Disney Ambassador Hotel and Ikspiari

 Hello dear readers! How are you?

Here's the second part of my Disney trip, which is really the first, because I took these on the day I arrived at Maihama.

We checked into the Ambassador Hotel, which is decorated in Art Deco style with Disney motifs, and went shopping in Ikspiari, a mall that is connected to Tokyo Disney resort.

Here's my outfit for that day:

Hair accessory: Handmade

Blouse: Vintage

Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute

Others: Offbrand

Here's a close-up of my hair accessory.

The ribbon is from Laduree! It's so pretty, I had to use it for something.

This is the view from our room. It's lovely isn't it? And you can see the volcano at Disney Sea in the distance! It was much to cold to enjoy the swimming pool though.

We had tea in the hotel cafe. These were some of the desserts on offer.

I had the smoked salmon and cheese pancake set. It was really good! Plus the Mickey-shaped cheese was too cute <3

I ordered the Alice dessert to follow. Inside the cup is Earl Gray flavoured mousse. Delicious! 

We had dinner in the Rainforest Cafe in Ikspiari, and I took a picture with my lookalike. Ikspiari is like a little bit of Disneyland, there's all sorts of fun things there. There were animatronic elephants, butterflies and monkeys inside the restaurant!

This was also in Ikspiari. It's pretty as you can see!

There were all sorts of funny things going on in that big mural behind me, like this lady with a note for 'Big Daddy Iizuka'. I don't know who Big Daddy Iizuka is but he sounds scary!

Have a look at it if you visit, it really is strange!

Oh, and there was a concert being given by school children outside the Disney store. It was so adorable! The four couples at the front were doing a little dance where the boys gave the girls flowers. So cute! I think English boys would be much too bashful to do something like that, which is silly of them but there you go.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Thank you for looking and see you again soon.

Sapphira

xxxx

Tokyo Disneyland

Hello dear readers! How are you today?

The weather has been so warm lately that I was able to have a picnic with other other lolitas yesterday. However, today's post is from when the weather was much colder a month or so ago. This was when I visited Disneyland!

I arrived in Chiba the day before going to the park, and stayed at the Disney Ambassador Hotel. This meant that I could start the day by having breakfast with my favourite characters!

Me and Mickey! I was so happy to meet him <3 I'm a big fan of Mickey Mouse, I  think he's cool!

Me and Donald. I wanted to grab his tail, it was so cute! Probably not good behaviour though....

Minne was so pretty!

You can see a bit of the hotel room behind me, it was lovely, and much bigger than my entire apartment! I got this hat in Disney Sea last year. If you go to Disney or Disney Sea you will see lots of people in Disney hats of different sorts. This leopard one is pretty popular! I recommend getting one if you go, you will feel left out if you don't and probably catch a cold too.

I love the buildings at Disneyland! This is in the World Bazaar area.The ice-cream colours are so cute!

I went to watch this crazy Michael Jackson short film from 1987 called Captain EO. Michael Jackson is Captain EO and he and his crew of robots and aliens go to give a present to a scary tentacle lady. Their present is the gift of song and dance! Touched by their performance, the scary tentacle lady turns into Angelica Huston is a pretty gown and all is well. It is certainly a curious thing and I enjoyed it!

Near Cinderella's castle. There were lots of friendly ducks waddling around on the grass or having a swim.

Another cute building in Fantasyland. Fantasyland has rides from all the classic movies like Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. I prefer rides where you sit in a little car and look at things much more than rollercoasters and things so I like this zone the best. I don't recommend the Pinocchio ride though, the car goes so fast you can't see anything and it's awful to queue for ages and then finish the ride in about ten seconds.

I went to Cinderella's castle for the first time. It was closed for refubishment before. I'm so glad I went in, I really loved it. It's so pretty inside! Here is one of the stained glass windows. You can see 'It's a Small World' at the bottom of the picture.

Inside the castle there are little displays telling the story of Cinderella. They are all different; this one had moving parts so it was as if the mice were really working on Cinderella's dress! My favourite display was the one where the Fairy Godmother transforms Cinderella and the pumpkin, but it wasn't possible to take a photo. I don't know how they did it but it's really like magic!

In the throne room there are murals, and if you take a photo of them with a flash, a secret message is revealed!

 Ta-da!

And of course you can do this!

 I hope you enjoyed the pictures, there's some more coming next time so please look out for them!

Sapphira

xxxx

Misako's Alice Christmas Tea Party

 Hello dear readers!

Sorry for the lack of updates, I was making the most of my time at home. I'm back in Tokyo now! 

Today I have pictures from an event I went to just before I went home. I've wanted to go to one of Misako's tea parties for some time, and my friend invited me along to this one which was held in a restaurant in Shinjuku.

There are a few Alice themed cafes/restaurants in Shinjuku these days, but this was the first time I'd been to one! The name of this particular restaurant is Ehon no Kuni no Arisu (Alice of Picture Book Land) and it is usually only open in the evening, but they opened it specially for Misako's party.

Ok, according to the coaster it's Alice in Fantasy Book but I prefer my translation. 

Here's my outfit!

Ribbon: Ange (Japanese indies brand)

Blouse: Vintage

Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute

Tights: tutuanna

Of course, the theme was Alice. I tried to give it a new twist by adding red to the usual blue (British Alice?). It's hard to see, but my tights have hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds on them!

I think this coord needs a bit more work still, so I'll try another version some time.

Here's a glimpse of the inside of the restaurant. There was a great chandelier (which I had to duck under) and huge Tenniel illustrations on the walls, lot of mirrors and some perspex walls, which gave it a wonderland feeling.

There were some talk shows, and two of my friends from GLP no Kai (a lolita circle) were part of it! Kawaii Girl Japan were covering the event too.

The food was really nice, and much more plentiful than at the Triple Fortune party. There was a savoury course and a sweet course, buffet style, and enough for seconds!

There were tomato and salmon roses (the one pictured is a tomato one) and the potato waffles were so yummy! I do miss potatoes being here. I ate ever so many at home to make up for it!

The desserts were very pretty, there were chocolate ones and starwberry ones and choux pastry as well as these nice green tea roll cakes.

There was another talk show with Hanae, a very sweet girl who is a musician. She seemed so shy and gentle, I want to be her friend! After I post this I will look up her music. She gave us some reccomendations about eyeliner and books, including a book detailing cafes and so on suitable for a maidenly lifestyle.  She had a lovely Innocent World onepiece with a high collar, and tights from Grimoire!

Misako seemed very animated during the party, more than usual maybe, and happy to have so many guests come to see her. I really enjoyed the talk shows (especially with my nice friend to translate the difficult bits for me!) and I think it would be good if we did something more like that at events like Hyper Japan. Fashion shows are fun, but a bit impersonal perhaps. The talk shows were not wildly exciting, but just nice chats about clothes and hair and make up and books and cafes, so cosy and pleasant! All in all it was a very nice day, and quite relaxing in fact.

We all took a photo with Misako at the end, and I will post it as it's a happy memory, even though I look like Godzilla next to her:

Just look at Misako please, not me!

Oh yes, we did a jan-ken-pon taikai (rock paper scissors tournament) with Misako and Hanae, and I was one of the winners! Misako had bought Alice prizes at Disneyland and I got this adorable box of tea.

The hearts are apple tea, and the clubs are ceylon. I love the art deco style illustration! 

Thank you for reading, and perhaps you'd like to finish by watching this video of the tea party made by Kawaii Girl Japan:

 

There are English subtitles, and Hanae-chan is in it! I'm in it too at the end saying "Kawaii Girl Japan", right at the back with my red ribbon!

See you next time,

Sapphira

Autumn Schoolgirl Outfit

Hello dear readers!

A simple outfit post today.

It has really become autumn these days (even if the temperature is like summer in Brighton), so I decided it was time to break out the velvet!

The sober colours, twin plaits and argyll knee socks are like an English schoolgirl. I always like this theme! Even if I am 24....

Hat: corgi-corgi

Necklace: Innocent World

Blouse: Vintage

Jumperskirt: Emily Temple Cute

I feel like I should be carrying a lacrosse stick with this outfit!

I love this jsk so much! The cut is very good I think, even though it's not close-fitting at all the bodice makes a nice line. 

Guess what, my mother is coming to visit me in Tokyo from this Sunday! I'm so excited, but a little anxious too. I really want her to enjoy her time here so I'm trying to plan every little detail. It's  impossible though, and probably a little pointless. Still, I can't help myself!

I want to blog one more time before she arrives. We're going to do a lot of sightseeing together, so after that I'll have lots of fun photos to show you!

See you next time,

Sapphira

xxxx

Licca-chan exhibition at Okadaya

Hello readers!

Today's post is the last one about my trip to Japan in January. On this day I went to Okadaya, one of the most fun shops in Tokyo! Okadaya actually consists of two tall buildings, and it is filled with all manner of useful and pretty things for sewing, crafts and costuming. I love spending time there! This visit was even more interesting, because there was an exhibition of Licca-chan dolls.

Have you met Licca-chan before? She is Japan's answer to Barbie. She's very cute, don't you think? I loved Barbie so much when I was growing up, but Licca-chan is also very appealing and stylish, as you shall see!

I'd love to wear this outfit for shopping, or even at work!

This is another of my favourites. The apron is styled like German costume, but the denim gives it a prairie look. She looks so sweet <3 This colour combination is nice and a little bit unusual too!

Another natural kei/prairie outfit.

I know it's a bit frumpy, but I do love a smock. Here Licca-chan looks like Red Riding Hood!

Another coordinate I can easily imagine wearing. I think she might have had a little rucksack on her back.

I'm not sure how these huge clumpy boots would work with this dress on a real person, but on a doll they're very sweet. I like this vibrant blue!

I love her hairstyle here! She looks so casual and fresh, as if she's dressed for the first day of spring.

Pink-haired Licca-chan! I suppose this is an outfit for a stay at home day. 

Finally here's my outfit (not as cute I know....)

~Rundown~

Scarf (worn in hair) and blouse- Vintage

Cuffs- Baby, the Stars Shine Bright

Jumperskirt- Emily Temple Cute

Bag- Metamorphose

Others- Offbrand

I had tea at the Keio Plaza hotel and later had even more tea and dinner with my dear friend :)

I hope you've enjoyed this series of posts! It's been fun to look back at my holiday and I've really enjoyed your comments. Thanks so much for reading!

Se you next time,

Sapphira

xxxx

Hyper Japan Fashion Show 26/02/12

Hello readers!

Yesterday I had a wonderful time at Hyper Japan 2012 Spring. I ate a lot, including delicious curry croquettes, and learnt more about Japanese cinema. And I got a smile from the very cute Beckii Cruel :) I even met a couple of people who read this blog or recognised me from Daily Lolita! I was very suprised and happy. Thank you so much for talking to me, you are all truly lovely and it was a pleasure to meet you <3

I walked in the Japanese Street Fashion show, which showcased Lolita, Otome, Mori Girl and Cult Party kei. 

Scarlett and Tania opened the show. Scarlett was wearing kodona, and Tania was wearing a new print from Baby, the Stars Shine Bright.

Emma, on the left, was wearing Innocent World's Lotta print in classic-sweet style. Katie was hime-sweet in Baby. They are both so frilly!

Annie-May in classic. I really love this colour combination! Her bonnet is handmade.

It's me, accompanied by my dear friend Mr Albert Bear. Predictably, I'm in classic. One day I'll shock you by wearing head-to-toe AP!

With this coordinate I went for a "British school girl" theme, hence the red and blue argyll socks and sturdy boots. My jumperskirt is from Emily Temple Cute, socks are Metamorphose, blouse is handmade and everything else is offbrand. Mr Bear's ribbon hand-tailored at Savile Row.

Jenni wore classic-gothic, a style which I'd like to try out for myself. Her BTSSB hair accessory is so elegant, as is the simple but rich-looking colour scheme.

Mel looked so gorgeous, as always! I think she's one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. I really loved her decadent, gothic outfit.

Like many lolitas, I really look up to Phoebe! She puts so much creativity into her outfits. Her coordinate today was wonderful, with a handmade bonnet adorned with tiny bird skulls.

Here's our little mori girl pair, Mya and Shani. They look like two baby deers! I loved Mya's straw heart-shaped bag and Shani's hairstyle.

Antonia's outfit started off as mori girl but ended up as Cult Party kei with the addition of colourful accessories. Her beautiful red hair helped things along too! I really like the way she pinned up the different layers of her outfit.

Aimi was also in Cult Party kei. Her handmade hair crucifix was very cool! 

Sam was next, in otome. She told me that she reads this blog- hello Sam! 

To close the show, Bunny was also wearing otome in lovely hues of dusky pink and honey brown. She managed to walk very gracefully despite wearing those famous Vivienne Westwood Hermes sandals, which give me the chills despite being a heel veteran.

For the finale we all lined the stage, then it was time for the interviews. This gave the audience a chance to learn more about our different styles.

You can see Jenni's Grimoire tights better here! 

Explaining my socks....

It was interesting to hear about Cult Party kei. I've seen enough pictures to recognise it (seems to be based around white fluffy layers with flashes of colour and rather wonderfully morbid accessories) but I'm by no means an expert. It's a very new fashion, which is exciting! It's great to know that things are constantly changing and evolving in the world of Japanese street fashion; I would feel so sad to think that it would ever turn stale.

I thought Sam's outfit was not only gorgeous but also a wonderful example of otome kei, with retro touches like her lace-up boots, the cuteness of the strawberries on her dress (I love this series from Emily Temple Cute!) and also the modern, relaxed style of her blazer. If you need a reference for the difference between lolita and otome, you can look at this picture!

Finally all the lolis in the audience were invited onto the stage for the prize-giving. Tania the organiser, Scarlett (Hyper Japan's Kawaii Star) and Megu-san, Baby's shop staff, picked their favourite outfits to award prizes to. The prizes were donated by Gothic Lolita Wigs, Roxie Sweetheart, Teja Tights, Keep-it-secret and Now, Voyager. Well done lucky lolis!

I hope you enjoyed all the pictures, and if you see your picture here of course feel free to take it, and do let me know if you would like anything taken down or changed.

See you next time! 

Sapphira

xxxx