Day 7 - Tokyo [part 2]

We finally got to harajuku station. As the train left we saw that on one side there was this immense vegetation and on the other side civilization, not just any place but the famous Takeshita Dori street sign. I hadn't taken a picture with the sign before so T took a quick snap to register the moment. The last time we were here we came in a very busy day and not so early in the morning so we knew it would be a totally different experience (a lot better obviously as we both dislike crowds).
We headed over to the street and right on the left side I noticed a small souvenier and random stuff store and i saw something that I know my brother would love but I'm always afraid to get, I don't know why but I always imagine they'll stop me at customs and I'll get in trouble in Europe and I don't want to risk it hahaha.
That's right, that's a list of flags you can get and in between them, there's a Nazi flag. No, my brother isn't a nazi, he just studies the world ward II history like a maniac for some reason and I'm sure he'd like one for that reason (yes sounds stupid that I'm explaining this but trust me there are a LOT of idiots surfing the web (I've actually been called nazi for liking a certain clothing line from a lolita store that has a militar feel and an eagle as an insignia ._.).

Anyway other than that I found a pair of glasses that look like something from a sci fi movie. There were three colors available and i'm still not sure i made the right pick but i loved them and had to get them. Stupidest buy ever I'm sure. You tell me, yes right? haha

Anyway we continued walking down the street waiting for 10am until for some reason I re-checked and found out that the stores opened at 11am instead. BUMMER! We were just so tired of doing nothing by this time that this sounded a bit bad. So I took my camera out and thought of the girls (especially Vânia who keeps bugging me about this post -_-;) and took some pictures of stuff i find interesting around there.

This was awesome, they later put this manequin outside but i found it to be a lot better up there, with its hands against the glass as if saying "let me out!". I love this kind of mask, i really want to find a Crazy horse white mask while in Japan but unfortunately I don't think there's any way i can fit it into my bag anymore and of course i can't walk around with a horse mask in the airport and plane all the way to portugal (although that would be super cool and slightly jackass like).

Since its impossible to keep formatting my post like this and have enough stuff to say i'll just leave you guys with some pictures of nice details as well as things you'd like to see like some store fronts and stuff like that.

A random cute store that had all sort of funky looking bags such as bunny bags, clock bags, matrioska bags, camera bags, radio bags, car bags, etc. Cool huh? I never got in but loved the store window. If i could carry some I'd get a bunch for the shop and myself, but there's just no way they'd fit my super loaded bags.

The top floor store is a 390yen store with used clothes, you can find everything there from vintage to regular clothes. This is probably where those clothes labeled as "second hand" come when you see harajuku street snaps and the like. There are a bunch of these, some are pretty expensive but not this one.
The botoom floor has, as you can read, Sex Pot Revenge which is one of my favorite japanese punk labels.

The famous Closet Child store, one of them but of course this is the Harajuku branch. As you can see its not located in the ground floor but the 1st, 2nd and third and last floors of this particular building. On the first floor you can find everything from all the sweet lolita brands (as well as aatp and iw), on the second floor you will find goth brands and punk as well and on the third floor (and this was a huge change from last year's visit) its now an otome/classic lolita floor selling stuff like milk, etc, shirley temple and of course all the classic brands, mary magdalene, victorian maiden, etc. It's amazing and Vânia would sell her kidneys to get all the stuff there. :|

As you can see the stores were all closed and usually you can't take a picture of anything without having a ton of people in front of everything so we were super early.
This is Liz Lisa, a gyaru oriented fashion store that is also popular with teenagers and overall fans of cuteness. You can always find something nice there.

I took this picture not because of what it is but because i loved the funky tiled they used for the outside walls, reminded me of kubrik lego pieces and modern art. I loved this.

Picture taken in front of the famous Laforet shopping mall. They always have super creative displays and this year's are no exception. There was also a huge yellow Christmas tree in front but i can't display every single photo here, guys.

We were tired and it was getting chilly so I asked for a small snack and a warm drink. We went back and picked this small café which I had found to look like it had the most delicious menus and cozy environment. Since it was the 24th I felt super happy that they were playing xmas songs (must have been the first time because usually I'm very annoyed by those) but also some funky brazillian tunes that make anyone happy and serve as the perfect environment lounge music.

Since you're always complaining about how gross the food looks here, i decided to include a picture of the front's advertisement for some strawberry yummy looking sweet cakes and lattes and whatnot.
Still, being a bigger fan of non sweet stuff than sweets myself, decided on a cup of hot coffee and milk and an egg/ham small toast. Tasted like a dream!

After that we stayed indoors for a while as it wasn't time yet and we chatted a bit about house prices around there and also about the fact that I hadn't seen a lot of stylish people yet. T reminded me to look closely at the girls walking around with their friends. At first I didn't get what he meant or what I should be looking for but some time later I finally noticed that most teenage girls were carrying trolleys with them. Of course! I had forgotten that they come from home looking all normal and boring and then change in staircases and toilets into their harajuku personas. In the end most of them end up being nothing more than cosplayers which as you know is not something I highly approve of as it makes it hard for me to keep trying to convince the entire world that i'm not a freak and that lolita isn't cosplay. To some, it really is. Anyway it was time so we got up.


I only a handful of lolita girls on the way and as you know i'm much too polite to snap pictures of them while they're aware and i'm also too shy to take pictures of them with their permission (aka I'm a big creep) so I only have there two shots of lolitas in Harajuku for you, both sweet, both wearing pink (and one looks like my friend Chérie which is creepy).

Anyway I went to closet child and got some things some people asked me to get: lucy, hana, lolilove mostly and then tried some things on. Fell in love with a meta dress and bought it which was a disgrace because i didn't want to spend more money. Also got some boleros, necklaces to match the new outfits and a shirred mmm shirt. Lost my breath when i saw twinkle journey in blue live. God its beautiful! And also cried because they had fantastic dolly jsk in white and the macaron black shirred op which i always adored. Both way out of my price range for that day though. You can see what i got later on my poupee if you are curious. Win! XD

It was time to head back to Shinjuku. It was the connecting point for the final destination we had for the day. So, and because there was still some time, we decided to head over (finally!) to a cyber café and rest as well as get ready for the show.
Cyber cafés in Japan have everything. Yes, everything. It's incredible I've never seen anything quite like it. Unfortunately I was a bit stressed out and tired to remember to take pictures of the inside but i'll describe it the best I can.
They are confortable, they provide a wide variety of reading material (especially manga) and movies. They operate 24/7. You can find food there, you can find drinks there and they willl actually offer miso soup for free there as well as the normal hot tea. Most of them now not only have bathrooms but also showers you can use. Some of them actually have beds where you can take a nap. We saw a cyber café the other day with a tanning machine, yes a tanning machine... etc so just imagine! No wonder there's a group of people sleeping there nowadays, its cheaper than paying rent and its confortable enough. o.o

We left, walked a bit, visited maruione again and saw some pretty kickass moi meme moitie head to toe coordinates. One of the girls was wearing my mmm dream coat and i cried a bit haha. People stared at me all the way but i felt neatly dressed which was a good feeling.
We headed over to Liquidroom which we couldn't find at first. I told T the best thing to do was follow moitie wearing people but he didn't listen so we wandered a bit before finally reaching the place.
We got in and there was a bunch of people there already. The place was confortable, clean, sort of fancy for what you are used to see in european metal related band events at least and there was even a nice looking coffee shop where we had a coke and i smoked a cig. Some other japanese lolitas were smoking cigarettes so i felt at home. In your face haters! XD No but really? I thought we had this idea that lolitas can't smoke because of japanese lolitas? Thank god its a lie.
We bought a small flier for a load of cash (seriously mana?) but I was told that was the thing to take home from that gig and i couldn't carry a poster so... and just looked around in awe for a while.
I really wanted to take pictures guys but to be honest I didn't know anyone but still didn't want to be the rude oddball so i didn't take any secretly. Sometimes I wish i was a bit more politically incorrect in that kind of situation but I really am very respectful. It's a shame really, it was a room almost completely filled with head to toe moitie wearing people. It was incredible, I had never seen so much moitie in my life! Thank god I went with iron gate too, there was another girl in the blue one but i didn't see a lot of people wearing it at all, tons of people wearing divine cross though, even the sendai edition and the new velvet ones so if i went with that i'd look like everyone else. I was also the only person with white hair as you will see. Didn't have time to cut the bangs though, i'm not sure i will, i'm scared to ruin the wig to be honest.
I asked T to wear something a bit proper so he let me change his attire for a sec, nothing much, i just made him put on a vest, a tie and lent him my bag since it matched the colors and i couldn't use it anyway. He looked so toned down but so cute!


I will not write a detailed review of this concert because there's already better ones to be found throughout the web even in portuguese and by people who know a lot more and will share a lot more details than I will. I will only say a couple of things in form of a tiny list:
- It was fairly empty compared with concerts I've been to, even their berlin concert in the past and I guess i thought Mana was bigger in Japan than he actually is.
- They didn't play just stuff from the new album (which sounded ok to be honest btw) but also stuff from previous albums, the most known songs.
- They wore the same outfits they wore in their last show.
- They had a special performance in the end for xmas and mana came out wearing a black santa outfit. They made us call him mana-santa-sama (which made me laugh as hell) and said made us scream "me-ku-dix" instead of "merry christmas which was ridiculously hilarious as well.
- Everyone got a "special present" at the way out.
- I waved the Portuguese flag around.
- 1/5 of the audience was foreign, that's what i call dedication guys!
Only picture I took at the concert, before they started to play of course. You can see some lolitas. If you try you can find someone dressed in a very "odd", she was foreign btw. There was also a girl dressed in the worse way possible acting ridiculous and super lame and then to me the winner for odd characters was a girl who was in full moitie, super quiet all the time, sitting along in a corner of the room and that when the show started screamed like crazy with a very odd strong voice losing her "kawaii" and girly side in a second after that. Talk about double personality weeeeeirdddd people. Everyone was friendly and i missed to see /find the only person I wanted to see there, a girl named Sarah I met in tokyo last year and who i actually like and did wish to see again. Tough luck.

These are the tour goods they gave each one of us. Obviously there's a program for the liquidroom, then theres a bunch of visual k flyers, etc, the D+Sect flyer, the pamphlet I got which is tiny and was super expensive and the Christmas present: the moi dix mois signed postcard.
They all look the same I guess.

Anyway we left, happy, tired (we had been tired the entire day though as you can see by my dark deep eye circles). We were super hungry too so we went looking for something fast, hot and cheap to eat.

Found this tiny restaurant that only served ramen so it was perfect. Well actually it ended up not being so perfect because the ramen was a bit sub par for japan to be honest, i was slightly disappointed because it was my first this time, I adore ramen and i can tell easily if its good or not actually (which is something I can't do with most dishes here though).
After this we went to the train station. Fortunately the trip back was not going to be by bus but by train! We took the total of 3 trains on a trip that lasted 9 freaking hours during the night. Still in comparison it was a lot more confortable and I managed to sleep most of the time.

We got to Nara, got in the bus, returned home and fell on the futon like rocks. We were beat. All that, just to attend a Moi dix Mois concert. Insane, right?

Love,
Jo