Highlights of 2017!

Hello! 2017 is slowly coming to an end and I have been reflecting on the year already. Let me tell you what I was thinking: 2017 was a shitty year for me, like really. I felt sick most of the time, which was scary and tiring. I spent a loooooot of time seing doctors, made lots of tests and in the end... nothing! We still don't know what's wrong with me. Fortunately I feel better recently, the worst months (the period between march and june was especially awful) are behind me!

Anyway, so as I said I have been reflecting on the year and I told myself that of course there was some really bad stuff going on but also really happy things! And I wanted to write an entry about the happy ones then!

Let's have a 'happy me' picture from last summer first!

 
- I travelled the world again and went to many events!
I was lucky enough to be able to travel a lot in 2017 again! I even started the year by visiting Vienna with my mother, which is one of my absolute favourite cities! I swear if my German wasn't that bad I would totally move there!

In march, I also went back to Japan and I managed to enjoy it even if this is exactly when I started to feel sick. I wasn't able to eat for days, but I love Japan so much and was so happy to be able to spend time with friends and with my brother's family-in-law that it was all worth it! I visited Tokyo again of course, but also went to Osaka for the first time which I really loved! I definitely want to go back to explore Osaka more as I only had a short weekend there.

I was so lucky to meet my dear friend Marie in Tokyo again!

Visiting the Angelic Pretty shop in Osaka was a dream come true!
Read about it here!

I also travelled to Paris for the Angelic Pretty Tea Party and visited Disneyland with my dear friend Marie-Lou for the first time of my life! Hope we can do that again in 2018 because it was the best trip ever!I love how easy things are with Marie-Lou! She is such an easy-going and caring girl! I enjoyed every moment we had together in Paris, even the ones when we were just litterally lying in bed watching stupid videos on Youtube!

Read about our adventures in Disneyland here!

At the Angelic Pretty Tea Party ♥

And in August I went to London all by myself to attend Dream Masquerade Carnival event. I was at first a bit disappointed to go alone, but it made me realize that I actually love to travel alone! I could meet with lots of old and new friends which definitely added magic to the trip!
I was also especially happy to spend this two-days event with Rosalynn! It reminded me of 2013 when we went to so many events together. I have so many happy memories with her! I was a bit afraid to not be able to as close to her as I used to be, but she is the kindest person on earth and she helped me have a really great time (and I hope I did too for her in some ways!)

Dear Rosalynn, Nicole and I ♥

Rosalynn and I at DMC Tea Party

-  I finally met Kira Imai, one of my favourite illustrators!
I can now happily say that I met with all my favourite artists (John Howe, Alan Lee, Range Murata and Kira Imai then). And Kira Imai is such a sweetheart that I will dearly keep the moment I met her in my heart! I also proudly to give her one of my original paintings too and she seemed genuinely happy about it! She even posted it on one of her Instagram stories!

I will cherish this pic for the rest of my life ♥

Illustration I gave to Kira Imai as a gift!

- I lost a lot of weight!
This one is a bit tough. I feel better in my body now that I can say I lost more than 17kg, but knowing that I lost so much weight because I was feeling sick and wasn't able to eat anymore is a bit conflicting. I have a BMI of 22.1 now which is healthy and perfectly normal, but I didn't ask for it and I really felt like I was going to die so I wouldn't want to go through all of that again. Though, I am more confident now and I can wear Lolita clothes that I couldn't before (Yay for non-shirred OP and skirts! And for Emily Temple Cute dresses!) That's definitely a highlight and I wouldn't want to go back to my old weight again (and don't worry, I eat normally again and I'm closely looked after by doctors).
Only downside: I had to buy new clothes as they were all 2 sizes too big now! Haha. But I love shopping, so.... xD

October 2016 me VS november 2017 me.

When I see all the pictures where I am smiling with friends, it really makes me think that 2017 wasn't such a bad year in the end, uh? I am blessed to have precious friends who always manage to cheer me up! I am also lucky enough to be able to travel, enjoy my hobbies and passions, have a loving family and a job that I like!

Now I wonder what 2018 will bring me?

What about you? How was 2017 for you?

Angelic Pretty Osaka Shop

During my last trip to Japan, I spent some days in Osaka and was super happy to be able to visit the local Angelic Pretty store! I can't really explain why, but when I think of the perfect Lolita shop, I have this one popping in my mind. I visited several Angelic Pretty stores (in Harajuku, Shinjuku, Paris and now, Osaka) and while they're all super cute and girly, Osaka shop definitely has an advantage: its famous pink storefront.

Let me tell you that I was more than excited that day! I planned a pink and white outfit to match the storefront and make the cutest photos.... Even if, shame on me, I didn't even wear any Angelic Pretty, but the day was rainy and we also visited Osaka Castle later that day, so I needed a comfortable and not too delicate outfit.

I'm carefully checking the window! Haha

Sweet Cream Princess series ♥

Sweet Cream Princess series was displayed in the window and while I didn't like the print that much when I saw it online, the pink colourway definitely grew on me! It's not a baby pink shade, but more like a raspberry/dark pink shade which I think is super pretty!

After admiring the shop from the outside for a while, I finally went to browse the inside. No picture there, as pictures are not allowed inside any Angelic Pretty shops. Sometimes I still try to take sneaky pictures with my phone, to keep a memory... but the Osaka shop is quite small and I didn't want to be rude so I didn't even try. I already had tons of pretty pictures from the outside anyway! I was hoping to find the Sweet Cream Princess brooch in ivory or pink as they didn't have it anymore in Tokyo, but it was sold out here too. Well, it was not meant to be then.... Creamy Cherry series was released the day before and apparently was quite popular as the only thing left was the navy OP. I didn't plan to buy anything except the brooch and nothing else caught my eyes, so in the end I just bought the summer catalogue ( I love catalogues!!!) for 800 yens. Cheapest AP shopping ever! Haha!

Posing with my purchase!

So happy to have pictures in front of the store ♥

Well, this entry is about the shop, but I really loved Osaka as a whole too! It was my first time there and I definitely want to go back. I spent a lot of time in Tokyo already and would love to visit some different places in Japan now! Maybe I should plan a trip to visit all the Angelic Pretty shops across Japan? Haha!

A shopping day in Harajuku!

Hello! Again, I have been away from the blog for quite some time, but I had good reasons I swear!

First, I wrote a super long article which completely disappeared by mistake (thank you Blogger for your stupid autosave feature) and it made me so mad that I had to stay away from Blogger for a while!
(and you'll never see this entry, because I didn't have courage to write it all over again! Haha)
Then, I recently went to Japan for two weeks, so I was pretty busy planning my trip and doing more work hours (because money).

As you probably already guessed by reading the title, this entry will be about the Lolita shopping day I spent in Harajuku with my French friend Marie. I have been very lucky, because Marie already was in Japan as the same time as me 3 years ago so it was actually the second time we could spent time together in Tokyo :)
Before telling you about our adventures in Harajuku, I just wanted to say that Marie is one of the sweetest persons I know and she is working so hard right now to fulfill her dream: opening her very own Japanese fashion shop, Kawaii Style!
Kawaii Style website will be launched very soon and you should totally check it out because it will be filled with the most gorgeous clothes and accessories Marie especially selected from WEGO, Triple Fortune, Amavel and many many others! So you should totally bookmark those two links ;)

Kawaii Style Facebook page
Kawaii Style website

Ok, so luckily Marie and I were in Tokyo at the same time. We planned to spend March 23 together and we met around 11:00 at the old Harajuku station (I heard they want to demolish it for the Olympic games in 3 years.. which makes me so sad...) and our crazy day of shopping and fun started!
I planned to wear a quite simple and comfortable outfit for the day, I decided to wear my Angelic Pretty Sweetie Violet JSK, that I actually bought exactly there 3 years ago combined with lavender accessories!

Marie & I in front of Harajuku station!

We headed to Takeshita-dori, starting by shopping at Paris Kids! They always have the cutest and cheapest accessories and I was especially happy as they had plenty of shells/sea themed items as well as galaxy/constellations ones! 

Hello Takeshita-dori!

Some of the cute accessories at Paris Kids ♥

Now. Small digress, but I have read a lot recently about how Lolita fashion is dying. In Tokyo, many shops are still selling Lolita clothing and I didn't see any difference comparing to when I was there 3 years ago.... BUT what I saw changed a lot is the amount of tourists. In Takeshita-dori, it was horrible. As I was fully dressed in Lolita, I couldn't walk without having random people almost jostling me to have a picture, putting their camera right into my face. I hated it. Now, I'm European and I post my pictures everywhere on internet, so ok... but let's imagine a shy, protective, young Japaneses girl walking down the street suffer such harassment (because yes, it came to the point that I consider it harrassment when people dare to touch you and to disturb you while you are doing your thing). Japanese people are pretty protective of themselves, don't like to be touched and are very sensitive and polite and the consequence is that I barely saw anybody dressed up in Harajuku. Maybe Japanese street fashion is dying in Harajuku, because tourists only see it as an amusement for themselves and don't respect the persons anymore, especially the Japanese persons. Harajuku is probably advertised now in all travel guides as the place where you can see crazy dressed people and tourists go there just like they could go to the zoo. And as a Lolita, I surely wouldn't want to go to Harajuku dressed up on a regular basis.

But let's back to topic! After going to a shoe shop where we spotted amazing shoes (I bought mint shoes! Something I wanted for a long time), we headed to Closet Child!
Before going to Japan, I said to myself not to compulsory buy too many things at Closet Child because it was cheap. I sold almost all the dresses I bought there in the past few years without actually wearing them. I told myself I would only buy one dress second hand: Angelic Pretty Dreamy Jewel in bordeaux. And guess what? It was there!!! I was so lucky! Well, it wasn't my favourite JSK cut, but it was quite cheap and in the right colour so I went for it! So happy!

Dreamy Jewel is such an underrated print!

Marie didn't buy much as she was here for business and already did her shopping days before, so I felt a bit guilty buying that much... haha. Now I had a pretty AP dress, mint shoes, accessories from Paris Kids, but I still managed to buy a yellow beret from Listen Flavor (a bit expensive, but it had the perfect pastel yellow shade!) and accessories from Spinns! Allllll of this, before even go to Laforêt (better known as the vile temple of tentations).

But first, it was time for lunch. Marie really wanted to try the Kawaii Monster Café but after seeing the queue, we gave up. I'm not really the kind to wait hours to have lunch, Marie neither. We went back to Takeshita-dori to try our luck on the Pompompurin café, but it wasn't better... so in the end we crashed at the Patty & Jimmy themed café! I didn't know these two characters, but they're from Sanrio just like Hello Kitty. The café was super cute and we didn't have to wait at all! Fair enough!

Lovely Marie ♥

I ordered the cutest dish ever and an ice cream soda, but I actually couldn't eat much as I felt sick during most of my trip having nausea. It was really good though and I hope the staff didn't think I didn't enjoy it.

It took me time to realize the blue thing was actually a cap... XD

After lunch break, it was time to go to Laforêt! Yay! They had a special event called "Flower by Laforêt" and many brands made special releases for the occasion, including Alice and the Pirates, Metamorphose and Angelic Pretty.

I bought some more things at Swimmer: gifts for friends and a lovely pair of glitter shoes for myself before heading to Metamorphose shop where I wanted to buy the special set they released for the Flower event. This stock picture don't do it justice at all, because I swear this dress is gorgeous and so elegant in real (I will probably make a review with details pictures later, it totally deserves it). It was a bit expensive, but totally worth it!

Garden tea time set by Metamorphose

When then went upstairs to check Rose Marie seoir shop for Kawaii Style and I also wanted to browse Leur Getter shop! Worst idea ever as I spotted the cutest dress... but I already had spent a lot of money and decided not to buy it :( It left me a bit frustrated because I really fell in love with it and was dying to get a Leur Getter dress for some time already (..... but I can tell you that I came back to buy it the next week and it is now the most favourite thing I bought during this trip ♥ haha)

Time was flying, there was still a thing I reeeeeally wanted to do with Marie: purikura of course! So we came back to Takeshita-dori. But first, we stopped for a crêpe because you can't be in Harajuku and not have a crêpe. That is not possible. No. No way. You have to.
We went to Santa Monica crêpe, which is my favourite shop, and as I fortunately wasn't feeling nauseous anymore for now I could really enjoy it! I took a crêpe with whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate cake. Yummy!

We found a quiet corner where we could sit ant eat our crêpes and then went to make our glorious purkiura! I LOVE purikura! It is so much fun to decorate and we always have a good laugh about how non-human we are looking. We tried two different machine, but the seconde time, a Barbie themed one, was a bit failed as Marie chose the couple option by accident! I was Barbie and she was my Ken. Haha!

Aren't we the cutest? ♥

The night had now come on Harajuku and it was time to say goodbye to Marie. My feet were hurting so much after a full day walking and I still had to go through Shinjuku station all by myself carrying tons of bags, but I spent such a lovely day with a very dear friend that it was all worth it ♥ I will cherish memories of this day! Thank you Marie, until next time ;)

Angelic Pretty Tea Party in Tokyo: Princess Dreamy Carnival

December 15th 2014 was a really special day for me: the day of the Angelic Pretty tea party in Tokyo called Princess Dreamy Carnival! I was so nervous and stressed, but also so excited! It was a wonderful day, even if something really embarrassing happened to me... But let's start from the beginning!

Before even leaving for Japan, I had planned my outfit of course. As I am Swiss, I wanted to wear a chocolate outfit to represent my country (and also because chocolate prints are my favourite). I decided to wear Royal Creamy Chocolate, as it is very elegant with its gold details and then perfect for a fancy event! I bought new socks and a sash to match with it to complete the outfit.
Once in Japan, I found Bodyline gold shoes and also Musée du Choclate headdress that I thought matched my outfit in a very lovely way, so I went for that. So here is how my outfit looked like in the end:

I was able to get a ticket thanks to the wonderful Nicole and we decided to spend the afternoon before the tea party together as well! It was the first time I actually met Nicole, but I immediately felt comfortable with her! She's such a lovely and funny girl :)
We met in front of the Takeshita-dori exit of the Yamanote line station and wanted to do purikura first! I looooooooooove purikura and we had lots of fun decorating our pictures (seems like Nicole is just as crazy as me about decorating purikura!Haha). And this is where the embarrassing thing happened: while posing for purikura, the zipper of my dress broke. OH GREAT. My dress was now half opened and the zipper stuck... it was impossible to move it anymore. OH GREAT OH GREAT. I am usually a REALLY anxious and nervous person, but I don't know how I managed to remain calm. I immediately went to Daiso to buy some cheap safety pins and with the help of Nicole, we managed to close my dress where the zipper was broken. Fortunately, I was wearing a sash too and we could hide everything under it! PHWEW... I am glad we managed to do something ^^'

My favourite purikura picture! Very Christmasy!

So, after this "terrrrrrrible" incident was forgotten, we went on our way through Takeshita-dori when suddenly we were stopped by a man who start talking Japanese to Nicole. Apparently, he was working for NipponTV and wanted to interview us, but only in Japanese. I don't speak Japanese at all, but Nicole does, so she could translate everything for me. The interview was quite long and they asked a lot of questions, but I really enjoyed it! They wanted me to say some cute things in Japanese... but the only thing I was able to say was "sugoi" I felt a little stupid! Haha. They also asked us to show our outfits and to walk in the street while filming us. I know the show was aired in Japan last saturday, but I haven't found a way to watch it online... too bad! Would have been fun to be able to watch it!

Next step in our Harajuku day was the Q-Pot Café! I always wanted to go there, but actually never did so this was the perfect occasion! I was so happy, because Nicole asked for us to be sit at the biscuit tables! There's a whole wall of biscuits with cute round biscuit tables! We could also sit at the whipped cream tables, but the biscuit ones were definitely cuter.

I ordered a special winter pastry with an orange and chocolate mousse teddy bear, delicious melon cream shapped like a Christmas tree, a chocolate and a chocolate macaron. IT WAS DELICIOUS! Especially the bear, because orange and chocolate together taste like heaven ♥

That's a long entry, sorry, but after we ate our delicious pastries it was finally time to go to Ebisu for the Angelic Pretty tea party! We easily took the train and we immediately knew we were at the right place as many Lolitas started to invade Ebisu station! We followed them to the Westin Tokyo Hotel where the tea party took place. It was not my first tea party as I actually went to several AP tea parties in Paris before and went to some of the most luxurious hotels... but I was really amazed anyway! The Westin had the most gorgeous Christmas decorations and it really added to the magic of the day!

Isn't that a glorious tree?

We were a little early, so we had to wait for a while. Then, AP staff checked our tickets and we could finally enter the room. Apparently, you have to enter quickly if you want to have a great spot to enjoy the fashion show, so I just followed Nicole who was the specialist there.

Once everybody was seated (and that's a lot of Lolitas! We were about 160-180!!!), the tea party officialy started! We first had dinner. AND WHAT A DINNER!! The food was more than delicious and I thought that was great to have a real meal and not just pastries and sweets. I especially loved the entree, which was some kind of salmon parfait with citrus.

 

 After dinner, it was time for the fashion show! Pictures were not allowed, so I didn't take any.... but the fashion show was amazing! So many gorgeous prints to come! I especially loved one: it was a beautiful chiffon dress with colorful seashells printed all over it. In white, it was just so lovely! I am definitely buying it when it is released ♥

Sea inspired prints seemed to be quite the new trend as there were 2 different ones! There also was a print with big roses, another one with strawberries and also cats, wrapping ribbons and gifts, cakes and tea cups and many more! I can not remember them all as they were so many! There was also a special print designed by Kira Imai called Perfume of Wonderland! It was only available to the tea party guests... so guess what, I bought it! I will receive it in April, I can't wait!

Once the fashion show was over, it was time for dessert! It was white chocolate and lemon mousse and the design was really lovely... I felt so guilty to eat it, but it was delicious! We also got a Christmas cake, aka strawberry shortcake! I wish I could taste it but I was too full... so I just ate the strawberry on it! Haha.

 

 We now had free time! The girls who wanted to have their pictures taken with the models could go on stage, so this is what I did and I love my pictures! I first was a little disappointed because the picture looks quite out of frame, but I then realised that it was to protect the exclusivity of the prints the models were wearing... so yeah it's only a portrait!

After that, I went to pose with the girls at my table and also checked the amazing raffle prizes! There were SO MANY!!! Actually, when raffle time started, they only drew number for the biggest prizes. The other ones were drawn behind the scenes and you could check if you have won something when leaving the tea party. I was unlucky as I didn't win anything, but I didn't really mind.

 

Yay, picture with Honda-san, owner of Angelic Pretty!

Then, the staff, journalists and photographs took group pictures. We made 3 groups as we were way too many to all pose on one picture. When I came back to my table after posing I found a big Angelic Pretty pink bag on my chair: it was the memorabilia gift! It was a lovely tea set with a mug, a tea pot and a tray. There also was a catalogue and cute little meringues shaped like a bunny and a bear ♥ I was so happy with that gift! 

It was almost 20:30 and the tea party was coming to an end. We got the results of the best dressed prizes who were lovely Alice and Takulu. They totally deserved it as their outfits were beautiful ♥

Best dressed Lolitas!

I was dead tired. After the party was over, I said goodbye to Nicole who has to take her train and I left the hotel with lots of wonderful memories ♥ Going back to my hotel was something as I had to carry now my big Angelic Pretty bag, plus my petticoat and all in a VERY crowded train, but I managed! I cried of happiness when I finally was able to take off all my clothes and take a shower, but it was worth it! I am so happy I could attend a tea party in Japan! I think my Lolita life is complete now, I can die peacefully!Haha.

♥ Thank you for reading this super long entry! I hope you enjoyed it! ♥