Day 17: (Real) Final Blog Post

So here it finally is, the real last blog post of my 2014 trip.
This was our last full day in Tokyo, and we started it in Harajuku, where Angelic Pretty had a special event with a special set I wanted to buy. We arrived a hour before opening and I was surprised to see that the queue wasn't that big, though it did grow substantially during that hour. A lot of people had dressed up, I've never felt more underdressed ପ(⑅ ॣ•͈૦•͈ ॣ)ଓ

We were handed numbered papers, and while I had read about this on other pages, we got a number identical to our position in the queue, not a random number.

Once we were allowed to enter we had to queue some more for the Angelic Pretty shop. But after a short while we could finally enter! I was so excited, especially when I saw that they also offered lucky packs. I would normally not try my luck on an AP lucky pack, but as I had quite some spare money and I wanted to at least try a lucky pack once in my life I caved in.

We decided to make our last round to all the Closet Child shops in Tokyo, so I had a huge pile of clothing to pack (but that wasn't too much of a problem as we could take 5 suitcases with us of which 4 could weigh 32kg). We also passed Hachi, so we had to take some photos.

I just to give you an idea of part of the items I had bought take a look at the following photo.

For dinner we went to The Lockup, this is a restaurant in jail theme. You have to enter through a dark alley with all kinds of scare effects. Once you enter the 'real' restaurant one person from your party (me) gets cuffed and a prison-guard takes you to your personal prison cell. The menu consists of weird drinks and foods. The drinks are served in syringes and test tubes and can be a bit hard to drink (･ω<)☆
We ordered charcoal chicken (black colored chicken pieces), french fries with weird dips, a Russian roulette platte (we didn't find out it was the Russian roulette type of dish (so one is realllllly hot, while all others are normal) until I took the first one and felt like I stood on fire, while no one else seemed to have any problem with itヽ(＾Д＾)ﾉ), some octopus like sausages and satanic anchovy (they were speared!).
After we had decided what we wanted to order we pushed the bell, as usual in Japanese restaurants, but after quite some waiting we tried again and still no one came to take our order. We were pretty confused until a siren sounded through the building and all kind of weird monster like things came running by. Obviously we just wanted to order when a show was going to be performed, but we were unaware there was this kind of entertainment.

I would definitely advice anyone to go to The Lockup. The prices are decent, the food tastes great (and is really enjoyable to see the weird creations) and the whole experience is awesome. I would also like to urge you to stay till a show has been performed, it is awesome and will definitely make your evening!

As mentioned earlier this is the final blog post for our 2014 trip, though a 2015 trip is already being planned. Here is a small sneak peak of a room we will be staying in for a couple of days!

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 16: Maison de Julietta

Okay, I lied in my last post, this wasn't our last full day in Japan. The insurance company couldn't get seats on todays plane back to Amsterdam, so we leave still had 2 more days. This both was great as I could do some last minute shopping, but it also meant we had to leave our dad alone in the hospital for 2 more days.

As everything wasn't going according to plan we were kind of at a loss what to do. We walked around the Harajuku area till it was time to go to Maison de Julietta. Our first stop was Kiddy Land, a huge toy store whit multiple floors and a lot of items are on display for you to try. It is really awesome, and we could've spent all day there on a normal vacation.

However, as we weren't really in the mood for hanging around in a toy store we went back to get some crepes. There is a really cute pink stall in the middle of Takeshita Dori so we decided to try our luck there. We tried one whit cake and ice cream (we shared one as they are huge!), it was really delicious, but really filling, even though we shared.

After finishing our crepe we went to LaForet for my appointment at Maison de Julietta.
Maison de Julietta is a photo shoot service that allows you to get pretty pictures all dressed up in lolita (and you get the same backdrop often seen on pictures from Misako!). You have to make an advance reservation, which can be done by visiting the shop. Beware that there seems to be only one person who speaks decent English, so you might have to use some sign language (-‿◦☀)
You start out by choosing a dress, there are dresses from all kind of brands (including BtSSB, AatP, AP and Meta) and in various sizes (even full shirring (・∀・)). Beforehand I had decided that I wanted to try something different for the shoot, thus I was looking for a dress that was a bit sweeter than I normally would wear. My final pick was the Meta dress Secret Library, not extremely sweet, but not something I would normally pick for myself. The dress came with a matching cape, socks, little hair bows and hairband. My biggest concern was a blouse, because of my bust size. You can rend one or bring your own, but I was assured that there would be blouses in my size, and I found a lovely one that fitted like a glove. Finally I could decide what shoes I wanted to wear, and I picked a pair of cute boots whit an awesome heel (this got me started on my twisted heels addiction ╰(✧∇✧) ). A nice detail is that they constantly help you choose what to wear, like what dresses would fit nicely and which shoes would match. You are also the only customer in that timeslot, so you get full attention.
After deciding on all the clothes it is time to put it on. Everything is brought to the dressing room for you and there are instruction on there how to put it on. There was also a huge pile of pettis here, I had to ask if I was meant to put them all on (yes, there were that many of them!), so now you know the awesome photo shoot petti secret ＼（＠￣∇￣＠）／.
Once you're finished dressing you go to the back of the shop to get your hair and make-up done. For an additional charge you can hire a wig, or you can use your own hair. I opted for the last option and they curled and put my hair in to sections whit one little hair bows at each side. They also showed me a hat that they figured would suit the outfit, and gave me the option to pick the hat or hair bow. Being a hat lover I obviously chose the hat.
Being done here you go to the photo background area, here the photographer (who luckily did speak a little English) explained what you have to do, how to look, etc. The pictures won't immediately be ready, instead you will be given a card whit a code to find you photos. There are 3 free digital photos included with the shoot, you'll have to pay an additional charge if you want more (this can be done with Paypal later on, so you won't have to decide on the spot). You will also be allowed to take photos with your camera and for a small fee they will take a Polaroid picture of you.

Now all that is left is to get back to you "normal" clothing and with a broken heart hand the lolita items back to the shop girl. Before leaving I was handed a cookie to celebrate 1st anniversary (I couldn't bring myself to eat it so it has gotten a nice place in my room (*~▽~) ).

And here is the final result:

My verdict (if you're just here to read about my experiences in Japan this is it for this day, we ended the day in the next doors sushi restaurant where we had dinner for €12 for 2 persons including drinks, who said Japan was expensive? (っ˘ڡ˘ς) ): you can't really give 1 advice, there are 2 groups of people, not lolita girls who want to try lolita and lolita girls who want an awesome lolita experience, and they both should be given a different advice.
In general Maison de Julietta is pretty expensive, especially if you consider what you get for the price, just 3 digital pictures. If money is a constraint at all I would skip this. If you aren't sure if you would want to spend quite a lot on money on the service try to figure out why you want to go here. If you want to try out lolita and get an idea if it is something for you I would really advice you to do the shoot. While this might seem like a lot of money, buying a full outfit is way more expensive and would be a waste if you find out that it doesn't suit you at all.  If you're already a lolita it really depends on your budget and available time. Even though it was an awesome experience, if you are pressed for time or money just skip this and you won't miss that much.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 15: Hospital

Just a little disclaimer before I start this blog post, this part of the blog will be less happy than all the rest of it. Most of this day is spend in the hospital, where my father got admitted with acute liver failure. We had to go back to Holland as soon as possible, so there will only be 1 more blog post after this one for our 2014 trip. Before everyone gets all sad, it is too bad that we had to leave early, but we had a really great time and our top priority was my fathers health, he is all healed now and we already have plans to redo our Tokyo trip this year.


We started this day in Ikubukuro, for some geek time and to shop at Closet Child.
We were quite early, so it was a bit quiet, but this allowed us to have a good look around. There are a lot of arcades, figurine shops, and maid cafes.

One of the greatest features of Japanese advertising is the free handouts, I had a small bag filled with handkerchiefs when I left Tokyo.

I love arcades, and especially ufo catchers (though I am really, really bad at them) so we entered a random arcade to play some ufo catcher games. One of the games that caught my eye was a bit different from the "normal" ufo games. There were various items on small ball strings, that you had to pull down with the machine, with every go the machine would only go down a small bit, so you had to be lucky that someone had given up early. On top of that, it was really hard to catch the string in the device. However, my mom was able to pull out a small sailor Mercury figurine, yay :D

After the tiring ordeal at the arcade we went to eat something at KFC, they offered a special menu for Halloween, wish they had that here in Holland （￣へ￣）

We walked around some more but decided to go back to the hotel due to my dad not feeling too good.
Back in the hotel we finally convinced my father to visit a hospital (we had been urging him for a few days already, as he was slowly turning yellow ⊙﹏⊙ )

I think above picture says it all? My poor dad is a guy of about 185cm long and they had him wear a pink hospital dress (ᗒᗜᗕ)՛̵̖ Actually the whole hospital had a pink theme going on, it was pretty quite cute, though I can't imagine the men enjoying it just as much ;)

We had to leave him in the hospital till tomorrow so after a long day in the hospital my mom and I went back alone late at night. Normally in Holland I wouldn't have felt safe traveling with public transport as woman, but I didn't feel unsafe here. We had take-out at a nearby McDonalds because it was already pretty late and decided to eat our burgers at the hotel.

Being emotionally exhausted we fell asleep pretty quickly.

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 14: Godiva Cafe

I had already claimed this day as my lolita shopping day back home, so that is what we mostly did today.
We started this day by going to Closet Child Shinjuku, only to find out it wouldn't open for another hour, oops. Thus, we decided to get some breakfast in a nearby coffee shop.

After finishing our food and drinks we tried Closet Child again to find it was now opened. Though I was really happy to finally enter a real Closet Child store, it was a little bit disappointing compared to Maiden Clothing. I didn't buy that much here, however I did buy some really pretty pieces at this Closet Child later on.

Our next stop was Harajuku! It was so magical to finally enter the street I had seen on so many pictures, I wanted to enter all the shops, but managed to contain my excitement and pick my top shops for today.

My first choice was, of course, Closet Child. While this store was way smaller than the previous location they offered way more items that were up to my ally. I think at least one hour (might have even been a few hours, sorry dad!) was spend here by my mom and me shifting through clothing racks and picking out pieces to try on. I exited the shop with 2 bags filled with lolita items.

We visited a few more shops before reaching the end of the street. A cafe I had listed in my must visit list was the Godiva cafe, as chocolate lover I couldn't miss it.

The cafe, of course, has a chocolate theme going on, with chocolate bricks on the wall and chocolate dripping from the ceiling. Downstairs you can order your drink and/or your pastry and they have a small sitting area upstairs.

We all ordered a different taste of cold chocolate drink, they were all really delicious, though a bit sweet (my mom and I didn't mind, but my dad thought it was a bit too much).

After finishing our drinks we crossed the street to the Laforet building. I wanted to visit the lolita shops and make an appointment at Maison de Julietta. This department building is a must visit for any lolita, the main brands are located at the basement of the building, including Maison de Julietta.

We managed to make an appointment at Maison de Julietta after some confusion, cause they only have one employee who speaks decent English, and it turned out to be the photographer.

I had a good look around the various lolita brands and discovered some awesome shoes at AatP, sadly they were sold out in my size in my preferred color (I ordered them online back home).

After dropping off mu purchases at the hotel we went to look for the Alice restaurant. We had to look around for a bit, but did find it eventually, only to find it was closed for some unknown reason. Thus, we moved on to the Christon restaurant, situated almost next door.

The Christon restaurant has a church theme going on, though the food is pretty standard. Even though we had a delicious meal I wouldn't really recommend this restaurant unless you have time to spare, the theme is pretty minimal, and for a themed restaurant the food was pretty disappointing (no theme going on at all).

All photos can be found at my flickr page

Day 13: Maiko Transformation

Today was one of the days I was really looking forward to. I had made a booking back home for a Maiko transformation (a Maiko is a apprentice Geiko, which roughly translates to Geisha). I had an appointment at 10 am at studio Aya, conveniently located in Gion, so close to our hotel.
We arrived a bit early, so we were let to a waiting area where they luckily offered free wifi. At 10am a young woman asked me to follow her to the changing and washing room. There are free lockers here, so if you come alone you do not have to worry about important belongings. The assistant handed me an underdress, a pair of tabi and a pair of slippers.

Once you've put everything on you proceed to the make-up room. As the name says your make-up will be applied here, your hair will be done as well. The make-up will take a lot of time, as a lot of layers will be applied.
It all starts with putting your hair in a hair net.

Next step is putting the white face paint on, it is applied both on your neck and face. You end up looking kind of like a ghost ;)

Next up is pink eye shadow and red lip paint, already looking a bit less like a ghost.

Now you're all ready! Just kidding. They will also put a wig on your head, using bits of your own hair to make it look more natural and secure it on your head. The inside of the wig is made like some kind of metal medieval helmet, and the whole thing is heavy, really heavy. Parts of your hair get combed on the wig and are spray painted black.

More layers of underclothing are now put on and you're finished in this room.

 Now you will go upstairs to pick out which kimono you'd like to wear. They have a lot of kimonos in all kinds of colors and motives. I had already made up my mind that I'd like a dark colored kimono as this makes the light make-up pop. I chose a really pretty dark blue one.

More layers are added to make the kimono fit right, and you get to choose a matching obi.

The whole finished outfit weighs a ton, is pretty hard to move in, and you will get warm in it. I was really glad I had booked an early session, cause today would be one of the hottest days I experienced during my stay in Japan.
Last on the list is picking out hair accessories, they will make a suggestion for the season, but you are allowed to choose whichever you like. I ended up picking the season suggestion because it matched the kimono.

Now you are really finished! At studio Aya you book a package before you arrive, I had booked the Nene plan. This plan includes indoor studio photos, a 30 minute outdoor photo shoot with a professional photographer, and 30 minutes of free outdoor time to take your own photos.
You start with the indoor shoot. You can choose 2 different poses, and as usual I managed to choose the 2 most difficult ones, but I think the final photos do pay off the trouble.

After the studio photos the outdoor photos were taken. Two ladies from the studio accompanied me through the streets of Gion, one to take photos and the other to assist the photographer and to adjust make-up or clothing. Walking around Gion normally isn't that hard, except now I could hardly move my legs, was wearing really high geta, and on top of that Gion has a variety of small slopes.

However, the effort does pay off and they shot some really nice pictures. Additionally, while taking photos some Japanese people stopped to look at me and give me some happy and approving gestures. One man even pulled over his car and jumped out to take some pictures.

Once the first 30 minutes outside passed we were handed a small map with nearby sights that would be nice photo backgrounds. We decided to go to a nearby shrine, as I was moving at a snails pace, and was a bit worried of the return walk. After a few photos at the shrine grounds I had the honor of going on the photo with a complete tour bus, but I didn't mind too much as we were finished pretty quickly anyways.

As we returned a bit early at Aya we were allowed to take some more photos in their cute backyard, as far as I've understood this is where you get to take photos if you do not book the outdoor plan.

Taking everything of also took a lot of time, and soap.

After some waiting I received my photos and a CD with all photos (I ordered this separately).
After leaving Aya we went to the Teramachi market, which is a big market mainly focused on food, but there are a lot of different stores in the neighborhood.

I didn't buy anything here, but we had a delicious meal. There were a couple of Japanese men trying to have a conversation with us, though it wasn't that successful they gifted my mom and me their folding fans, I thought it was pretty cute.

In one of the streets in front of the market I bought a nice, and cheap, yukata and matching obi.
Back at the hotel we collected our suitcases and took a taxi to the station to catch a bullet train. We got reserved seats from the ticket boot and took the bullet train to Tokyo.
In Tokyo we were staying at the Tokyo Plaza hotel, which is conveniently located between two train stations on the main Tokyo tracks.
We also ate our first conveyor belt sushi here, fun, delicious and cheap!

All photos can be found at my flickr page