Tokyo Times Part Three: Japanese Street-Style!

Sorry for the gap between this post and the last… I’ve been unexpectedly crazy busy at uni. Most of the other exchange students seem to be doing ok with the work load (aside from a couple of poor souls), but I somehow ended up with seven assignments (most of which I’ve still yet to start), and had a couple of weeks of panic after returning from Tokyo.
I’m still not quiiiiite on top of things, but I’ve set aside some time to myself tonight, after slaving away for the past two days on a movie report. I finally finished it this evening, so in celebration I baked a cake and will spend the next couple of hours going through photos and planning for my trip to the beach at Omimaiko tomorrow! The perfect chance to relax after a long and busy week!

Anyways, back to the real topic of this post!
I’m up to the third and final edition of my Tokyo-trilogy from my trip there last month. So far I’ve covered the Tokyo Sky Tree and Moomin Cafe, as well as the Mori Art Museum and Hatsune Miku pop-up cafe. Now we’re up to the reeeaally fun bit…

Shopping.

No trip to Tokyo is complete without it. Filled with massive department stores, side streets and crazy fashion, this place is a must-see for any retail-enthusiast.

The famous Shibuya Crossing

Being massively into Japanese fashion myself, I naturally spent most of the trip in Shibuya, Shinjuku and Harajuku with my new English friends (who all conveniently had similar interests). We busted our wallets with piles of clothes from Closet Child and accessories from Paris Kids and Swimmer. We roamed around the basement floors of Laforet in search of frills, got some amazing tattoo stockings from Avant Garde, tried on and bought shoes in Tokyo Bopper (except for me and my slightly-above-average-but-giant-here feet), then got photographed for the blog, and again later in Shibuya 109 for the Glavil blog, among countless other exciting things.

Emma and Rebecca as they posed for the Tokyo Bopper blog

Probably the most fantastic thing about the whole experience was meeting and running into a bunch of famous and semi-famous Tokyo personalities! Here are some photos of the trip.

Met the lovely Yuka from 6% Doki Doki! This brand is a long-time favourite of mine, so it was super-nice to see one of the lovely faces behind the brand in person. I love how the shop assistants here often double as models for the brands they work for.

Went to starbucks where the lovely young lady working there complimented my outfit and secretly wrote this on my cup. Best start to a day in Shibuya. ❤

AND SO MUCH GRIMOIRE!! Once again, I couldn’t resist the selfie…

Next up we went over to the Parco buildings in Shibuya, and guess who we ran into!

JUNNYAN!!!
This guy is one of the founders of the Harajuku fashion walks, and started up the Pop-N-Cute events in Harajuku. He also gets street-snapped a lot, often appearing in Fruits Magazine and on the Tokyo Fashion website. His style is always so colourful! (So proud of myself for mustering the courage to ask for a photo. Eeee! Thank you Junnyan!)

Outside Parco they were actually holding some kind of fashion competition, (which might explain why there were so many fashion-personalities around) where you could go and be photographed, then have image uploaded to google plus for all to see. The image with the most likes by the end of the competition wins something (can’t remember what). Anyways, we were just keen to get a free photo, so Emma and I gave it a go!

It was a great day!

As we walked away from the area, we also saw designer Kumamiki wearing this adorable yukata she made! We didn’t realise it was her at the time as we were at a distance, but after seeing her uploaded on the Tokyo Fashion website I recognised her! An adorable documentary was made about her that I remember watching and adoring early last year or the year before. Look it up on youtube. She’s just the sweetest darn thing!

We finished the trip off with a visit to the Omotesando Q-pot flagship store and cafe. Holy moly was the shop amazing! And I’m pretty sure I was nearly in tears at the cafe (massive Q-pot fan here). Will definitely be going back there with my sister next month.

Although I must admit that the shop felt a bit more like a pop-up than a proper cafe, it still had a lot of charm, and so many adorable decorations! The food was pretty darn good too (at least as far as Japanese cakes though). The macarons were just about perfect, both visually and in flavour, and it was my first taste of real chocolate since coming here. The icecream, although having a delicious burnt-caramel flavour, was not at all as creamy or as rich as icecream should be. But unfortunately this is the reality of dairy products here, as their milk is kinda like water… But it was still lovely! Next time I’ll definitely be going for one of those cheese-shaped cheesecakes. GENIUS!!!

Anyways it’s very late so I must be off! Hope you enjoyed this update! I hope to do more soon.

 

Living in Iwakura

I don’t think I’ve written much about the place I’m staying at the moment, so before I go any further I’ll tell you a bit about Iwakura! Well it’s on the Northern Edge of Kyoto, surrounded by mountains and forrest. It may seem a little far out from the city on a map, but really the subway only takes about 20 minutes to get way downtown to Kyoto Station, and the area is so calm and scenic and peaceful I really couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, especially as a student! It’s far enough away from the city to avoid too much distraction, and the dorm I’m living in is conveniently located only a 10-minute walk away from my university. It has all the essentials, such as convenience stores, grocery stores, parks, home-ware and gardening shops, bakeries, cafes, restaurants (there’s a great Indian curry place near the subway station!), and many more places worth noting.
Here are some photos around Iwakura!

Just outside the dormitory

The Eiden line line train runs straight past the dorms and the school.

This little guy and others like him guard the streets. I call them “The Iwakura Watch”.
These were from back in early April during hanami (cherry blossom season). This is the river that runs down to the Kokusaikaikan subway station. I walk or ride my bike past it almost everyday. Such a lovely spot. The crickets have begun chirping at night now too! I feel like I’m living in an anime… The area reminds me of some of the scenes in Niea_7.I’m not a creep I swear! These kids were just too darn adorable!
Some flowers I found in a parking lot… of all places… The main business area of the town. It’s always a little busier around here, and there are plenty of restaurants!

Hey there Iwakura Rangers! Protecting the streets as usual I see!

Iwakura itself is really lovely, but the dorm I’m staying in is a completely different story…
I don’t have enough time or patience right now to explain in detail how horrendous the university dorms are, so I’ll save that for another post. But just to give you an idea… here are some photos I took of one of the windows in the kitchen…

Yup. Most of those back specks are bugs… You don’t even want to see the floor…

And my creepy hallway on the 5th floor.
Just last night I discovered a mukade (centipede) just near that vacuum cleaner. Lucky this was only a small one (about 12cm), but I hear they can grow to about 30cm! And it isn’t even summer yet! Time to tape the windows people!

Believe it or not it gets much worse than that my friends.
If you’re planning to study at Seika in the future, I would definitely recommend finding your own accommodation if you’re staying for longer than one semester. Four to six months is about all I would be able to take of this place, possibly a year if I really had to… but it would not be pleasant…
On the plus side though, it’s a great way to meet people, especially if you don’t speak much Japanese. There are always plenty of other exchange students around, and often they put you all on the same floor together (at least they did for me!). It’s like a constant party up here on the 5th floor! I think within the first 3 days we were already getting noise complaints… Oops.

Anyways, that’s all for now. Will update again soon with images from the Aoi Matsuri and a trip I had to Kiyomizudera with three friends from my class. Plus I went to a student-run fashion/music parade, and went back to Osaka a couple of times. Plus I’m going to Tokyo tomorrow… BUSY BUSY!!! Still need to get my Nara films developed as well… damn…
Alright better get to work!
I’ll leave you with some outfit snaps of Emma, Wing and I from our Osaka trip.

Wing
MeEmma

We are oh-so pastel!

Glamorous Days

At Seika I’m enrolled in a video class that teaches the basics of Adobe Premiere and introduces us to a number of different styles of video.
Because the class was in Japanese, I had some difficulty these past two weeks trying to understand what our latest projects were . We could choose between “Observe” or “Behavior and Happening,” which I gathered to mean either doing a documentary, or a kind of performance piece and filming it.
I chose to do a kind of documentary of a weekend out in Osaka with my two new friends Emma and Wing. We’re all pretty into Japanese fashion, so we made it into a kind of “Lolita’s exploring Osaka” thing (even though we weren’t wearing that much extravagant clothing. Oops.) But we did eat limited edition Innocent World pies from an adorable shop and shopped until our feet were ready to fall off!
Here is the product. Please enjoy:

Here is the website for the Cafe and the info page about the Innocent World collaboration:

http://gourmet.walkerplus.com/169079056001/

http://innocent-w.jp/15th/info_e.html
If you’re in Osaka at the moment, I would really recommend this place. The cakes were amazing and the strawberry tea was even better! Not to mention the decor! THE DECOR!

Oh Osaka…

A little over a week ago my friend Emma and I decided to take a day trip to the big city of Osaka.
Lucky for us, Kyoto is actually very close to Osaka. It’s only 15 minutes away by shinkansen (bullet train), and about an hour away by standard train.

Being the poor university students we are… the standard train was the way to go. It only costs 390 yen to catch the Hankyu line train from Karasuma Shijo station to Osaka Umeda, and if you manage to get on one of the express trains it only takes 40-50 minutes! However, if you get one of the ‘local’ trains or even the ‘semi-express’ it can take from 1 and a half – 2 hours…
I made this mistake once.
Never again.

Here are some shots of Emma and I on the train:
(We bought snacks!)

Once we made it to Umeda things got a little more tricky… The station is SO much larger than Kyoto station, so we ended up having to ask a lovely young lady for directions. The people are so helpful here. She even drew a little map to our destination!
So off we went again…

Here are some quick shots from inside the station building:

(I don’t understand what these posters are advertising… All I know is I needed a photo)

And now a classic one of the station:

After exploring around Umeda station area for a bit, we caught the subway to Shinsaibashi with the intention of emptying our wallets and filling or bags with frilly goods from the various Japanese fashion shops in the area.

The first store we went into ended up costing me over 20,000 yen…

Mission accomplished.

The name of the store was Atelier Pierrot. I didn’t get any shots of the place, as most of these stores have a strictly no photography policy. But I did take a photo of the skirt I bought! It’s a Juliette et Justine item, one of my all time favourite Japanese brands! This is the first thing I’ve ever bought from them, so it’s quite special to me. (And the fabric is amazing)

Next up was Innocent World. Once again, no photos allowed. But they had a special blouse sale on, so I bought one to match the skirt.
(I apologize for these terrible photographs by the way)

Before we embarked on our journey to these magical and whimsical shops, we needed to refuel. Walking down a random side-street we found what we thought was a hole-in-the-wall kind of sushi place. It looked cheap and inviting enough, so we went in.
Much to our surprise the restaurant was actually 4 or 5 floors high, with a different kind of dining area on each level. And it was incredibly cheap for the amount of food you get! We both got sushi sets that came with a side of udon soup and some dumplings, and there was free unlimited iced tea! The fatty tuna was sooooo goood! Now I’m not allowed to eat anymore engangered animals while I’m here or else I am definitely going to hell. I’m sorry fishies!

We also drank some beer in a seedy little bar where you had to purchase food and drink tickets from a vending machine. The only reason we went there was so Emma could use the bathroom, but they said customers only… so we were like “hey why not?” Beer in frilly dresses. The best way to drink!

Then it was back to more and more shopping! We came across a couple of funny store names, some dogs in tutus, and followed some fashionable looking girls to Bodyline (of all places!), then made our way up some seriously shady looking elevators to even dodgier looking corridors. At one point we found a second-hand lolita shop in a really seedy looking building, and it was positioned right next to a creepy-looking tarot reading place and a shop that seemed to specialize in all things marijuana-oriented…

After a very eventful day we finished off in true lolita-style – with tea and cakes.
Delicious!!

Well it was definitely one of my best days in Japan so far. Ate a lot, spent a lot, met a lot of people and just in general had a great time.
Will definitely be going back sometime soon.

Goodnight Osaka… until next time.