Panda Princess

Let's Put This Hiatus to an End!

2011-09-24T00:30:00.002-04:00

I've had next to no time so now that I have a few days with no classes, I figured it'd be as good a time as ever to start blogging again! I have had a few fun events to talk about as well as some future events coming up. So here is my official end of hiatus!

A Hiatus! Oh No!

2011-08-15T00:25:00.002-04:00

Hey everyone! I've been pretty awful about updating this blog. I'm going to be doing my best to remedy that! I have some things planned to write about as well as a few things to talk about already! Bear with me! I'll have an update later this week!

Clobba Online Review: Emperor and Nightingale Coat

2010-12-08T00:24:00.018-05:00

Hello Everyone! Sorry about the lack of posts over the past month or so. I don't really have an excuse but I've got quite a few plans to blog about coming up soon so you'll be hearing more from me!

I ordered this coat from ClobbaOnline.com. I started my ordering process on 12-7-10. I sent an email to ask about shipping prices before I ordered and they got to me within 12 hours. They gave me prices for EMS, SAL, or SEA mail. They have a DHL option listed on their site but it may not be available for all items or something since they didn't give me a quote for it. I ordered the Emperor and Nightingale Coat in Black with the optional mantle. I had some issues getting their order form to load on 2 of my 3 computers but I was able to place my order later that night.

By the time I woke up the next day (12-8), I had received my invoice. I paid immediately and they confirmed that they received my payment shortly after. They did not tell me how long it would take for them to actually ship the item. On 12-16, I sent them an email asking when my order was going to ship. I received a response the same day from them stating:

"The coat set is not ready yet. The supplier is making a new batch at the moment. There were a few left from the previous batch but they ran out too fast. I will email you once it's ready. :) "

On 12-26, I sent another email to ask about when they were expecting to receive the coats and received an email back a couple of days later.

"The coat will need another 2-3 weeks. The supplier is still doing the embroideries for all the coats at the moment. :)"

I asked for another update on 1-11 and expressed my concern about how long it was taking.

"Please give me an update on the status of my order. It has been more than 1 month since I sent payment. (8th of December) There is nothing stated on your website that the items were out of stock. Since I paid through paypal, I am only covered for 45 days from date of payment. I am starting to get concerned since this time limit is fastly approaching."

They responded the same day with a link to their feedback on EGL and the following:

"The embroidery is still not done. There are more coats in this batch as this will be the last batch before the holiday begins. The supplier will not make more of these coats after the holiday as spring collection will be coming then. Most Infanta pieces does not need to be manufactured. But this coat runs out too fast everytime after a new batch. So you will need to wait some times. Most customers ordering the Emperor and Nightingale coats are like that since this Oct. I'm sorry if there's any confusion."

On 1-23-11, I received another email from them to let me know that they had received the coats and that they would be shipping out as soon as possible. At this time, I asked if it would be possible to order something else with my order. They said I could but they warned me this time that it would take time because they were having issues receiving shipments from Dream of Lolita. I decided to have them just ship the coat for now. I received an email with a picture of my package and tracking number when they shipped it on 1-28-11.

I couldn't get my tracking number to work but I received the item on 2-4-11. I ripped it open without getting a picture but the picture they sent me works well enough XD. The coat was nicely folded in the package with the unattached back ruffle, jabot, and mantle. The back ruffle and jabot attach with pins and the mantle has a button. The coat came with an extra rose button and an extra pin. The wool is nice and thick and very comfy. The coat is fully lined and the fur is really soft. It is very warm and will definitely keep me warm in the northeastern winter.

Say hello to my new dress form that my Mum gave me for Christmas! Here's the coat without any of the extras.

With the mantle only

With the back ruffle

Without the back ruffle

Back ruffle close up

Jabot close up without mantle

Jabot close up with mantle

Jabot (Sorry about the sideways pictures here... For whatever reason it won't let me remedy that...)

Close up of crown charm. Unfortunately it is missing its rhinestone. It's not very noticeable but worth mentioning.

Close up of the cameo. The cameo feels a bit loose. I may have to sew it on tighter. It's made out of plastic and looks a little cheap under the flash of my camera but it's fine in real life.

There are long threads that weren't cut on the jabot. Not a big deal again, but worth mentioning. It's easy enough to snip them off.

The back of the jabot. The back ruffle attaches the same way.

The Infanta logo and crown embroidery

The embroidery of the bird cage. The birds eye is a little rhinestone as well. ^ ^

Overall, I am very happy with the coat. The delay was a little annoying but, it is understandable. I just wish that they had let me know about the delay before I had both placed and payed for my order. Would I order from them again? Most likely. The quality is great and it was well worth the money I spent on it. I'm thinking I may press my luck in the near future with their Dream of Lolita section since I really want one of those nice spade purses! Thanks for reading! I'll do my best to post more often! And on an unrelated note, Binghamton now has two lolitas! We've been hanging out and it is wonderful! But more on that later! ^ ^

Halloween-Time Photoshoot

2010-12-08T00:23:00.010-05:00

I really wanted to shoot here but we were asked to leave since there was no photography allowed T_T This was the only photo we got.

Back around Halloween, I modeled for a few photos for a contest I wanted to enter. I had a lot of fun working with two great artists, Eric Maruscak of Pepperink.com and Jason D. Moore of Jason D. Moore Photography and would love to do it again some time soon. I'd like to share some of the photos with you!

-Photography by Jason D. Moore Photography

-Photography by Pepperink.com

They have minimal editing other than being taken with HDR technology, which from what I understand, is when you take three or more images with different settings so that you can edit the photos that are identical other than the lighting together, taking only the best parts from each photo. For example, the last photo above is comprised of the three images below.

It's pretty neat. I'm in love with the end product it produces. It's so hard to stand perfectly still for so long though!

Contest Ideas!

2010-11-20T22:52:00.005-05:00

And for good measure, here's a really adorable panda photo!

I'd like to have a contest soon to celebrate that I'm getting really close to 50 followers. The problem is I can't for the life of me come up with an idea for it. Simple giveaways are boring don't you think? Anyone have any ideas that would make for a fun contest? I was thinking some sort of photo contest. I'd love to hear what you guys would have in mind!

Halloween!!!!

2010-11-02T10:36:00.006-04:00

For Halloween, I didn't do a whole lot. The day before however, I had a very small get together with a couple of friends. We all dressed up as pirates and did very un-pirate like things such as have dinner at Denny's and watch The Running Man. I was mostly happy to get to wear a bunch of my new items (and old items actually), that I have never gotten to wear yet!

Coord Rundown!

Blouse/Socks: AatP
Shorts: h.Naoto Gramm
Shoes: An Tai Na
Bag: BTSSB
"Corset"/Hat: Offbrand
Eyepatch: Handmade

As always, I'd love to hear what you think. Did anyone else do anything fun for Halloween?

5 Lolita Pet Peeves

2010-10-21T20:24:00.009-04:00

A little while ago, a user on EGL "challenged" us lolita bloggers to do a small blog on what we dislike in lolita. I've got a few pet peeves myself so I thought I'd make my own ^ ^

1) Cake Hats
I've hated cake hats since the very first time I saw one. I also place those awful ice cream cone headdresses that AP put out with Milky Planet in this category. This is my number one pet peeve in lolita

2) Wigs
I like wigs a lot actually. It is always really annoying though that it seems without a wig, one's outfit just isn't really considered complete and seems to be lacking something. I wish more people would show off their real hair.

3) Wa-Loli
When I first became interested in lolita, I desperately wanted to be a wa-lolita. I loved all those bodyline yukata dresses. Part of me is very glad I never was able to get one. I like them on rare occasions on an asian girl, even then though, I couldn't imagine wearing them as a daily fashion. I think western girls look very out of place in them.

4) Blunt Bangs
Again, I like bangs, but I feel like you are expected to have blunt bangs in lolita. I've never been a fan of myself in bangs and every time I wear lolita I always worry that my lack of bangs makes me look strange in the style. I understand that they aren't necessary, but I wish there were more bang free lolitas.

5) Bonnets
Lastly, I hate bonnets. I always have and probably always will. I think they look goofy and just ruin the whole look. Half bonnets have the possibility of looking less ridiculous, but still rarely look good.

NYCC/NYAF '10 Recap: Day 3

2010-10-11T01:21:00.009-04:00

Wow it's been a while since I did the last update of this convention. Here's the third and last installment. Hopefully you'll all forgive me for taking my sweet time writing it up!

I started my day out sleeping in/oversleeping and then catching a cab down to the convention. I did a little bit of early morning wandering around before the convention opened and then headed down to the fashion show line to wait. I met some really nice lolitas in line and then got a really good seat at the fashion show. Unfortunately, my camera REALLY didn't want to cooperate with me during the show so my pictures aren't very good or numerous. I've long forgotten many of the designers names but I really liked the more regal fashions that there were. I want to say it was I Do Declare who was the designer. If I'm wrong please correct me! I saw a lot of pieces that reminded me of h.Naoto and other punk/goth labels. There wasn't much that I wasn't fond of. I'm posting here a few of my photos that came out that I liked.

This was my favorite piece of the show!

After the fashion show, I decided to check out Takamasa Sakurai's panel and the lolita panel he participated in afterwards. I hate to say that I found his panel to be terribly boring, but he did the panel with Kanon of An Cafe, who was quiet and reserved but fairly adorable. The panel focused more on cosplay from the headline series of anime. I'm not into cosplay like I used to be and I was really expecting the panel to be more about fashion. The other panel, which I believe was something along the lines of making lolita work for you, was a little more interesting. I have the same criticism for this panel as I had for the Day 1 lolita panel I went to. It was nice, but the panel seemed to be more geared to newcomers to the fashion, although they did have a few cute and original coord photos to show off. They also had a giveaway which was nice. I'm a big fan of giveaways at panels even if I never win anything XD.

Me with Sakurai ^ ^

After the panels and fashion show, I came back to see Eric, who in my absence, had finished the mural! There were a ton of people checking it out and the finished piece was quite lovely. Unfortunately we did not get to hang it this year which would have been awesome, but it's not always possible since the conventions don't really have the fixings for it. We've always had to improvise in years past with the equipment they could provide us last minute. Regardless, the final piece was quite awesome.

We decided to wander the floor a little bit afterwards and had a convention volunteer valiantly guard the piece. We visited a bunch of different companies but hurried back to the mural out of fear of some unfortunate event such as children running under the bars or a spilled cup of coffee. On our way back, I saw a really nice Master Chief cosplay. I've always wanted to wear a Spartan suit myself, so this one is a favorite from this convention.

Lastly, I wanted to post a few of my favorite lolita coords again. I loved meeting all of you! You all looked great!

You can't go wrong with Vampire Requiem!

Pink and red seemed to be the color of the day!

Rocking AP Fantastic Dolly in mint!

A nice display of the variety that can go into sweet lolita ^ ^

Hope you enjoyed all the recaps even though they were quite spread out. It was a great time and I can't wait till I can go to another con. Its a wonderful excuse for me to dress up and treat myself to some new goodies. You'll hear from me again real soon, I promise!

As always, check out Eric's work at Pepperink.com!

NYCC/NYAF '10 Recap: Day 2

2010-10-11T01:20:00.015-04:00

I'm getting a little behind on these blog posts (Oh nooooo! T_T) . I think it's about time I get back on track before I forget all the fun little details that were the NYCC/NYAF.

I started the day out by heading straight to the Hangry & Angry Fashion Show before the con doors opened to wait in line, and I'm glad I did. While the show wasn't as full as it could have been, the room's layout didn't lend itself well to tons of people. I got a seat in the front row right where the models stopped for a photo-op. My camera seems to be on its way out so I'm glad I got seats there or else I may not have gotten any photos. Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with this collection. There were a lot of really nice individual pieces, but I guess I just wasn't feeling the actual coordinates. Maybe this type of punk just isn't really my style... Either way I did get a few photos and I've picked out a couple pictures I liked best.

Shortly after the Hangry & Angry Fashion Show, I met up with a bunch of other lolitas and we had a little swap meet. While I didn't actually sell or trade any of my stuff (T_T) I did pick up a few new things. I got a couple of pairs of socks from BTSSB and Meta, some Meta jewelry ,and an offbrand blouse. I was tempted to buy a couple other things (I'm far too good at spending money -_-') Luckily for my bank account, I realized that the dress I was looking at was something I probably wouldn't actually wear... Crisis averted XD. While I don't think I got the whole group of us in the photo we did manage to get at least one group photo before the con staff headed over and shouted at us to move. I guess we were blocking some invisible entrance or something...

After the swap meet, I wandered around and did a little bit more perusing in the Dealer's hall. I ended up picking up a pair of wrist cuffs at the Kinokuniya booth since they were pretty and not overpriced like the rest of the booth. I also picked up the most adorable skirt from the Ichigo Black booth for my niece. Unfortunately, my niece was not a big fan of the skirt. She liked the skirt but didn't like that it had people in the print of the fabric -_-''' I guess you just can't win with 8 year olds... At least my nephew LOVED the Call of Duty blanket I found for him. I did okay with not spending TONS of money the first two days of the con.

I met a large panda whilst shopping!

I didn't spend a ton of time chilling with Eric on Saturday. I did get a chance to offer to get him food or a drink, but that was the extent of it. He was a lot more productive than I was, which he was really stressed about. In the end it worked out quite well. He had the YuGiOh logo just about finished before we took off to have dinner. We had dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant. I got some really tasty chicken dish that I've never heard of and no longer remember the name of (other than the word "pollo" was in it XD). I know you don't care about my dinner though, so on to the mural photos! As always, if you'd like to see more of Eric's work (and I know you do!) Visit his website at Pepperink.com

This is about where he ended on Day 2

Saturday, I wore my beloved BTSSB Pockets Embroidery. It was great to finally get to wear it in a full coord. The blouse is AP and there is some Meta jewelry. Everything else is offbrand or a replica.

photo by frozenmotion9

Bag and skirt detail. photo by frozenmotion9

Bling Bling! - Photo by frozenmotion9

On the subject of lolita, I saw a lot of awesome lolitas again on Saturday. Just like last time, I'll post up a few of my favorites. I was very pleased with the number of good lolitas I saw throughout the whole weekend. ^ ^

Me with frozenmotion9 with are netted headdresses ^ ^

Twin Irongates!

Sweet lolita in Wonder Cookie. I love the AP envelope bag ^ ^

A cute classic lolita

Lastly, I wanted to showcase a few cool cosplays I saw. I was kind of all about lolitas on Saturday and Sunday so I didn't get very many cosplay pics. I heard that there was a lot of awesome stuff out there I must have missed. Check out the pictures!

A cute Disney Alice ^ ^

This kid has a really cool mom!

These guys visited Eric twice during the weekend and stayed in character. It was hilarious XD

This was probably my favorite cosplay of the entire weekend. I really like how the flash washed her out.

Thanks for reading this portion of my recap. Day 3 will be up soon.

NYAF/NYCC '10 Recap: Day 1

2010-10-08T23:10:00.014-04:00

Well... NYAF/NYCC is over. It was a really good time and equally exhausting! All three of my days start with getting up super early so I could catch a cab with Eric down to the convention center. I wore lolita all three days so I had to get up even earlier than I normally would so I could be ready in time. We got to the convention center around 9am but ran into a couple minor issues involving our badges, but things got fixed fairly quickly and easily. Eric ended up starting on his piece around noonish. We had to wait for electricity and all our other typical fixings to arrive which led to a bit of a late start.

Being the lolita shopping addict I am, I wandered away from Eric fairly early to scope out the dealer's room for any lolita related goodness. I was fairly disappointed. Kinokuniya had some stuff from Baby that seemed to be mostly leftovers and were a little overpriced in my opinion. I did buy a bolero coat because I had been looking for one exactly like the one they had. I was lucky/misfortunate enough to have the h.Naoto booth right by Eric's work. I was lucky because I hate having to search for booths when I like to keep visiting them and unfortunately because they had a lot of awesome stuff I really wanted to buy. I liked seeing the Hangry and Angry mascots keep walking by.

I imagine it sucked to wear them as I assume they were blind since they had to be led around while wearing them. On a non lolita note... I did buy a Squishable T-Rex. He's very bright but I need a name for him. Any ideas? Once the convention had been open to the public for a while, I did head down to the anime Artist Alley. I checked out Lolitas and Cream and bought some really cute stuff from them like a broach and a huge cupcake ring. Every year I see their booths at conventions their stuff looks better and better!

I eventually came back to check in on Eric (I am supposed to be assisting him after all) He had gotten quite a bit done on his mural, but as Eric always does, he was stressing about finishing on time. In reality, it looked great and he finished perfectly on time because it's Eric and that's what he does. Most people were really pumped about the subject of the mural being YuGiOh. I personally am not a fan but it was fun to hear all the people yelling out things and almost reliving their childhood. I think the best part was when a younger kid (probably around 8 or 9) got upset on the last day about the mural stating that it is the 10th year anniversary of YuGiOh when the copyright dates that were also in the mural said that YuGiOh was created in 1996. He was pretty pissed off and immediately went to Toonzaki to question them as to what the hell that was about. He was on a mission, but since Eric was really just recreating the art we didn't have an answer for him.

I also went to the Lolita panel on Friday. It was a little bit boring, but it was really aimed more at girls who were just starting out in lolita. I met a few other lolitas who were really nice at the panel though and they did have a giveaway. They gave away a ton of stuff and I thought that it was quite nice that a lot of newer lolitas seemed to be the ones winning the prizes (even if I didn't win anything XD)

While the panel was a little bit uneventful, I did get to see a lot of lolitas on day 1. They were all dressed quite wonderfully. I figured I would just post a few photos here of some of my favorites. If you see yourself and you'd like your username posted or a blog linked, please let me know in the comments!

Frozenmotion9 making AatP look stunning. This was my favorite coord. hands down. I would love to have that whole outfit XD

This girl had so much poof under her skirt. It was pretty amazing!

A girl from Tokyo Rebel. I loved everything about her outfit.

A really awesome mostly offbrand coord.

A really nice handmade DBZ JSK. Fantastic!

I did also run into a few nice cosplays that I took photos of. Same policy stands here though, if you'd like me to link to you please let me know in a comment!

I love seeing Utena cosplays ^ ^

A really HUGE Chewbacca!

The Queen of Hearts

A fantastic Captain America

Probably the best cosplay of the show!

All in all Day 1 was great. I met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun. I'll be posting Day 2 and 3 recaps ASAP so please keep an eye out for them. And please check out more of Eric Maruscak's work at Pepperink.com!

Pre-NYAF/NYCC Blog

2010-09-23T00:59:00.007-04:00

I'm quite excited for the upcoming NYAF/NYCC this year. I plan on wearing lolita all 3 days of it and am looking forward to the fashion show (even though I didn't make the modeling contest T_T) and swap meet. Most of all I'm excited to be going with my friend Eric Maruscak who is going to be doing what he does best... Chalk art! I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a surprise or not so I won't talk about the piece, but I'm hoping it will be a hit just like every other year has been.

Now, I know I said I was planning on wearing lolita for all three days. I just need to decide what to wear. I've got a couple of ideas I'm throwing around, but I don't know for sure what I want to wear yet. I think I'm gonna try to wear my newer dresses that haven't gotten much love yet. I'll be sure to make a post once I know how I'm gonna coordinate them!

A Bi-Annual Wardrobe Post

2010-09-09T16:15:00.009-04:00

I've seen a lot of blogs lately doing wardrobe posts, and I feel like hopping on this bandwagon. So off we go! Here's my wardrobe as of September 1st!

Short Blouses:

I've got a slightly larger variety of brands when it comes to my blouses than I do the rest of my wardrobe. A few of them were thrifted or clearance rack buys. I've got one each from BTSSB, AatP, Meta, and AP. I'd like to get a few more styles of short sleeve blouses. I don't really ever wear long sleeve blouses so it'd be worth it. I'd really like a black blouse with a slightly lower neckline. The one I have now is pretty high and not super comfortable in the summer.

Cutsews:

I prefer short sleeves for my shirts. I like my cutsews to have the option to be worn with my everyday clothes since I don't get to wear lolita everyday. I always try to work my brand into my dailywear. I especially love my sailor cutsew. I'd love to get a hold of something that will go better with some of my skirts.

JSK 1:

These are my JSKs and 1 OP ^ ^. I mostly wear JSKs instead of skirts. I've got a larger bust as far as brand is concerned and that unfortunately keeps blouses from fitting nicely. The JSKs are a nice remedy to that. I especially love my Marie Antoinette JSK, my black Pocket Embroidery JSK and my Gathers Frill JSK. As one can see from my collection of dresses, I'm a very big BTSSB/AatP fan.

Skirts:

I don't wear skirts very often because I don't look very good in them. I don't like how they look on me with a blouse tucked in. Unfortunately, wearing my blouse untucked often looks just as bad. Oh well, I at least can wear them casually. I'm very grateful that my mum altered my BTSSB Border Print skirt to fit me though! I don't know what I should actually coordinate it with, but I'm excited to wear it.

Purses:

I need some new purses. I'd love to get a black school bag. On retrospect, the piano bags were a bad choice. I figured they would match just about anything I bought, but that ended up being very far from the reality of it all. I need a basic or plain black bag. I've got my eyes on the lookout for one.

Shoes:

My shoe collection recently doubled and I'm quite happy about that. The first pair is An~Tai~Na. The 3 pairs in the middle are from Montreal. The sneakers on the far right are from AatP. At some point in time I'd like to maybe get a nice pair of brown boots or shoes along with maybe a pair of pink shoes to go with the one pink JSK I have.

Accessories:

Socks:

This is my brand sock collection. I tend to buy printed socks from brands since I can find other pretty knee high or OTK socks at mainstream stores fairly easily. All of them are from BTSSB, AatP, Meta, and AP.

Parasols:

My parasol collection is small, but I don't really have a need for a ton of parasols. I really only need a black and a white one. I may invest in a pink one at some point in time simply because the white one is a bit too elegant to go terribly well with sweet lolita. I love parasols though, it's sad I don't get to use them more though.

And that's the bulk of my wardrobe ^ ^ Thanks for looking. I'd eventually like to find a few filler pieces like a bolero or a cardigan that didn't look frumpy on me. Hopefully, I'll be able to get a hold of something like that soon. Perhaps at NY Comic Con this year? Have any of you gone through your wardrobes lately and what pieces do you feel you need or are going to cut from your wardrobe?

Minkyshop AnTaiNa Frill RHS Review

2010-09-07T11:56:00.004-04:00

I fell in love with these shoes the moment I saw them and was really happy when I came across them on Ebay (Minky Shop)at what I feel is a fair enough price. I had a choice between the oval or heart-shaped buckles. I preferred the heart shaped buckles, but decided to go with the oval buckle because I noticed that half of the stock photos of the various colors had the heart buckles on upside down. I don't know if this is an easy remedy, but I didn't feel like dealing with it. I placed my order on 8-13-10. On 8-14-10 I received an email from them letting me know that they were making my shoes and that they would ship in 1-2 weeks. It says that it can take up to 15 days for the item to ship. On 9-2-10 I still hadn't heard anything about whether or not they had been shipped. I sent an email to ask what the status of my order was. They responded on 9-4-10 saying that the shoes had been shipped a little while ago and that they should arrive with 5-7 days. The postmark on the package stated that the shoes were shipped on 9-3-10. They arrived on 9-7-10. They were packaged well inside a box. Each shoe was individually wrapped inside a plastic bag.

I ordered the shoes in size L (24). They fit fairly well. They seem to be a bit smaller than my other size L shoes, so they might end up being not very comfortable at first. This must just be how An~tai~na sizes are. It is my hope that with some wear, they will stretch just the tiniest bit. I tried to look into their sizing a bit before I made my choice, but couldn't really find much information anywhere.

As you can see in the photo below, they did not honor my request for oval-buckles. Since the heart shaped buckles are on the right way and the ones I preferred, I'm not upset, but I do think that it is very sloppy of them to ask me which ones I would prefer and then ignore my answer.

Other than my sort of complaint about being given the wrong buckle, I can't find any issues with the actual construction of the shoes. I do noticed that the straps to really sit flat when worn, most likely because of the snap under the buckle. The shoes are easy enough to buckle on and off, so I'm not really sure why there needs to be a snap there. I think it's a problem that will eventually fix itself with wear though.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with them. I don't think I'll be rushing over to buy from Minkyshop again any time soon though. To me, it appears that they may have hurried up and shipped my shoes once I finally emailed them about it. That on top of the heart buckle mix-up, I'm not sure I feel that they are a terribly reliable seller. The end product is in perfect condition, with little to no flaws, but the service was not anything to brag about. I probably won't buy from them again unless they have something that I have to have but can't find anywhere else.

A Trip to the New York Renaissance Festival

2010-09-06T22:19:00.017-04:00

Yesterday, I went to another Renaissance festival in Tuxedo, NY. This was my first time to this festival and aside from some terrible parking, it was a very enjoyable experience. There is a decent walk from the parking lot to the actual festival, but if you want, you can take the shuttle bus. We decided to walk it. I say we, but I really mean Travis, I wanted to take the shuttle because I was wearing my new shoes and didn't know whether or not they would be comfortable for the entire day. Luckily, they ended up being decent walking shoes.

I was surprised that at the entrance someone recognized my JSK immediately as lolita and asked me if it was Angelic Pretty. Another girl later correctly identified it as BTSSB. Usually when I meet someone who is familiar with lolita, they comment that they recognize the fashion. It was pleasant to hear people recognize that I was wearing an actual brand. We went from the entrance accidentally headed right to the joust. We had good timing as it was just about to start.

The joust itself seemed a lot less planned out than the ones I've seen at the Sterling Renaissance Faire. I'm not sure if this was for the better or not. Both shows are quite nice. I noticed that the commentary and the lines from the knights (whether scripted or unscripted) were a bit more adult oriented than the ones at Sterling. At one point, one of the knight's horses threw him, but the horse also fell backwards on top of him. I'm not entirely sure it was a part of the show, but the knight got right up and continued with the show like nothing had happened. What a champ either way, I can't imagine having a horse land on you is fun.

After the joust we wandered around a bit and just checked out the vendors. I liked that this festival had a very large number of vendors. It seemed to also help keep the prices down as well since there was more than one shop selling most wares. They also had a little pathway where there were a bunch of psychics to do tarot readings, palm readings, and other divination. The games section was also pretty large too. We stood and watched the tomato man for awhile. He was way better than the one at Sterling this year but the one that was at Sterling last year was the best.

After wandering for a bit we went to the food court area to get something to eat. I got a pickle and something to drink and then we did some more wandering. This place is huge. There are a lot of shops to see. After finishing my first pickle and wandering even more, I decided I wanted another pickle. We lucked out and ran into another pickle guy. He told me I had a pretty smile and should wrap it around a pickle. XD As creepy as this pickle dude was, the second pickle was just as awesome as the first. After some more window shopping, we found a shop that sold "dragons" which was kind of cute. They were actually geckos, since, you know, Dragons don't actually exist.

After we felt we had sufficiently wandered the faire, we decided we'd head out. We walked the hilly path back to the car and then found that the cars had been parked three deep. Luckily we were on the edge and were able to get out without much difficulty despite having a car parked next to us on all four sides. I really enjoyed this festival. I hope I can get back there next summer. It was well worth the 2 hour trip. I'd recommend you go!

Now for the quick outfit rundown!

JSK and Bag: BTSSB

Socks: Meta

Shoes: Montreal

Everything else: Offbrand

An Interview Avec Moi

2010-09-05T18:56:00.003-04:00

I was interviewed by Interview with the Lolita today. Please check it out!

http://lolitainterview.blog132.fc2.com/

Another Renaissance Festival Coordinate

2010-09-02T17:16:00.005-04:00

I have finally gotten to confirm my plans to go to the NY Renaissance Festival in Tuxedo, NY. I'm quite excited as this will not only be my first time there, but It'll also be my first opportunity to wear my new Marie Antoinette JSK. Sadly, I don't really have the time or money to run out and buy all new things to go with it, so I'm only working with what I already have for this coordinate.

While the socks and the bag aren't perfect matches, they match much better than a lot of my other socks and accessories would. I'm glad that I'll actually be able to make use of the Perfume Bottle socks from Meta since I received them in an LP and I kind have this thing where I don't like to sell socks new or used. The bunny bag is the only thing I'm not completely happy with though. I figure that a pink bunny bag will match a lot better than an AP Piano bag in pink or black, as those are really my only other options.

So what do you think? I'll be posting pictures when I blog about the festival of course. Please feel free to tell me what you think!

Refuse to be Usual 7 Heart Buckle Shoe Review

2010-08-31T15:00:00.007-04:00

I really wanted a pair of normal-ish shoes that were not actually a boot or a rocking horse shoe, so I decided to go with these. I placed my order on 8-13-10. It says that it can take up to 10 days for the item to ship. I received positive feedback on 8-23-10 from Refuse to be Usual stating that my shoes had shipped the same day. They also provided a tracking number. I received the shoes on 8-31.

The shoes were packed in a box and each shoe was in its own individual bag and had paper inside them to help them keep their shape.

I ordered the shoes in size 8-8 1/2. I normally wear a size smaller but the sizing chart the seller used seemed to put me at this size. I'm glad I got the size I did though, despite them being a hair too big. They are not uncomfortable in the least bit and there is a nice amount of wiggle room for my toes. The shoes zip up in the back so you only have to go through the trouble of adjusting all the straps once, which is nice. The shoes are well made. They actually have a little bit of a grip on the bottom, so it will be easier to wear these than some other shoes by Montreal.

My only minor complaints are the bows up top seem to be slightly off to the side when I wear them. It's not at all noticable if it's not pointed out to you. More annoying though, is that the bows on the toes are slightly lopsided. I'm not really sure lopsided is the right word for it, but the bows both seem to curl up on one side, while they sit flat on the other side.

Overall, I am happy with these shoes. I do think that I should have gotten them much sooner since I did pay for EMS, but it does specifically state in their TOS that is can take up to 10 days to ship. Once it left their hands, it's obviously not their fault that it seemed to stay stuck in customs for like 4 days, but I honestly didn't think it would take them a full 10 days to actually ship them. I definitely wouldn't hesitate to buy from RTBU again. They did keep me updated throughout the process and I did like that they provided tracking without me having to ask for it. All in all, it was a pleasant experience.

After having worn these shoes for about 12 hours straight, I must say that they are quite comfortable too. The shoes have ample toe-room and seem to have enough support in the bottom that they don't need inserts or anything. I'm very happy with them. I own three pairs of Montreal shoes and I'm very happy with all three of them comfort wise.

AatP's Queen's Coach Print

2010-08-23T21:07:00.004-04:00

I feel like I was just discussing how much I preferred AatP's prints to BTSSB. And now I have fallen in love with them all over again with the new Queen's Coach print.

More specifically, I have absolutely fallen in love with the OP version of it. I would love to be able to buy it right now, but it would be rather irresponsible of me to actually buy it I feel. I'm going to hope I run into it on the sales comm later. It always sucks to buy something at full price just to find out it's not going to be a popular print or it will go on sale a few months later at half the price. Everything about this OP is just perfect though. Hopefully someday it will be mine.

Aristo Kitty's Invitation Print

2010-08-13T10:19:00.011-04:00

Not too long ago, Baby opened up reservations for their newest print Aristo Kitty's Invitation. I must say I am not impressed.

First and foremost, I will say I do not like that they have only shown us the print in the sax color way. I personally would never reserve a print if I couldn't first see what it would look like in my color of choice. I'm not a fan of the design of the OP and I find the skirt design to be very plain and boring. I like a basic skirt every now and a then, but I do like there to be a bit of thought put into my prints. Especially when this skirt would run me almost 18000 yen. The print itself is rather boring and for some reason the cat's face really creeps me out. Despite the strange cat face, I just find this print to be very un-awe-inspiring. I wish Baby would release some nice prints like their AatP line has. While I'm not in love with the St. Mephisto Cathedral print, I really wish I could have afforded the Dream in a Midsummer Night print, I would have in a heartbeat. While the designs didn't wow me for this print, the print more than made up for it in my opinion.

While the design does not save it, I really like the actually cut of the JSK. It seems to be really flattering to me. I'm not sure if they are just using a better petticoat, but the skirt seems fuller in this version which just gives it a better shape overall. Maybe we'll get a print worth having with a nice cut sometime soon? I sure hope so.

Winning is Awesome!

2010-08-13T10:18:00.006-04:00

A while back, I entered a bunch of people's blog giveaways. I never expect to win any of these things since I've never had much luck with these kinds of things, but I was really surprised and happy to have finally won something! And what makes this even better was that the contest I won was the one contest that I said to myself it would be really awesome to win!

So what did I win? I won a cute little book full of crafts from Etoile Carnivale, which is a cool blog about Japanese Fashion. The book is an older Gosu Rori craft book from around 2006. There are plenty of little tutorials in it such as head bows, jewelry, and bags. My personal favorites are the two bead and ribbon crowns and the eye patch it shows you how to make. I think next time I find myself at the craft shop, I may pick up the materials to give it a try!

Japonica Market Shopping Service Review

2010-08-13T00:38:00.009-04:00

For my birthday, I bought myself a the Marie Antoinette JSK in black from Yahoo!jp Auctions using Japonica Market. The process went easily and I highly recommend them!

I filled out their order form and emailed it to them and immediately received a confirmation email from them to verify they received my order on August 8th. Later that day, I received another email from them to confirm my order with them and to inform me they sent me an invoice for a deposit plus the Paypal fees. I paid the invoice and they immediately put in a snipe bid for me. I've been nervous about auction snipers ever since I had one not bid for me on Ebay once, so I asked them to at least bid my minimum on the auction. I also decided to up my bid just in case. They did both these things quickly without asking any questions.

They emailed me very shortly after the auction was over on August 10th to let me know I was the winning bidder and that they would invoice me for the rest of my balance as soon as my JSK arrived at their offices. They then again emailed me on the 14th to let me know that my item had arrived at their offices. They invoiced me for their fees and the shipping costs. On 8-15-10, I received yet another email to let me know that they shipped my item.

I received the dress on 8-18 as described in the auction. I was kind of too excited to take a picture of the packaging, but it was very well packaged. Whether the inner packaging was done by the shopping service or the Yahoo!Jp seller, I'm not sure, but I was definitely happy with how it was packaged. It was put in a plastic bag inside a plastic shopping bag with around the outside some bubble wrapping inside large water proof envelope that was taped formidably. That's a lot of protection! I was also happy with how quickly it got here, which was expected because I paid for EMS shipping.

Overall:

I was very happy with this service and will definitely use them again. They were communicative on every step and very easy to work with. The fee for auction sites is 10% which is a bit cheaper than most of the other shopping services I looked into. I highly recommend them! It was nice to pay less and get amazing service for once!

And now, on to the pictures of the dress!

The dress from the front. The bows can be a pain because they keep coming untied.

A shot of the back

A close-up of the print

Thanks for reading!

My Altered BTSSB Border Skirt

2010-07-12T17:47:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite prints from Baby is their Border print. I came across the pink x bordeaux version on the egl_comm_sales about a year and a half ago. I really wanted the pink x black version but this one was a very close second. I bought it in hopes that it's tiny waistband would fit my 29 inch waist. I loved the skirt so much that I was willing to either deal with a little bit of discomfort while wearing it or to lose some weight so it would actually fit. I got it and realized that it would be far too small to just deal, so I lost some weight. I managed to lose some weight but I never lost any inches. It became all too clear that without skipping meals that this skirt just was not going to fit.

I asked my mum if she'd be able to alter it for me. I told her I'd be willing to part with the waist ties if I had to but would rather not have to. It sat in her pile of things to do for quite some time and finally today, she had some extra time to alter my skirt! I came home to a wonderful surprise. My mum had taken the elastic band out and added a few inches to my skirt and it fits perfectly! She didn't even have to use the waist ties! Well actually, I should say she didn't need to use all of them XD She took about 2 inches of the bottom of both ties and the refinished them. If she hadn't told me she had used them, I never would have noticed!

Now I just need to get some pieces to coordinate it with!

A Trip to the Sterling Renaissance Festival

2010-07-12T13:50:00.007-04:00

Today I went to the Renaissance Festival in Sterling, New York. We had a great time. We got up early and got ready and by we I mostly mean I since I had my hair to do. I got my friend Charity to wear lolita clothes with me which meant for once I wasn't the only lolita walking around. We got to the festival a little early but made our way straight to the "stage" for the jousting match.

The jousting match was a little bit different from last years, but all in all it was pretty much the same show. I think I enjoyed it better this year since I wasn't sitting in the hot sun though unlike last year. We wandered around and found some really nice things. I really wanted to get one of these amazing eye patches made from real animal bones. I am a bit short on money at the moment but I will definitely be hitting their Etsy (Dry Bones Studios) up soon. I need to come up with a neat coordinate for it first though. ^ ^ After a bit of wandering we went and watched the tomato man for a bit. He was funny but I preferred the guy from last year since his insults and jokes were way better.

After getting some pickles and salt potatoes and wandering a bit, we went and saw the sword swallowing magician. It was an amazing show! We talked to the guy for a bit after too and he seemed like a pretty cool guy, as if swallowing swords and knives didn't already make you a cool guy.

As I said in a previous blog, I've been pretty excited to actually get to wear my AatP Gathers Frill jsk. It was a bit hot but I was really happy with how everything went together. I got a lot of compliments and quite a few people asked to take my picture! I also heard a lot of comments on my rocking horse boots. People can seem to understand how we manage to walk in them XD.

Coordinate Details:

JSK and Tote bag: Alice and the Pirates

Blouse: Rakuen

Socks and Ring: Metamorphose

Parasol: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Necklace: Vivienne Westwood Replica

Shoes: Montreal

All in all, I had a great time this year! I can't wait to go again next year and I'm hoping I'll be able to make it to the show in Tuxedo as well later this summer.
Photos by Eric Maruscak

Kelly Wants Some Shoes

2010-06-28T15:29:00.007-04:00

I've been killing for a new pair of lolita shoes lately... I've been working with my Dr. Martens and a pair of rocking horse boots since I've accumulated a decent sized wardrobe. I think it's time to actually go for a new pair of shoes. I just have to remind myself that I need shoes, not boots since I always seem to come back to boots. Here's a few I've had my eyes on!

While there isn't a ton of stuff that actually has card suits on it in my wardrobe, I kind of have a huge weakness for them. I've always loved this style of shoes. Maybe I can get more card suit related items in my wardrobe and then I can justify actually getting them.

I wasn't a huge fan of this style of shoe at first, but it's really grown on me since I've seen them actually worn in different coordinates. They come higher up like boots while still being a shoe which is something I really like.

Rocking horse shoes were something I hated with a passion when I first saw them. The wooded bottom always made me think of an old wood paneled station wagon for some reason. As I became more and more serious about lolita, they started to grow on me, too. Now, I would love to have these shoes. I'm leaning towards this pair as my next pair.

I've always liked these shoes. I originally was in love with the black and white ones but as I've gotten more prints, colors, and solid black pieces in my wardrobe, I've decided plain black would be the best way for me to go so I can get the most use out of them.

So what ones do you like best? I think I know what I want but I can't seem to actually make up my mind. I'd love to hear your opinions!

Metamorphose Summer 2010 Lucky Pack

2010-06-28T15:00:00.013-04:00

I'm very excited to be receiving my very first Metamorphose lucky pack. I've ordered several from Baby the Stars Shine Bright before, but never bothered with Meta. I was a bit nervous about whether or not I'd get one or not since it was the first time I've ever ordered from them. On top of that, this year Meta decided to use the shopping cart system instead of email for their lucky packs this year. I was expecting the packs to go on sale at midnight Japan time like almost everyone else. I woke up in the middle of the night and decided on a whim to check and I'm glad I did since they were actually posted at 5pm Japan time. I got my pack but I didn't pay right away since I had expected an email with more payment information like Baby does, which was not the case. In fear that I wouldn't get to fix this mistake, I ordered another pack. I was shocked at how nice Meta was when we emailed them to fix this mistake. They were completely understanding. I'm used to Baby's system of black listing you for the tiniest mistake.

I received my tracking information on July 9th, but it was actually shipped the 8th according to the tracking info. I received my lucky pack on July 12th. On to the pictures!

Overall, I'm very happy with everything I got! In my pack there was the blouse pictured in the examples, Perfume Bottle OTK socks, gingham bloomers, and the Heart Leopard skirt. I'm a little bummed out my pack seemed to be missing the washcloth, tote bag, and accessory, but I absolutely love everything I did receive so I'm not too upset. I'd rather get a few items I love than many items that are total crap. I'm super happy I didn't get that terrible special set. I would have been quite upset with that. I'm especially happy with the skirt. A few days ago when I saw a few people received Heart Leopard skirts I was sort of hopeful to receive one since I've been into more punkier styles as of late. Hopefully, I'll be just as lucky when I go for an LP from Baby later this summer.

Candy Violet Review: Fluffy Petticoat

2010-06-22T01:13:00.018-04:00

I'm at it again. I decided I needed a better petticoat. Not that the one I have isn't good, but it just doesn't give that ridiculous amount of poof that one of these guys from Candy Violet is supposed to give. I placed my order on June 14th and received an automated message to let me know that my order went through. The website states that it can take up to a week for items to ship. Vivcore does not charge your card until your package ships. They do not accept Paypal. I received a shipping notice on June 18th from UPS letting me know that my package had been shipped along with its tracking information. This tracking information said my package should arrive on June 22.

Sorry about the sideways picture... the photo uploader refused to cooperate -_-'

The package arrived on June 22 just as the tracking information said it would. It kind of stuffed into an envelope but since these petticoats give poof based on having several layers of ruffles instead of being held up by tulle, this didn't really have a chance at deflating it. Regardless, I don't like seeing petticoats packed like this.

The petticoat itself is definitely very fluffy and soft. I have no complaints there. I do however feel that the elastic on these petticoats is terrible. I realized that these petticoats are simply Malco Mode petticoats, so I don't blame Vivcore for the terrible elastic waist. The elastic is not actually sewn into the waist. When I unbuttoned it to put it on, the two side of the elastic band retreated into the waistband and made it quite difficult to actually pull them out and button it. The website does say that the petticoat should fit between a 21-36 inch waist. The elastic as is, is quite tight and uncomfortable on my 29 inch waist. I'll definitely be replacing it.

Now for the poof factor. I've seen this petticoat in action and have been quite impressed. Now that I've replaced the elastic, I can easily show you how this petticoat holds up once its got a skirt over it. However, I found that it is a little bit too long (or maybe I'm just too short...). I also found that the poof was too much to fit under my BTSSB skirts. It JUST fit under my JSKs. Since both of these issues make it unwearable, I had it shortened by about 2 inches. Somehow this also lessened the poof to a wearable level (Don't ask me how that works, my mother is the seamstress, not me XD) Now for the part you've all been waiting on!

I don't feel that this picture even does it justice. This thing has some serious poof. It kept hitting the furniture and doorways in my house while I was walking around with it on. I think it would be ideal for hime lolita.

Overall:

Communication: 5/5 Candy Violet was great about letting me know that my payment was received and my item was shipped. They even provided me with a tracking number. No complaints here.

Shipping: 5/5 I chose the UPS shipping option and I received my package right on schedule. She shipped quite promptly.

Quality: 4/5 While the elastic sucked to put it nicely, it was extremely easy to fix. The rest of the petticoat is great though. It's extremely soft and does provide a ton of poof.

Overall, I'm really happy with Candy Violets service. For the price I paid I would liked to have not had to fix the elastic, but that's more a problem with Malco Mode than Candy Violet. I would definitely do business with her again.

Renaissance Festival Coordinate

2010-06-18T02:23:00.007-04:00

I've been quite excited for my trip to this year's Renaissance Festival in Sterling, NY. I've already got my whole coordinate planned out. I figured I would share it with you all.

For starters, I've picked out my Alice and the Pirates Gathers Frill JSK in ivory as the main part of this coordinate. I didn't want to wear it without a blouse but I wasn't really feeling wearing all white either so I'm pairing it with one of my favorite blouses from Rakuen. Lastly, I'm hoping that the black socks with the gold fleur-de-lis will go nicely with the gold buttons on the blouse and the gold chain and beading on the JSK.

I'm adding these "essential" pieces to this outfit. I thought about wearing my Dr. Martens with this outfit but I think that the rocking horse boots will fit in nicely with everything else so far. I'm going in July and therefore it's going to be quite hot out. I'm taking my BTSSB Vellsarie Parasol out on it's maiden voyage for this coordinate. I am kind of at a loss on what to do for a bag. I have chosen the Virgin Mary tote bag since I doubt I'll randomly come across the treasure chest purse for less than what it originally retailed when it was released.

Words cannot describe how badly I want this purse for this outfit. Considering that my studying abroad has left me in a bit of debt, I can't go throwing away 18,000 yen for a purse sadly.

Last but not least, this outfit needs some accessories and bloomers of course. I'm considering tea dying the bloomers since they are stark white in comparison to the rest of the coordinate and they probably are going to peak out just a little bit. If you scroll down to my previous blog, you'll see my review for that amazing tricorn hat that I am going to be wearing with this coordinate. As far as jewelry goes I'm going to be wearing my fake Vivienne Westwood choker and my pearl and metal flower bracelet. I'm hoping to maybe be able to get a hold of a few antique looking rings to cover my fingers with. I'm praying that we have some beautiful July weather like we did last year. I'd love to hear any comments or ideas anyone has to offer up for this coordinate.

Etsy Seller: Tea Time Inc. Review

2010-06-10T14:33:00.004-04:00

Recently I've been trying to get together a nice pirate inspired coord for the Sterling Renaissance Festival and I decided that a tricorn hat would really pull the outfit together. After a little bit of tutorial searching and some relatively unsuccessful attempts at making my own from felt, I decided it would probably be better to let someone a little bit more crafty than myself make one. I found an amazing hat by Tea Time Inc. on Etsy.

The hats can be made in brown or black and there are two different styles available. I chose the black hat as pictured in the stock image. I placed my order and payed on June 7th. I received an email on June 9th letting me know that my hat had been shipped. I was shocked to come home and find the package on my doorstep on June 10th.

The hat was well packaged in a box and with plenty of tissue paper to keep it from banging around in there.

The hat itself is very well put together. The stitches are all even and well placed. The hat is made from real leather as stated in the item description. It is definitely sturdy. There is no hot glue here. Everything is strongly stitched together.

The hat has an elastic band that is meant to go under the neck. The band is not adjustable but is at a comfortable yet supportive length.

Overall:

Communication:5/5 Since our transaction was finished in like three days there wasn't much of a need for communication. I was informed when my item was shipped.

Shipping: 5/5 My hat was shipped quickly and arrived extremely fast (Washington-New York in 2 days)

Quality: 5/5 The craftsmanship was perfect. No complaints here.

So that's my review. I've got my eye on some of her other items for the future. I highly recommend her work!

Urban Exploring: Pennhurst Mental Institution

2010-06-02T10:42:00.003-04:00

This Memorial Day, I visited the abandoned Eastern State Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic, also known as the Pennhurst Mental Institution in Spring City, Pennsylvania. The facilities here, as you can guess by the name, housed several thousand mentally retarded and physically handicapped patients from it's opening in 1908. Pennhurst has been the source of a lot of debate for some time. It had been under scrutiny for overcrowding, patient abuse, and sexual abuse of patients since it's opening. Roland Johnson, an ex-patient at Pennhurst Mental Institution, writes in his autobiography, Lost In A Desert World, about being physically and sexually abused by other patients and witnessing the hospital staff do the same to completely disabled bed ridden patients. A 1968 news report, Suffer the Little Children, shares similar findings at the institution. It brings the public's attention to the overcrowding and poor conditions at the severely understaffed hospital. This news report had a strong influence on the eventual closing of the hospital in 1987. Several years after the fact staff interviews paint a different picture of the Pennhurst Mental Institution. In interviews with a registered nurse and an aide, they claim that the press really exaggerated the story they prepared for the public. They claim that old photos from times where standards weren't as high were used in the reports and painted an unrealistic picture for the general public.

My visit started with a 4 hour car ride including a stop at Wendy's where we laughed at Paul's chicken sandwich which looked so overcooked and heat lamped that we deemed it the "Chernobyl Chicken Sandwich." We then stopped laughing at Paul's sandwich to laugh at Paul when he somehow absent-mindedly threw out his tray. Good job Paul. As we got into the area we saw the huge Nuclear Power plant nearby. While I've noticed a few on my train rides through France, I've never actually seen one in the US so it was kind of neat to be able to stop and actually take a few photos.

Once we arrived in Spring City, we wandered around a bit and finally found a road closed sign in front of a blocked path. The water tower was the landmark closest to this closed road. We seemed to have found what we were looking for so we stopped there and wandered down the path.

After a few minutes of walking the abandoned road, we came across another street of the main road. After about a minute of following this road we came across a section of cleared land. There were two buildings here. One appeared to be a sort of school or administration building. It was difficult to tell without actually breaking in, which we did not do. We wandered around this site for a moment and then continued on the main road. Not too long after we came across another side street.

We followed this path way and came across the main campus. The path way led to a really neat building that had an archway. I believe it may have been attached to the building we saw at the previous opening.

The main campus has several buildings. Supposedly all of them are connected by an underground maze of tunnels. The tunnels were used to transport patients back in the days this place was functioning. Sadly, the ones we came across were blocked off, however, this is the best way to actually enter the buildings. The campus also has a raised walkway connecting many of the buildings on ground level.

Scattered throughout the entire campus one can find various ruins of things to entertain the children that lived here. Just off of the walkway pictured above, one could see an in ground pool. We also found a few slides, some of which were in better conditions than others. A swing set and a set of monkey bars could also be found somewhat towards the center of the campus in an overgrown playground.

While we didn't actually enter any of the buildings this time, I was able to take a few window shots. I was particularly fond of these shots because without the camera flash, you couldn't see anything in these rooms. I was kind of surprised that there wasn't more vandalism inside than there was. In a few of the rooms I photographed, there wasn't even any graffiti. The paint is peeling off the walls and the pipes and lights are rusting, but there wasn't very much damage at all that seemed caused by vandals.

I really enjoyed this little adventure. It was amazing to see something like this so overgrown, but still preserved so well. I would love to try to go back at some point before it is fully torn down to check out inside of the buildings. I suppose we'll see how that works out.

Pray to your god, open your heart
Whatever you do, don't be afraid of the dark
Cover your eyes, the devil's inside

One day it'll all just end

Urban Exploring: Centralia, Pennsylvania

2010-06-01T23:33:00.004-04:00

This past summer I went on my first real urban exploration to the abandoned coal town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. Centralia was a decent sized town right up until the 1980's. In the 1960's, a mine fire was accidentally started, most likely due to ash from burnt garbage being discarded there. Once the fire was ignited, a lot of bureacracy kept it from being put out. Fast forward 20 years later, the town is being slowly abandoned after a young boy is almost swallowed by a sinkhole 4 feet wide and 150 feet deep. In the 1980's, the town of Centralia had around 2,000 residents. According to a census in 2007, there were then 9 residents. The coal fire underground will burn for the next 300 years and may eventually consume neighboring towns in the same way it destroyed Centralia.

We came across the abandoned section of Route 61 first. I was surprised by how easy it could have been to miss. The entrance to this section of the highway is blocked by a mound of dirt that can be easily climbed over or walked around. The first sight I had over the hill was absolutely breath taking. I couldn't believe it was so easy to find. We parked our car and continued on the section of highway.

The actual section of highway is about a half mile in length. It's not very long. Before you begin to see any cracks or smoke pouring out of the ground, you will first notice that the road has literally bubbled up from the heat of the coal fire burning beneath it. If you continue on, you will eventually come across a large crack in the pavement. In some areas of this crack, hot smoke is escaping. While it is extremely difficult to see in the photos, the smoke is very easy to see in person.

Once we finished exploring the section of Route 61, we headed in the the actual town of Centralia. There is not much left of Centralia outside of a few foundations and empty streets anymore. Most of the buildings that were there have been torn down as the residents vacate the town. The town hall, one residence, and a church were visible as the only standing structures in the section we explored. Some street signs and power lines were still standing. In some other areas you can see more smoke creeping out of the ground. According to different sources, one can see smoke coming from the cemetaries in the area as well. The cemetaries are supposedly well kept despite the number of bodies in the cemetary far out numbering that of living residents in Centralia.

All in all, I was not disappointed by this little excursion. Despite the lack of surviving infrastructure, it was really neat to see what gets left behind. It was cool to see roads gradually disappear into the woods and to discover the overgrown foundations of this old town. I'm hoping to be able to go back someday soon to explore the other half.

My Trip to Almost Germany

2010-04-26T09:54:00.002-04:00

This past Friday I took a trip to Strasbourg. Strasbourg is in the northeast of France in the region of Alsace. It's the home to the European Council among other important European things and an amazing cathedral. My visit was a short one and it started at 6:45 am when I got a bus here in Besançon. It was about a two and a half hour drive. I spent it reading my book and somehow not getting bus-sick. I was pretty pumped about this.

We started our day off in Strasbourg by going to the European Council. The tour wasn't very long. We had to go through security to get into the building and then we waited around for 20 minutes for everyone to go use the bathrooms and stand around. A Japanese girl got stuck in one of the stalls because it wouldn't unlock. It was kind of hilarious but no one really knew what to do about it. She got out before anyone managed to find someone to come help her. We then went to the first room for the short tour. Our tour guide seemed to be one of those people who pasted on that smile to get through the day but really hated her job. The first room was a bright orange and was very 1970's. That was later explained by the building having been built in the 1970's, but this is a place where the entirety of Europe comes to meet and discuss world issues. You'd think they would have made the slightest attempt at making a little less obnoxiously 70's since, you know, its 2010 and all... maybe that's just me though... We watched a video that tried to be really hip and cool but failed starting at about the point it used bad techno versions of classical music.

From the room of monstrosities, we went to the still very '70s but much cooler room where the European Parliament meets. As you can see from the picture, it was one of those ovally rooms and actually had areas for spectators to come watch. It was kind of neat. They didn't have country tags like the UN but instead were sat in alphabetical order by last name regardless of country. We sat in the room and listened to the tour guide go on about the room and then we were done with the tour. We stood around for 20 minutes which seems to be obligatory for french field trips. They do this a lot. After boarding the bus we literally sat there for like 10-15 minutes even though everyone was on the bus and we knew where we were going. I feel like anytime there is a chance we will be on time or early they make it a point to delay. The public transportation buses do that here too. For example the two buses from Campus to Centreville will sit literally 20 yards away from the bus stop but not actually pull up to the bus stop until the time it was supposed to leave the stop. This isn't particularly annoying now, but when it was cold, it was annoying to see the bus sitting there but you weren't allowed to get on it yet. Anyway, I digress.

It was too big to get a picture of the whole thing T_T

We went into the centreville of Strasbourg where we were set loose and told to be back at the bus by 4 or we were getting left behind. We went to the Notre Dame of Strasbourg which is the most amazing cathedral I've ever seen. I took about 8 million pictures of it. The inside wasn’t quite as cool. I found it to be too bright and plain inside in comparison to the outside. From here, We found a little market and ate crèpes. They were good, but I was still hungry so I got some chicken and potatoes. I didn’t want an entire half of a chicken, but that’s how it came. It was also really good.

The boat tour was also nice. It had and audio guide who happened to be done by an Irish guy. It wasn’t terribly interesting and I didn’t pay very much attention to it at all. The scenery was really pretty and super green. We returned from the boat tour with just enough time to get ice cream! I got smurf and mango flavored. It was pretty awesome and super bright.

After that we returned home. I passed out cold for a good hour of the trip home. Nothing terribly exciting happened from that point on other than John the Savage coming to the civilized world in my book and me not getting bus sick. It pretty much won. That concludes my Strasbourg trip. ^ ^

Spring/Summer Collections

2010-04-26T09:27:00.009-04:00

During one of my last visits to the Baby, The Stars Shine Bright shop in Paris, I was given the 2010 Spring/Summer catalogue as a "gift" for my purchase. I must say all in all, this is a rather disappointing season for me. I did see a few things that caught my eye though.

Damn it Baby! Who said you could try to put bare legs in mah Rorita again? XD

The ugly:

While I don't think that the cream puff skirt version of this design is terrible, the doll version of the JSK is downright hideous. There is just way too much going on and it reminds me of some of the more poorly designed Angelic Pretty rip offs that have been produced over the years.

The Bad:

While this set isn't even that ugly, I can't seem to help but hate it. It reminds me too much of something Mr. Yan would come up with. Bodyline releases dresses like this all the time. I suppose part of it stems from my extreme hatred of aprons, but this dress just isn't doing it for me.

This was another dress that had potential. While I kind of like the black version of this dress (It's my love of stripes, I can't help it), I feel that this print is overall just ugly. It's very plain and boring. On top of the bad print, I find the design of the actual garments to be equally as boring. While this had both the card suits and the stripes going for it, ça me laisse froid.

The Good:

While I'm once again not thrilled with the design of these dresses, I do love the print. If the design were better, this would be up there with Vampire Requiem for me. I do like that unlike Vampire Requiem, they actually released a few accessories like a tote bag purse. The wine bag give away and the brief case style purse that were available for Vampire Requiem left something to be desired. I personally would have like to have at least seen socks or something.

Although I really hate that they modeled this on a guy in the catalogue, I really love this dress. It's obviously not lolita at all, but it's very beautiful. It reminds me of something I'd see from h.Naoto more that Alice and the Pirates. While I find it to be quite beautiful, I don't think I will be purchasing this one myself. I think the dress would sit strangely on someone with any sort of curves, which is probably why this guy is modeling it instead of Kanon Wakeshima like the rest of the dresses in the Alice and the Pirates section of the catalogue. I really like that Alice and the Pirates went for something that stands out as original in this little catalogue of recycled frills.

The Awesome:

I almost feel like I don't need to put a description here about why this is awesome. I mean, it is after all the Marie Antoinette JSK... This print has been many people's dream dress for as long as i can remember. I , myself, would love to have the blue version. I don't even know how I would coordinate it in my 90% black and white wardrobe. But I do know that I want it very badly. The other colors are amazing as well, but there is just something about the blue that gets me.

The Meh:

While I absolutely love the print for this dress, I can't help but be left unmoved by the overall designs of the dresses. While both the OP and JSK strike me as frumpy and unflattering, I'm not terribly excited to see yet another corset skirt. Perhaps my dislike of the skirt stems from my not buying the Castle of Nightmare skirt when I last saw it, but I think it stems more from how I rarely see anyone pull them off without acquiring either a boobloaf or boob shelf in the process of it all. So while this had the opportunity to wow me, it fell short, therefore the meh.

Overall, I feel like I'm seeing a lot of the same thing over and over again. I feel as if even though Baby isn't releasing the same OTT sweet designs every month like Angelic Pretty, it all feels very much like I've seen it before. Not all of it is necessarily even bad. It's just disappointing to see the same concepts being recycled so soon that didn't wow me the first time around, with the sole exception being the Marie Antoinette series, which wows me every time I look at it.

I also just saw Angelic Pretty's new Wonder Cookie Cutter print. I was also disappointed in this one as well. I really like the black version of Sugary Carnival ,the mint versions of Melty Chocolate and just about every version of Starry Night Theatre but this was just poorly executed I think. This one also has that feeling of being a recycled design, more specifically the print looks so familiar to me as a mesh of several of their older prints. I don't agree with their choice of stripes for the dress. I think it adds too much to the already busy print. While the pink and white colorway seems less busy than the others, the black colorway makes my head hurt.

Those are my current feelings on Lolita fashion. I'm looking very much forward to the Marie Antoinette rerelease and will have a very hard time resisting if I can afford it when it is released. I've always been a sucker for the blue version from the very moment I saw it. Hopefully the Fall/Winter catalogue will make me feel better about the fashion I love so much.

L'Ascension d'Eldrazi

2010-04-21T12:50:00.004-04:00

This past Sunday, I played in the Rise of Eldrazi pre-release here in Besançon. Having not looked at the spoilers at all, everything was a surprise for me. I was extremely happy with this set. Not only was it extremely fun to play, but the promo was pretty much amazing.

I didn't really enjoy Zendikar this much although I did like the Landfall mechanic. It sort of made or broke your game. It also made getting mana screwed more frustrating than ever. I really liked little 0/1 Eldrazi tokens you could sack for mana. They made the intimidating 15 cost creatures very playable. Anyway, on to my sealed event deck list:

Creatures:
1 Gigantomancer
1 Spawnsire of Ulamog
1 Akoum Boulderfoot
1 Pelakka Wurm
1 Daggerback Basilisk
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Haze Frog
1 Kozilek's Predator
1 Lavafume Invoker
1 Nest Invader
1 Ondu Giant
1 Overgrown Battlement
1 Reinforced Bulwark
2 Sporecap Spider
Ulamog's Crusher
1 Wildheart Invoker
Enchantments:
1 Awakening Zone
Instants:
1 Heat Ray
1 Staggershock
Sorceries:
1 Hellion Eruption
1 Ancient Stirrings
1 Flame Slash
1 Wrap in Flames
Lands:
8 Forests
6 Mountains

My Hellion Eruption and Awakening Zone combo is what won me like 3 games. I also had two people scoop to me when I played the Sawnspire of Ulamog. One was even at 17 life... He very well could have turned it around. Must be no one told him to play to the end because it they can always fuck up. That's what happened to him in the first game actually. He had me down to six, he could have killed me next turn but forgot to do something. I then drew what I needed to take him down.

Overall, I really enjoyed playing this set so far and I'm looking forward to the next few months of drafts when I return home. I know I'm definitely building an eldrazi deck for casual and maybe even for standard if I can manage something that works a little faster. I suppose we'll see after a few drafts eh?

Volcanoes, Strikes, and Lolita

2010-04-21T07:12:00.003-04:00

As it stands, two of my three classes are cancelled tomorrow. I am very much okay with this. Thanks to both the volcano in Iceland keeping people from flying in and out of Europe and the SNCF strike, the only train company in France, travel has pretty much come to a halt. While this would be annoying any time of year, Europe is supposed to be on vacation. Actually, vacation ended Sunday... They are supposed to be back to the daily grind of school and work by now. Many people are stuck in other countries or other cities with no way out unless they leg it. And like many of the students at the CLA here in Besançon, they have cancelled classes. It's kind of like a snow day... just cooler because it's a volcano day.

This had minor effects on my travel home from London. I luckily had my Eurostar tickets from London to Paris booked several weeks in advance. I may have been typing this from London had I not. Every Eurostar train going anywhere from London was sold out. This meant a very crowded train station, a lot of angry people, and a very full train to Paris. I got to France to find out that there was in fact an ongoing strike of the SNCF that started the day after I left Paris for Brussels. I found one of the workers with the lists of cancelled trains and lucked out that my train from Paris to Dijon had not been cancelled. This was in fact quite lucky since 2 out 3 trains were cancelled and all the trains going towards Besançon were completely sold out.

I had 5 hours before my train left and the Gare de Lyon is just a short few blocks away from my biggest weakness, Baby, The Stars Shine Bright. The stock over the past few weeks has diminished quite a bit but I think they are waiting on a lot of the spring and summer stock to actually be released. I wandered the little store for a bit and couldn't really find a whole lot that I wanted, aside from the Castle of Nightmare JSK in red. At a whopping 345 euros though, I couldn't afford to buy it. I then noticed something that wasn't there the last two times I went...

I tried it on and loved it. It was also on clearance for around half price. It fit so well I couldn't say no. It's made of a nice velvety fabric. I like that it isn't an over the top childish print, but still screams that it was made by Baby... I'm such a brand whore XD. I also bought a pair of socks.

I'm hoping that they match my Cherries in Syrup skirt well enough to coordinate an outfit.

The store owner asked me if I was going home or if I was stuck since I had my huge ass suitcase with me. I explained to him that I had train tickets, but I wasn't sure how far they were going to take me. He acknowledged that the strike was a real pain and ran off into the stock room hurriedly. I assumed he had forgotten to do something important. The shop girl continued to wrap up my purchase in tissue paper like they always do. He suddenly came back out with a small pink bag of Japanese candy. He put them into my shopping bag and told me that they were for my long journey ahead. It was really nice of him and quite adorable. And they were super good! I'm hoping I can find a store in the US that sells them when I get back home.

I went back to the train station where I decided to wait in line in hopes of changing my tickets to Dijon and the Besançon for a ticket that went directly to Besançon. No such luck as everything was pretty much sold out here too. I went to the waiting room where I managed to grap one of the like eight chairs for an entire train station of people. Eventually, the coolest little old lady ever sat down next to me. She definitely surprised me with her views on religion and her rather liberal political opinions. She was super nice and a blast to talk to. My train then showed up so I had to go. I got to Dijon five minutes late, which meant I had less than six minutes to get to my connecting train. I quickly found out that there would be no connecting train since it had been cancelled. I somehow lucked out again though. Another train was due to show up 20 minutes later. It was running a half hour late in addition to that, but it was another train to Besançon regardless. I had avoided spending the night in Dijon. I finally arrived back in Besançon only 45 minutes later than originally planned. However, after that fiasco along with my trouble from Amsterdam to London, I officially hate trains. This bullshit better be over by the time I need to get home. I'm gonna have to kick the SNCF in the balls if they try to make me miss my precious plane home.

In Europe part 3: London

2010-04-21T07:07:00.005-04:00

Getting to London was a bit of a task. I started from Amsterdam Centraal. I got on my train with no issues but something seemed off. It said it would not be going to the airport because of an accident. It did however tell me it was still going to Brussels Midi, which where I was catching my connection to London. 45 minutes into the trip they informed us that this train would not in fact be going to Brussels. It was going to stop in Rosendaal where we needed to get on a bus, drive three cities away to where we would get on a different train that would then go to Brussels -_-'''. The best news was that this was added about an hour on to our trip. Good think I had exactly an hour in Brussels... Long story short, I missed my train to London. Luckily, there was another Eurostar train to London only an hour later and it had spots available. I got on that train and arrived in London 2 hours later.

As far as London goes, I really enjoyed it. That first night I went to the Wellcome Museum to see their exhibit on Identity since it appealed to the linguistic-anthropologist in me. I was disappointed to learn that the website had posted the wrong dates for this exhibit. It had in fact ended a week earlier. I was happy however to see that the permanent exhibit was a small medical museum. This pleased the future doctor in me. The museum had two parts, one was a medical history museum and the other was a medical art museum. The medical art museum had a few neat items. They had a huge bookshelf packed full of a set of books that contained the complete human genome supposedly. It was pretty neat. I, myself, enjoyed the historical part more. I was especially intrigued by some of the non-medical objects they had such as the Chinese foot binding shoes. I knew that they were small but I didn't think that they were quite that small. I can't believe they could even fit a baby's foot into them.

The second day I went to the Camdem Markets. I really enjoyed this as it was pretty much a little city of alternative fashion. I bought two necklaces, a belt, and a bunch of panda stuff. I went to Cyberdog and was sad that I couldn't afford anything that I was in love with. It's pretty much a raver or cyber goth's dream store. I also found a few lolita stores. There was of course SaiSai and another smaller store that was a branch of SaiSai. I also saw a store called Angel Pretty (lol). I didn't actually go in though since at this point in time I had seen all the GLP products there were to see and was tired of being harrassed by store owners about any item I appeared to be mildly interested in. I just looking at it damnit! Let me shop in peace! Seriously though, I wish store owners at places like this would learn that this kind of behavior deters customers. They do it at cons too. It makes the customer uncomfortable and then they leave without buying stuff. Go ahead and greet them but it's much better to let them look and they will ask you if they need any help.

I also went to a lot of the tourist attractions in London. I visited Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London. I was disappointed by Buckingham Palace for the sole reason that the guards weren't in red nor wearing a furry black beehive hat. That's really the only reason I went there... St. Paul's Cathedral was probably interesting but I personally didn't feel like spending the 12.50 pounds to go inside. The outside was pretty but the tiny bit of the inside looked similar enough to the Notre Dame of Paris to feel like I was missing much. I did enjoy the Tower of London. It was easy to spend a few hours in it. While there wasn't anything that really stood out about it, it was nice to see a castle that wasn't over the top like the Palace of Versailles and the Louvre.

Assemble there everyone!

While the touristy things I did didn't really stand out in my trip, I did have a few interesting things happen. I did manage to find a pub called The Dolphin Bar about 5 minutes walk from my hotel. It was a little Irish pub with scrawny British guys serving beers at the bar. It was also a Thai food restaurant though. It had two or three Thai kids about my age running around bringing people their curry and satay. It was quite a shocking mix. The Thai food was good enough for me to eat there twice during my 6 day stay. The other thing that stood out in my trip was much less pleasant. While I was en route to Buckingham Palace, some British guy started talking to me. The fact that he walked up to me while I was walking stuck me as strange to begin with. He didn't come off as super creepy until about a minute later though. He asked if I would "take some time to go with him." I naively thought he meant he wanted to have a drink somewhere. I declined and added I was meeting friends that night and have stuff planned until I leave London. He asked if I "really won't get with him tonight" Still thinking he was talking about drinks, I said no, I really can't. He then asked if I was really that loyal to my boyfriend that I wouldn't get with him at least once. At that point I finally caught on to what he was insinuating. I angrily told him that I was definitely loyal to my boyfriend. He then said that he'd leave me be on my way. I was quite glad because if anything other than that had come out of his mouth, I would have gone into Bitchy American Mode (TM).

My lolita coordinate for the day ^ ^

My favorite thing I did in London wasn't actually in London at all. I took a bus trip out to Stonehenge. It was pretty amazing. The bus trip was about an hour and a half and made me quite sick, but it was very much worth it. Stonehenge itself is a tiny bit smaller than I had expected it to be. I had also expected the "busy highway" that ran next to it to be more than a two lane road. Our bus driver was also rather entertaining. He was constantly muttering about how he'd like to squash all the cars and pedestrians that stupidly run in front of his bus. He also was really good about pointing out points of interest during the drive such as the building where all of the dinner scenes in Harry Potter were filmed and Mary Poppins' House.

All in all London was great. I really enjoyed it despite it's tourist attractions not holding up to the awesomeness of Paris and Amstedam's. It's somewhere I'd really like to go back to .

In Europe Part 2: Amsterdam

2010-04-14T17:48:00.005-04:00

The third of my four cities visited was Amsterdam. While I had heard all the bits and pieces about drugs and prostitution, I hadn't expected them to be as prominent as they were. You could probably fail a drug test simply from walking the streets in and surrounding the Red Light District. That was the first thing we noticed on our walk from the train station to the hotel. Once we arrived at the hotel, I was surprised by the stock in the vending machine in the lobby.

I feel that this vending machine says a lot about Amsterdam. Although surprisingly, it is illegal to smoke weed and drink in public there. We were staying on a street on the edge of the Red Light District. On this street there were several sex shops and gay bars. Several of these shops and bars seemed to specialize in BDSM and unlike in the US, these shops had clear glass windows, several with colorful and all with very pornographic window displays. In addition to the sex shops, there were several bars and stores specifically for buying and using shrooms and weed. Even though it was only around 2 pm, we decided to go for a walk to check out the Red Light District's stock of prostitutes.

Ignore the fact that this picture was clearly taken at night

We were taken aback by not only the fact that you could easily find a hooker at two in the afternoon, but that all the ones we found were extremely attractive. To me, walking around the Red Light District felt very much like a trip to the zoo. My father and I even jokingly called it the people zoo. All the girls are behind a glass door. They actually live in the same place they work. You could often see microwaves among other personal effects in the rooms. Many of them didn't even pay attention to the people passing by as they were too busy smoking or texting on their cell phones. 99% of them were very exotic dance wear or lingerie. The only thing that made it feel less like a people zoo was the fact that occasionally the prostitutes would tap on the glass to get your attention, not the other way around. Also, in a real zoo, the animals won't steal or smash your camera if you take pictures of them, which is why the picture above is the only one I have to show you. As you strayed away from the main drag a bit, you found older, larger, and less attractive prostitutes. I think that when you look the age of sixty, you should probably exchange your corner brothel window for an ordinary apartment and stop being a whore.

Before I noticed the smell of weed in Amsterdam, I noticed the 8 million bicycles being ridden and chained to every building, pole, or tree. In the picture above, you see a parking garage specifically for bikes. It holds something like 5000 bikes and it was packed to full capacity. Amsterdam also has over 9000 canals. A lot of these canals have boat houses in them. While the idea of living in a boat house in a canal sounds cool, a lot of these houses reminded me of trailor park homes. Especially since there were so many half sunk boats chilling in the canals.

not sinking yet...

Overall, I enjoyed Amsterdam. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before and was probably the first thing in Europe to really shock me since coming home to a dead earless, skinless half of a rabbit on the counter during my first homestay in France back in 2007. I'm ending this entry here since my trip in London hasn't finished yet. Part 3 will be on its way soon!

In Europe Part 1: Paris & Brussels

2010-04-14T17:14:00.004-04:00

I've been wandering around a few major cities in Europe this past week and a half. I started off with Paris. I have been to Paris a few times before however, this time was particularly awesome since my Dad was with me. We visited all the important sites: Eiffel Tower, Louvre, Versailles, Arc de Triomphe, and Notre Dame. We also made our way to a few other sites like Baby The Stars Shine Bright, Jim Morrison's grave, and The American Legion in Paris. Sadly our first few days there were rainy. I naturally used this as an excuse to buy myself a BTSSB umbrella... I also grabbed myself a pair of socks and a little bag.

Once the lack of umbrella problem was fixed, it stopped raining. I'm certainly not complaining about that. While there was a lot of new things discovered for my Dad in his first days in Europe, Paris provided me with no new culture shocking experiences other than French Pizza not being all terrible. I suppose the one thing that really did surprise me the gigantic crowd around the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.

Across from the Mona Lisa is a huge painting probably 100 times the size of the Mona Lisa. It was strange to see so many people flocking around such a small painting while behind them there was a great painting that most people wouldn't even be able to fit in their homes. While the paintings were great and all, I really prefered the statues and the basement where you could see some of the original infrastructure of the building dating back to 1100 AD if I remember correctly.

How Shocking!

From Paris we went to Brussels. I was rather surprised at how small the place was. We saw just about everything in one afternoon. The Grand Place was very beautiful, especially at night.

Brussels is also home to the best ice cream I have ever had. I had Speculoos, vanilla, and straciatella ice cream. While the vanilla was amazing, the fact that Speculoos ice cream had Speculoos in it made it my favorite. While straciatella is one of my favorite candies, I was disappointed by the ice cream because while it was still great, it just didn't compare to the other two ice creams or actually eating straciatella. We also made our way to the Manneken Pis which was sadly not dressed up. I heard a tour guide telling its group that when it is dressed up it pees beer instead of water as usual.

While in Brussels, we also went to Autoworld. While I'm not a big car person, it was a really neat little museum. Everything was in chronological order. As someone who alphabetizes anything with text, I appreciate order. They also had prototypes and working models of several more recent cars such as those adorable little smart cars you see everywhere (at least in Europe). They also had a few old carriages such as Napoleon's wedding carriage. It was quite an impressive collection of cars and motorcycles (among a few other vehicles). My personal favorite was the Amphibicar from the 1970's that you could actually use as a boat in addition to driving it on the road. I've seen the tour bus/boats that do this too, but I think the idea that this car being available to the general public was really neat. I wonder if you needed a boating license to go cruising in the water with it...

As someone who doesn't eat mussels or drink beer, I was quite fond of Brussels despite it not having a whole lot to do outside of bars and museums. It's a nice little place although the variety of languages being spoke can be confusing. I, myself, was never sure whether to speak to people in English or in French. I did get to see a man that was too drunk to move sleep in the middle of a somewhat busy street. I thought he was dead at first... Then the driver got out of his car and moved the drunk man to the sidewalk and continued on his way. I loved how none of this seemed to be anything but commonplace here. In part 2, I'll be talking about the second half of my trip through Europe to both Amsterdam and London.

1600 Pandas Manifestation in Besançon, France

2010-04-06T16:31:00.004-04:00

One of the coolest things I've seen while here in France surprisingly took place right in the very town I'm staying in. I'm talking about the 1600 Pandas Manifestation that is taking place this year throughout France. As I'm sure we all know, the French love to go on strike. Everyone loves Pandas. Leave it to France to combine the two. On April 1st 2010, La Place de Revolution in Besak was the home of 1600 little panda statues and I loved it.

So many pandas!

The "Panda Strike" is meant to raise awareness for wildlife preservation. The 1600 pandas, which were all hand made with paper maché and sponge painted (also by hand), represent the estimated 1600 pandas remaining in the world today. This campaign is being put on all throughout France, obviously including the city of Besançon where I am living right now. It was definitely quite the sight to see.

Panda Love!

You were also able to buy the pandas at 50 euros each. While I really wanted to take home a panda, I really was curious if they had extra pandas to replace the ones that were bought... Now I didn't count them, but if someone buys one you don't have 1600 pandas anymore...I suppose we will never know. While I didn't buy a panda (I'm not even sure I'd have been able to return to the USA with it) I did buy a t shirt and a "I Panda my Planet" bracelet. Sadly, the bracelet is really just a ribbon, but it still claims to "panda" its planet.

These guards are the real reason I don't have a panda statue in my life right now.

In actuality, I really wanted to pull the "cute American girl" card to get a panda to take home. I never actually tried although I did get them to let Amy, another American girl, and I to take pictures in with the pandas. And while I'm currently writing from Brussels, and have spent the last three days in Paris, this event still stands out as one of the very best I've seen in my time here.

Come to the USA for me sometime little Pandas!

Il ne reste que 1600 pandas dans le monde. Moi inclus!

Gotta Catch 'em All...

2010-03-12T14:26:00.003-05:00

I find it strange how much I like to collect things. I don't think I would ever call it a hobby or anything, however I've been coming to terms with the fact that I almost subconsciously collect things. Even as a kid, I enjoyed my coin collection, was jealous that my sister had a stamp collection, and had quite the Pokemon card collection too (I know I was and probably still am quite the melvin). Thinking back to it though, there were several occasions where I was offered great rare cards if I would have been willing to part with several of my cards. It was probably quite stupid to say no, but I couldn't bare to get rid of cards that I only had one of. I've noticed that this is something that has carried over into my Magic playing. On occasion I've taken a crappy rare over an okay common simply because I didn't have that one yet. I originally started playing Magic to actually play. While playing is still a lot of fun, I don't buy packs so I can build decks, I build them in hopes for something new. You can imagine my disappointment when I pulled two of the same rares at this last pre-release. They were pretty sweet rares, but I didn't care... I wanted something new... I'm glad I've got some sort of self control or this would carry over into lolita... I'm pretty sure I'm getting at least one set of eyes rolling at that statement but I'm serious. Every time I see cheap brand on EGL_Comm_Sales I want to buy it just so I can have it. It doesn't even matter if I like it or not. I'm trying to employ that whole "Only buy it if you LOVE it" rule, but it's hard.

My studying in France has brought along a new bump in the road as far as collecting goes. Not only do I want to buy every book that sounds even remotely interesting, I have also come across easter eggs with Hello Kitty figures in them. I am always disappointed to be unable to find decent reading material in French while in the States but really when it comes down to it, I realize I don't want to read shit in French... Reading in French feels like work, whether it's easy or not.

After opening my first box of Hello Kitty eggs, I thought to myself how I'm in a way lucky to not be studying in Japan instead. Gashapon toys would probably be my weakness. As if readily available lolita clothing wouldn't have been a big enough drain on my wallet. There were 24 different Hello Kitty figurines to collect inside these little chocolate eggs. If Monoprix hadn't sold out of them, I'm sure I'd have more than 15 figures right now... I did however see the Transformers version of the eggs today... I walked away though... I've never even watched Transformers, but something about finding Megatron inside an egg was just appealing.

Picture very much related. (It's my Hello Kitty Army. Be scared.)

My Name is Kei and I am a Brand-Addict.

2010-03-07T14:05:00.007-05:00

I've recently lucked into being able to get a hold of one of my three dream dresses. Two of them are the red and black colorways of AatP's Vampire Requiem short JSK's so I probably won't be lucking into them anytime soon without dropping a few hundred dollars each. Really this post is just a look what I've got post. No harm in that though right?

I'll start with my trip to Paris back in January. I went to Baby the Stars Shine Bright. It was my second time there but that didn't take away from the awesome. There were quite a few people there this time which wasn't the case last time. I guess I'm glad to see it's doing better than the one in San Fran. I tried on a few things and kind of regret not buying the Castle of Nightmare skirt in red and the Vampire Requiem bag... That would have kept me from buying all the other stuff I got. I'm not too sure I'm happy with that compromise, but regardless I am happy to have gotten what I got.

These shoes were my big purchase of the day. I'm quite happy to have them. I can't wait to wear them since I haven't been able to with all the rain and snow here.

I was kind of torn on whether or not to get this. I bought another t-shirt style cutsew from Alice and the Pirates a while back and really liked it. I really like the shirt but I guess I just feel that the stripes are unflattering. I've been debating on whether or not to go ahead and wear it out or try to sell it on egl_comm_sales.

These were my pseudo-responsible purchases. I bought the tote for my groceries and to take my dinner materials to the kitchen and back. I've used it a lot but I kind of regret not getting a black tote instead. I bought the cup with the intention of using it for tea or hot chocolate but I didn't want to dirty it T_T. It's currently housing my pens and pencils.

These were my obligatory sock purchases. I could never justify spending so much on socks online but somehow I can't say no when I see them in person. I bought the Black and White and the Black and Grey versions of the Stripes and Trumps socks. They were after all an item I had to have once I saw them online. The second pair is very sparkly. The sparkly sock they have are kind of itchy, but they are cute nonetheless. I wear them with stocking under them. While I could always go bankrupt on brand, that is all I bought that day. However, I did manage to get a hold of this parka off the egl_comm_sales around the same time.

I had long wanted the cutsew version of this parka. My boyfriend got me the Marine Rose Skirt lucky pack for my birthday this year and while I was happy to have gotten the cutsew at all, I got the white version. This kind of makes up for it though ^ ^. Too bad everything I've ordered since I left goes to my house in the US... Lastly, I would like to talk about my dream dress.

I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. I was quite disappointed when I found it to be sold out. I was even more disappointed when I found out how popular it was. Popularity often means money and difficulty in lolita so I had sort of given up hope. I didn't have $300 dollars to spend on it the one time when I saw it on EGL_comm_sales. It was snatched up fast too. I put out a want to buy and everything. No luck. I saw a girl wearing it at the Otakon this year. I offered to pretty much buy it off her back. She said no and told me how it was her dream dress too. Lucky girl. I ended up picking up the pink version of the dress at the Otakon the same year. As happy as I was to have it, I'm a gothic lolita and haven't actually worn it yet. I had given up until I bought a copy of Baby the Stars Shine Bright's Fall and Winter catalogue. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it in there. Since that moment I checked for new items many times a day on their website. The moment it showed up I almost couldn't believe it. I debated over the size and decided I should get the M size over the S size and then bought it. They shipped it right away. I was quite pleased. The package arrived at my house a few days ago in the US. My mother opened it and sent me an email about a surprise. I knew there was a fair at the moment but didn't expect to receive anything since the dress was just under the limit. I was shocked to have received not only the fair item but a calendar and diary as well.

Unfortunately, I'll be taking another trip to Paris in about a month. I say unfortunately because I'm kind of low on cash since I can't work in France. I'm hoping that there isn't anything expensive that I have to have when I go visit. I'd like to have some money left when I get back home... I guess that's what I've got a job for though...

Breaking the Silence

2010-03-07T12:59:00.002-05:00

It's been quite some time since I've done an actual blog post. I'm currently studying in France and it's been quite the experience so far. I don't really know where I want to start, but it only seems logical to start at the beginning.

I got here on the 11th. Aside from some minor annoyances caused the other Americans not wanting to take my advice once we got to Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris the trip to the Gare de Lyon cost a bit more than I would have liked it too. It also took 3 times as long as my methods but that's not what this is about, however, it took me 3 1/2 hours to get to JFK by car and then 8 hours to get to CDG by plane so I wanted to minimize any further travel time as much as possible... I suppose this is where I will start complaining about my program through SUNY New Paltz. While I was still in the US, their study abroad office was just inches above useless. I only say inches above because I did actually get the papers I needed in time, but with absolutely no time to spare. I drove 2 1/2 hours to their campus for the 3 hour orientation. That is something I regret somewhat. While sitting there for 3 hours with nothing to show for it, the other Americans told me more in 5 minutes than I had found out from SUNY New Paltz during the previous months. They weren't even able to provide us with an address where we would be staying before we left. As a matter of fact they told us to ask a cab driver to take us to Batiment Stendahl, they should know where it is. No address. No description. Luckily my cab driver knew how to get here but the other Americans weren't as lucky which tacked and additional few euros on to their trip. Once we got their, the people at that building weren't even sure who we were. It took some explaining before they finally figured that we must be the people on some tiny list they had. I'll spare you the nightmare that getting my visa was for now but getting here was a bit of a nightmare.

After going through two weeks of orientation to learn about the town we had to take a placement test at the CLA. The test consisted of three parts: Written comprehension and expression (grammar was also in this section), oral comprehension, and an interview. From this test they would place you in either level A,B1,B2,C1, or C1+. The test isn't too difficult. I felt that I did poorly on the interview out of some slight nervousness. I also know I made some mistakes on the oral comprehension part due to a confusing answer sheet. Too bad, so sad though. I ended up in B2. More specifically B2.5. I was hoping for C1 and just missed it but I think that everything turned out fine since I ended up with mostly awesome teachers which doesn't seem to be everyone's luck. The classes as a whole seem to be quite easy. Oral comprehension always seemed to be my weak point though, which is what I think kept me from getting into C1. While I can understand people perfectly fine, I can't understand recorded speech to save my life. I suppose that's why I'm here though. If it weren't for that I may have tried to go up to C1. While they say that changing levels is uncommon, there have been many people who have switched up and down levels. Our class had at least 3 switch out and 3 people switch in. I suppose I've decided to let myself enjoy the break though. I'm used to working on top of a much more busy schedule than I have now. As long as New Paltz doesn't manage to screw up putting the grades into my transcript correctly, all will be well. I don't have my fingers crossed though. Anyway, I suppose that's the beginning. I'll try to make this a more regular thing...

Big Five Personality Test

2010-03-06T06:45:00.003-05:00

I took a personality test that seemed kind of interesting (and truthful) Enjoy!

I'm a O0-C74-E9-A2-N22 Big Five!!

My French Hospital Experience

2009-08-14T14:38:00.002-04:00

I feel like I've been keeping extremely busy lately. I've just gotten back to the US after spending two weeks in France. My France trip was great although I did get to see a portion of France that one generally does their best to avoid while vacationing, the hospitals. I think the reason I ended up in the hospital are best summed up by the words of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. "I fell down some stairs." In the end, I blame the Doc Marten's that I was walking down the stairs to retrieve. I hurt one of my toes and thought it may have been broken. Knowing that a hospital can't really do anything for a hurt toe, I simply asked my host family for some ice and maybe something to tape it up. They however insisted that we go to the hospital. After telling them it was really not necessary, I finally gave in a went to grab my wallet and coat. Sadly, I forgot my camera. French hospitals are quite different from hospitals in America.

According to my host mother, this hospital was a quite old and a new one was being built to replace it, even so, it was still rather surprising to me being used to the hospitals in America that are so shiny and clean that you could probably eat off the floor. The first thing that caught my attention was the lack of any sort of parking lot. We parked around the block and walked to a closed gate where we had to page the nurse. The gate was already opened a bit so we came in and the nurse met us at the door. I'm not sure if this is typical of the daytime shifts as well or just the night shift. She escorted us to a room where she asked me for my information. Rather than attempting to explain my life story in French I just handed her my driver's license. She filled out her bit of paperwork and then said the doctor would be in momentarily. Being used to the American system I expected to see the doctor at some point in the next hour...not the next two minutes. I was pleasantly shocked when the doctor really did show up in just a moment.

Unlike the nurse, the doctor wasn't the friendliest of people... I suppose this is typical of American doctors as well. He decided I needed to have x rays. The nurse then escorted me to the room with the x ray machine where there were some chairs to wait in. I started to sit down and before I landed in the chair the x ray technician had already come out to get me. The strangest part about this whole trip was not that that I was not told to use a wheelchair, they let me walk to have my x rays taken, but that the x ray room had thin walls. Here, I believe they need a certain ridiculous amount of steel in the walls, floors, and ceilings of the rooms where the machines are. I was also not given one of those lead aprons to wear. No complaints there ...I don't want kids anyway ...But it was still an odd moment for me when he just turned around to snap the photos. He didn't even have to leave the vicinity of the x ray like they do here. A few moments later he handed me the x rays and sent me back to my room and within seconds the doctor came back too.

The doctor took a few glances at the x ray and told me that my "finger" was not broken in English which was cute considering it was my toe we were there for. He left and sent the nurse in to wrap it up and then sent us on our way without any sort of charge. I must say that I agree with the French medical system. It would be nice if we jumped on that bandwagon pretty quick. From what I understand, government run health care is not as nice in places like England and Canada but if our system would take a few tips from the French I think it would be a huge step up from our current health care predicament. It was nice to walk into a hospital for the first time ever and not have to think about how I (or my parents) will be able to pay for this when its all done and over. Once again, I look forward to the day America can do the same for its people.

Otakon 2009: The Recap

2009-07-20T11:21:00.013-04:00

Now that Otakon has come and gone once again, it is time for my typical recap. You can all rejoice.

Day 1

The first day of the con started as the first days usually do. We got up super early and made our way over to the convention center. This year was slightly nerve racking as no one bothered to give us our special passes we needed. Regardless, everything worked out well enough and we got to our spot and began to set up. This year was particularly neat because Eric's spot had a camera looking down on the piece which was a really nice touch. It was definitely a bit of a face palm moment when we found out that they were just doing a live feed instead of actually taking video because of "a miscommunication." Once again though, it was a nice touch.

Perhaps I'm a bad assistant but in the first hours of the con my mind wasn't even remotely focused on the chalk art, but the Brand clothing in the dealer's room. The very moment we had Eric set up, I was off to scout out what treasures there were to be had. I first managed to get a hold of BTSSB's Princess Drop Embroidery Pocket JSK in pink. This is both extremely exciting and disappointing. This is my dream dress in black. I settled for pink because my choices were between that and blue T_T. I also managed to get the Sweet Melody Pochette in pink from Angelic Pretty to match it. ^ ^ Its pretty amazing. ^ ^

Once I had finished my escapades in the dealer's room, I went back to check on Eric and check out the Artist Alley. I wandered around Artist Alley for some time, which was mildly disappointing save for one or two booths who weren't selling the typical drawings of popular characters in cookie cutter poses. I was upset to be unable to locate Morrigan NYC as I wanted to get a look and perhaps purchase one of their raven skirts they just released but Lolitas and Cream's adorable sweets jewelry made up for thier absence. I must say that their sweets jewelry has gotten much cuter since last year. I bought a ring and a necklace this year, which I love. By the time I was done running all over Eric had accomplished quite a bit of work on his piece.

Day 1 was a little uneventful after my hours in the dealer's room. Partly because Travy was sleepy and cranky and because there wasn't a whole lot going on that was relevant to my interests. We made attempts to go play MTG at a store somewhere in Baltimore but that was thwarted by Travy's sleepiness and our single standard deck between the three of us. We ended up heading to Little Italy instead. We found a cute little cafe/restaurant and decided to eat. I had the best cannoli in the world there and then we returned to the Inner Harbor. We wandered around a small mall for a bit then headed back. Like I said, Day 1 was a bit boring.

Day 2

Day 2 started out with us waking up way too late. I wanted to go to the Ultimate Lolita Fashion Show but didn't make it. I got up and got dressed up in my frills and we headed out for the Lolita Swap Meet. We got there pretty early so we ended up waiting for quite a while. In the meantime Travy and I played DS and occasionally stopped to look cute together.

The Swap meet was extremely succesful for me. I managed to get rid of everything I took to trade except for an Anna House cutsew. I ended up with two new brand blouses (AP and BTSSB) and an AP cutsew. It was quite exciting. Poor Travy had to sit through it all but inside I know he was enjoying the ridiculous amount of lace and frills ;p.

Time for Coordinate info!
Socks and Parasol : BTSSB
Skirt : ITS
Blouse : Rakuen
Shoes: Montreal
Jewelry: Meta

After the swap meet, Travy and I went to the Cheesecake factory. I got some wierd potato and salmon thing that I was not too fond of but did not get any cheesecake T_T. The place was kind of nice and on the plus side we got to see an epic battle between a small bird and like 8 pigeons over a piece of pizza crust. I got some video of it so enjoy.

Video to come soon...

After eating, we made a mad dash to get into the Kanon Wakeshima concert line. Which bordered on the line of ridiculous by the way. When we were there waiting for the swap meet two hours earlier there were maybe ten people in line. When we came back this time, there was nearly enough to fill the entire theatre hall. We still managed to get decent seats somehow though. The concert was really good and I am jealous of the dress she was wearing. The end however was a bit hectic. Some poor planning on the side of the people running the concert caused a mad rush at the end of the show to get in line for her merchandise and autographs. Many people were sent out and left unhappy. I myself just left and am glad I didn't waste my time as there was another much less crazy signing the following day in the dealer's room. I took off to the dealer's room once again and picked up her cd for the signing.

Day 3

The final day was a bit crazy too. We all had to get up early and be out of our hotel before we went to the convention. We got out early and took all our stuff to the car and headed in for the last day.

The first thing on the agenda was to get to the dealer's room for Kanon Wakeshima's signing. We got in line outside the dealer's room at nine and waited. I was amazed at some of the bad cosplay I saw. Most notable were the Mana cosplay and a Cami cosplay from Street Fighter. The Mana cosplayer was particularly bothersome because I had to listen to her go on and on about how much of a J-Rock know it all she was. Simply wearing EGL (made of shitty materials no less) with poorly applied black makeup does not make you Mana even if you do have a Moi Dix Mois pendant. My beef with the Cami cosplayer was her disappearing thong and that people need to understand that just because they aren't fat doesn't mean they look good in skimpy clothes. This chick really needed a pair of pants to cover her flabby ass badly.

The signing itself was quick and painless. We were pretty close to the front of the line. Kanon didn't seem too pleased to be there so she made no attempt to be friendly. She took your object signed it and handed it back barely even glancing up to say hi. I have to wonder if she's just not a morning person or if Mana's inability to deal with people has worn off on her.

We made one last run around the dealer's room, I found some cute stationery and Travy got me a Charmmy Kitty Plushie, which brings me to something I've been harping on lately. Its somewhat creepy when you stop to think about how Charmmy Kitty is Hello Kitty's pet cat. Its worse than the whole Goofy/Pluto thing Disney has going I feel. While it is strange that Goofy gets to be humanized while Pluto is a pet, Pluto isn't Goofy's pet which is what makes this so off.

Afterwards, we decided to run around Baltimore one last time mainly to get some food in our stomachs. We ended up at McDonald's where we had our most interesting homeless/beggar experience. Not only did she attempt to push Jesus on to me but in the same breath also asked me to pay for her prescription. Then preceded to argue with the cashier about how she was in line (Which she wasn't) and should be served next. The amount of offended black chick attitude in one room was almost enough to scare me as the three women behind the counter got angry and louder while arguing with the lady who failed to understand that one must actually be in line before they can be the next in line. The rest of our trek was pretty uneventful save for being screamed at by a homeless dude in a wheelchair and being able to express our inner /b/tards.

We returned one last time to the con to help Eric tear down and whatnot. For those of you who have yet to see the finished piece...here you go ^ ^

They helped us hang it up very last minute and unfortunately it was after the con was over. It was still pretty awesome though. We did our typical teardown when we hairsprayed the living daylights out of the piece and sectioned the piece up. It now resides in its tube where it is likely to remain until the end of time.

Overall, it was a pretty decent convention. I think to be honest I enjoyed the smaller NYAF more to it though. I'm looking forward to it in September this year. As Eric is planning on doing another mural, I will see you then and there.

Check out more of Eric's work at www.pepperink.com

Chiller Theatre Memories

2009-06-23T09:07:00.005-04:00

With Otakon 2009 coming up, I've been thinking about some of the past conventions I've gotten to go to and have come to the conclusion that a lot of weird shit goes on at these things regardless of what kind of convention you are attending. I started going to conventions about six years ago with the Chiller Theatre conventions in New Jersey. As the name suggests, Chiller Theatre is a horror movie convention, but to me seems to be a relatively calm scene. The first year we (Myself, Eric, and Alexis) went, there were quite a few cool guests. We met Elvira and Linda Blair. Linda Blair was fun to chat with because like most people who live in the Binghamton area, we were familiar with Elvis the Cowboy. Naturally, we had to tell her about him. For those of you who actually read this that are not from scenic Binghamton, Elvis as you should have gathered from the description is a cowboy complete with the holster, (toy) guns, and hat. He is tiny man about the age of seventy that wanders about the places of business calling women by the names Linda Blair and Jennifer Lopez. He once called me Poccahantas. He is a tad crazy as you may have gathered. He calls most men he runs into by Bruce Lee. Linda Blair seemed to be rather speechless when we told her about him. She seemed to think that he must have had something happen that he related to one of her movies. This may have been a decent theory if one of my coworkers hadn't straight up asked him about it one day. He told us that he calls attractive women Linda Blair because they are attractive too. He followed up by saying that Linda Blair is getting to be all washed up and he's been calling people Jennifer Lopez lately. Without knowing these key bits of information though, Linda Blair signed a photo to "The Great Cowboy" which we later framed and gave to Elvis for his 68th birthday. He told us he'd be crazy if he ever gave it away. If only he realized the irony in his comment...

Although not directly related to Chiller Theatre, I thought I should mention how much New Jersey sucks for trying to eat us everytime we traveled through on the way to and from Chiller Theatre. Screw you New Jersey <3 New York.

Another very entertaining moment of the following year's convention was the fact that Peewee Herman was one of the guests. He's gotta be like sixty maybe older by now. Sadly we did not get to meet him, but I did manage to get my hand slapped away by his body guard. That's right people. Peewee Herman's body guard hit a harmless gothic lolita. I blame Alexis 100% though. She REALLY wanted to meet him/hug him/ or squeel at him. I can't remember which. So when we saw him walking though the con we followed after him yelling PEEWEE! He skillfully ignored us though and kept walking. We finally got close and I reached out to poke him to get his attention. The moment my finger touch his suit jacket my hand was viciously slapped away. It was rather upsetting T_T

On a final note - I find it to be extremely interesting that there is usually a huge number of porn stars on the guest list at Chiller Theatre. I wonder why this is. I found it to be even more amusing that most of them that we came into contact with were completely in love with our lolita coordination. This wouldn't surprise me in Japan, but for some reason its rather shocking in America.

R.I.P. - Tiara of Alexis

A Long Past Due Recap of Comic Con '09: Day 1

2009-02-27T06:18:00.011-05:00

Hehe....So I fail....Almost a month after the NY Comic Con, I am actually posting my blog about it hehe. Because there's so much to talk about I am going to break it up hehe.... Ok ok.... This is really so I can procrastinate and take more time to write the second half... Here we go...

Day 1
So Day 1 started with us getting up super early to dress up in lolita. As I predicted in an earlier blog Alexis was most def. a grumpy Gary. We'll fast forward ahead to the leaving of the hotel as the rest of that is kind of boring... We stepped outside of the hotel to realize exactly how freaking cold it was outside... We ended up waiting for a bus for pretty much forever... While waiting for the bus some other fellow con goers requested pictures with us.... Being as cute and sweet as we were we agreed....If only we knew how many photos we would be in that day.... We tried to escape the cold by going into this little bakery that the bus stop was outside of and we bought cannoli ^ ^ It should be said here that little kids seemed to be overly happy at the sight of us in our ruffles and lace. This little girl probably thought we we're princesses as she could not stop smiling. So once we got to the con, we had to wait in line.... except not really ^ ^ Because we are loved we were hooked up and got to skip ahead of the exhibitors line ^ ^ On hindsight I really wish I had went to see how long the line for the average convention goer was like... So we got in and went to our booth space....But RockStar Games had kind of overtaken it... Unfortunately these things never go easy I guess.... we ended up getting a much better booth space though... So we got to work setting up Eric's booth until we got distracted.... Whoever thought it would be a good idea to put us in close proximity to a video game booth where we could play FEAR for extended periods of time is either an idiot or a genius...

We started by taking some test thingy where they stuck these things on our heads... Then this dude took notes and asked us questions....

Not to call the dude out or anything but... I remembered WAY more than Alexis and she somehow managed to score higher than me... I think someone's slacking on their job... XD

So FEAR 2 was really fun ^ ^ They had you sit in this cool chair and you had all sorts of monitors that monitored nothing...sigh for aesthetics.... It also had a camera so you could be self concious about whether or not your fake hair looked good while you killed things.

Unfortunately I am awful at FPS.... I blame my lack of experience with an XBOX 360 controller though....

After that we ran around the con for a few hours and accomplished nothing or in my case accomplished a lighter wallet... We spent way too much money on food and got our photos taken over 9000 times... Some people didn't even ask....Like the guy that took this photo...

This guy just jumped down on his knee about 20 feet away from us and snapped a ton of photos and RAN off..... He was referred to as "that one creeper" the rest of the con... We eventually went and signed up for the Conflux sealed event for later that night... We had to walk in front of the variant stage in order to get to the gaming area... There was an awful comedian doing some show... On our way back out... we had just gotten past the stage when we hear yelled into the mic "ARE THOSE LOLITAS!?!?" He went on to talk about how the say that the Japanese people are messed up. Then he corrected himself instead to say that its the entire race that is messed up. We lol'd a bit and continued on before he started to suck again. After a bit more con going we finally decided it was time to retire our frilly butts for the day....I flagged down my first cab ever and we headed back to the hotel. This cab ride was really pleasant and was a positive experience... Had I had my second cab ride as my first.... I would probably never get into another cab for the rest of my life. More on that in a moment...So we changed and it was time to head back to the con so I could be a loser and play in the EPIC! FNM Conflux release party... The cab ride back to the con was also quite EPIC!... He weaved in and out of the ways of other vehicles at speeds you would expect out of an amusement park ride. Every five seconds he needed to slam on the brakes to avoid killing all of us... At one point in time we were stuck at a traffic light long enough for me to fall asleep... wake up.... and ask Alexis "what's taking so long?" Guess what question I learned to never ask in a cab again.... Suddenly our cab driver veered out of traffic.... On to the sidewalk...Now I'm not talking about cutting across the corner... He actually drove on the sidewalk for a good 50 feet and then ran the red light that we had been waiting at... Within 5 minutes we were back at the con...slightly shaken but thankfully alive... We then made our way back to the gaming room...I placed 20th out of 42 so I am quite content with that plus I ended up having a few things to lol about there as well... Me and Alexis drew a lot of attention being the only 2 attractive girls out of the 5 that were in a room of 60 guys -_-' We got there like a half hour early and sat down at a table by ourselves... I marveled at how the chair was able to support this one guy at the table next to me and we were eventually graced by the presence of this kid...

I'll leave it to Alexis to talk about this kid.... I was a bit too busy building my deck but wow this kid could talk. Alexis couldn't have made it more clear that she didn't want to talk to this kid and he just kept going on and on.... He still kept going even after she told him she was a lesbian! Finally he left after what seemed to be an eternity... But back to my awesome pulls... Not only did we get 3 FNM promos...but I opened up a foil Maelstrom Archangel!

My first match was good ^ ^ I owned the kid the first match and barely lost the second. We went into overtime for the last match and the guy was nice enough to forfeit as I would have killed him the next turn anyway had we not had the 5 turn clock on us... The look on his face is what losing looks like as a facial expression.... Make sure you take note of my large but not obnoxiously large D20....

My second and fourth matches were awful to me hehe I was destroyed both times.... My third match was interesting... The kid claimed he got shitty packs but really I think he was just a bad player... I destroyed him both games and I would have taken photos of his fail but we were too busy being told that we looked like we were 16 while he stared at Alexis's tits.... They were calling him was his excuse XD... Alexis was displeased...I however was very amused... Regardless I feel that this deserves a victory pose ^ ^

Anyway... That about sums up the first day ^ ^ I'll eventually post a blog about the other 2 days ^ ^ BTW... This is pressure for Alexis to write her recap as well.....

Stolen from Travy....

2009-02-27T05:12:00.003-05:00

25 Random Things about Me

1. I enjoy buying cute and expensive clothing that I will likely never wear and then have a hard time selling it even though I could make a ton of money from it.
2. I am insecure about my figure.
3. I am insecure about my ability to use the languages I've studied
4. I can't really trust people
5. While I have no problem telling someone "no" I have great difficulty giving anyone a straight answer with the word "yes" in it especially when the question has anything to do with me.
6. I am very good at schadenfreude
7. I've never done any drugs
8. I used to be terrified of a red pick up truck that was parked on the other side of the street from me when I lived in Chenango Forks.
9. I had to go to an extra kindergarten because I was too anti-social when I was little.
10. I rather enjoy listening to Britney Spears and am very capable of "rocking out" to Nsync.
11. I love playing FPS however I am awful at them...
12. I can't roll my "r"
13. I once saw a toad play Frogger IRL and lose...
14. I am a bit of a light weight when it comes to alcohol
15. Shower Gel and perfume of choice: Sensual Amber from Bath & Body Works and Paris Hilton EDT
16. Repetition in speech is highly irritating to me.
17. My lucky number is 17
18. I would probably do just about anything to get the Princess Drop JSK in black by BTSSB...
19. I love Mrs. Grass soup but after finding bugs in a box in my cupboard I have had a hard time eating it without obsessively checking for bugs.
20. It is nearly impossible to get me to talk about my feelings as I will dance around the topic and talk about everything but what's actually on my mind.
21. Tentacles = Lullzworthy
22. When I was little I wanted to be a scientist.
23. My first console was the SNES with the Lion King, Pinocchio, and Super Mario World.
24. I don't like to be home alone at night because I am paranoid that someone will try to break in.
25. Mountain Dew is the reason Pepsi trumps Coke...

New York City FTW

2009-02-06T00:53:00.005-05:00

So I am in New York City now ^ ^... And we didn't get lost in New Jersey for the second time in my life! We are staying in a Sheraton...Its kinda tiny but it works for our small group of four.... I'm currently typing from my mother's mini laptop therefore typing errors are likely to be abundant in the upcoming blogs. The ride down wasn't bad... I'm quite tired but can't seem to actually sleep... I blame my current 3a.m. lifestyle.... meh... We went to Friendly's on the way down.... See Alexis's blog for stories on that... hehe.... But yeah tomorrow at 6:30 we will be getting up and no doubt Alexis will be quite the grumpy Gary....We will be super cute in matching Alice and the Pirate sets though.... So its worth it... The con opens at like noon I think so we will have quite a bit of time to wander after we get Eric all set up... I need to locate a few booths.... the Squishables booth is a must because I need an octopus.... ^ ^ It should be a good time.... I feel like I'm just rambling now though....So this blog is officially done for the night ^ ^

I'm a high school lover, and you're my favorite flavor
Love is all, all my soul
You're my Playground Love

Yet my hands are shaking
I feel my body remains, themes no matter, I'm on fire
On the playground, love.

You're the piece of gold the flushes all my soul.
Extra time, on the ground.
You're my Playground Love.

Anytime, anyway,
You're my Playground Love

On First Days and Disappointment

2009-01-27T00:09:00.001-05:00

Today was my first day back to classes. I started the day sleeping till about a half hour before I had to go like I normally would before French class....Of course I managed to get sick... I suppose these things happen but it doesn't make it suck any less. Today's agenda had 5 items on it.
-French
-Logic
-Japanese
-Refund Check
-Ling Book

French went well. There are way too many kids in the class but that will change I am sure of it. Most of the kids I was forced to talk to seemed nice enough. I had already had the teacher before so there were no suprises... After that I hurried off to Logic because I was super excited for it and wanted to be there on time.

Long story short, Logic sucks. The teacher is quite possibly one of the biggest assholes I've come across in quite some time... This is quite impressive considering I work in retail.... You lose 20 points for being absent. Absent is defined as being absent, late, leaving early, or taking a bathroom break. If this wasn't ridiculous enough, he insists that a lecture hall (150 college students) sit in assigned seating. I'm not going to lie the guy could be pretty entertaining... but for the most part he spewed mostly anti republican doctrine and made some somewhat offensive comments (one of which outraged my mother when she heard about it) Needless to say...I have unregistered from his class and will be attending Turkish Language and Culture tomorrow... It should be a good time....I will be quite upset if it isn't...

I went to Japanese class expecting it to be awful. I even had that nervous sick feeling. Fortunately everything went great. The sad amount of Japanese that i retained after fumbling through JPN203 came back really quickly and the rumors of my teacher being a bitch seem largely untrue... Hopefully she stays this way. I need to work hard this semester because I want to be able to function when I go to Japan next spring...so hopefully I will not screw up.

Tomorrow I have to go to that new Turkish class... Japanese and Linguistics.... Wish me luck... Hopefully I won't need it ^ ^

For the Lulz

2009-01-26T00:11:00.001-05:00

I've spent the last couple of days watching various films and clips. The three most notable of these would be The Host, Poultrygeist, and Two Girls One Cup.

I'll start with The Host. For those of you who have not seen it, The Host is a Korean horror/comedy about a big monster that eats and regurgitates humans for the lulz. The monster isn't all that big or scary but I suppose that being eaten by it and eventually thrown up with or without your flesh would still suck a lot. Funny to imagine that it was caused by dumping chemicars into the Han River...Silly Mr. Kim... I also got the general feeling that westerners are evil...I suppose all in all it was enjoyable enough...I don't think i could sit through it again and take it seriously though...

Last night I also saw Poultrygeist. What I was concious through was amusing enough I suppose... Really the only thing notable was that Jarred the lard ass took quite the shit...I was suprised to see that it was censored....

Finally... I watched Two Girls One Cup as I'm sure you've read above... Honestly I was disappointed. I clicked on the video expecting something that would horrify me. Yes...This video is quite awful but really I've seen much worse. I suppose my frequent viewing of 4chan has probably strengthened my stomach for these types of things but I was really expecting so much more out of it...Oh well though... I suppose that rule 34 will eventually find a way to horrify me...As I say... Everyone should be horrified every once in a while....

Starting Tomorrow I Will No Longer Procrastinate...

2009-01-23T23:41:00.002-05:00

Yeah right.... Now that this winter break is coming to an end I am realizing how many things I was going to do and have still yet to do... I was going to learn to knit... and study Japanese, French, Latin, and Spanish... I was also going to start study Norwegian and Romanian.... I was also going to get my trip to France set up... and start exercising...

I think the language issue bothers me the most because I call myself a linguist yet... I have a basic knowledge of French and can barely function in the others... I know next to nothing about linguistics... and I kind of feel that I've been lying to myself and others on how I should be proud of myself for this...

I want to learn to knit...actually more than knitting I want to learn how to sew... This is somewhat more difficult... But I suppose when I actually have the time my mom would be glad to teach me both... There are so many cosplays and lolita pieces I'd love to create but right now am simply not capable yet.

Exercising.... Even though I feel less bad about this one...Its still something that I've been neglecting. I have lost a bit of weight due to dieting/honey sticks but still....Its something that I need to work on especially if I am going to be cosplaying Faye Valentine in July.... Even though I am somewhat comfortable with where I am at... My size will just not cut it...

But anyway.... I am going to try to actually work on these issues this upcoming semester...and hopefully I will make some head way on it...

Blue Drank

2009-01-16T13:10:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was the first time in quite awhile I have drunk anything other than Life Water... It kind of got me thinking about all the good drinks that have come and gone. I got the blue Koolaid Bursts...They are fantastic, however one pack lasts like 5 minutes... So its not something I can drink all the time...

I think the first one I was ever hooked on was Tropicana's Peach and Papaya...

This shit is God in a bottle.... I miss it very much. If your body could overdose on vitamin C...I would have died by the second week of 9th grade... I would drink at least 2 bottles a day...more if I could... Someone who worked for pepsi hooked me up with tray of it once.... Drink wise it was probably the best week of my life...Once I graduated I could only find it in a few gas stations...all of which seem to no longer carry it.... Its very depressing. When I could no longer get these, I moved on to Capri Sun... I liked the Surfer Cooler, orange, and tropical punch. I would have killed for the strawberry ones....

Although as many of us have learned throughout life...great things never last forever. All the fat people in America killed my happiness when Capri Sun cut the amount of sugar in these wonderful little pouches. Normally I would be all for this....If it wasn't for the fact that this destroyed the wonderful taste of Capri Sun.... I searched super markets for stores that had left over boxes of the high sugar content ones.... The Giant and Walmart had failed me so I went to Snyders and Maines....This was good...despite it costing more at both these places....But eventually they ran out... I wasn't sure what to do with my life for awhile....I decided I would drink more water....But I'm picky... I only really liked Poland Spring water.... But I one day decided to try Fiji Water...

Fiji Water is really good. I think I bought like 4 bottles of it and loved everyone of them. It was really clean tasting and didn't dry out your throat like water with added minerals usually do... It was good and I thought that I may start to lose weight because I had stopped drinking drinks filled with sugar and lots of calories... Everything was going great until one day I notice stuff floating in it... This shouldn't have suprised me... It is water straight from the ground after all... but it was still too much for me...That fourth bottle was thrown out 3/4 of the way full.... Who was I too say that these little particles weren't bugs... I couldn't justify drinking it anymore... I went back to Poland Spring water...Its particle free... Shortly after this whole dilemma though... I came across something called Life Water. I had had Life Water way back shortly after Vitamin Water came out... It tastes way better and has way fewer calories and sugar...

The only problem with this is that I only like the Pomegranate Cherry kind... I think I am not alone on this train of thought... Being that when I find it there are often only a few left on the shelf... I buy them out at my job on a weekly basis...and I also have them stockpiled 10-20 at a time at my house...I don't know what I'll do when I can't find these anymore....probably become an hero... Pepsi...If you are reading this....Be nice to me....<3