and I started thinking about having kids. For a long time we didn't really 'feel' it. I have brothers and sisters with kids but I frankly easily feel overwhelmed when I see kids play very loudly (I know it is different when they are at home and it is not a party of course..). And we love to travel so we used to say we "still wanted to do this and go there", but at one point it started to feel a bit empty in my life. Some family moved to new houses and I started missing having my own close family a bit (if that makes sense?). Of course I love my parents and brothers and sisters and my family in law but they all have their own thing and we are not a super-close family. Then Christmas after Christmas it felt a bit the same year after year, I got a bit tired of it. Next to that I think we got settled a bit: both a stable job, already together for years, having a home etc.
That does not necessarily mean I think it is logical to have kids then, I totally still understand that there are people who do not feel like that at all, or need a partner for that sake, to be happy. And I agree. It's totally okay. But my husband and I it felt like a good next step. There was one big holiday planned at the end of April but that did not happen because of the coronavirus and so, we thought why not now. Then I got pregnant, haha.

The pregnancy announcement I made for lolita friends/insta.

Then another thing is that I planned to start to going for a masters degree. We didn't really expect to be expecting something soon, since a lot of friends around our age had either 'troubles' or at least it took longer for them. Anyway. Same thing for the master's is that I had to request a scholarship for it so it depended on that but I got it in the end, meaning that I will do another part-time study for the coming years.
It will take some decent planning and effort to fit it together with both work (but at least I get hours for both things haha) and our lives of course, but we are going to try. If anything I am really happy and excited to have things going on and happening again, because last year was really a 'bla' year to me.
I am now pregnant for 14 weeks, the due date is January 25, 2021. And everything is alright until now, healthy mom and mini-growing-baby. Had some small pregnancy ailments of course, but I think less than average (?), let's hope it stays alright. In some weeks we'll know if it is a boy or a girl :) I am so excited to meet this cute little human!

Our general pregnancy announcement.
Our Dog Kairi is reading books here, we made covers related to babies and dogs living together :P.

Anyway that also means that some things will change again and I am really not sure for how long I'll keep wearing lolita fashion. As long as it fits and I feel like it. I definitely don't think that because I'm having a baby it means I should stop wearing it or anything. I'm already past my thirties anyway, I don't really care. And I think I'm not the only one, since I follow some other lolita-moms-to-be on Insta too.
The one thing I do feel though is that I feel less interested in meeting a lot of new people. Obviously I think it is really cool that more people get into the fashion and I'm happy for them, but at a certain point age also influences what you talk about or how you talk about it. I don't follow all releases closely (that is also maybe because lots of them don't spark my interest...), I don't get excited anymore when I see a random kawaii-stand at a convention or something unless it is something I haven't seen before. Maybe that is also because my style-preference changed a bit (even though I feel like wearing sweet from time to time). After multiple big events and going to Japan three times, a certain 'standard' grows with you. For example: I don't really feel like going to anime conventions at all anymore, why when we could easily just go to Japan ^^; I'm sorry, that sounds really spoiled and it is, but that is how it feels for me. That does not mean I don't appreciate small meets or Japan-markets or anything, I still like those quite a bit. But having more things going on in your life, makes the balance a bit different and influences choices and what you talk about. Sometimes I have to skip/cancel going to a meet because I got more work to do (teachers have deadlines too..). It is just how it is.

I did feel like writing blogposts about lolita fashion though, maybe it was just because I did miss wearing the fashion for some time and writing about it (sorry, Instagram and FB groups are just not the same..). Maybe it is because sometimes I felt like referring to a blogpost but then my blog was set on private. Maybe because simple I just still love the fashion and am sad that it is not smart to buy a lot at the moment because it will not fit me anymore in some months. So who knows I'll just write a thing or two here, maybe do a small story about the last Japan trip etc. Anyway, thanks for reading <3.