Japan trip 2014 - Some lolita, finally!

Wednesday 30

We did nothing all day which feels good and is exactly what I am doing today.
We woke up, had yummy food for breakfast, had instant yummy food for lunch and had super healthy food for dinner (tofu, mushrooms, fish etc).
Played with Mari, watched tv, relaxed. Best days are those lazy days.

Breakfast included karepan (my favorite) and sweet buns with handmade maio filing.

Mari had fun in that box.

Discovered Mari likes matcha flavored stuff too, this is matcha pudding.

Friday 31

My inlaws wanted to take Mari so we had a more relaxed time. Woke up later than usual and there were some tasty onigiri waiting on the dining table.
After that, we were planning on leaving the house soon but my friend fla has a big mouth and chats a lot which makes me happy haha so i stayed in and we chatted and chatted and I was happy. Unfortunately soon it was time to leave and we had planned to visit Osaka's shinsaibashi área which is supposed to be my favorite in Japan so far.

This is what I look like. People stare a bit because of the sunglasses, very rarely do I see anyone with sunglasses here.

 This pond is right by Sango train station. Last year it was full of water and there were fish and turtles living there. We wondered about the turtles and found out they were taken to a save place but I got very annoyed when i looked at the área beneath a grid and there was water and still fish living there, that place is tiny and dirty! So sad...

Once a beautiful pond, now its like a trash can where some fish are still trapped.

but then vending machines make it better. I got the Café Au Lait which is milky and sugary and reminds me of my kitty cat left back home *tears*

 We got in the train and headed over to the connection station which is Tennoji. I like the fact that i always need to be in a train to go to places although i find the whole line this and that and JR and bla bla ridiculously confusing.

Since it was lunch time and had to literally step out of the station to change to the subway my husband suggested we ate around the area. I actually had been there last year to meet with one of his friends and I like it a lot, its super modern and there's a ton of things to discover, lots of stores and all that. 

The view accross the train station

People with sunglasses. I want to take more photos with my husband but its not easy to do so when we are by ourselves.

We then entered a shopping building because they have restaurants there, usually in the bottom but mostly in the top floors. I like malls here, they look super upscale like the sort of place i'd think twice about entering in my own country because of the price of the items and because I feel like i look odd in them haha but in Japan they are so normal everyone is everywhere and that feels nice.

I stopped twice, once to eat of course and the other time in the kid's floor. I was drooling over Mezzo Piano and even more over Shirley Temple's marvelous pieces. I fell in love with one jsk, but it was 7000yen on sale and still big for my daughter. I swear when she's a year older i'm going to buy this stuff for her. I do not care!

This in jsk version.... how can you not want to dress your kid in this???

The top floors with the restaurants had the staircase área all decorated with these leaves on the ceiling and i though they looked amazing, like something from a dream.

We browsed all the floors until we decided where to have lunch... its just that there are queues out of each one of the restaurants and I hate waiting...

Finally we decided to go to a Chinese food sort of place and I knew what to get from the shop window, plastic food model display, eggplant! I love eggplant!

I ordered a menu which included a small soup, a small salad, a roll and a meat fried piece which i adore.

It was way too much food for me so my husband ended eating half of it. My mother in law told us not to get stuffed for lunch because she wanted to take us out for dinner.
Since we were headed for shinsaibashi and we remembered it was not easy to find a bathroom there we decided to go before. Now I know you were waiting for toilet shots again but common, again? (ok maybe next time).
I did spot something I am actually thinking of requesting people implement here which is this:

Seat for kids

I know it sounds obvious but no, there's no place to put your kid down when you go to the bathroom... so going to the bathroom with a under 3 year old child is a huge drag! They had these in all the toilets and even the men's bathroom which is where this one was located actually. Isn't it perfect? I thought so.

We then left for the subway and headed to our destination, shinsaibashi. We left in the station with the same name and got lost. I always find Bodyline and never find the famous triangle park the first time. This time again we got lost and then laughed a bit when we got there because we totally had been close before and just missed it. I will always find it now though i forced myself to memorize the path to it.
That means we had just a couple of hours to browse things... which is not a lot but i mean shopping can happen any time, and this trip is about familly and resting.
Some photos taken of the area when we were just wandering around:

The famous GLICO sign.

 

When you see these lamps you know you have arrived.

My first stop was the one closest to me which was Angelic Pretty. I was hoping to miracly find a Cameo Window fully shirred jsk in red but of course it wasn't there. The other version not available in the site was there in red but its 89cm long and frankly full shirring is just more comfortable for me so i did not get it. I am still debating if I should get it in Brown or ivory so I left without buying anything.

Angelic Pretty Osaka - Cameo in pink for fla

After that, in the same street I went to two stores, one was the local second hand store which has become much more expensive than it was before, all the things I wanted were close to or over retail price, I really want musee in ivory but nah. But they had really nice things there.

Then I went to Atelier Boz but I found that nothing was too exciting except for this which is lovely but not something i'm dying to have. I also loved their hoop skirts!

After that I went straight towards my favorite store in the world, not because of the brands they carry (juliette et justine, moi-meme-moitie, "chantilly", triple fortune, atelier pierrot and others) but because of the atmosphere and most of all the servisse. The staff are friendly and act and seem... well human. Some stores train their staff to act in a way that seems plastic and just odd or even somewhat not helpful which happens everywhere, not just here and not just in Lolita stores. The Atelier Pierrot staff acts as if they are your friend and just want to help. I wanted to try on some triple fortune corsets and was looking for it in black but did not find it, they only had that pink on the window there. I fell in love with chantilly's prints and was disappointed by the one i actually wanted to see (haha life) and also fell in love with a MmM shirt (can't afford that) and a complete outfit by Atelier Pierrot that I will probably buy next week if its still there. I feel stupid though, buying a complete coord shown in the store but i loved it!

Anyway I just want to go back and get a photo with the store girl because i love her and want to be her friend (how creepy).

Atelier Pierrot Osaka - my favorite store in Japan

We also went in Innocent World where I also was disappointed by the only thing i wanted and almost got a dress on sale. I went in to buy a short sleeved  cardigan in black but they had 0 in L size so i couldn't.

Kera shop had the most gorgeous Lumiebre parasol ever with a stained glass print in it... for like a lot of cash (and for me to get it meant i'd have to play the luck game with the airplane trip "will it or will it not break") and I got to see my new jj dress which is... ok but super thin. Why are my jj dresses never thick and nice like the cat/rabbit dress my friend Vania owns... *sigh*
Finally we went in the PureSound second hand store. I found out their Lolita section is now pretty much non-existant and found two things I wanted there. One I got and will show to you (it was the only thing i bought that day) and the other I left but would like to own and might return to get, i didn't get it because it was just a plain pink dress but i think i'll wear it a bit. Not too cheap nor too expensive.

After that it was time to go, we had scheduled to be in Oji station by 6.30 and we meant to keep our promise.

Regular japanese train, bound for Oji station

In the process of getting there i got realy thirsty and wanted to buy water but we were out of coins so when I arrived at Oji the first thing I did was get Money from the ATM and hit the nearby supermarket. Never did water taste this good.

Buying water at the supermarket, gosh i was so ridiculously thirsty!

When we got back very soon everyone arrived so we got in the car and my daughter reacted in the most adorable way ever screaming "mommy mommy" ^_^; *melts*

After a while we arrived to our destination: more meat heaven!

The restaurante, during the day was black and at night it looked more grey-ish. It looked pretty grand haha

Korean style barbecue. Sooo tasty!

 After that we got back in the car and went back home where we rested a bit and waited for something that we wanted to watch: Cristiano Ronaldo in a japanese food tv quizz show.

Basically two guests have to eat 3 dishes, in the middle there's one the guest does not like. In the end they have to guess which dish the other does not like to "win".
Ronaldo was asked to take off his shirt if he lost (what?) and he did lose so he did take it off, the girl was melting, it was ridiculous haha.

After that we went jogging... and jogging here is harder I haven't made it to the 5k I usually run because its so hot!
Took a shower and slept like a baby!

This is the only thing I bought, I know... how ridiculous! I told you I am most probably falling out of love with lolita. :|

Victorian Maiden Gobelin print capelet. Not sure of name or if anything is missing.

Hope you liked reading!
Love always,
Jo

9th March

After an odd night that Saturday, (We changed, went out for kebabs and witnessed a robbery and waited 15min for the police to arrive while noticing that apparently nobody cared and reported it - despite a lot of people walking by - sad huh?) we had a more relaxed Sunday.


First my family was gone, so no mom and my brother also went to rest due to having gotten a cold and second Sunday's are always a bit... slow.


We hanged out at home a while and then in the afternoon finally left to walk around town a bit and for Mari to run around because that's her favorite thing right now.


I recently got another dress, its not really a new dress, but a dress I already own in another color way. One of the local lolitas has it in yet another color so I thought it would be fab if we did a trio. Sadly we never heard back from said Lolita so it ended up being me and fla twinning again. I changed the outfits in order for them to kinda be a twin and off we went. My favorite outfit is fla's. I just adore the burgundy ribbon on that dress, I think its pretty unexpected. Obviously I matched it with burgundy pieces and I think it works out quite nicely.

I am not really sure about this cut on me actually, for casual outings sure, for actual proper Lolita like this... I'm not sure it suits me. It makes me bulkier than normal. I do adore the print on the dress and the fabric though so I'm sad to let these go. They were not super cheap either.

Eventually fla had to get ready to leave which was sad.... we will miss having her around, I felt so... appreciated... actually no, I felt like someone considers me to be a good friend and wants to hang out with me which is something I have not had for a while nor did I know that I was not getting.
That made me get very gloomy these next days, I think you only miss things when you acknowledge them. I got so used to being with my family and only meeting certain people on some occasions that spending a whole weekend with someone dedicating their full attention to me kind of spoiled me.
I now plan to kidnap fla and her boyfriend and "force" them to move to the most amazing Portuguese city of them all, Porto.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed reading and looking at the photos.
I had so much fun twinning, I want to do it again soon!
Love,
Jo

Japan 2013 (Day 8 - 19th July)

Hello again everyone.
I am not in my inlaw's house at the moment where I left my computer so I hope this blogspot timer thing is working and you can read this soon.

The 8th day of my trip was another quiet day but we did leave the house at least. When I got to the living room for breakfast someone else was already sitting there, Mr.Mi the cat. He is soooo big! He is adorable and keeps running away from Mari, the poor thing.

I had something I always liked for breakfast, my mother in law's version of mini hot dogs? Anyway they are small brioche bread buns with lettuce, cucumber, a bit of that crunchy yummy sausage and ketchup. I also had tea. It's a sort of tea they always have in the fridge and kind of prepare at home. It tastes like... really weak coffee water. It's odd but i like it. 

And my usual cup of american style coffee of course. With a bit of milk and sugar.

I spent the whole morning doing god knows what while my husband worked, again. 

And without noticing because time does fly, it was lunch time already.

My husband needed a haircut and instead of getting one in Portugal we decided it made more sense to do it in Japan because of his hair type. I thought he had some plans for a special cut or something but in the end he just went with a place where they cut hair (men and women) for 1000yen which is very cheap.  

This is what the outside of the hair salon looked like, inside it has small compartments/boxes where each customer would sit in. It was rather empty but the atmorphere was nice and everyone kept asking things about Mari which is cute.

After the haircut it was back to the car. I really like this photo of Mari, she looks adorable in her little hat but most of all i really love her pose. Why is she sitting like that? No idea. 

After that we had the most important appointment of the day, the dentist. My husband was chewing gum the other day and something fell off one of his tooth. I do not know what the name is in english but in Portuguese is "chumbo do dente". 

                            

Direct translation would be tooth lead but i'm not sure that makes any sense.

He wasn't really in pain, he's just being goofy.

This is actually a space for kids inside the small, elegant and cozy clinic. I took a photo of Mari playing with books but cannot find it so i'm making my husband look silly instead. ha!

Of course, one has to take one's shoes off to enter the clinic so they have community slippers you are supposed to change into when you go there and wait for your turn. Not sure how much more hygenic that is but...

Anyway he was afraid it would be ridiculously expensive since, as you must know, Japan's health care system is a lot like the American one meaning everyone should have an health insurance if they want to be able to afford any medical care. But actually it was only around 30 euros! We were surprised. He didn't completely solve the problem but he did manage to do the minimum to hang on confortably until we get back. 

We then got back home and had dinner and also gave Mari something to eat.

Dinner was super tasty! My favorite salad, my mother in law's potato salad, hambago, mini regular salad, a cup of corn soup and beer. YUM

A very simple day but I hope you still enjoyed it.

Again, here's another lolita purchase from the Shinsaibashi shopping day:

Alice and the Pirates black jsk 

(does anyone know the name?)

Love always,

Jo