kimono daisuki // blogspot.com

Happy Chinese New Year 2012!

2012-01-23T05:01:00.002+08:00

Hiya!

Just wanted to wish all my readers, especially those who are also celebrating this holiday:

I had honestly meant to do a eCard for Christmas and New Year's, but time got away from me in the end ^^;;;

Happy Holidays to those of you who are lucky enough to get public holidays :)

Belated Happy New Year

2012-01-17T23:09:00.000+08:00

Ah, I hadn't realised that nearly three months have passed since I last posted!! I had meant to put up a New Year's greeting post, but I guess I'd completely forgotten ^^;;;

So....

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The year of the Dragon (that's me!) will also be starting in less than a week's time according to the Chinese calendar, so a very Happy and Prosperous New Year to all of you celebrating CNY as well :)

Not many updates on life outside of this. The only real highlight was that I'd spent Christmas and New Year's with my family at my brother's flat in Cambridge.

Our excuse was that we needed to decorate the flat - we just wanted to go shopping :P But I didn't buy that many clothes this time around! Instead, I splurged on household stuff hahaha. Now my brother has a Hello Kitty mixing bowl in his flat and a miniature rolling pin for no reason XD;

I've also been keeping up the hunt for a houmongi or tsukesage that's appropriate for my age, has a design that I like, can actually fit me, and is in my spending range :/ Unfortunately, nearly all those that I've come across meet all requirements except the last hahaha. So I've turned to expanding certain parts of my lolita wardrobe instead XD;;; It's going to be a pretty fun year in terms of clothes!

Toodles guys :) Once I clean up my room in time for CNY, I should have enough space to dress fully in kimono again!

Outfit Snap: Birthday Kitsuke! 2011

2011-11-01T00:57:00.000+08:00

My dad had made plans to take my sister, her fiancee and me to a nice Japanese restaurant for my birthday dinner today! (My mum is in Singapore for work)

It was a bit of a last-minute decision, but I decided to throw on a yukata. It was really fun! I had only 15 minutes from arriving home (and deciding I wanted to wear yukata) to leaving the house - and I had to coordinate something and wear it in that time!

In the end, I took out my new yukata from the Jusco Yukata Fair. This one was one of the more expensive ones, and you can tell the difference in the way the yukata falls! For some reason, it was much easier to put on, and mistakes were easier to adjust/fix. The fabric is a little stiff, but I think it just needs a few rounds of washing.

I didn't have much time to coordinate, so I chose this matching lilac obi as a fail-safe option. Pairing the yukat with a white obi just looked a little too dull for me today, and dark purple looked too strong against this yukata, as did light pink. I can probably pull together a better coordinate with those colours if I had the time to carefully choose my accessories, but as it is, I'm pretty happy with my decision :)

(Besides, everything matched with this week's manicure! XD /bimbo-moment)

Story: I hadn't even decided on which obi I wanted to wear when I was getting dressed! I just tossed on the yukata and held up different obi to my waist to see the effects hahaha.

Yukata, geta and fan were from the Jusco Yukata Fair. Bag was bought from The Curve I think. Obi bought online.

Btw, I know that yukata is waay to informal to wear to such a nice restaurant, but I didn't have time to dress in a TPO-appropriate outfit >< As it is, I hadn't even slapped on any make up lol!

Sorry for the awful pic, but I'm tired and it's way past my usual bedtime ^^;;

Goodnight, everyone! For those who celebrate, Happy Halloween!

Kimono Challenge Tag!

2011-09-30T21:27:00.000+08:00

I've noticed some of my kimono friends doing a "Kimono Challenge Tag", and it looked really fun to do! So I thought I'd give it a go :) At the very least, it'll give me something to post about haha.

Here's the list of all challenge questions:

1. How did you discover and got into kimono?
2. Your dearest kimono item(s).
3. Your most used kimono item(s) (not counting jubans, datejimes etc.).
4. Your least used kimono item(s).
5. Your favourite coordination(s) so far.
6. What do you like and don't like about kimono.
7. Kimono confessions. Did you know that...
8. Your dream kitsuke items (or at least items you really really want but can't get for whatever reason).
9. Your biggest kimono fears.
10. Your biggest kimono inspiration.
11. Your kimono collection.
12. The evolution of your kitsuke.
13. Your special kimono memory.

I'll probably post them at the rate of once a week, more often if I feel particularly inspired to write.

I guess you guys know what you can look forward to seeing on my blog soon then! :)

Back~!

2011-09-29T23:14:00.000+08:00

Hiya!

It may not actually seem like it, but I've actually been away for a few weeks - been travelling in UK and Portugal for our annual holiday :) I had a really great time, and I think I fell in love with Portugal haha. Really charming place, and with great food!

I apologize for the late replies to all the comments (which I dearly thank you for, by the way! <3) but I had almost no internet access for those few weeks. My blog posts only continued by virtue of "Scheduled Posting"... So I'd actually pre-written nearly everything and posted them two days before leaving ^^;;;

Anyway, when I was in London, I managed to attend the Kimono de Jack UK! Really nice catching up with Hong and April, and meeting new members :) I didn't take any pictures, but I'll probably steal some from April and post about the event ^^;;

Till next time!

Video: Kimono & Obi Dressing in 5 Minutes

2011-09-24T20:13:00.008+08:00

I'm getting a little bored of the closet features and book scans already hahaha.

I found this video years ago, and was just amazed at how fast this woman can dress a mannequin in kimono and obi - and so neatly too! I've been aspiring to be able to dress as quickly and neatly :)

My favourite part about this video is that the woman demonstrates a particular obi musubi that I've found particularly difficult - tsunodashi musubi. It's a very casual musubi that should only be worn with komon (I think of it as one step down from otaiko but one step up from hanhaba) but I really like how it looks with vintage kimono and obi.

Enjoy! :)

Kimono Know-How: Furisode Musubi, pg 44-45 from Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007

2011-09-21T20:01:00.013+08:00

Following last week's post on three-section himo with elastic bands, today's post is on two of the pages in Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007 that features obi musubi for furisode using them. (Pages 44 to 45, to be exact)

These pages are featuring variations of the popular tateya musubi. My favourite musubi is the one on the top left, with the orange furisode and teal obi!

(Click here for a larger image!)

Source:

振袖大好き！２００６－２００７
Furisode Daisuki! 2006-2007
I Love Furisode! 2006-2007
ISBN4-418-05141-4

Closet Feature: Pink & Teal Summer Wool Kimono

2011-09-16T19:35:00.002+08:00

Before I'd ever even known that summer wool kimono existed, I spotted this beauty on RyuJapan's wool kimono sale.

I just had to have it immediately! It's on the small side for me, and I definitely can't fit it now, but it's still really pretty and gorgeous :)

As you can tell by the post's name, the kimono is made of a light summerweight semi-transparent wool. The base colour is actually a very pale pink, with a latticework pattern in darker pink. In the above photo, it isn't noticeable, but there is a circular pattern in teal/light green/whatever shade my eyes feel like seeing. You can faintly see that detail in the photo below:

I've only ever worn this kimono once, because it's a little too warm for comfort in Malaysia, but I've coordinated three outfits with it. My favourite outfit is the one I ended up wearing:

Haha, this post almost feels like I'm recycling photos from my old posts ^^;; But going through all my photos to find something to write about really brings back a sense of nostalgia :)

About Kimono: Accessories - Three-Section Himo with Elastic Bands

2011-09-13T19:48:00.013+08:00

Today, I thought I'd feature a useful accessory rather than one of the pretties in my closet.

This item is a koshihimo - with additional elastic bands added over a short part of the middle section of the himo.

This special himo is most used when tying fancier obi musubi, especially for furisode. By tying just one himo securely, you can secure three different sections of your bow by using the elastic bands. Very useful item indeed!

I find it most useful when tying furisode musubi onto myself. As I need to tie only one himo tightly at my back, I don't waste as much time struggling with all my himo and can concentrate more on the actual musubi.

I have a few magazine scans of this himo being used - I'll have to post them sometime :)

Closet Feature: Pink & White/Black Hanhaba Obi

2011-09-09T19:16:00.010+08:00

I've been trying to keep up with my recent streak of posts, but unfortunately I don't have much of an interesting life to blog about. I've been using my free time to clean my room or experiment with cooking, so I haven't really been concentrating much on practicing my kitsuke much ^^;;

Soooo...... I'm afraid that for a while at least, you guys will have to put up with some frequent posts on closet features and book/magazine scans! ^^;

Today's post is on one of my absolute favourite obi of all time! It's a polyester hanhaba obi that's pink on one side, and black-and-white on the other.

The pink side has a woven pattern of interlocking latticework, while the other side has a white base and a pattern of vines, flowers and butterflies worked into it in black.

I'd bought this obi from a YJA seller on a whim over three years ago, but never wore it because it looked too modern for my collection then - or so I thought. Slowly, I began to find things that actually matched pretty well with the obi, and before I knew it, it became one of my most frequently used obi!

Here are a few pics of my favourite coordinates with this obi:

This obi is one of my favourites for pairing with navy blue yukata :D But it also matches really well with just about any shade of blue, and looks incredibly sweet against white.

(My favourite side is the pink side ^^;; I think I've only ever used the white side once hahaha)

Video: How To Dress Yukata & Kimono Part 2

2011-09-04T15:35:00.004+08:00

Hmmmm..... It seems that after posting part 1 of Ichiroya's YouTube video on how to dress in yukata, I'd completely forgotten about posting part 2! How embarrassing!! =^__^="""

Anyway, here is part 2 to Ichiroya's instructions on wearing yukata:

(Best part: the video is in easy-to-understand English!)

(Click here for my post on part 1)

As mentioned in my part 1 post, Ichiroya's video is one of the best I've seen, with clear and easy instructions at a decent pace. I love that they show many small but important things, such as a complete list of items needed to wear kimono, padding and the proper kimono silhouette, and important tips to keep in mind when wearing kimono.

Absolutely great video for beginners :)

Closet Feature: Kokon Tozai Antique Furisode Remake Bag - Lilac

2011-09-02T19:55:00.024+08:00

Today's feature is another type of bag from Kokon Tozai in Singapore.

Front:

Back:

It's made of yuzen-dyed silk in a lovely waves and fan motif. Absolutely in love with the pink and lilac colour scheme. I kind of like the quirky fact that the fabric has the dyer's stamp on the corner of the bag - somehow it brings back a sense of nostalgia.

The bag can't fit too many things and is a little difficult to carry if it gets too heavy, but I still try to use it when I can because it's so gorgeous!

Here's a picture of the bag being used, although it's not the best coordinate I've come up with for it, nor the best picture, but these are the only pictures I could find ^^;;

Kimono Know-How: Fancy Obijime Ties from Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007

2011-08-30T15:30:00.001+08:00

Following Saturday's kimono know-how post, I figured it'd be nice to match the fancy obiage knots with some fancy obijime knots.

So here is the page from the same magazine on tying obijime for furisode.

(Click here for a larger image!)

Source:

振袖大好き！２００６－２００７
Furisode Daisuki! 2006-2007
I Love Furisode! 2006-2007
ISBN4-418-05141-4

On a separate note, Selamat Hari Raya to all my Muslim readers! For my Malaysian and Indonesian non-Muslim readers, Happy Holidays! :) I'm certainly looking forward to this long break haha!

Ta~

Kimono Know-How: Fancy Obiage Ties from Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007

2011-08-27T10:02:00.001+08:00

Just thought I'd share a picture of one of my older furisode magazines on how to tie your obiage in nice fancy ways.

(Click here for a larger image!)

Source:

振袖大好き！２００６－２００７
Furisode Daisuki! 2006-2007
I Love Furisode! 2006-2007
ISBN4-418-05141-4

Closet Feature: Kokon Tozai Antique Furisode Remake Bag - Mustard

2011-08-25T22:14:00.001+08:00

Feeling a little antsy tonight because my coordinate for the September Kimono de Jack London isn't going too well, so I thought I'd distract myself by digging through my Flickr for some old photos to post about.

Imagine my surprise when I realised that I hadn't posted anything at all about Kokon Tozai!

Kokon Tozai is a Japanese brand of clothing, bags and other accessories made of kimono fabric. While a majority of their items are made using their own kimono fabric designs, they do have a small selection of items made of antique kimono fabrics.

My sister and I first bumped into an outlet of this store in Singapore about 5 years ago. We were wandering around the mall that's connected to the hotel we always stay in, and stumbled across this awesome place selling bags, shoes, purses, and all sorts of accessories that were made of old kimono. We couldn't help ourselves - we just had to get something ^^;

(Note: Normally, I'd be horrified at the thought of using such beautiful kimono in that way, but they actually had a brochure that said that they were careful to make these out of unuseable kimono only.)

Their offered items include: hairclips, hair pins, phone charms, purses, wallets, phone holders, bags, card holders, glasses cases, hairties, shoes, T-shirts, scarves, shawls, soft toys, bracelets, rings.... Alot of lovely things to look at! ^_^

Today's featured bag is a gorgeous mustard yellow, with purple ume (plum) blossoms and a teal section that seems to be depicting wisteria, from what little I can see.

Front:

Back:

If you'd like to get something similar for yourself, I'm outlining their contact details below:

Website:
http://www.kokontozai.com.sg/

Stores:
KOKON TOZAI
(City Link Branch)
One Raffles Link
#B1-16 City Link Mall
Singapore
Tel: (65) 6835 9927
Opening Hours: 10.30am - 9.30pm

KYOTO ARTS BOUTIQUE
(Millenia Walk Branch)
9 Raffles Boulevard
#01-52 Millenia Walk
Singapore
Tel: (65) 6338 7417
Opening Hours: 11am - 8pm

On a separate note, the last time I bought something from them, they were also stocking some really nice good-quality silk obiage :) I bought a lovely brown one and a seafoam green one from them.

Outfit Snap: Sweet Roses Yukata

2011-08-21T16:07:00.000+08:00

After conversing about kimono with a few people for the past few days, I've been feeling particularly inspired to wear kimono.

I only had an hour of free time to dress up today, so I couldn't do a full-blown kitsuke with my new obi and juban, but I did coordinate something with one of my new yukata from the Jusco Yukata Fair.

The obi I chose is really similar to the one that came with this set, but I decided to use this obi instead because it's a softer, less obnoxious shade of purple. Also, it has a matching theme of roses! I think this obi gives the yukata a softer, more mature sort of feminine feel, as opposed to a bright, young coordinate using hot pink as its main colour. (Besides, the obi in the set is a pre-tied obi! ^^;;; I'm.... not fond of pre-tied obi at all haha.)

I also happen to have a pair of geta that are the perfect combi of purple and pink, and a new pink uchiwa. To accent a little more of the pink, I wore dainty pink flower earrings and tossed some soft pink flowers on my hear. I used a basket bag with white accents because a pink or purple bag would be a little too much colour in the outfit.

On a really random note, I actually chose this yukata because of yesterday's pedicure - my toes match the yukata! ^^;;

Ta~

Event Announcement: Tokyo Street Pavilion is open!

2011-08-02T22:49:00.001+08:00

Uhh... this is really a late announcement, considering that I got to know about it on the morning of the opening ceremony ^^;;;

Anyway!! Tokyo Street opened on the morning of Friday, 29th July 2011.

I went to check it out today at lunch! (long story on how that happened) It was not bad :) The Hokkaido Ramen place had a long queue, so we ate at Tokyo Don, which had pretty good tori katsu don. We also bought some pretty good mochi from Mochi Sweets.

While taking a brief look through the place, I noticed that there is a shop that's selling proper kimono items! Granted, I think they're overpriced, but the geta quality are at least better than alot I've seen. Also, considering that the shop is in Pavilion and has to pay their insane rental rates... Well, I kind of understand the prices ^^;

There are alot of nice places, including this nice-looking tea place and a few shops with really nice Japanese pottery and crockery, but I didn't explore much as I was short on time.

For those who are interested in checking it out, Tokyo Street is at Level 6, Pavilion Mall, Kuala Lumpur. That's right on Jalan Raja Chulan and Jalan Bukit Bintang, folks :) Across the street from JW Marriotts and Starhill Gallery.

On a separate note, I received by 20kg sea mail parcel yesterday!! It had my lot of 20 obi in it, as well as 2 new obi and a whole bunch of undies and accessories!! I'm way too excited about them! I'll probably wear a kimono with my new obi and one of my new hanjuban sets (purple!!) when going out with a friend this weekend ^___^

Take care and good night!

Outfit Snap: Periwinkle Rose Yukata

2011-07-18T00:43:00.001+08:00

Was feeling a little antsy tonight and had lots of time to spare, so I decided to dress up in one of my new yukata!

A bit of a close-up on the yukata's design:

I'd been dreaming about pairing this yukata and this obi together since I first saw this yukata, and it does go surprisingly well together! I was aiming for a more "cool" look rather than sweet & flowery, which is why I used a pair of black geta rather than blue or purple or pink. I guess I was also kind of hoping to pull in the dark colours from my hair, watch, fan and camera together ^^;

The fan is a little cutesy for this outfit, but it was the only one I had that matched colour-wise.

Nowadays, I always feel that an outfit is too plain if there isn't some form of decoration at the obi, even if it's just a fan tucked into it, so I stuffed by everyday pearl necklace into it for a little something. I reflected the pearl theme with a pearl ring.

The yukata, geta and fan were all bought at this year's Jusco Yukata Fair :)

I'm.... not entirely happy with today's kitsuke, but considering that it took me about 20mins from deciding I wanted to wear yukata to fully dressing in it, accessories and all, it's actually pretty okay XD;

Any C&C on this coordination would be really appreciated! ^_^ What other obi do you see this yukata with? There are so many possibilities that I have no idea what to wear next with it haha.

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2011 - Take 2!

2011-07-17T16:02:00.001+08:00

I went back to the fair this morning to pick up a few more accessories - after all, with the price I'm paying, it would only barely cover shipping for these items most of the time! So it's really worth buying them now :)

(Psst: I also bought another yukata for my brother and another sweet-looking yukata for myself ^^;)

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2011

2011-07-15T22:18:00.000+08:00

As promised, here is the post on my loot from the Jusco Yukata Fair this year!

First off, the yukata!

I seem to be in a pale colours mood this year ^^ There were way more black yukata than anything else at the Fair, but I just didn't like any of them.

The obi that came with the yukata.

This year has much nicer pre-tied obi that last year! I guess that accounts for the RM10 increase in price.

One more yukata for my brother.

This yukata really called to me because I love Ichimatsu check prints, and this one was in a really gorgeous shade of dark brown. I know my brother never lets me dress him up most of the time, but I couldn't resist ^^;

A kid's yukata.

Just cause it's cute XD

The geta collection.

They're actually brighter in real life.

A lilac-coloured obijime.

Uchiwa!!

My weakness~~

Some furoshiki.

One of the furoshiki came with a DVD on furoshiki!

On the Fair itself:

This year, the obi that were paired with the yukata were much much nicer than the ones last year! Not everything was slapped together with a red&yellow obi - this time, care and consideration were actually taken when matching the obi and the yukata. As you can see in the pictures above, the quality of the obi were also much better this time.

There were still some sets that were sold with the same ugly obi as last year's, but there were only two racks of those (priced at RM129 per set of yukata & obi). A majority of the yukata sets on display were priced at RM139, but there was a good selection of patterns. Most of the yukata were dark-coloured (black, dark purple) but there were a few sweet ones (light purple, pale blue).

(I kind of feel like I recognise some of the patterns - they are definitely similar to some branded yukata that were really popular a few years ago. One of those that I bought kinda looks like one I've been drooling over in a magazine from 2008! XD;)

A small section of higher range yukata was also present (half a rack of these, I think?) but the colours and patterns were just so pretty compared to the others! These ones were priced at RM299 for just one yukata.

The men's yukata section was also much better this year! There were more patterns to choose from and I had a really tough time choosing one for my brother. There were two other striped ones that I really liked, but I had to limit myself to just one yukata ^^;

For women's obi, Jusco brought in a better selection of higher-range pre-tied obi and quite a nice range of hanhaba obi. I thought they were rather overpriced, but maybe I was biased because I already had many of those colours in my closet ^^; The standalone pre-tied obi were about RM139 and the hanhaba obi were RM189.

The best part about this year's fair is that they started selling kitsuke items! So far, they only have himo (RM29 for a set of two) and datejime (RM59 each), but I'm hoping that next year or the year after, they'll start expanding to obi-ita and yukata slips or something ^_^

There was a smaller selection of fans to choose from this year (or maybe it's just that I got there late) but the ones that were left were pretty high quality :) They also had the same obijime, kanzashi, bag, parasols and obi-kazari for sale. The sheer number of geta was shocking! They stocked more kids' geta this round - I'm sooooo tempted by this incredibly cute pair of geta with light blue gingham check and sunflowers!

I feel like going back there to browse, just for the heck of it :)

If anyone's free and has cash to spare, why not drop by and keep the yukata fair alive for next year? XD

(P/S: There is also a Yukata Fair at Jusco Queensbay Mall in Penang, also ending this Sunday, 17th July ^^)

Event Announcement: Jusco Yukata Fair 2011 - Till Sunday, 17th July

2011-07-15T21:27:00.000+08:00

Heya!

Jusco is having another yukata fair this year! It's abit of a late announcement, especially considering that they've been here since 4th July, but I'd only just found out a couple of days ago and finally had time to check it out today.

As before, the fair is at Jusco Mid Valley. Easiest way to get there is to enter through the Center Court entrance on the ground floor and just walk straight. Can't miss it!

The Fair will be here till Sunday, 17th July :)

I've already spent a fortune there on overpriced things, but anything to keep this fair alive and going! I'm hoping they'll have another one next year ^_^

I'll be posting about my loot next! Ta~

Outfit Snap: My Brother & His Girlfriend - Friday Night Dress-Up!

2011-07-02T02:16:00.000+08:00

My brother asked if I could help him with his yukata ensemble for this year's Bon Odori, so I took out one of the new ones I'd gotten for him at last year's Yukata Fair at Jusco (it has stripes and bats on it!) and paired it with his black pre-tied hakata obi and the skeleton-themed geta I bought for him two years ago.

We had a test-run of his outfit after coming home from dinner earlier tonight!

After seeing him dressed up and flipping through a couple of my yukata magazines, his girlfriend also asked to get dressed up :D I showed her my whole collection and let her pick one yukata (well, she was torn between this one and another, so she let my brother choose) and a matching obi.

I put her in a pair of navy blue geta and tucked a dark blue fan into her obi to match the navy blue dragonflies on the yukata. I also tossed in the bag and the hair accessory to make the outfit look more complete.

This is the end result!

One of the magazines they were flipping through had a feature on couples' yukata and how to match them with themes, so their outfits are also somewhat matched together! Both yukata are light-coloured and have some sort of stripes on them while their obi also have some form of stripes ^^

Aren't they so cute together?? :D

Closet Feature: Red Yukata & Black Obi

2011-06-29T00:47:00.000+08:00

So.... I've finally decided to get rid of this red yukata ^^; I've worn it a few times, so while it's clean and stain-free, it's not in the best condition... But the material is softer now, compared to when I first received it!

I tossed this plain black obi with the yukata (the reverse side of the obi is bright red) because I got it with one of the yukata sets I bought for a godsister and there was no way I was going to let one of my godsisters wear such an ugly thing ^^;;;

I kind of think that if the obi was folded a little in the front to show off a bit of red, it'd look pretty nice with this yukata :)

Outfit Snap: Navy Blue Yukata & Seafoam Green Obi

2011-06-26T19:51:00.000+08:00

After working on my blog for a while and surrounding myself with kimono for practically the whole weekend, I had the urge to either buy more kimono or have a dress-up session to distract myself from shopping.

So..... I had a dress-up session! ^_^

I wanted to just throw on something easy, but I had a very specific obi in mind to wear today, so I grabbed both the obi and another yukata that was just lying around.

Here is the result! ^_^

(Please don't mind that the photos are really low quality! My mum is holding my camera for her business trips so I had to make-do with my phone)

I'm carrying the umbrella because.... Well ^^; It matched the colour scheme and it was just there. It's actually an RM5 bit of nonsense that I bought from Daisou just because it was cheap and cute.

I really like that both the yukata and obi have a rose theme :) I also kind of like that the pearls on the obi are a little similar to the false shibori dots on the yukata.

Today's obi musubi was chosen because I was actually experimenting with wearing yukata without any padding and I needed something large that will hide the lower back area of my yukata. I did have to stuff a whole towel underneath the obi to keep the musubi perky, but a few clever folds and some manipulation of how the obi falls and you'd never notice :)

On wearing yukata without padding: I have to say that it does do wonders for managing the heat! I can see now why people say that yukata are cooling to wear. I had to tie my yukata a little looser than usual so that the himo don't cut into my body, but it just makes for a more comfortable kitsuke.

I have to keep practicing this to improve my kitsuke without padding! XD

Closet Feature: Black Yukata & Hot Pink Obi

2011-06-26T01:42:00.001+08:00

I was taking pics of some yukata I'm selling to a friend of a friend, and thought I'd share the pics here one at a time.

Here is the first of the 8 outfits I've put together:

(Please don't mind the low quality photo - I had to use my phone's camera as my mum is holding my camera hostage at the moment ^^;)

Both the yukata and obi are brand new.

I'm not really looking for critique on coordination - I paired the yukata and obi based on what matched best together from the pile I wanted to get rid of.

I just kind of wondered how much you'd pay for a set like this? I'm selling this to her at cost price because she's a friend's friend, but I was kind of curious to know how much most people (especially Malaysians!) would be willing to pay for this sort of thing.

Good night!

Blog Layout (again!)

2011-06-25T15:20:00.001+08:00

Haha, seems like I went overboard with the restructuring... I had honestly only meant to edit the side bar a little, but then I started exploring a little more when I was bored and next thing you know, I was adding all sorts of things to my blog ^^;

The pages at the top are still incomplete (I still have to add one for Kimono Knowledge and another for Know-How) but at least the template is there for me to start off with. I'm also looking into changing the font for my pages... That one will take longer in coming because it's quite far down my priority list.

For now, I'm just happy with cleaning up my sidebar and adding a signature and a LinkWithin widget :) I've also added a new Contact Me form that's pretty easy to use, but I've left the link to the old one just in case it fails or something.

Of course, now my blog takes pretty long to upload so I may end up removing LinkWithin and leaving my Pages font as it is.

Let me know of any complaints? ^_^

Edited to add: Okay, so it was getting a little too slow so I removed the Search bar and LinkWithin. The signature does make it slower, but I really like it... :/

Blog Restructuring

2011-06-22T21:11:00.000+08:00

My T&T post on kimono fit is moving on really slowly (can’t tell you how many times I’ve rewritten the thing only to delete it all and start over again ^^;) so I thought I’d just move on and post about something else instead.

I got bored over the weekend and did up a table of post ideas – and I have to say that I have a lot of ideas on what to post, and no idea on where to start! So I figured reorganizing everything so that my blog is more structured would be a great place to begin with, and it’ll certainly help me see what areas I ought to work on first.

As such, I’m now in the middle of reorganizing my blog – adding new tags, editing titles, etc. I’m also updating my sidebar to reflect some of the changes.... Although I'll have to continually update my Tips & Tricks series and the upcoming Kimono Knowledge series as I write and post them, which will eventually happen (in like maybe ten years or so, at the rate I’m going XD;)

Anyway! I’m looking forward to having a more organized blog XD; Maybe it’ll inspire me to write more or something as well haha.

Ta~!

Event Announcement: 35th Bon Odori in Shah Alam, Malaysia

2011-06-09T01:07:00.002+08:00

Just another quick post.

The Embassy of Japan in Malaysia announced the official date for the 35th Bon Odori in Shah Alam, Malaysia yesterday:

Date : Saturday, 16th July 2011

Time : 5pm - 9.15pm

Venue : Kompleks Sukan Negara (Former Panasonic Sports Complex)

Free shuttle bus : from KTM Shah Alam Station (Section 19) to Kompleks Sukan Negara and vice versa from 4pm to 11pm

Programme:
5pm - Gates open
7pm - Opening
9.15pm - Closing Address

Here's a link to the announcement page on the Embassy's website:
http://www.my.emb-japan.go.jp/English/JIS/culturalevents/bon11/070611.html

And a link to the leaflet for the 35th Bon Odori in Malaysia:
http://www.my.emb-japan.go.jp/English/JIS/culturalevents/bon11/35thbonodori_new.pdf

I most likely will not be going for this year's Bon Odori - last year was crowded enough, thanks very much! I'll probably still dress up that night though, just for the fun of it :)

Goodnight!

Event Announcement: Tokyo Street opening in Pavilion Kuala Lumpur (July 2011)

2011-06-08T11:41:00.001+08:00

This is a little bit of a late post, considering that this was actually officially announced two weeks ago, but Pavilion Kuala Lumpur will be opening Tokyo Street in July 2011!

According to various news sources and the Pavilion KL website, this street, located on the 6th floor of Pavilion, is inspired by Asakusa, Ginza and Shibuya and will host a variety of shops offering Japanese F&B, retail, beauty products and more.

So far, I have spotted a mochi shop, a proper green tea shop, an ice cream shop, a really nice cafe, a Daiso.... well, alot of things that I'm looking forward to, really!

If you would like to see more, the official Pavilion KL webpage for Tokyo Street is here:
http://www.pavilion-kl.com/content/precint.php?precint=tokyo_street

*squees in excitement* July can't come any faster!

Coordination Comments: Yellow Snowflake Komon & Purple Obi

2011-06-05T15:59:00.002+08:00

For the past few months, I've been complaining to a friend that I haven't been blogging much because I never seem to find time to dress up in kimono. She suggested that since I have so many pieces that I don't have the chance to wear, why don't I just post pics and comments on coordinates instead?

Well today, I'm finally listening to her advice! I tend to prefer not to post coordinates before I wear them as I like to wear something completely new each time I dress up in kimono, but well... desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess XD;

Here is today's coordinate!

As you can see, I'm still on my yellow phase XD

This here is another yellow hitoe komon that I got from Shinei's sales sometime last year. I know, I know, I already had one yellow hitoe komon.... But yellow is such a cute colour, and I couldn't resist the snowflakes!

One thing I love about hitoe is that it can be worn with either summer or spring/autumn/winter accessories, depending on the look you are going for. Since I wore summer accessories last week, I thought I'd go for a warmer look for this coordinate.

I wanted to give myself a bit of a challenge today and pair this kimono with a more striking obi. Usually I would just follow a colour scheme that would match the tone of the kimono - in this case, it would be dusty pink, browns and white. However, I just couldn't shake the idea of wearing purple and yellow together, so I brought out my favourite purple obi.

Close-up of the colours:

I matched it with a pale green obijime to give it a bit more of a refreshing feel, and a green han'eri with embroidered pink flowers to bring out more of the green and highlight a little of the pink.

I was at a bit of a loss when it came to the obiage, but my friend had given me this yellow obiage that was perfect - if I fold it correctly, it would have little squares of purple, green and pink showing!

The obiage does seem to blend into the kimono abit, but I wanted both the kimono and the obi to be the main focus of the outfit. A pink obiage (or even a coral one to match the flower in the obi) would've been one too many colours in this outfit and would've made the obi and its accessories the main focus, with the kimono just fading behind as a background to the striking combination.

I forgot to add tabi and zori to the picture, but I think I'd probably have worn white tabi (maybe I can embroider some to have green leaves or something?) and yellow zori. If I had green or purple zori, I'd definitely wear them though!

I'm pretty happy with the formality of this outfit. It's something that I'd probably wear out for lunch at a nice restaurant in a mall, or something that I'd go to watch a movie or musical or concert... Maybe even a house party if I'm brave enough! It's exactly the sort of places and events I'd wear kimono to, which means this outfit is perfectly wearable for me :)

How do you like this outfit? What would you change about it if the kimono and obi had to stay the same?

New Layout~

2011-05-30T18:56:00.000+08:00

I've done abit more tweaking with my blog layout!

I couldn't really be bothered figuring out how to get my background to fit perfectly for all screen resolutions and web browsers, so I decided to scrap the idea and keep a plain white background, but change the header to suit the new theme.

I've also changed the fonts for my post titles, dates and side bar titles. Unfortunately, it's made my blog a little slow to upload, so even if it does look rather nice, I think I'll keep it a few weeks as a test and see how it goes. If I still don't like how slow it is, I might scrap it and see what else I can do with my layout.

I've tested the new layout on IE, Firefox and Safari on iPhone... It looks fine on IE and Firefox, but the new font for my post titles, dates and side bar titles don't show up on iPhone... Got to check up on how to fix that.

Any opinions on the layout so far?

Outfit Snap: Yellow Polyester Komon

2011-05-29T00:15:00.002+08:00

I went out for lunch with a friend today and we had both decided that it would be a dress-up day! Neither of us could seem to decide on what theme we wanted (kimono or loli), so eventually we just agreed to wearing whatever we felt like ^^

I was feeling pretty determined to wear kimono because I've recently received a bunch of new pretties. I'd also bought myself a nice new bag from Coach when I was in the US (was there for over a week for work, but naturally, we had one Saturday at a factory outlet XD), so I really wanted to use it! Unfortunately, the bag was teal - a colour that I generally find difficult to wear in kimono. I do have a hakata obi that is only just a shade darker than my bag, but add in the bag's accessory (strawberry coin purse), and that is one hell of a colour combo I had to find and match in my kimono closet!

Eventually, I couldn't get the right combination for either colour, theme or weather, so I changed the accessory from the cute coral strawberry coin purse attachment to a grapefruit one (colour scheme: yellow and pink). I'd only decided to change my outfit this morning, so I was scrambling to get an outfit put together in time.

(Luckily, I woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I had like 7 hours to prepare XD;;;)

Eventually, I came up with this!

I'm wearing a yellow polyester hitoe komon with stripes, pink roses and some sort of leaf (a new komon I'd bought from Shinei during one of their sales sometime last year). To introduce teal somewhere in the outfit to match the bag, I paired the kimono with a teal summerweave hakata obi.

I chose a pink ro obiage and yellow summerweave obijime to balance out the colours a little because the obi looks kind of like a sudden break in the outfit - too striking! I hope the yellow obijime softens the harsh contrast...

I tried to add in a little more teal with my earrings and wanted to wear teal zori, but I don't have any blue or green zori in anywhere near the right shade.... So instead I wore a pair that matched the kimono! I'm also wearing tabi with matching flowers embroidered on the toes ^_^

Today's kitsuke was pretty easy because the kimono is made of a very crisp almost chirimen-like polyester that holds its grip really well. I was also using a two-piece juban with chikara-nuno to hold the collar in place - and my collars didn't move at all today! XD

I also used an obi aid (I think this one is called kairyou makura?) and it was really easy to create an almost-perfect otaiko with it really quickly! I'm always amazed everytime I use this obi aid. All of my obi miraculously fit, and there's no need for me to struggle with putting on the obi at all XD;;;

What do you guys think of this coordinate? The colour combo is a bit disconnected compared to my usual matching preferences, but I kind of like how yellow & teal look together. Any suggestions on how to improve this coordinate? So far, all I can think of is wearing teal zori and adding a teal hair accessory... Maybe something with the han'eri?

Oh btw, we forgot to take pics of ourselves at the restaurant... We did get alot of stares and some comments though XD;;;; My friend was dressed in loli with the cutest hat! Loved her coordinate today!

Random note: My sister chose the location for the photos because the flowers in our kitchen match my kimono XD;;;;

Ivory & Purple Cheongsam

2011-05-27T00:22:00.003+08:00

Ivory & Purple Cheongsam, originally uploaded by shira.C.

Dug up some old photos from Chinese New Year and just thought I'd post this ^^

I didn't actually wear this cheongsam out - the upper half was a little too tight for comfort haha. I really love this though - so sweet! It's a plain ivory cheongsam with a patterned lace overlay.

On a separate note - just got back from New York and San Francisco! Weather there was.... unexpectedly cold for this time of the year XD Lucky thing I could bear it! My poor mum was freezing half the time though.

... And shopping was great XD;

New Layout!

2011-04-24T02:07:00.000+08:00

Hiya~

As you may have noticed, I've decided to change my blog layout a little!

I was actually pretty happy with the old layout, but the IG forums has now adopted a new feature that flashes banners of members' blogs, and I was quite interested in joining, so I created a banner!

After looking at it, I figured I ought to change my blog layout to reflect the new banner, so I've started with the most basic part: the background and colour theme. I wasn't quite sure about the red font at first, but I think it turned out rather well.

What do you think of the background image? Computer illiterate as I am, it took ages for me to get the size of the image right, and the girl in the exact place I wanted her to be... XD;;

The next part is to change the header so that it's in the same font my banner is in. I may create a new avatar for my profile as well.... Hmmm I wonder if I can change the font for all the headers.....

Well, I guess the next week will be spent slowly figuring this out XD;

Take care, and hope you like the background and colour scheme! I can't wait to finish my blog layout!

Closet Feature: New Red Sakura Furisode

2011-04-22T18:48:00.004+08:00

New Red Furisode, originally uploaded by shira.C.

A while ago, I was trying on a juban to show a friend and I thought it'd also be nice to show her how the juban would look under the furisode, so I tossed on one of the new furisode that I got at Yamatoku's furisode festival last year.

I really love this red one! I've been looking for a red furisode for a long time, but most that I see just aren't too my taste. This one was perfect in every way, from the shade of red to the pattern and the colour scheme and most importantly - the size XD;

I'm not dressed in a full outfit because I have yet to stumble across the perfect obi for this furisode. I saw something that was nearly close to perfect, but the colour scheme of the obi wasn't 100% perfect, so I let it go. I'm still waiting and biding my time, though... XD

(If you're only here for the kimono and not personal updates, you might want to leave here ^^;)

It's been a crazy few weeks at work~ My company was organising a conference and it's finally over!! *phew* My team was working 18 hour days for 2 weeks, including weekends - and before that we were working 14 hour days for a month haha. Some of the others didn't get any sleep at all... (I made sure I got some sleep - I'm a complete grouch if I don't get enough sleep XD;)

..... And now, there is another conference coming up on Tuesday, and yet another one in the US in less than a month's time. Not really looking forward to it! XD;;

This year's schedule is looking pretty busy... but I'm still hopeful for more kimono outings with friends XD; I'm hoping this year will be a more active year with kimono and blogging for me!

I'm just re-starting my Tips & Tricks (T&T) post on kimono fit that I promised in my last T&T post, but it's taking abit of time because I keep deleting and re-drafting it haha. It's turning out to be more annoying that I thought! I'll most likely have to split it into three parts - one for measuring kimono to see if it fits you, one on how to wear kimono that are too small for you and one on how to wear kimono that are too big for you (not that I have much experience in that area!!). Hopefully it'll be out before June at this rate XP;;

Bye, and a solemn Good Friday to you all.

(Omg just realised that I'm posting a red kimono on Good Friday ^^;;; I guess it matches the vestments for today's Mass?)

Outfit Snap: Pink Plaid Kofurisode

2011-03-27T22:30:00.002+08:00

This afternoon, I was working on something that was starting to give me an awful headache by 5.30pm, so I decided to stop, rest and take some time to myself.

And.... here's the result XD

I've been feeling particularly inspired to wear kimono for the past few months but never found the time, so I thought I ought to take the chance now when I have the house and a few hours all to myself.

I've been eyeing up a couple of Kitsuke Challenges on the IG forums, namely the Stripes challenge and the Stop Buying, Start Wearing challenge. This kimono just happened to fit both! I've been feeling particularly girly lately, so the pink colour scheme was perfect.

I actually had a couple of other outfits for this kofurisode that used a white obi and purple or yellow accessories, but I felt they were a little bland today, so instead I whipped up another outfit that felt bright and girly enough for today. I chose this dark purple hakata obi that Hong gave me a long time ago because, well, it's hakata XD I paired them with pink accessories because I wanted a really girly outfit, and the original yellow I wanted to wear didn't seem so attractive to me after a while.

The loose side-braid was for a more feminine feeling (that, and I was lazy to do a bun), complete with purple accessory at the end of the braid, and I'm wearing matching grape-shaped purple earrings. The bag was a free gift that just happened to match the colour scheme.

I'm always told that kofurisode shouldn't be worn with otaiko musubi (something that I do way too often), but this kofurisode's pattern is so informal that it seems weird to me to wear even a bunko musubi with it!

It's been sooooo long since I last wore kimono! (Well, kimono outside of yukata at any rate hahaha). I think it's been about 10 months since the last time I tried to tie an otaiko on myself! That would kind of explain why my back is so ugly today... :P (=no back pictures! :P)

Today's kitsuke is not as neat as my usual standards, but I suppose for not having dressed in 10 months, it'll have to do XD; Still, I'm happy with the way it turned out, even if it did take much longer than usual :)

P/S: I've been meaning to post something about the Japan earthquake, but at first, I didn't know how to put my thoughts into words, then came that incredibly embarrassing ordeal with Berita Mingguan and the PM's wife.... well, I really had no idea what to say then! I can only offer my sincerest apologies to all who were offended :/ Please believe me when say that no one I know agreed with either of them, and we were all mortally embarrassed to be called Malaysian when we found out as well.

Japan, we're all praying for you! :)

Tips & Tricks: Choosing Your First Kimono

2011-03-27T00:12:00.005+08:00

-Refers to Tips & Tricks: Where to Buy Kimono-

Now you know where you can get your pretties, and you've been browsing through various websites, admiring all those lovely kimono that you now have access to.

There is only one problem: out of all the thousands out there, how do you choose one?

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when choosing your kimono, first or otherwise:

(By the way, please note that this post is mainly for those who are seriously looking into wearing kimono in the traditional way, and doesn't really apply to those who are just looking for a kimono for display, as a Halloween/dress-up costume or to lounge around the house in.)

~♥~

1. What condition is it in?

This, to me, is the first thing to consider before even look at anything else in a kimono, or even just clothes in general. After all, if you plan on wearing the thing, it should be in a decent condition! Stained clothes make for a very sloppy impression. In the case of kimono, this means that the kimono shouldn't have stains (at least, not very visible ones!) or be discoloured or have rips and tears. Most sellers will let you know the condition of the kimono, and will take upclose pictures of any flaws. Also, beware of patina (discoloured) spots, as most old kimono have them.

If you're more adventurous or good with cleaning, you can still try buying stained kimono and cleaning them. I should warn you that I am not much of a cleaning person, and I tend to prefer modern kimono as they are easy to clean and care for and are most likely brand new i.e. no spots, stains or tears, so I'm afraid I don't have much advice for you on this!

~♥~

2. Does it fit?

I know that so many people say that kimono are free-size and fits everyone. Well, this is true - but only to a certain extent, i.e. only up to a certain height, measurement, etc.

(This part is for women only, as I don't have much experience with dressing men!)

For most modern kimono, the kimono is manufactured to a set length and width, so they fit most everyone from 150cm to 170cm tall who have a maximum hip measurement of about 100cm (believe me that it's the maximum - I've hit it already and can testify it's the max). Outside of the larger end of this range, you would have to find "Tall Size" kimono or "Big Size" kimono or have something made specially to fit you. If you are too small to fit this range, there are usually a few nifty tricks you can learn to make a larger kimono fit.

If you are looking to buy antique kimono, it is even more difficult to judge whether or not the kimono can fit, as most antique or vintage kimono are rather small.

You can still wear kimono that are too large or too small for you, but it will take some fiddling around and they aren't as easy to put on as kimono that fit well.

Here's just a quick way of measuring fit:

Kimono Length - not including the collar, the kimono's length down its center back seam must be the same measurement your height is, give or take 10cm. Eg, a 160cm tall person can wear a kimono that's 150cm-170cm long. However, please bear in mind that the more the kimono length deviates from your height, the more difficult it is to wear the kimono.
Hem Width - measure your hips and add on another 20cm. This measurement should be how wide your kimono is from the hem of the "skirt". If your hips+20cm measurement is the same as or less than the kimono width, you're safe. I think you can wear a kimono with a hem measurement of your hips+10cm or so, but it will take some fiddling around with it and might take up time.

I will be posting a longer, and more comprehensive post about kimono fit later. I've typed out part of it already, so hopefully it will be out soon!

~♥~

3. Where am I wearing it to?

This is pretty high up on my list because I place alot of importance on wearing kimono that are correct for the time, place and occasion (TPO for short). TPO is what decides the style of kimono you should wear, the formality level of the kimono, the appropriate way to accessorize, and a whole bunch of other rules that are actually too tedious to learn for most people.

(You can disregard this if you're not bothered much with TPO. Outside of Japan, the rules are far more relaxed anyway! :) I'm just the kind of person who feels bothered when not dressed appropriately for the situation no matter what I'm wearing - kimono or dresses!)

(Btw, this part is also for women only. As I mentioned earlier, I have very very little experience with dressing men in kimono ^^;;)

Since this is only meant to be about quick tips, I'll just highlight a few general rules here, and write another longer post later about formality. FYI, most of this information comes from one of my kimono books that is solely on TPO :)

If you are planning on wearing your kimono to casual situations such as shopping, lunch at restaurants or even house-cleaning, use less costly materials such as cotton, wool and good-quality polyester. Less formal kimono in this category include komon, wool kimono and yukata. If you're going somewhere a little more formal than shopping, you can also wear iromuji with nagoya obi.
For semi-formal situations (tea ceremony, parties, formal theatre), you can wear iromuji with fukuro obi, tsukesage or houmongi. Appropriate fabric would usually be silk or very high-quality polyester in rare cases.
The most formal situations include weddings and coming-of-age ceremonies. Furisode is the most formal kimono for unmarried women, and cannot by worn by married women. These can be worn for just about any very formal situation for single women (parties at hotel, weddings, graduation, Coming of Age ceremony, etc). Irotomesode and Kurotomesode, on the other hand, are the most formal kimono for married women and cannot be worn by single women. These are pretty much reserved for weddings only, as most married women would wear houmongi for other formal occasions. Very high-quality polyester may be acceptable if accessorized appropriately, but silk is really the best choice here.
Mofuku is a type of kimono that is all black except for five family crests - two on the front shoulders, three on the back. These should not be worn at all except in funerals. Some people modify mofuku so that they are wearable in casual situations, but I personally feel uncomfortable with wearing something that was once used for a funeral.

~♥~

4. What colour am I most attracted to?

We are always so spoiled for choice when it comes to kimono colours! Pale pinks, bright blues, sunny yellow, forest greens - anything from soft calming shades to bright neon eyeball-burning colours, you will be able to find them on kimono. And the best part is - somehow, everything still looks good on everyone! I find it quite difficult to find a kimono that makes me look pasty or sick or bad in general, as all I have to do is add in a few accessories like date'eri or han'eri (accessories at the collar of the kimono) and voila! The usual effect of certain colours is instantly offset by the new colour that is closer to your skin.

So how do you decide what colour your first kimono should be?

There are two ways you could go: either pick a colour that you know looks good on you and would feel comfortable wearing, or try to find a recurring colour that you are attracted to and go with that.

~♥~

5. What's it made of? Is it easy to care for?

If you like to take good care of your belongings, it is probably easier for you to get something that's easy-care, such as polyester and cotton. Silk and wool are harder to clean and you always need to ensure that they're kept in suitable conditions. You ought to air out your kimono at least twice a year, aside from after each time you wear it out, but I prefer to air out my silk kimono more often, just in case.

Antique kimono are also especially hard to care for, as they are made of old silk and are very fragile, so even just touching them would require washing my hands and tying up my hair so that I won't accidentally get any natural oils on them (natural oils discolour silk and will attract moths!! x___x)

~♥~

I'm keeping this post to just five tips, because it's already far too long. I hope that these tips, coming from my experience with overshopping in my earlier days, will help you decide on your first kimono ^_^

phew

2011-02-24T18:29:00.000+08:00

I'm still alive! Feels like alot of things have happened since my last post~ ♥

Went to a few places. I think we were in Singapore at one time last month... And Johor the month before that..
CNY came and went! Surprisingly, it was a rather quiet one this year.
Our annual CNY party was.... wet XD Felt like we were in a typhoon taking shelter under flimsy tents hahaha. Everyone got wet, I think! About 300+ people turned up despite the weather...
I got to see Liss!! We met up once in January and another time at my CNY party :) Absolutely great to catch up!! Especially since she won't be home for another 18 months :/ *sighs* Time to plan a trip to visit her, I think XD XD
Our new maid ran away! Just a few days before CNY too :/ No big issue has come out of it other than the police reports, and since she was here for less than 3 months the agency is getting us a new maid. The family has been spending alot of time cleaning the house. One more month...
Finally cleaned up my room!! Now I have the time (and inclination XD) to dress up, do outfit snaps, take pics of the clothes I want to sell... My mannequin is really coming in handy here :)

I feel like dressing up in one of my new kimono~~♥ I've already put together an outfit! Now's just a matter of finding the time to dress up ♥ But it's been getting busier at work, and looks like it won't ease up till Invest Malaysia is over (that's in mid-April lol!), so I'll most probably stone alot at home till then XD;

Hmmm sleep sounds like a good thing right now....

Tips & Tricks: Where to Buy Kimono

2010-12-21T21:30:00.001+08:00

I notice that a rather large amount of emails that I get via this blog have some variant of the same issue: where do I usually buy my kimono? Since this seems to be a very popular question, I figured it'd be best if I just made a post about it that can easily be referred to.

A majority of the kimono that you see on my blog (and even more that you don't see!) were bought online, as the internet is the easiest place to find plenty of authentic kimono. However, for every beautiful authentic kimono sold online, there are probably a hundred fake kimono that are being sold for ten times their worth.

It is important for an online shopper to be able to identify a real or a fake kimono just by looking at pictures on a screen. This can include a multitude of things - the fabric used, the build of the kimono, the pattern on the fabric. There are many indicators of fake kimono that are quite easy to spot once you get used to it.

However, as a beginner in shopping for kimono online, it will be quite difficult to tell a large number of these differences. In fact, there are some fakes that are so well-crafted that even a seasoned shopper can barely tell that something isn't quite right with it. There are also some sellers that sell authentic kimono at incredibly ridiculous prices (eg: $1,000 for a kimono that's been stained and cut to pieces!).

As such, I suggest to all beginner shoppers to stick to shops that are reputable and well known for selling good quality, authentic kimono at affordable prices.

I am outlining below the usual shops that I frequently direct my readers to as they are known to be reliable. I have bought from all of the shops listed in this post before, and can testify that all of my personal experiences with them have been good.

~♥~

1. Ichiroya
Webshop: Ichiroya
eBay Shop: Ichiroya - eBay

(Note: It seems that Ichiroya's eBay shop is currently empty. Check again later, though - when they post stuff, it's usually a great deal!)

Ichiroya is actually my favourite English webshop to browse through! They always have such beautiful items, and many of them are at quite decent prices. You can always find a multitude of things of any condition from brand-new to old and antique, and from wearable items to display pieces. One thing I really like about them is that they have full kimono sets for sale, readily matched and put together so that beginners in kimono coordination don't have to feel unsure about their choices.

Another point in their favour is their Kitsuke DVD, just about the only English DVD I know of that teaches you how to wear kimono. The main "stars" of the DVD are Yuka, the owner Ichiro's wife, and their daughter.

If you register for their newsletter, you will get to read alot of interesting news about Japan and kimono-related articles every Sunday. All of the Ichiroya staff are very helpful, and if you ever need help in anything, such as finding a piece with a specific motif, or finding an obi to match your kimono, or even tailoring service for their kimono bolts, they are always willing to help you in any way possible.

One down point is that compared to some of the other shops, their items may seem a little expensive. However, I still buy from them as they do carry some rare items, and their items are usually in better condition than other shops.

~♥~

2. RyuJapan
Webshop: RyuJapan
eBay Shop: RyuJapan - eBay

Ryujiro-san is another great seller with very affordable kimono. His supply isn't always consistent, but when he has a new promotion, there is always a great selection to choose from. Most of his new promotions are in line with whatever season is approaching - yukata in June, wool kimono in September, etc. His eBay shop also has a great choice of kimono and kimono items all year-round.

Nearly all of my wool kimono are from Ryujiro-san. He had a wool kimono promotion about 3 years ago and was selling them from USD1 to USD10, so I got a huge bunch of them for really cheap!

One thing that I really love about Ryujiro-san are his sales - on the last few hours of his sales, the discounts can go as low as 60%, sometimes 70% off. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten good quality yukata obi for USD4 just by waiting patiently :)

~♥~

3. Yamatoku Classic
Webshop: Yamatoku Classic
eBay Shop: Yamatoku Classic - eBay

Yet another favourite! My first kimono that weren't yukata were bought from their eBay shop :) I used to constantly drool over their kimono sets, which are more expensive but also more complete than the Ichiroya ones. Recently, they have been having more sales and promotions, with kofurisode being sold for as little as USD9.99, and proper furisode sold at a 30% discount.
The main negative point about buying from Yamatoku is that you have to be quite careful with the condition of the item you are buying - quite alot of them have stains somewhere on the kimono, and are quite highly priced for kimono in such a condition. Still, their recent festivals and promotions have had many mint condition items, so maybe this only applies to some of their older stuff :)

~♥~

There are, of course, far more shops than this that I have bought from and that are reputable, but these are my top picks for beginners :) This also does not include Japanese webshops and Yahoo Japan Auctions, my main source of pretties these days.

Happy Shopping! :)

Note: For those buying from Japanese webshops or from YJA, you will most likely need to use a middleman service, which may significantly up your costs. I use Noppin (http://www.noppin.com/) but there are others out there that you may prefer. I'll write another short post on using middleman websites later.

Christmas Wishlist

2010-12-10T15:47:00.001+08:00

Every year, my family always asks me what I want for Christmas. This year, I thought I'd make it easy and put up a few things that I'd really really like, even if it's a battered second-hand copy :)

1) The Atlas of Middle-Earth, by Karen Wynn Fonstad
2) The Maps of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, by Bryan Sibley and illustrated by John Howe
3) The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth, by Robert Foster
4) The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond
5) Any of the History of Middle Earth series by JRR Tolkien
6) Any books at all on Tolkien and/or his works

^_^ My Tolkien collection is quite a small one, but I haven't read through all of it yet. Still, I'm looking forward to expanding it! My most recent acquirement is the 50th Anniversary one-volume edition of Lord of the Rings, which my sister gave to me for my birthday. I'm contemplating getting that leather-bound copy of The Hobbit that I saw as well....

It's such a pity that it's so hard to find good second-hand books in KL :/ Most of my LotR collection are actually from the UK, where I can raid second-hand bookstores or flea markets easily. Any suggestions on where in KL (besides Amcorp Mall) that I can go hunting for second-hand books?

Event Aftermath: Sleepover Night

2010-12-01T23:18:00.004+08:00

A friend and I had a sleepover at my house a few months ago, and while we spent most of the day running around in lolita clothes, we did go for dinner in yukata! :)

Here are pictures of what we wore~

JL:

Front

Back

Peace Sign! XD

She sewed this yukata by herself! Isn't it amazing??? I really really love the sleeve lengths, which she said took some trouble to wrangle out of a normal-length bolt. And the colours and motif of the fabric are sooo pretty as well *____*

I really like the obi and accessories she picked out as well. Maybe it isn't so visible in these pictures, but there are highlights of that bright bright pink on her yukata that the obi really brings out. Also, the pale shade of yellow she uses for the obi decoration softens the almost harsh contrast of the obi and brings abit of playfulness to the colour scheme as well. (And OMG that bag is so cute and to die for XD!)

And now for my outfit:

Front

Back

Silly shot! (No idea what I was doing. Trying to model the bag in a cutesified way? lol)

I was feeling lazy to coordinate, so I just took out the rose yukata I got from the Jusco Yukata Fair earlier this year, and paired it with what seems to be my favourite obi for navy blue yukata - the Barbie pink one ^^; No surprises that I really like how it turned out - it's the same basic outfit formula for all my navy blue yukata ^^;;;;

Really lovely sleepover that night. We had loads of fun and loads of food @_@ I hope we can do it again sometime!! ^____^

Btw, the IG forums are having a friendship swap, and I'm participating!!! I'm quite excited to find out who I'm going to get, and to decide what I should give them! I'm hoping it'll be someone who's posted pictures on the forums, so I can see what kimono I have that will suit them. It'll be quite amusing if I got JL, who also joined the swap, or vice versa XD

Have a great week everyone - last month of the year!!!

Event Aftermath: Kitsuke Teach-In Session!

2010-11-23T19:43:00.003+08:00

Earlier this year, I'd convinced my godsister Carolyn to buy a yukata, and gave her all the accessories (hadajuban, obi-ita, himo, matching obi) for her birthday. Of course, once she had all the necessary items to dress herself up, she needed to learn how to put the yukata on by herself.

And so, one Sunday in late August, I went over to her flat for a quick kitsuke session! The both of us put on our yukata at the same time so that she could imitate what I'm doing and learn that way (it's the way I learn stuff best, so I figured it would work).

This is the result. Really amazing for her first ever try wearing kimono, isn't it? Except for the obijime (which neither of us could figure out LOL) she did everything herself! I barely had to make any adjustments, and even for that, she learned how to do it quickly after I showed her.

(Just a note - I taught her how to tie the "kai no kuchi" or "clam's mouth" musubi as it's the flattest one I know, and is easier to drive in)

I really like her ensemble! She isn't a very flashy sort of person, which is why she chose a dark colour with a more muted motif. I had to convince her to wear the bright yellow obi with it, but she did say that it was an excellent choice for the yukata because of the contrast. However, in case she has days when she wants to look more mature or elegant, I also gave her an obi that's dusty pink on one side, and a softer mustard yellow on the other side.

Here is the outfit that I chose to wear (and pls excuse the derpface!):

This yukata was one of my very first, and most certainly the first one I ever bought online! It's an old UNIQLO design. However, as it is all pink, and the set came with a black obi, I've always felt it was too young for me.

On that day, I really really wanted to wear this yukata, but I also wanted to make it look a little less young. I chose a sort of dusty maroon (I'm tempted to call it "dried blood colour" XD;) obi that I feel gives some form of contrast to the yukata, but isn't as startling as black. I always think that overly dramatic contrast makes an outfit look younger. A bonus point was that the obi highlights the dark petals of the flowers on the yukata without matching their colours perfectly. I'm also wearing a matching pair of maroon geta.

I love pearls alot, but have never really incorporated them into casual outfits before, but with my new faux pearl obi-kazari, it was easy to glam up the outfit just by adding some pearl earrings and a large white rose ring. Uh, the bag is an old Prada one that I'd been using as a briefcase XD; I chose it that day because it matched the outfit, and was big enough for me to stuff my usual bag's contents and clothes.

Oh, if you're wondering about where we are - after getting dressed, we went to meet her parents and niece for a short while, then we went to Bangsar Shopping Centre for a nice lunch ^_^ These pics were taken in the mall's gourmet food section, which is just about the whole ground floor of one wing.

I left one of my kitsuke books with Carolyn, and she's been using it! She did try to dress herself again, and try new bows, and they always turn out looking great ^_^ Now, she's mentioned thinking of getting a 2nd yukata... And I'm getting her one for Christmas XD Actually, I've bought it and received it already hahaha but I won't post pics till she's received and seen the yukata :) I hope it's to her taste!

I feel really happy that someone close to me has started liking yukata. Ever we showed these pics to friends, other godsisters of mine have been asking if they could dress up, so I've promised them that after Christmas, we'll all have a girlie night out, yukata style! All I really need is just some yukata for their daughters and we're all set XD

I can't wait for Christmas to come - kitsuke buddies in the form of close friends and family members would be the best present I could ever get! :)

Quick Update~

2010-11-10T10:47:00.000+08:00

Eh just a quick update to let you guys know I'm alive (I think). Been busy these past few months!

Went to Europe for a 2-week holiday (Florence, Rome, Cambridge, Edinburgh & London) to send my brother off to Cambridge (*coughs* just an excuse to go there *coughs*)
Continued holiday with a week-long working trip (Norwich, Bath, London, Berlin & Amsterdam)
Spent 2 mad weeks at home preparing for a conference in Beijing
Was in Beijing and Shanghai for a week for work

Yeah I'm really tired ^^;;; Must remedy that this weekend by lots and lots of sleep! XD

On a separate note, Anime Festival Asia 2010 is on this weekend in Singapore... I want to go so badly, but I've got to help with my godbrother's wedding stuff :/ *sighs*

Can someone go for me and check out their Butler Cafe? XD

Toodles~

Event Aftermath: Bon Odori 2010, Shah Alam, Malaysia

2010-09-16T00:17:00.001+08:00

I managed to go to Bon Odori this year! It seems like I'm only able to go every 2 years (2004, 2006, 2008 and now 2010) ^^; How odd!

But honestly, after this year's Bon Odori, I highly doubt I'll be going there again ^^;; Just a liiiiiittle too crowded and hot for my tastes, and I don't really need another excuse to wear yukata out - if I wanted to, I'd just wear it :P"

I met up with a few friends - at first, it was a few friends from my high school (all of whom I haven't seen in at least 5 years!!), then later on we split off to look for other friends ^^; I met up with Hayashi, a kimono buddy of mine, and we managed to squeeze in the final round of dances together XD

I didn't get any good pics, so I'm just posting a few pics of Hayashi and me ^^

Hayashi...

Me...

Both of us together after the final round of dancing...

Crowd photo!

Just a little bit on my outfit...

This yukata is rather special to me, because I first saw the blue version in one of my sister's fashion magazines in 2004. I fell in love instantly but never actually tried looking for it because the price tag on the magazine page was ridiculous.

When I started buying from YJA, I thought of looking for the yukata and after months of searching, I found this one going at a decent price in a whole set (yukata, obi, geta, bag & obijime). So of course, I fought for it and managed to win it in early 2009 XD Yay!~ *happiness*

For Bon Odori 2010, I wore it with its matching obi, which has a motif of goldfish woven into the fabric. I didn't quite want to wear the full set, so I paired it with a pair of green geta, obi kazari with orange and green beads, and orange and green earrings. I'm also using my favourite bag for yukata.

When I was getting ready, my sister and I randomly decided to go to a hair salon and get our hair done. I was meant to leave the house for Bon Odori at 5pm, but went to the salon at 4pm - and finished at 5.30pm ^^;;; Luckily, I still managed to get home and change and leave by 6pm!!

Anyway, this is what the hairdresser came up with:

Pretty nice, isn't it? I was really happy with how she did it! My sister and I just told her I was going to wear a yukata, so she could do whatever she wanted ^^ I'll definitely ask for her again the next time I go there.

That's all of the pictures - the rest that I took were mainly crowd pics that had yukata outfits in them haha. Not really worth the camera space, now that I think about it.... ^^;;;

Goodnight!

Long Weekend~~

2010-09-12T21:09:00.000+08:00

Friday was a public holiday for Hari Raya, so we had a lovely long weekend.

I was quite productive!

Got my legs and eyebrows waxed. FINALLY.
Made an appointment for a facial.
Cleaned up room. Guesstimating about 30% done so far, but that's quite alot already ^^;
Started playing RO again. Woohoo!
Bought a new teacup/saucer set. Now, just to get the matching teapot....
Cleared out my closets. Turns out I have alot of clothes to donate to charity ^^;;;
Took some pics of clothes to sell~

Now if only I could fit in a hair & scalp treatment and a make-up session, it'd be perfect :)

On another note, I think I'm going to redecorate my room. I really need a proper study table, so I might get that country-style table I've been eyeing for a while.... So I've got to change my room's decor from Japanese-inspired to country home-inspired XD; I can't wait to start hunting for proper partitians!

.. But I think I can definitely wait for Monday to start ;_; Sunday, where did you gooooo?

Layout Change~

2010-09-07T17:55:00.001+08:00

Just a random post to say that I've changed my blog layout again :) Navigation is mostly the same, but the looks are very different now. I got a little tired of looking at the same small frame for the body, and it was really too small for alot of my photos, so I just used one of Blogspot's pre-set layout designs ^^;

I'm quite happy with the current colour scheme - yellow is so cheery and happy, yet this shade is particularly peaceful and calming at the same time.

*happy*

Style Tips: September

2010-09-03T16:26:00.004+08:00

One of the lolita blogs that I follow does an article on style tips for each month. It's a pretty fun idea, so I thought I'd start doing it too, only for kimono ^_^

Please note that most of these tips are completely from my own opinions and small bits of knowledge I've picked up or noticed over the years I've been into kimono. As such, they shouldn't be taken as any sort of steadfast rule, but instead as guidelines on how to dress in tune with your surroundings.

Also, most of my style tips are applicable for the Northern Hemisphere only - maybe even specific to London, which is where I gained all my personal knowledge about kimono in cold weather! However, if you're able to withstand the heat, these may also apply to those in tropical countries as well. ♥

Here goes!

Start preparing for the upcoming cold weather early: air out your warmer kimono ahead of time so that if there is a sudden drop in temperature, you're not caught without anything to wear!
Things might start to get a little chilly later this month so switch out your yukata and summerweave kimono for a warmer hitoe when you begin to feel that nip in the air.
If you find it too cool for summerweave fabrics yet too warm for hitoe, compromise by wearing a ro juban under your hitoe kimono. Alternatively, layer up a little with a lace haori or shawl.
As a precursor to colder weather ahead, your han'eri, obi, obiage and obijime (and even tabi and zori!) should no longer be usumono.
At night, temperatures can dip pretty low, so keep a thin pretty shawl in your bag when you go out.
This month marks the beginning of autumn, so slowly phase out your summer colours of blues and purples, and start introducing small amounts of orange, yellow, brown and red to your ensembles.
Autumn's most common seasonal motifs are chrysanthemum flowers and turning maple leaves, which are worn throughout September, October and November.
The Japanese usually decorate their house with pampas grass around this time of the year (tradition dictates that this will ward off illness for the year) so wear pampas grass motifs earlier in the month to keep in season.
Other in-season motifs to keep in mind: Bush clover, Chinese bellflower, crickets, dragonflies.
September's moon in considered to be the most beautiful of the year. Until/On Tsukimi (the moon-viewing festival) which is on 22nd September and 20th October this year, wear kimono and obi with moon motifs.

Video: How To Dress Yukata & Kimono Part 1

2010-08-18T21:00:00.003+08:00

I think I've rather been neglecting my blog ^^;;;

As an apology, here is an English video on how to wear yukata, posted by the owners of Ichiroya.com, one of my favourite kimono shops. The people who appear in the video are Yuka-san (Ichiro-san's wife) and their daughter.

The video is quite easy to understand and is very helpful! It does show many important things, such as a complete list of items needed to wear kimono, padding and the proper kimono silhouette, and important tips to keep in mind when wearing kimono.

If you are learning to wear kimono, I would recommend that you start with wearing yukata, since it is simple and easy to wear. This video is the best English video on yukata-wearing that I have seen so far, and is highly recommended!

For those of you who would like to buy the entire video series, Ichiroya is selling a DVD on how to wear kimono on their website (link available at the sidebar) ^^

I hope that this video was helpful to those who are just starting to learn how to wear kimono!

Delays

2010-08-04T13:54:00.003+08:00

Hmmm I'm supposed to be posting about Bon Odori 2010, but I can't figure out how to work the new Flickr layout ^^;;;; I did try taking the "tour" but it doesn't seem to work on my com o_O???

So my picture & events posts will be a little delayed till I can putter around and "fix" it ^^;

Event Aftermath: Yukata Meet @ KLCC

2010-07-22T18:43:00.003+08:00

Just a quick post on an old meet up ^^;

Early in May this year, a couple of friends and I had a yukata meet at KLCC! It was the first time I was going out with friends in yukata in Malaysia since 2007, so I was understandably very excited ^^;;;

We managed to schedule our meet so that it coincided with Isetan's Food Fair, so we of course headed there for lunch after having a picture-taking session at the KLCC Park. After lunch, we headed to Kinokuniya and shopped (and talked :P) for 2 hours before retiring at a cafe.

It was short, but still enjoyable! ^__^ It was nice to make new friends~~ :)

Anyway, pictures now!

I'd seen this little area in February and thought it looked nice, so I insisted that we went there to take pictures ^^;;;

We did manage to get someone to take pics of all 3 of us, but it's floating somewhere in my friend's Flickr, and I'm abit too lazy to find it ^^;

I was so amused by the fact that the flowers kind of matched me that day!

We stopped by to rest a little.

I've always been rather fond of "walking pictures"... :P"

I figured that since we were already at KLCC, we might as well take pics with the Twin Towers! Also, I always seem to take pics in Piccadilly Circus in London, so taking pics of another famous monument :P

I'm afraid we only bothered with our cameras a very little bit in the park, and rather forgot about them after that ^^; So no other photos ahahaha~

Just a little bit on my outfit:

It's a ro-weave yukata that I had bought from Oh!Japan's stall in last year's Japan Charity Bazaar & Fiesta. It was a little more expensive than I expected for something that feels like a cotton/poly mix, but I figured that it was for charity, so it's okay.

I very much like the fact that it's ro, so it feels easier to dress it up as a kimono. I tried hard to coordinate it so that it looks like a cool outfit, as we had been having a heatwave at that time. (And as cooling as the outfit looked, I was really boiling in it!!)

I was quite happy to find that my electric blue summerweave hakata obi matched it perfectly! It felt a little to stark and dark for my liking, so I paired it with white and light blue accessories. The light blue han'eri I'm wearing was a Christmas present from my kimono buddy in the UK, Chantal :) Thanks, Chan!

To complete the kimono look, I paired it with navy blue zori and white lace tabi.

My kitsuke was ok that day, but not great. I woke up late and had too little time to dress nicely, and my juban was very slippery! Since I got to KLCC early, I ended up retreating to a toilet and re-tying my obi there... ^^;;;

Next up would be a post on Bon Odori 2010 :)

Suggestions?: Obi-Matching Dilemma

2010-07-16T07:32:00.002+08:00

As mentioned in my earlier posts, my godsis Carolyn bought a yukata at the Jusco Yukata Fair. Since the fair didn't have any proper undies or even koshihimo (shocking!) and she hated the obi her yukata came with, I decided to get her a proper matching obi and yukata undies set for her birthday. (Don't worry about my posting this in public - she already knows what she's getting for her birthday :P)

My only problem is deciding what colour obi I should get her. Her yukata has a base colour of dark purple, with lighter shades of purple and white, and a motif of sakura. I can see it matching with so many colours - mustard yellow, pale yellow, pale green, light blue, all sorts of pinks, white, lilac.... I just don't know what to get her :/

I did ask her what sort of colour she'd like, but she said it'd be very difficult to decide without actually seeing the obi in person. Also, her taste is generally a less bright and more sedate sort of colour combination. Her favourite motif is sakura, but I'm afraid of accidentally turning her outfit into a sakura overload ^^;;;

Soooo..... Any suggestions?

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2010 - My Finds!

2010-07-15T17:53:00.004+08:00

As promised, here is my post about the stuff I bought at the Jusco yukata fair!

1)Pale blue stripes and spots yukata. I found this pattern quite adorable, and I don't have any pale blue yukata.

I'm not entirely sure what sort of obi I'd like to wear this with, but I think the one in this photo makes for a rather refreshing combination. I'm not too fond of the idea of wearing such a plain yukata obi with this yukata, but the colours are really spot-on for my taste...

2) Brown with bunnies yukata. I was really happy to have found this! I haven't any brown kimono or yukata or even obi, so this was a very nice surprise. Plus, the saleswomen told me that they have only one yukata of this pattern, and they all remembered me for buying it ^^;;

I found this one obi that seems to be a great colour match for the yukata. It contrasts the darkness so well, and at the same time, the roses match the bunnies quite perfectly. I think it lends a rather cute appeal to a yukata that is otherwise slightly too old for me. Any ideas on other colour combinations? I think I might try a pale yellow or something.

3) Yet another navy blue roses and false shibori yukata! I love that sort of combination. The roses here look really elegant, I feel.

For this photo, I paired this yukata with a plain white obi so that I can show off my new obijime :)

4) Navy blue and gold yukata obijime. I bought this because the colour is quite hard to get right on screen, so it's more difficult to find the correct shade when shopping online.

I didn't really know how to tie the obijime properly, so I just fudged it ^^;; I think it turned out looking rather well!

5) All the obi that came with the yukata! (and one extra from my godsis, who also hated the obi)

I'm still not sure about what I'm going to do with all these... I think I might keep them to lend out to people who want to wear yukata, but can't tie an obi. However, if you want one, I'd be willing to trade! Just send me a message or leave a comment XD

6) One of the three pairs of geta I bought.

At RM20, these were really worth it. Even my godsis Carolyn, whom I dragged along and convinced to buy lots of stuff at the fair, bought a couple of pairs and said they were really comfy for everyday wear!

7) Navy blue uchiwa fan.

I'm of the opinion that you can never have too many fans! XD The fact that this fan matches my new navy blue yukata doesn't hurt either :P

8) Pearl obi kazari.

I've always wanted one, so I thought I'd just buy one to see. I ended up buying another one when this one worked so well ^^;

9) Kimono stickers!

These weren't actually from the Jusco yukata fair. However, I did bump into them at Art Friend, Gardens when my godsis and I went to the fair. I couldn't resist such cuteness!! I can't wait to start using them the next time I send a card or a letter to my kimono friends :)

These actually weren't all the items I bought - I also have parasols, more geta, more obi kazari, a child's yukata set, and a couple of items for my brother..... But I got lazy to post all of them :P

Bon Odori is this weekend (zomg forgot to post about it!) so I might wear one of my new pretties there ^_^ If my brother goes with me, he'll be wearing one of the yukata I bought for him yay! I can't wait 8D

Hope you enjoyed seeing what I purchased XD I certainly had a good time shopping haha!

Toodles and goodnight!

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2010

2010-07-13T11:55:00.001+08:00

As promised to a few people, I took pics of the Jusco Yukata Fair :) Here's a not-so-small post about it!

In anticipation of Bon Odori, which is growing more and more popular every year, Jusco decided to have a yukata fair this year. I don't know if they've had it before, but when my friend told me about it, I definitely had to go and check it out!

The fair wasn't held at all Jusco outlets. In KL, it was only held in the Mid Valley outlet - which is incredibly convenient for me, since it's so near my office!

The location in the outlet was quite easy to spot - from the Center Court entrance, you can already see some pretties to entice you in.

Then you just walk straight in and you'll be greeted by a couple of mannequins in yukata.

Walking along the perimeter of the area, which is quite large. This side is showing more of the kids' yukata.

The screen was playing a video on how to wear yukata. It gathered quite a crowd when it was still on! ^^;

Just look at the amount of choice we have for women's yukata! *sighs dreamily*

This set was one of the more complete, but also more expensive sets.

I took a picture of the area that displayed lots of nice parasols, geta and bags, but I didn't take pics of the area for men's yukata, obi kazari, kanzashi, obijime, fans and other random deco stuff.

The price range was pretty decent for some of the stuff! I'm just going to put up a price list for reference if they have another fair next year XD

Women's yukata set (yukata + tsuke obi) : RM129 for most, with some at RM399
Men's yukata set (yukata + kaku obi) : RM129 per set
Kids' yukata set (yukata + obi, type of obi varies with age) : RM89 each
Folding Fan : RM29
Uchiwa Fan : RM10
Parasol : RM39
Geta : RM29
Decorative lace for obi : RM119
Obi Kazari : RM69
Obijime : RM49 - RM59

I'm afraid that's all I remember ^^;; I didn't buy any bags or kanzashi, so I don't remember how much they cost. I hope they'll have another one of these next year! It sure saves alot of hassle from dealing with Paypal, shipping and customs, and is pretty decently priced, considering the quality of some of the items!

Ok, I think this post has gotten quite long enough. I'll stop here for now, and will post on my purchases later ^_^ (I'm currently working on that, so it won't take too long before I post it, I hope!)

Toodles~

Review: West Side Story the Musical

2010-07-12T18:25:00.000+08:00

I promised (and wrote!) this a really really long time ago, and I thought I ought to post it before I started posting the other in-progress stuff ^^;;;

My sister had been hearing alot of good things about West Side Story, so when they came to Malaysia, she was understandably excited. And so, as the story goes, my family and I went to watch the musical on Saturday, 15th May 2010.

My review:

Location: Um, my knowledge of Malaysian geography is really awful (I only know how to get to Mid Valley and my office and maybe Jalan Sultan Ismail from my house LOL) so I can't comment much here ^^;; It was held at Istana Budaya, if that helps at all.

Music: The music was so-so. There were a few good songs that I quite liked, but some other songs weren't really to my liking while others were just lackluster and not very memorable. My sister, her friends and I all agree that the singing really wasn't up to our expectations. I felt that the only one who had a particularly striking voice was the female lead, Maria. On the other hand, if you took away all the lyrics and the singing, the instrumental music was gorgeous!

(On a random note - the song "I feel pretty" sounds much much nicer in Spanish than it does in English!)

Storyline: Well, the storyline is meant to be a modern-day Romeo and Juliet. I will admit that it is probably a favourite basis for many stories, and I can see so many ways in which this basic idea could be an emotional and touching story. However, the way in which the script was written made West Side Story absolutely corny and lame to the core (and not in a good way), not to mention that it sounded like something a hormonal 14 year old would write for fanfiction - and I would definitely be able to recognise that sort of story, having been one of those hormonal fanfiction-writing 14 year olds myself. (:P)

As time goes on and I think back more on the musical, I begin to see more clearly that some parts that I had hated did tie in with the story and give an appropriate background for the setting, but it still doesn't change that they were badly done. Alot of the characters don't have any background story, so I feel like I don't know the character well enough to emphatize with/hate them or understand their side of the story. I also rather felt that the American side of the story was more developed than the Puerto Rican side, which made it seem rather lopsided.

Other comments: The pace of the story is quite odd. It starts off at a slow pace, with alot of contemporary dancing and dialogue, and seems to get even slower as the musical goes on, until it suddenly climaxes and spins to a stop within ten minutes of the end of the musical. Rather too abrupt an ending to be enjoyable. (But there was this very amusing moment where Maria screams like she's that girl in the Exorcist. It was meant to be a solemn and serious moment, but the instant I heard it, I just had to giggle!)

Speaking of Maria, my sister and I found her accent very annoying. Once again, we understand that it's meant to reflect her non-American roots, but still.... we really could do without it! Maria was quite a whiny character too. Maybe it was the whining rather than the accent that got on my nerves!

On another note, there were too many contemporary dances for my liking. Don't get me wrong - they were very beautifully choreographed dances, but my sister and I didn't quite see the point in alot of it. I felt like they were just there to bulk out the performance. As my sister said, it feels more like we're watching So You Think You Can Dance? rather than a musical.

Recommendation: I honestly wouldn't recommend this to anyone. A friend has told me that the movie was really good, so perhaps that would be a better alternative. But at least I can now say I've watched it, and will avoid this musical for the rest of my life.

Event Announcement: Yukata Fair at Jusco Mid Valley

2010-07-02T10:15:00.004+08:00

Just a quick post ^_^

There's a yukata fair at Jusco Mid Valley (Ground Floor - just enter from the Center Court entrance and walk straight, and you'll bump into it). I went there yesterday to check it out, and they have quite a large selection!

Prices are quite decent - a yukata and obi set are RM129 for men and women, and RM89 for children's sets. You can also get an assortment of accessories - RM10 for an uchiwa fan, RM39 for parasols, RM20 for geta... There are also some bags, obijime, obi kazari and hair accessories, which really completes each set. I noticed some decorative lace for obi too.

If anyone wants to check it out, please do it soon, because it's only there till this Sunday, 4th July 2010. This is really a great opportunity to get some cheap yukata for Bon Odori or anime/cosplay conventions :)

I've bought two sets for myself and one for my brother already! I also got one for my niece, but it's a little big for her age, so I'm going to have to go back and look for another one her size XP And I got 3 pairs of geta, a fan, one obi kazari and two parasols. I'm in love! I'm planning to go back to buy more ehhehehe~ XP

On a side note, I've been pretty dead coz I was in Singapore for a Summer Wealth Management Program by Merrill Lynch for two weeks. It was really fun! Made loads of new friends XD Didn't really learn so much new stuff, but got to see another aspect of the wealth management industry hehehe. Will post on it sometime soon, if I remember!

Toodles~

It's Alive!!

2010-05-17T13:37:00.003+08:00

O_O It's been forever since I last posted!! >___<""" Sorry!!!

Anyway, just a quick update on what's been going on XD

1) Was busy with a conference, which explains my disappearance over March. April and half of May were purely the result of extreme laziness :P

2) Finally had a kimono meet-up in Malaysia!!!! Just three of us girls walking around KLCC :) Will post about it... eventually :P""

3) My brother came home for Easter.... Then got stuck here because of the volcanic ash situation LOL. That was one hell of a week for us...

4) Went to Melaka and Johor for a working visit, then stopped by Singapore for the heck of it. Visited Black Alice but didn't buy anything. Bought lots and lots of yarn for my sister from Spotlight.

5) My sister and I were discussing a yarn cafe. Lots of interesting ideas! XD

6) Went to a lolita meet-up~~ :) *happiness*

7) Watched West Side Story. Waste of time and money. Will post a review next.

That's all the interesting stuff I can remember XD I don't have much of a life to actually blog about lol.

I'm in the middle of typing out a review for West Side Story, so that'll be up next. Toodles!

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Iketeru

2010-03-09T19:01:00.005+08:00

I've been a little tense and irritable lately, so I felt like I really needed to relax over the weekend. Since my sister had recently found out about the new spring menu at Iketeru in KL Hilton and my parents were away for the weekend, the three of us (me, Pig and Pot) decided to try it out on Saturday night. My sister had also wanted to test out her new camera and lens on good food pics :P

I saw an opportunity to dress up in kimono and snatched it up right away! Here are some pictures of my outfit. These were taken after dinner.

(Sorry the yukata is so rumpled... ^^;;;)

Near the pool-bar-area thing. (So articulate)

Again, near the pool.

Back shot. Yeah, it's a walking-pose, but just standing there was so boring, and the pics are really blurry if I actually walk ^^;;

Outside the lift. I really like this shot! The colours are more accurate here, and you can see my musubi more clearly. I think it kind of looks like it's pre-tied LOL!

It took us forever to take this shot of me pouring the dobinmushi (a type of soup) into the serving cup! By the time we were satisfied by the pics, the pot was nearly empty XD Funny how the best-looking one ended up being one of the earlier pics!

We had fun setting a time limit for my sister. "Take the pic, take the pic, take the pic! Oh... The cup is full... So who wants some soup?"

My ensemble on Saturday was a second-hand UNIQLO yukata that I got on YJA. It actually came with a maroon obi, but I wanted something different this time. Green and purple is one of my favourite colour combinations, especially for kimono, so I thought I'd go with it. I think it kind of brings out the colour of the wisteria. The bag and earrings are from my mum's closet, and the fan is a cheap buy from Daisou, with a pattern of bunnies.

I uhhh really meant to wear proper kimono, but my sister's boyfriend and I were playing Prince of Persia on the PS3 and we got carried away ^^; I didn't start getting ready till too late, and (shockingly) I hadn't even decided on an outfit to wear! So I just threw on the simplest thing I could find and put together in a few minutes ^^; Then again, given the recent heatwave, it was probably for the best.

I was really pleased with how neatly my kitsuke turned out, given that I haven't dressed up in two months. It took me about half an hour to dress, which is shockingly long - I must be getting out of practice!

I didn't really realise that just wearing kimono would make me feel so relaxed. It's like any stress just melted off me. And to think that I haven't worn kimono just to go out and have fun in 4 months! Therapeutic, it is.

Of course, the moment I stepped into the office yesterday, whatever stress relief I had was all zapped up immediately haha :P Hmmm, another excuse to dress up and go out again? XD

Anyway, just wanted to share some random food pics:

My sister's starter course.

Her sashimi course.

Her garlic fried rice.

The ice cream looked better than it tastes haha.

Rommel's dessert course from his hanami bento.

My choices were kind of boring for photos, and other photos didn't turn out so well, so just these pics.

I'm really sorry you can't see how nice the pics really are, coz they go rather wonky once we shrink them, but we have to shrink them - our house internet can't take the stress of uploading very large photos ^^;; So, we're stuck with small not-so-nice pics *sigh*

Ta, people! I'm off to eat dinner.

Gluttony~

2010-02-18T10:26:00.001+08:00

It's been a full six days in a row of pigging out, with feasting and celebrations abound! I've been having such heavy lunches and dinners lately. I have no doubt I'll be gaining a few kg just by living through this next month.

Even yesterday, which was Ash Wednesday and therefore supposed to be a day of fasting and abstinence, had two full meals! We didn't eat meat, but we sure as hell didn't fast :P

*sighs* But on the topic of Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent.. What should I give up for this Lent? I don't know... A little late to be thinking about it, but I honestly have been more preoccupied with CNY ^^; So much so to the point where I'd forgotten completely about Valentine's Day till yesterday ^^;;;;

Anyway, on a random off-topic moment, I've been trying to put together an outfit for Valentine's Day, late though it may be. It's quite alot harder than I thought, because I had hoped to combine my Valentine's Day outfit and my CNY outfit into one, and that's kiiiiiind of hard to do when I'm lacking alot of red pieces in my kimono closet. So..... that outfit may take a while in coming, but I'll make sure it comes!!

On that note, should I make another outfit for Lent this year? Or should I make one for Easter? XD

Happy Chinese New Year!

2010-02-12T15:24:00.003+08:00

I am absolutely thrilled to finally be home and celebrating Chinese New Year with my family! It'll be the first time I'm celebrating CNY in about 5 years, excluding this one time my friends and I had a mini yee-sang and steamboat party in my 2nd year room at Concord.

Soooo..... Since I'll be kind of busy this weekend, what with the Eve of CNY tomorrow and the first day of CNY on Sunday, I thought I'd just post an early:

GONG XI FA CAI!May the Year of the Tiger bring you prosperity!

Ehehe. Speaking of tigers, I'm thinking of creating a tiger (or cat) themed outfit for this year, much like xiner did, now that the year of the tiger is about to start. (FYI, the year of the Tiger doesn't start until CNY - the weeks before that are still considered as the "tail" of the year of the Cow)

Aaaaaand, speaking of kimono.... I know my mum said I could buy a kimono if the Jakarta trip went well. But, well... My mum bought me this bag from Coach's 2010 Valentine's Gifts collection, so I won't be getting a new kimono anytime soon ^^;

Sorry to disappoint, but the bag is just too cute!! And wonderfully big and convenient too ^^; I think I'll be trying to come up with an outfit that will match this bag ehehhehe~

Toodles, people!~

Event Aftermath: Yukata Picnic April 2009: Part 2!

2010-02-10T16:26:00.014+08:00

I'm back from the Jakarta trip! It was... hectic. And I felt so tired even though I didn't do all that much hahaha. But it was a good trip :) We saw 22 companies in 3 days.

Anyway! I promised I'd post additional pics of my yukata picnic with Mel and Mich back in April 2009 in this post, and here they are! These are the fun pics. My earlier post had the boring ones hahahaha.

I stuffed Mel into something with PINK!

Of course, I had to give her a matching pink bag to use :P

Eh, ignore me in my kimono undies in the background :P

While we're getting ready.

Random Darcy photo XD

Me at the picnic..

I love this pic!

If there wasn't a background of buildings, I could almost pretend I'm in a forest somewhere ehehehe.

As we were packing up to go back in:

Shoe shot! I rather like this pic, actually~

The three of us~ X3

Showing off cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery :D

*sighs happily* That was a nice walk down memory lane. I could almost feel the cold air of London while I was looking through those pics. It could've been the air conditioning, though :P

I hope you liked the pics! ^^ And I really really hope it makes up for part of the lack of updates ^^; Toodles~

phew

2010-01-31T08:56:00.003+08:00

It's been a few crazy weeks at work, mostly because we're organising a 4-day working trip to Jakarta for tomorrow. Alot of it took a long time to arrange, and there were some last-minute changes that made it all a huge headache! Especially for me, since I'm the one who's organising all the small details like that ;___; I'm just glad that the main part of the organising bit is already over with - all that's left is the trip tomorrow. I'll have to pray extra hard that there aren't any major crises during the trip itself. I'm hoping my good luck will hold up till Thursday!

It's actually a public holiday tomorrow for those of us with offices in KL, but because of the Jakarta trip, I don't get the holiday :/ But it's okay - a little more work hasn't killed anyone, after all.

On a happier note, my mum said that if this Jakarta trip goes well, I can get a new kimono!! *thrilled* Not that I have to get permission to get a new one, but maybe I can get one of the more expensive ones this time~ :P

I know I've kind of been on a kimono hiatus lately, due mainly to the sudden lolita craze I seem to have caught, but a couple of new magazines (and maybe the promise of a new kimono XP) have brought me back! Yay! :D

I've been wanting to dress up in kimono for a while now, and I did have some time to myself yesterday, but I chose to clean out my room instead. Haha, when sorting out my kimono closet, I noticed that I seem to have amassed a huge amount of sakura-themed items lately ^^;;; Even the new Noren curtain I put up has a sakura theme on it!

Not so good for seasonal dressing, but I've heard that this style/type of sakura pattern is accepted as an all-seasons motif since it's Japan's national flower.

I did have time to put together a cute outfit with the new (sakura-themed :P) kimono that I got at Akihabara Japan Products in Singapore last year! I'm hoping to be able to wear it next weekend ^_^ It'll be the only free time I have before March, because Chinese New Year is on 14th February this year, so that's one weekend gone, and the next weekend, we'll be having our annual CNY party. The weekend after that will be Chap Goh Mei (the last day of CNY), so it'll be busy again. I feel exhausted just thinking about our coming schedule....

On the other hand, this will be the first time I'm celebrating CNY with my family in 5 years, so I'm really happy to be here ^___^ This is one thing I missed in the UK. It's not that I don't celebrate, it's just that I don't celebrate as lavishly. Somehow, the "right" sort of feeling just isn't there. Same thing with celebrating Christmas, I guess. Over here, I've got the right people and stuff, but the atmosphere just doesn't compare to the UK, where you can feel the Christmas Spirit running rampant everywhere and bonking everyone on the head.

Okay, I guess I've rambled on and on enough for now :P I was looking through my past posts and realised that I never put up some pictures from my Yukata Picnic last year. The new pics are from Mich's camera, and I stole them off her Facebook a little late ^^;;; But here's a taster of my next update :)

With a small Hummingbird Bakery Red Velvet cupcake to last you till I update :P

Ta, people! ^^

Layout changed!

2010-01-20T19:01:00.002+08:00

Okay, I'm done playing around! The blog shouldn't look funky anymore :)

After having a dark background with light-coloured fonts as a layout for so long, I finally decided I'd like to have a sweeter blog. I found the background image in my clipart program today, so I decided to do something about it, and voila! A new layout.

I'm still not 100% satisfied with the background image. I'll probably change it again sometime, when I can figure out how to make one that suits my tastes. For now, it'll remain the same picture in repeat.

I got the basis of this layout from this page of this site, , using my old layout, just with different colours and a few different settings.

Eh, comments and crit please! If you find the pink hurts your eyes too much, or the words are difficult to read, please let me know! ^_^

Ta~

Changing Layout

2010-01-20T18:27:00.001+08:00

Hi all!

I'll be experimenting with my blog layout for a bit, so if everything suddenly goes funky, don't worry about it ^^;;

-Priscilla

Outfit Snap: Kevin and Miyuki's Wedding

2010-01-12T23:00:00.003+08:00

My neighbour's son got married to a Japanese woman last week. Of course, having known about this event for months, I asked if I could wear kimono - and was given permission!!

I had a load of problems deciding what was appropriate to wear, because the bride wasn't going to wear furisode, but after asking the IG forums and questioning the groom a little more, I found out that the bride was only going to wear kimono for the pre-dinner cocktail session, and that everyone else is going to be very very formal.

So, instead of the iromuji I had first thought of wearing and was advised to choose by the very helpful IG forum members, I wore furisode.

I chose to wear my new modern purple furisode that I got with a matching juban on YJA for only $200USD, everything included. I didn't have the perfect obi to go with the furisode, nor did I have the perfect accessories, so I had to make-do with what I had.

Here's the result!

Front:

My first time tying a bunko musubi with a fukuro obi onto myself! I was so proud.... Of course, I had to enlist my maid's help for tying tight koshihimo knots behind me ^^;;

Just in case you can't see:

I LOVE the way Florence (family hairstylist) did my hair that night!!

I paired the furisode with a silver fukuro obi that is actually more for tomesode or houmongi or the like. But I think the colour coordination is very nice, so I guess it's not too bad.

Of all the formal obiage and obijime sets that I had, the yellow one seemed to look best, so I used that. Just so happens that I recently bought a matching yellow kasane'eri from Akihabara Japan Products in Singapore! I feel that it helped complete the look a little more.

To finish off the look, I wore white tabi with pale gold zori, and chose pearl earrings, bracelet and clutch bag.

The hair accessory was actually something I'd just stumbled on in the mall right after doing up my hair haha. I love it so much!! I think it looks very elegant.

I'm sorry my kitsuke was so bad that day, but dressing in furisode is very hard - especially when I'm under a time-constraint and am feeling pressured to do it all perfectly! But it was acceptable, I guess... The bridal couple loved it, as did the groom's family, and the bride's family thought I was Japanese! :P

And it was such wonderful night: so beautiful and emotional! I've never seen a couple happier to wed, nor a bride more radiant. Congratulations to Kevin and Miyuki! :D

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T01:57:00.000+08:00

Just a quick one to say...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

My family and I went to Sage for New Year's Eve dinner, but we didn't stay for the countdown. Instead, we went to a friend's house, where we saw fireworks dangerously upclose. We're all sooty now! Haha. Was planning to wear a kimono outfit for the dinner, but now I'm really glad I didn't.

Am tired. G'night people! Have a nice holiday :)

Happy Christmas!

2009-12-24T17:32:00.004+08:00

Hi everyone! I just wanted to say..

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!
May your dreams be merry and bright~

Happy holidays, too, everyone! ^_^

Just a small update, since I'm too excited over it to wait till later to post..:

Yesterday, I was hit with a sudden urge to buy wigs and what-not to achieve that incredibly cute head-of-curls look that the girls in the Gothic Lolita Bible have.

Today, I was wandering around a shopping mall during my lunch hour when I found a shop that sold clip on ponytail extensions! O_O I stopped by to have a look and bought a couple immediately, as it was quite a nice quality for a decent price (RM60!).

Once I got home, I had to try them on. I didn't put on any of my loli clothes, so please excuse the not-loli top ^^;;

The result:

What do you think? I think I should tie the ponytails a little higher and hide the straight hair parts, but I'm still rather happy with the result!! XD XD

Btw I'm still sorting through my UK/Paris trip pics. I'll try to upload them as soon as I can! ^_^

Ta~

It's Official

2009-12-03T00:06:00.002+08:00

I HAVE GRADUATED!

My graduation ceremony was today in Southwark Cathedral. As of approximately two hours ago, I am now an official Cass Business School, City University graduate. WOOHOO!

Btw, yes, that does mean that I'm in London. We took a night flight on Monday November 30th and arrived here yesterday. We've been eating alot and have already hit Farmer Brown's twice. Later tonight, we're going to go to Il Bordello for dinner! Yum!

I've already met up Mel (meeting her again tonight, actually!) and have caught up with some of my uni friends at the ceremony, but now I'm really really looking forward to meeting up with my kimono gang! XD XD Woooohoooooooo!

I can't believe how much I've missed London. It feels like I've come home haha!

Toodles people! I'm off to enjoy myself more in the lovely cold winter air! XD

grumbles

2009-11-26T16:56:00.002+08:00

My goal for December is to get all these damn business cards sorted. I want them arranged alphabetically according to company, branch/division, and name. And to start with, I'm going to need to buy more business card holders.

I swear, even trying to sort this stuff out is going to kill me.

Event Aftermath: Stuff from Japan Charity Bazaar

2009-11-18T14:33:00.006+08:00

Just a quick post about stuff I got at that Japan Charity Fiesta and Bazaar 2009 thingum.

1) Pretty box! Cheap too - only RM20.

2) New yukata!!! I'm not sure what it's made of (I think it feels like a cotton/poly mix) but the weave is a lovely ro.

3) Cute tiny notebook that sits in my bag all the time now:

4) A really cute kinchaku made of Malaysian batik cloths!

5) Another very cute kinchaku.

^_____^ I'm happy!

Spending Money....

2009-11-16T12:02:00.000+08:00

For the first time in quite a long time, I bought something online.

This time, it isn't anything kimono-related. This time, I bought some loli clothes.

I bought them from this website called "In The Starlight". The sellers (very talented ladies!!) are from the US and tailor make the loli clothes to your measurements. So far, the pictures of their sewing looks very nice, and the quality of the lace looks good from what I can tell. I'm very much looking forward to having something that actually fits me without having to wear my kimono bra and body-shaper thing!

I ordered a short-sleeved blouse, matching long sleeves, a longer black skirt, and two headdresses. All of them were black because I rather like the idea of being a kuro loli for now. Well, that, and I'd just bought a pair of all-black loli shoes on Saturday :P

I requested that the skirt be made at a longer length so that it would look more mature. I'm hoping it'd go some way into making a good aristocrat outfit somehow ^^;;

The sellers said that it would take them about a week to finish the items and send them off, then it'll take another 2 weeks to get here. I'm hoping it wouldn't get lost amongst all that Christmas mail!! x_x I rather forgot about that when I ordered. Maybe I should email them again and ask if I can register for a tracking number?

Oooooh I can't wait for them to arrive!!!

Outfit Snap: Rose Yukata Ensemble

2009-11-15T23:38:00.006+08:00

On Saturday was the Anime Hanabi Festival thingy. I wanted to go, just so I could wear my new lolita jumper skirt that my mum bought me for my birthday (that reminds me, I need to post pics of it!), but I couldn't find my good white stockings, so I had to forego that idea :/

So instead, I decided to wear a yukata! After all, it feels odd to go to an anime event without dressing up somehow. I pulled out the false shibori rose yukata that was actually for my sister. Since we keep putting off wearing it, and the yukata-wearing thing was such a last-minute decision (I'd gotten the dress on then realised the only stockings I had looked bad with it), I put it on instead.

Of course, I didn't wear the ensemble that she is meant to wear. I had put together another outfit with that yukata sometime ago when I was bored, so I wore that instead.

The theme is: ROSES!

I wore the yukata with a pale lilac obi that has a woven motif of roses on it. I really like how the bag matches the yukata so well. I spent most of my time with the bag slung over my shoulder. I liked that casual kind of look! I'll have to do it more often! XD

I also decided to try out a new obi musubi. I was quite amused when it turned out looking very much like some types of pre-tied obi.

I even wore earrings that matched the rose theme, and also just happened to match the obi very well.

And just a picture to show the roses on the obi:

Because of my last-minute change in wardrobe, we ended up leaving late. We didn't head straight for the event, but instead stopped by Pavilion for lunch at The Carat Club. Yes, we got lots of stares. Yes, service was very good.

It was only after lunch that we went to the event, but it was kind of dull, so we barely spent 5 minutes in there. I ended up going to iSocks to shop, and bought a pair of good white stockings, a pair of all-black shoes (finally!) and a fluffier white pannier for myself.

Speaking of buying new loli clothes, I'm very tempted to buy some things online, but since I have some books with sewing instructions for loli dresses, I'm also very tempted to either sew my own, or have some tailored for me. I started my hunt for nice fabrics today XD Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman, here I come!

Okay, judging by how scatterbrained this whole post sounded, I think I need to sleep. So goodnight! I hope you liked this week's outfit ^_^

Chima Jeogori

2009-11-12T16:45:00.004+08:00

In 2002, my family went to Korea for our annual Christmas holiday. While we were there, we bought a hanbok. As kindly explained by my Flickr friend aya1gou, han = Korean and bok = clothes. This particular type of clothes are called chima jeogori, where chima = skirt and jeogori = jacket.

On Sunday, I was feeling a little bored and a little hyped up over dressing up, so I tried it on!

My sad attempt at a back shot:

It's kind of small across the chest for me, which is why it looks rather messy, but I still think it looks kind of cute =^_^=

Ahhhh I want to buy another one!!

I think I'll go make that sari shirt soon.....

Event Aftermath: Japan Charity Fiesta & Bazaar 2009

2009-11-08T17:12:00.009+08:00

Today was the Japan Charity Fiesta & Bazaar 2009. My sister had wanted to go to last year's bazaar, but only found out about the event after it had happened, so naturally, we just had to go this year. My parents also decided to go when they found out it was a charity event.

Here's a family pic (without my brother. Wave hi, Patteh!) taken by my sister's boyfriend.

At the hotel, you had to buy tickets at the lobby. Tickets cost RM15 per person.

You would then proceed up the staircase towards the Grand Ballroom on the second floor.

When you step off the escalator on the 2nd floor, the entrance is straight ahead.

To the left of the entrance, there is a small area selling food.

They were selling loads of things, like freshly cooked oyako don...

... Beard Papa...

... and the obligatory sushi and mochi.

Inside the ballroom, it was packed! Lots of tables selling stuff, and lots of people buying them!

There were also little craft booths like this one on traditional Japanese toys..

.. and origami.

And here is their yukata-dressing corner! It seemed really popular - lots of people were trying it out, and many people were standing around looking at the writhing mass of..... people. Yeah.

A picture of me outside the ballroom:

An obligatory mirror-shot of my outfit:

I'm wearing the pink yukata I bought from Akihabara Japan Center in Singapore in September. The yellow obi was part of a second hand UNIQLO yukata set I'd bought ages ago. I really really wanted more purple in this outfit, because pink and yellow is such a boring combination of bright colours, so I added a beaded necklace as my obi kazari (decoration) and wore a purple hairband and yellow butterfly earrings.

And a picture where you can see my sister's outfit better:

My sister is wearing my tsumori chisato neko and latticework yukata, with a red obi and a black belt as a decorative obijime.

The event was so-so. My dad didn't like that the food wasn't really up to his standards, but I found lots of things to buy. I took pics! And I will definitely have to post about them! XD But doing that now would make this post waaaaay too long, so I'll save it for next time ^_^

Thanks for reading! XD And please C&C on coordination!

Outfit Snap: Happy Birthday to me~

2009-10-31T19:38:00.001+08:00

So today is my 21st birthday. Hurrah! In approximately one hour from the time of posting, I will have experienced 21 years of life. ^_^

Since my family can't celebrate with me today, we celebrated it on Thursday night at Shook, Star Hill Gallery. We had a lovely expensive dinner, and I had way too much king prawn ^^; We also had a small piece of cake, which was actually just the perfect size for 5 of us to share! Anymore and it would've been sickening haha.

Say hi as I cut the cake! ^_^

Aside from my birthday, today is also Halloween. I've never really gotten into the dressing up for Halloween thing, but this year, I remembered that I have an orange and black striped wool kimono in my closet. I never really knew what to do with it, and it occurred to me sometime ago that it would be perfect for a Halloween outfit!

I also have this gauze heko obi with a glittery spiderweb motif on it, which matched the theme well. A few weeks ago, my mum was in a party shop alot for the Senior's Luau, and I spotted a witch's hat made of black gauze with a metallic spiderweb pattern on it. I went back to buy the hat, since it matched the general theme of my outfit.

Of course, that led to getting lace gloves, purple accessories.... ^^; I had a fun time shopping! Actually, I never really did go out of my way to look for these things - they just happened to fall into my lap at the right time! ^^;; Everything in this outfit was rather suddenly bumped into haha.

Pictures!

Here's my front:

I'm not wearing zori, but instead, I'm wearing heels that somewhat matches my colour scheme. I'm wearing black lace tabi, which also goes with the scheme. The shoes were a last-minute find when I couldn't zip up my black boots properly ^^;;;

My back:

I'd used two heko obi: the spiderweb one I'd mentioned, and a solid black heko obi to give it a base. I didn't really follow any instructions on how to tie it. I just did whatever so long as it was on me ^^;;;

My accessories, complete with black cat familiar!

In my original sketch of this outfit, there's a wand, a broom and a black cape, but the brooms I found were very sad-looking and I didn't have enough time to buy a Harry Potter replica wand. My sister took the black cape as part of her outfit for her company's Halloween karaoke competition.

An upclose of the outfit...

You can see the stripes on the kimono, the purple accessories, and the pattern of the heko obi and lace gloves I used ^^

What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Please C&C! ^_^

Event Announcement: Japan Charity Fiesta & Bazaar 2009

2009-10-29T14:09:00.004+08:00

Just a quick update on an upcoming event! ^___^ There are 3 in the month of November that I want to announce, but I'll start off with the first one. This event appeared in the newspaper a few days ago, but my sister found it a few weeks ago on the JCKL website.

Japan Charity Fiesta & Bazaar 2009
Date: 8th November 2009

Time: 11am to 3pm

Location: Grand Ballroom, Nikko Hotel Kuala Lumpur

Admission fees: RM12 for advance tickets, RM15 for day tickets, free for those ages 12 and under. Get advance tickets at Jusco (Mid Valley, Taman Maluri and 1Utama) and Isetan (KLCC and Lot 10)!

Note: There's going to be a yukata dressing corner!!!! ^_^

Website: (Use Google translate, and scroll down) Japan Club of KL

I really really want to go! Maybe my sister and I will wear kimono/yukata there too ^^ Anyone else planning to go?

First Lolita Attempt~

2009-10-28T17:57:00.006+08:00

I've always loved lolita fashion - in fact, it was a hobby-related love of mine before kimono or even cosplay! In London, I rarely went to Camden Town Market, but whenever I did, I almost always made a beeline for one of the lolita shops there. However, being rather stingy and unsure of how well it would suit me, I rarely ever bought anything.

Last week, I had received my first paycheck from my first official job. I decided to treat myself. Having recently found a few lolita shops around KL, I tentatively searched one out.

Although unforeseen events kept delaying my trip to the shop last weekend, I finally managed to make it late on Sunday evening. The shop (i-Socks in Times Square, if you want to know) is rather complicated and bothersome to understand - there are 4 or 5 outlets on the same floor of the same mall, and all but one of them are open to the public. That last store is the VIP store, which of course sells the better stuff.

In order to get to the VIP store, you need to go to one of the public ones and make a purchase of RM20 or more (I've heard varying minimum prices, but this one seems the most common). The shopkeeper may then give you a slip that will allow you a single-time entry for up to 3 people into the VIP shop. There, you must spend a minimum of RM100 (or so I've heard. I definitely went waaaaay past that) to obtain a VIP card, with which you may enter the VIP outlet anytime.

Of course, all this research was done before I went to scope out the shop :P

So in we (my sister, her boyfriend and I) went into a few of the public shops. I found a few things that I liked in one outlet, and bought them. Along the way, I was discussing lolita fashion with the shopkeeper, and she suggested that rather than dresses (which I'd mentioned I liked, but was worried about how I'd look in) I ought to try a skirt + blouse + corset combo. I rather liked the idea, despite having never really tried it out before, and immediately thanked her for it.

Once I was in the VIP store, I asked one of the salesgirls there for her opinion on what would be nice, and what would fit me. I mentioned the combo that was recommended to me, and that I liked black and white the best. She began pulling out stuff and coordinated an outfit for me, complete with shoes and headdress.

I did browse around the whole shop, in the vain hope of finding something else that fits me, but didn't dare buy anything other than the outfit that we'd already picked out.

And so, I finally bought my first lolita outfit. The best part of it is that it was on sale, and I got 30% off everything! Yay! Also, I paid for it with my own money - so no one can complain about spending money on such things, because it is, after all, my own money. Yay!

When I got home, I was really excited about putting it on. However, I had to wait, because first, I had to cook and eat dinner, shower, dry my hair, etc etc. By the time I'd finished doing everything and had the time to dress up, it was already midnight, and everyone was in bed.

Buuuut... I was so excited over my first lolita outfit that I couldn't sleep, and ended up trying on the dress anyway! ^^;

Here are pictures!

Front:

Back:

The outfit still isn't complete yet - I haven't gotten a good pannier, or a proper bag, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the stockings and shoes. I rather think I'd prefer white stockings with a bow, and black shoes with white lace. The pannier I'm using is also an old tailor-made one that's really flat now, and I have absolutely no lolita bags whatsoever! Oh well. Back to the shop this weekend!! XD XD

I also kind of have a slight issue with the corset - while I really like this look, I've read that corsets and lolita just don't mix. Well, I'm not really sure if what I read really meant proper figure-shaping corsets, or "bodices" like mine. But either way, I've heard that it doesn't sit well with lolita except in a few styles (corsets feature quite often in the aristocrat style) or if it matches the outfit in general. I'm really worried about whether or not this outfit does conform to proper lolita guidelines :/

On the other hand, I think that maybe it might look better if I added white lace to the corset? Or maybe I could leave the corset as-is, and use it with a black blouse, long skirt and elegant hat to achieve the "aristocrat" look. All you lolitas out there, what do you think?

I did think for a while that since this outfit was recommended by the shop people, it should be proper lolita. But then, I've read some very mixed reviews of i-Socks, so I'm not 100% confident that I can trust that the corset is lolita.

Some people love the shop and proclaim themselves everlasting fans of the shop. Others look down on it with scorn and say that the store sells low quality stuff (quite true to an extent, but the things in the VIP shop seem to be of a nice quality. Then again, what do I know?) and that this store is to blame for giving the lolita look a very "lala" reputation in Malaysia. ("Lala" is a very difficult term to explain... ^^;)

I myself, as a very new person to this sort of fashion, can't really form an opinion until I've tried the branded items. Only one problem: SIZE! I've looked through the brand shops' online stores, but I come across things that fit me very rarely. :( So for me, I'll take what I can get, and so long as I can fit into the clothes, I'm not really bothered much about quality for now.

I've found a few other lolita shops in KL. I'm thinking of slowly going about to check them out ^^ I also stumbled across a forum post with a list of lolita shops in Singapore. I'm thinking of organising a weekend trip down to Singapore so I can shop away the whole weekend! Yay!

*coughs* Well, enough of all the rant. Please comment ^_^ Thanks for reading!

Back from Singapore! (again)

2009-10-26T01:21:00.005+08:00

It's been a while since I actually came home, but I'm baaaack! I was in Singapore last week for 3 days for a business trip ^_^

Singapore was exhausting. It was a little hard to deal with, especially since so many clients had joined us, and it was my first time actually pitching in a hopefully useful hand on a trip like this, but we pulled through just fine ^_^

We had gone to Singapore on Sunday morning to make preparations for the two-day trip, and I managed to find a little bit of time to sneak off and do a little shopping. I brought a few of us to my favourite lingerie shop, and after I'd paid for my stuff, I left them to run upstairs and check out L'escalier, a shop that sells Japanese items, and occasionally some kimono and kimono accessories. I've bought a fukuro obi and a few obijime from this shop before, and I must say, the quality is excellent!

Anyway, this time around, since I hadn't even visited the store during my September Singapore trip, I picked out three obijime. It's a small picture and doesn't do my lovely obijime any justice, but here they are!!

There is a blue and purple one, a pink and purple one and an orange and white one with multicoloured stripes! So cute!! I paid SGD69 for all three of these. A little pricey, but given that they look and feel brand-new and I didn't have shipping to pay for, it was worth it! ^_^

I'd also bought myself a nice gradiated lilac obiage at the Kokon Tozai outlet in the airport (which I'd finally found!) but I was lazy to take pics ^^;; Maybe next time?

tired

2009-10-17T00:54:00.002+08:00

I was kind of hoping I'd be able to put together a kimono outfit sometime this week, as I'll be busy this weekend, but it's been hectic...

Anyway, a while ago, my mum had volunteered my sister and I to bake cupcakes for an event at church. The event was for senior citizens, and its theme was a Hawaiian Luau. My sister and I agreed, thinking we wouldn't need to bake more than 200 or so.

Well, we were wrong. We ended up having to bake 400 cupcakes, and decorate 300 of those. For the remaining 100, we were supposed to make frosting and bring it to church for the participants to decorate themselves. Talk about organisational nightmare.

So yeah. Yesterday, I left work early at 5pm to get ingredients and start baking. I started baking at about 6pm, and it took us 6 hours to finish baking 417 cupcakes! Yes, that's a long time because we only have one oven and that oven only has one rack. It was about 1.30am before I got to go to sleep.

Check out all them cupcakes!

My sister and I went a little crazy from all the cupcake-making and ended up christening our KitchenAid mixer "Betty", after Betty Yew, Betty Crocker, the Betty from the comic series "The Archies", and the tongue twister Betty, coz they're all amazing cooks. Say hi to Betty! She's hard at work here.

Luckily, I had taken the day off today to decorate the cupcakes. I started at about 10.45am, having had a bit of a lie-in in the morning. It took the three of us (my sister, my maid and I) 8 hours to make the icing, and finish decorating the cupcakes.

There's a reason why ppl cater for so many cupcakes - domestic kitchen and appliances just aren't made to handle this much!

But we were lucky and managed to finish everything, thank God. I was a little late, but I was happy enough that I finished everything. We sent it to church, had the event, distributed cupcakes, helped decorate cupcakes, etc etc, I'm exhausted now.

Anyway, pics of the cupcakes! I was really lazy to decorate them nicely, so I just made some brightly coloured icing, bought some edible sugar flowers and voila! Cupcakes.

The colours seem a little pale in this pic..

A close-up of some of them..

Cupcakes on display, ready for distribution!

We got some pretty good reviews about the cupcakes. Alot of people said they were very cute. Some said they were a little too sweet, but the cake was very good. Quite a few people asked where we catered them from ^^; I was happy with all the positive reviews!

What think you of them? ^_^

Okies, gonna go sleep now. G'night! :)

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Sagano: Take 2

2009-10-10T23:39:00.004+08:00

After our very enjoyable meal at Sagano last week, my sister and I told our parents all about it. My dad was, of course, very intrigued, and since we hadn't made any plans for this evening (or rather, my parents cancelled them because they were too tired), we decided to go there again a second time.

We got a room again, but this time it was the room next to last week's. It was smaller and had less decor, but was still a nice tatami room anyway ^_^

Say hi to my mum and sis! (Sis is knitting a hat for my dad in preparation for our trip to London this December)

My dad knew how much I enjoyed wearing kimono here last week, so he said I could wear kimono again today. Of course I did! ^_^

This is what I wore this time:

Upclose of the front...

And the back...

And my usual mirror-shot! ^_^

I decided to be abit more in-season this time, so I chose to wear a kiku (chrysanthemum) kimono this time. Dunno how seasonal tachibana (mandarin orange blossoms - the motif on my obi) are, though... ^^;; There were some little blue shibori dots on my kimono, and I thought this obi would match that well, yet still have enough red to tie it in with the kimono nicely.

I chose a red obiage to place more emphasis on the red in the outfit, but chose a white obijime to lighten the outfit a little and balance the suddenly solid colours in the middle of the kimono. You can't see in these pics, but I'm wearing black zori with red hanao. The red kasane-eri was actually a last-minute addition because I found that the kimono looked very awkward against a white collar. I think it kind of completes the look, doesn't it?

Sadly, I again had alot of problems with my kitsuke today, and they were far more prominent ones compared to the previous times I had worn kimono! I had decided to wear my kantan-eri so that I didn't have to wear a juban = less hot. However, the stupid collar kept giving me loads of problems: it kept closing too tightly at the neck, the back kept riding up, etc etc. Worst part is that it kept exposing too much of the kasane eri at the back! I also hadn't realised my obi wasn't very well tied, and my hem wasn't neat enough for my usual standards... (Of course, for these pictures posted, I had fixed whatever I could so it looked decent! But if I moved just a little bit, it all fell apart all over again..)

Still, we really needed to leave, so I just went to the restaurant just like that. I felt so embarrassed by such bad kitsuke.... Then I remembered that not many people would realise the sheer number of mistakes I'd made, and I was treated really nicely by the hotel and restaurant staff, so I didn't feel so bad ^_^

Sorry, no poser pics because the room was small, and I didn't feel too great about my kitsuke!

Thanks for looking! ^_^ Please C&C on my kimono coordination please!

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Sagano

2009-10-05T11:32:00.005+08:00

This month of October is Malaysia's International Gourmet Fest. My sister's boyfriend had seen something interesting at Sagano, so on Saturday night, we went to check it out! :) Of course, since it was a nice fancy Japanese restaurant in a nice fancy hotel, my sister and I decided to wear kimono there.

At first, I had really wanted to be seasonally appropriate, but after a long frustrating search of something that was in-season, not silk, and not too warm, I gave up and just took two of my spring-themed kofurisode out for us. So yes, we are not seasonally appropriate, but I don't think anyone in the restaurant noticed! And not like we have seasons here anyway.. Maybe I can just say I'm following the Australian calendar instead :D Then it'd be perfect!

Here is me dressing up my sister in my room. Please ignore the tourist kimono on display... =^_^=''

Our outfits...

I had quite a few problems with my kitsuke again yesterday :( I really hated my obi and ohashori! What's happened to my fingers?!?!?!?! Oh right. My self-imposed 3 month kitsuke deprivation. Damn myself.

We got to the restaurant a little late for our booking. We actually had to pass by a wedding dinner along the way and lots of people stared. I felt so shy =^^=;; And I was just saying in the car that I really hoped there wasn't any wedding dinners at all!

Anyway, at the restaurant, we were very pleasantly surprised (and super excited) when we were shown to a very nice and cosy private room, with tatami mats and a small indoor garden! I was quite relieved - we didn't have to pass through crowds of staring people, or worry about getting something spilt on the kimono, and we had lots of privacy to take great pics and act as undignified as we wanted XD

We ran around taking pics for a while before settling down enough to eat the first of our seven-course meal ^_^

Here's my sister "presenting" the ikebana display

"Hello? What is this?"

*gasp* "I see something!"

Me at my seat..

Then we discovered that the sliding door to the room next door actually opens! Since there wasn't anyone in there, we of course decided to take advantage and use it for pics XD

"Konbanwa!" :P

My sister was showing off that her nails matched her fan! (BIMBO!)

Along the way, we were eating our delicious dinner. Just before dessert, we took loads of fun photos since it seemed to be taking a while. Of course, I just had to take a few poser photos! XD

This one is my favourite:

We were taking apart the room to see what was in it :P

Then we decided to take some poser photos outside :P

"Irasshaimase! :D"

Still taking apart the room... ^^;

My sister and her boyfriend

We were having lots of fun!

Maneki-neko pose!!! XD

And our obligatory photos with the restaurant's signboard :)

As a treat, I've included a couple of photos of the food we had!

This was our appetizer course. From left to right: foie gras sushi, egg tofu with sea urchin sauce, and live oyster with yuzu koshou.

This was our third main course, and the fifth course overall. It was deep-fried king prawn with butter cream sauce. Yum!!

That was a really fun Saturday night out! ^_^ Great food, great company, great ambience and best of all: KIMONO!!! :D :D :D

I hope you guys enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed experiencing and sharing it!

Event Aftermath: Taylor's Asaban Fest 2009!

2009-09-27T14:56:00.006+08:00

So yesterday was the TAF. I had something to do in the morning, so I only went for the bridal kimono dressing demonstration in the evening ^_^

Of course, I wore yukata there. I kind of wanted to be seasonally appropriate and wear a hitoe komon, but it was sooooo hot yesterday that anything heavier than a yukata would've just about killed me! I had also made up my mind to wear my hanabi yukata outfit (the one with a white obi and maroon accessories), but I've put on so much weight that it doesn't fit very well anymore ;_;

So instead, I wore this! (My kitsuke was crap yesterday, so please ignore it! I blame it on my ever-expanding hips and the fact that I'm 3 months out of practice).

The yukata is part of a set that I got from YJA simply because I liked the spots. I didn't even know the sizing - I just prayed that it fit ^^;; Thankfully, it was a brand new pureta one, so it did! The obi is a seafoam green one I'd fallen in love with and couldn't help but buy.

In here, you can see just how well the obi matches the spots on the yukata!

How I looked like from the back:

The musubi:

At the bridal kimono dressing demonstration...

The woman is a professional kimono dresser (Japanese, of course) and the man is her translator.

She is the dresser's assistant:

Dressing the model in the first layer..

Putting her in a furisode..

Tying the obi...

The obi musubi...

Putting on the uchikake..

(I kind of skipped the pics of dressing the guy cos they're not very nice at all...)

The bridal couple! XD

They were students of the college, I believe, and the audience were yelling out "OMEDETOU!" (congratulations) at them XD

After the models were dressed and the explanations finished, the audience was allowed to go up on stage to take pics with them. Lots of people did!

I went to speak to the sensei then ^^ She's so cute and nice, and she was tugging at my yukata, saying it was very modern and pretty =^___^= I took a picture with her too! (Plz ignore my ugly face)

After the demo ended, my parents and a family friend picked me up and we went to eat dinner at a good Japanese restaurant. Everyone stared =^^=; But the food was good, so I was a very happy duck yesterday.

I really enjoyed last night. I feel it was a really good demonstration. The kitsuke was very well done, and every step was explained along the way. The kimono was breathtakingly beautiful, and the room had great air conditioning :P It really surpassed my expectations!

The crowd had also surprised me. When the demo started, there were only about 15 to 20 people in the hall. But apparently, more and more people kept trickling in as when I turned my head to look at the lecture theatre, it was at least 75% full! ^_^ It made me so happy to know that people in Malaysia were interested in kimono.. :')

To the guy I spoke to at the TAF and who directed me to LT1: For guiding me to the hall and chatting for a bit, and most especially for pushing for the demo to be arranged, thank you very much for everything! ^_^

That's all folks! Bye! ^_^

Back from Singapore!

2009-09-21T23:02:00.004+08:00

I'm baaack! It was a lovely, relaxing holiday. We shopped all weekend and I spent soooooo much money it isn't even funny! >_<""Anyway, I'm abit tired and lazy to really post much, so it's going to be in point form, again. This post is mainly for pics. I would post alot more, but it's taken me 2 bloody hours to upload 5 tiny resized pics, and I'm so fed up with the internet here that I can't be bothered to post more. I miss Singapore already.1) About a month ago, my camera died on me right smack in the middle of a working trip, so my mum got me a new camera. Say hi!

2) On my last trip to Singapore two months ago, I had a day off, so I spent the whole afternoon wandering around Singapore and looking for all the yukata shops I'd seen on SGCafe.net. It was fun! In terms of kimono, I bought a lovely blue hanhaba obi with matching thin obijime, and a reddish sort of obijime.

3) This trip to Singapore, we were given prime rooms with a "great view" in Swissotel! I don't think Singapore is all that pretty in the morning, but at night, when everything is plunged into darkness and the city comes alive with bright lights and music, the view is breathtaking. Singapore is also currently preparing for their F1 Night Race, so the spotlights are all up and everything. On Saturday night, they had a test run of the spotlights, and we could see it from our rooms! Here's a wee picture:

4) I spent soooo much money this weekend. Srsly. Three months' salary wouldn't cover it. Akihabara Japan Products should love me. Here are my spoils! :D

I bought a lined kimono, a yukata, a kasane-eri, a hanhaba obi, a basket bag, one pair of women's geta, one pair of really cute skull men's geta, one tsuke eri, and (not shown in this pic) two obiage. Feel my happiness!!! XD XD XD

I'm very tempted to wear the yukata for this Saturday's TAF event, but I'm not sure... Pink doesn't seem to be much of a night-time colour to me. I think I might finally wear that hanabi yukata ensemble I was meant to wear to Bon Odori all those months ago. Or maybe I should wear that false rose shibori yukata I bought for my sister...? Decisions, decisions!

That's all for now! Toodles! XD

Off to Singapore~

2009-09-18T22:13:00.003+08:00

I haven't updated in ages! I'm sorry it's once again a random rambling sort of post, but yeah...

Anyway!

1) Been busy making and delivering hampers, layer cakes and mooncakes out to clients.
2) Going to Singapore tomorrow, coming home on Monday. I'm looking forward to helping the Singaporean economy XD
3) I've got a permanent job in my office now. Woohoo. Stupid paperwork D:

Oh yeah, and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all! (And I kind of just realised I forgot to wish everyone a Happy Merdeka Day all those weeks ago. Oh well!)

Event Announcement: TAF UPDATE!

2009-09-03T19:53:00.003+08:00

I found more info on TAF, so I'm going to put it in a new post rather than confuse myself with the old one ^^;;;;

TAF: Taylor's Asaban Festival 09
Date: Saturday, 26 September 09
Time: Morning Session (ACG Convention style): 11 – 5pm
Time: Evening Session (Matsuri Style Fest.): 6 - 11pm
Venue: Taylor's Main Campus (TUCMC), SS15, Subang Jaya
Admission: RM7 for day event, free for night event

Description: TAF is an event aiming to further promote the modern J-Visual Culture in Malaysia by letting visitors themselves indulge in the said experience themselves.

(The event is still in its preliminary stages of execution and are subject to changes without prior notice)

Activities include:

Day Event: Japanese Visual Culture
•ACG Booths (DDR, Osu, etc.)
•Dounjinshi Booths
•Singing Competitions
•Art Competitions
•Lucky Draw
•Performances by Spirit of Music
•Cosplay Cafe

Night Event: Matsuri (Traditional Japanese Festival)
•Performances by Spirit of Music
•Japanese Food Stalls featuring snacks, meals and desserts; here's your chance to chomp on temakis, teppanyaki, unagi, tempura, salmon, sushi rice, Matcha green tea, Azuka beans and mochi.
•Traditional Game Stalls
•Traditional Dance
•Cosplay Cafe
•Yukata Rental
•Japanese Tea Ceremony Demonstration

Website: Under construction
Contact: taylors.anime.society@gmail.com

Info source: Comic Fiesta forums, this site and this site

Omg, I'm really really looking forward to this one now!! ^________^ I'm especially in love with the activities lined up for the night event. Now, if only they'd do that kimono wearing demonstration in the day event, then I'd stay there the whole day! Hahaha :D

I really wish my UK kimono buddies were here to enjoy this with me... :( Oh well! Maybe I'll bully my sister and her bf into coming along with me, just for the night event at least! ^_^

Random note no.1: I found out one of my colleagues also owns a yukata from when she went to Japan to teach English on a one-month volunteer program!! Where do I sign up???

Random note no.2: Phuket was hot. I'm sunburnt. I'm happy :D

Bye! ^_^

Event Announcement: TAF: Taylor's Asaban Fest

2009-08-25T23:25:00.005+08:00

Just a quick update, but today I found out about this event that I'd really like to go to! I'm pretty sure I'm free on that day, but whether or not I go depends very much on transport >_<""

Details!

-updated in next post-

I really hope I can go! ^_^ It'll be nice to have a reason to wear kimono/yukata... I heard last year's one was kinda bad, but I wouldn't mind just going to see what it's like :D Maybe it's time to start socializing on the Comic Fiesta forums and making friends so it would be more fun there! XD

Oh! Before I forget, it's Merdeka weekend this week, so my family and I are taking a short 4-day holiday to Phuket from Saturday to Tuesday. If anyone wants to contact me during that period, I'm afraid I won't be available till next Wednesday!

Ta! ^_^

Unpacking - Progress?

2009-08-25T08:28:00.002+08:00

I don't think there's been any progress on the unpacking front :P I did clear up my floor so you could actually see it - but then I made a mess of it again when I decided to sort out my jewellery. I think I ought to finish it up tonight or something...

Other than that, nope! Nothing's been touched at all :P I did go to IKEA to buy some storage tubs, but I'll need to go back there again for some decorative nonsense.

Ooooh I bought a couple of noren curtains for my room! They're both really cute, but I only set up one (the summery-looking one). My dad really likes the idea, thank goodness! I'll wait for next year to put up the other one - it's a spring motif :D I'll have to take pictures!

Goodness, I've been promising alot of pictures but not following up with that promise, now have I? :( I think I'll just steal my brother's SD card and take the pics straight from it.

Ok, gotta work now. Ta!

They're HERE!!!

2009-08-20T10:19:00.002+08:00

My boxes are here!!! They arrived in Malaysia on Monday (or was it Tuesday?) and yesterday, they were finally delivered to my house!! XD

I think I horrified my family. My brother called my mum to tell her my stuff was in, and he was all "WTF she has so much stuff!" Lol. He was so amazed at just how much stuff I had that he took pics of the unpacking process :P

My mum gave me half a day off so I could finish unpacking it all in one go. Sadly, I really had so many things that half a day wasn't enough. I've fully unpacked (taken out of boxes, cleaned, put away, etc) 12 boxes, but I'm halfway through 2 more and am waiting for everything to be all cleaned up and put away so I can have alot of space when sorting out my books and CDs (those were the 5 boxes I didn't touch at all).

I've still got to go to Daisou and IKEA sometime soon. My mum says that since my dad is away this weekend, us girls (+ my sister's bf) can go for evening Mass on Saturday, then head for Daisou and IKEA after that. I need a looooot of storage space now!

I've got just barely enough space for all my kimono stuff. I guess that means no more buying? D: But it makes me soooo happy to open my cupboards and see them completely stuffed with kimono things!! XD

My parents bought me a table to store all my random things like notebooks and post-it notes - it's been completely converted into my "kitsuke necessities" table :P Koshihimo, tabi, hadajuban, obi makura - any "kimono undies" I have, they're all in that table. X3 Cute!

Will update more with pics soon. Ta!

Closet Feature: RyuJapan Sales Loot

2009-08-18T15:44:00.005+08:00

I've been feeling guilty since I haven't updated about kimono at all in a long long time (except when whining about how much I've wanted to buy/wear/etc kimono). I still haven't been able to wear kimono so far (boooooo) but as a small consolation, I shopped a little yesterday!

RyuJapan had his summer sales last week, and yesterday was the last day. There was this one obi I've been drooling over for the past year or so. Three of Ryu's sales have passed and this obi still hadn't been sold. Yesterday, I really couldn't resist anymore and I got it at 60% off! XD Yay bargain!

Here's my new little beauty:

I also saw this cute hanhaba obi being sold for $6USD, so I bought it for fun :P

Ahhhh, I'm happy with what I bought! XD

Things to post about later:
1) Singapore trip
2) Genting trip
3) Johor trip
4) New camera
5) New kimono books
6) New kimono stuff

O_O

2009-08-11T12:57:00.002+08:00

Oh wow, it's really been a long time since I last updated!

Short notes:
1) I went to Genting for a work trip.
2) I didn't go to Genting to meet up with Mel, but she didn't go to Genting either anyway :(
3) It's been busy as heck, and we've been eating out alot. And I mean aLOT.
4) I bought a mannequin, but I haven't cleaned it yet so it's still standing, unused, in my room.
5) I'm never staying at Carcosa. Never.
6) A Concord friend has started interning with my mum too.
7) I'm going to Johor on Thursday and Friday for another company trip!

I keep forgetting to take the Singapore pics from my brother, so an update might take a while.

The amount of time that has passed since I last wore kimono has now gone on to two months. I feel restless and irritated, but at least I'm satisfying my kitsuke-lust by looking at lots of books and magazines and coming up with ideas on how to coordinate things.

Okay, now's lunch break and I want to go eat. Bye!

A Couple of Shocks

2009-07-31T16:37:00.004+08:00

I'm supposed to be updating about my trip to Singapore, but I still haven't gotten pics from my brother and I reaaaaallly needed to blog about this, so here's a short rambly post. Sorry! XP

A couple of shocks I've gotten in the past week:

1) First off, the good news. I got my uni transcript yesterday, and I got a 2.1! Yaaaay! My mum says I now have to buy everyone dinner, especially since I got my first salary cheque too. Ehehe.

2) I went for a blood test on Monday. My dad collected the results on Wednesday because I wasn't around (I was on a work trip up to Genting Highlands. I took some really nice photos. I'm definitely blogging about it after the Singapore trip!) and sms-ed the results to me. Nahh, don't worry, everything is normal. (But the doc scolded me for being too fat and having high cholesterol, lol)

But then I got home - and saw that there was a blood type card attached to the report. I hadn't noticed it till my mum pointed it out, but apparently I'm a blood type A! So this blood type is quite common, and seeing as my mum is this blood type, it's logical that one of her children would share the same blood type. Not shocking at all.

What was shocking was that I had actually thought I was blood type O. I could've sworn I read about it in one of my previous medical reports, but I searched through them and none of them explicitly say that I am blood type O.

So yeah, I'm an A.

I blame my weight gain on that. My family sort of does, sort of doesn't follow the eat-right-for-your-blood-type thing. When I thought I was a blood type O, I sort of followed the diet, eating more meat than carbs. This is the complete opposite of what type As should do - they're better built for carbs, and meat is very bad for them (apparently) :P

Since I really need to lose weight, I thought I'd try out the type A diet and cut out red meats from my diet. I'll wait a month to see how well it works! XD

On a smaller note, I haven't worn kimono or watched Lord of the Rings in a month and a half. I feel weeeeeeeird. Maybe I'll go cuddle up with my Lord of the Rings book tonight, and put together a kimono outfit tomorrow, or something XP

Pangkor Laut Resort: Part 4

2009-07-28T23:28:00.003+08:00

Okay, this should be the last entry! :D After this, I'll update about my Singapore trip ehehehe.

So! Second half of second day :D

After our spa treatment, we went back to our rooms for a short while to change clothes, then headed out again for our private sunset cruise around the island. On our way to Marina Bay, we bumped into another island pet, the male peacock! :D

Isn't he preeeeeettyyyyyyy!

*coughs* So yeah. At about 6.15pm, we boarded this junk (yes, that really is what it's called!) for our private cruise.

There was a nicer-looking boat nearby, but from what we heard and saw, the experience on that boat was nowhere near as nice.

My whole family headed for the "upstairs" part of the boat (I wanted to call it the "upper deck" but I'm not sure if I'm right). There are a couple of beach chairs on it, as well as a cushioned area for sitting around and enjoying the ride. Here's me with my parents in the cushioned area:

And here's my brother on one of the beach chairs:

We were laughing alot about this photo - we were joking about how he could act like the brat he is (the brats we all are, actually) and say that this is what he did for his summer holiday! "This is me, on our private sunset cruise around the private island we were staying on" :P

If you're wondering about the drink he's holding, a little while into the boat ride, we were served drinks and delicious seafood canapes. Service is good when you're there with Auntie S ;)

Here's a couple of pictures we took of the island! This is Emerald Bay:

This is the private beach that four of the estates open out to:

We also took pics of the helipad but it didn't seem like much in the picture, so I'm not posting it :D

When the cruise was over, we hurried on to our rooms to get changed for dinner, which was at The Straits. (I had meant to wear yukata to this dinner, but it was so hot I couldn't bear even thinking about it!!)

There is a dress code you have to follow to be able to enter the restaurant, which essentially forbids beachwear and very casual clothing. It is, of course, one of the more expensive restaurants there, but once again, since it was Auntie S arranging everything, we got the prime seats of the restaurant. It wasn't till later that we found out why - they had closed the restaurant to the other guests so we could dine privately and exclusively!

Here is a picture of how the restaurant looks like with my mum sitting in place (please ignore the bad pic - lighting was horrid till I requested that they turn on the lights :P):

The seats are actually in private little cubbies (they sit 3 to 4 each, but we made them squeeze 6 of us in) that overlooks Marina Bay, and are built over the beach. When we were sitting there, we could see the shoreline and all the little crabs running around on the sand! It was also very pretty when the tide came in, and the water came closer to us. Very peaceful, very pretty and very full of mosquitoes. Do ask for a mosquito coil from the waiters the moment you get there! :D

Since I was good the past few posts and not put up any pictures of food, I thought I'd torture you for a moment now :P Here's a picture of my favourite course, which is fresh tempura barramundi with a sweet basil sauce. Mmmmmmm~~

I think that they should've ended the dinner with the dessert then, but there was another course of lamb shank that was really too much to eat! But the dessert was fantastic: pandan (screwpine) layer cake, which is a classic Malaysian cake. My whole family, cousins and all, grew up eating this cake. Of course, this one is very much fancier than the everyday stuff, but as long as the taste is good, I don't care! :D Here's a picture:

After the dinner, we remembered to collect our dried batiks from reception. Here's my sister and I in our room, happily showing our creations off! :D

We spent the rest of the night looking for crabs on the beach and playing cards in the library :D It was fun! (Of course, we did eventually return to our rooms to shower and sleep!)

The next day, we had the same breakfast we did on Saturday, before heading back to the mainland and going home.

And then, it was over :/ But it was a very good holiday! :) I can't wait to go again, if I ever get the chance! XD

If any of you, my readers, do go there, please please please let me know so we can gush together! XD

Alright, I'm going to go to bed now. Goodnight!!

Pangkor Laut Resort: Part 3

2009-07-25T13:07:00.000+08:00

I am baaaack from Singapore! :D I shopped alot and spent lots of money! *phew*

Actually, I'd typed out this post on Tuesday, and was planning to post it on Wednesday at work, but it was really hectic, trying to finish up a project before I left for Singapore (just barely managed to do my part) so I didn't have time. Oh well! It's here now :D

To continue from my last post:

On Saturday the 18th of July, the day dawned not so brightly and clearly. Still, we got up cheerily and headed for breakfast at Feast Village - which, by the way was really good. After having some very very delicious roti canai and dahl, we split ways - my siblings and Rommel went to the beach, while my parents and I went back to our rooms to rest and read respectively.

For lunch, we headed back to Emerald Bay for a banana leaf rice lunch. While waiting for lunch to be served, my mum and I went to the Batik Hut on the beach and shopped a little. My sister soon came by, and since we wanted to try our hands at batik painting, we took up the lessons that were being offered at RM50 per person.

The guy who runs the batik hut was really nice! First, he showed us examples of what we could paint, then he told us to draw on our canvases with pencils first, so that we could correct any mistakes. We had to leave for lunch soon after finishing our drawings, but he was nice enough to wait for us :)

After our sort of good, sort of weird, definitely overly abundant lunch, we rushed back to the hut to finish our paintings before our spa appointments. The Batik guy guided us through every step, giving us tips and pointers on how to do everything nicely XD

This is my sister trying her hand at batik painting. Here, she is tracing on the hot wax that stops the dye colours from mixing with each other. This is what gives batik its patterns and multi-coloured effect.

Sadly, we could only do the wax thing one at a time, and since my sister started painting her canvas straightaway after painting on the wax, there was no one to take pics of me doing anything :/

Anyway! Here's my sister's newly finished batik painting! It's a really cute and bright butterfly with flowers in the background XD

And this is my newly finished painting, which features some funky seaweed and a fish. I was going to do more stuff, and better (for example, there was supposed to be a seabed and sparkly dots in the seaweed), but we really had to rush, so this is all I could do :/ But I'm still quite happy with it! XD

We just barely managed to finish it on time, and left our canvases there to dry while we went for our spa appointment.

We are waiting for our appointment to begin:

The entrance to the spa bath area:

We obviously couldn't take our cameras into the spa, so for pictures, I'm afraid you'll just have to content yourself with the fact that yes, it really does look like the photos on the website XD

What we did:
1) First, our feet were cleaned and given a short massage.

2) We were taken into the bathing areas, segregated by gender, and changed into the pareos they provide and put on you.

3) We headed to the wishing well and made a wish before tossing a coin in.

4) We walked through a cold pool with a fountain, which was a Malay thing. Apparently, it was to mimic taking a bath in a river.

5) There was a small area where we smelled the scents of four different types of smoke, like chrysanthemum.

6) Next, we were taken to a little bathhouse, where we showered Japanese-style (sitting on a stool in front of the shower heads).

7) Once we were clean, we were led out the other side of the bathhouse for a dip in their Japanese onsen.

8) Two at a time (we were joined by another lady), we each went through a Shanghai body scrub. Here we finally towelled dry and changed into new pareos that were given to us as gifts.

9) Finally, we had our massages. My mum, brother and sister had Balinese massages, I had a Malay massage (the softest one since I bruise too easily) and Rommel had the Hawaiian massage.

The spa was gooooooood. Very relaxing. I felt like a limp noodle when they were done with me XD I want to go for another spa treatment again!!! Ehehehe.

Okay, I've rambled on and on enough for now. I'll update with the second half of Day 2 sometime soon :D

Pangkor Laut Resort: Part 2

2009-07-21T21:54:00.006+08:00

To continue from where I left off last time:

After exploring the island and swimming (or lounging around) for a bit, Rommel, my siblings and I all went to Emerald Bay on the other side of the island to explore the beach and wait for dinner to start.

(Okay, so there actually are other beaches on the island, and alot of them around the residential area, but those have sea urchins in them, and Emerald Bay is the one that's considered safe for swimming)

We immediately threw our stuff on the beach chairs and ran to the sea. This is my brother walking along the shoreline.

I don't really like to touch sea water, so I decided to look for seashells rather than swim.

My sister and her boyfriend went to lounge around on the beach chairs while I explored the beach as thoroughly as I could. They managed to take this really nice photo, which would've been romantic if it weren't for the fact that it was my brother and I in it LOL.

Soon after that, it was time for dinner. Auntie S had arranged for us to have a private barbecue dinner on the beach.

We had loads of food! We had steak, potatoes, chicken, crabs prawns, lobsters.... Mmmm lobsters! Those were really really good, even if they did trigger my sister's and my allergic reactions XD

What I found really nice was that after the dinner, the assistant manager of the place, who was kind of like our host, told us all to take our cameras and wine glasses out onto the more open areas of the beach and wait. Soon enough, there was a fireworks show, which they held specially as a surprise for us!! :D It was so nice of them! Hehehe.

After the lovely fireworks and a few more drinks, the whole group (there were about 20 of us) went to Auntie S's place. Her family was staying at one of the Estates, which are exactly as they sound: estates. Basically, it's an area that you rent as your living space for however long, and comes with 3 or 4 villas, a jacuzzi, a dining room, a gazebo, and a private pool, all for your own use. Three of the estates also have a private beach of their own. Obviously, they are reeaaaally expensive.

We stayed around the maybe overly luxurious estate for a while, even taking a dip in the swimming pool before we went back to our rooms, showered and went to bed.

And so ended our first day in Pangkor Laut Resort!

I will update the next part as soon as I can, but I'm going to Singapore tomorrow on a business trip so I will not be able to access internet till Saturday. Still, I hope you guys will enjoy the pictures and all for now! ^_^

Pangkor Laut Resort: Part 1

2009-07-19T23:32:00.006+08:00

On Friday, my family and I went to Pangkor Laut Resort for a weekend trip. My mum's friend, Auntie S, had organized this trip, so it was really relaxing as everything was already taken care of! :)

We arrived at Auntie S's place at 7.45am that morning, and were soon boarding the hired bus that would take us to Lumut. I can't say much about the drive - I slept all 4 hours it took us to drive there. :P

Now, normally, we would have to check in into the hotel on the mainland or on Pangkor Island before taking a junk or ferry to Pangkor Laut Resort, which is on a private island. However, since Auntie S works for the company that owns this resort, we didn't have to check in and instead went to the Yachting Club on the mainland to avoid the crowds in the check in building.

We also got to use two of the company's new speedboats to get to the island, which cut off a third of the travelling time to get to the island! It was really cool :D

My sister enjoying the ride :D

The Marina Bay of Pangkor Laut Resort.

It's actually really safe on the island, because only staff and guests are allowed on the island. There are occasionally boats from the nearby Pangkor Island that come to see the "rich ppl's hotel", but they're not allowed to dock there except in cases of emergency. Also, there is little danger of pirates as there is a naval base nearby.

We were served lunch at Feast Village as soon as we arrived. It appeared oddly empty then, but it wasn't until later that we found out that usually, Feast Village isn't open for lunch. However, as it was Auntie S who arranged it all, they let us dine there for her.

Straight after the very delicious lunch, we were all shown to our rooms by usherers. My family got the Garden Villas, as it was my mum's and sister's preferences. My sister and I shared a room! :)

This is me, right after settling in:

There is a cosy little couch that faces our bed: my sister claimed it as her knitting bay :P

Our room has a balcony with a sitting area, which faces the swimming pool, a small part of the gardens and the beach. It was really peaceful, just sitting there and reading!

After settling in, we got changed into our swimsuits and easy-to-get-out-of clothes before exploring the island. (Yes, it's me again :P I'm at the door to our room)

First, we explored the main areas, and went up to the Hill Villas area to have a look at the view:

On the way down, we stopped by Jim Thompson's and saw this really cute female peacock outside! :D

We had passed by the hotel library on the way up, but we took a picture of it on the way back to reception. This picture isn't that great. The library is really much nicer than this, especially with the beds for lounging in! I'll have to steal better photos off my sister's old pics of the place.

Then we headed to the shuttle terminal to await a van. All around the island, there are vans driving by every few minutes. These vans pick up the guests and bring them to wherever they want to around the island. They stop mainly at terminals in each point of interest. This one here is the one at reception:

We headed to the Spa Village to book our appointments for the next day. Rather than taking the van again for such a short distance, we decided to walk to our rooms instead.

This pavilion is where yoga sessions are held every morning and afternoon:

Walking along the Sea Villas, which are villas that are built on stilts right on top of the water....:

Me, walking along again :P I was particularly attracted to pretty rock formations that day. I'm not entirely sure why! Hahaha.

Once we were back around the swimming pool area, Rommel/Pot (sister's bf), my mum and I lounged around the Royal Beach Bay Club with drinks and some chips while my dad, brother and sister swam. Later on, we prepared to go to Emerald Bay Beach for abit of exploration and a beach barbecue dinner.

That will be part 2, coming up soon! :D

WOOHOO!!!!!!

2009-07-16T18:53:00.002+08:00

I PASSED!!!!

I just got my exam results and I PASSED!!! XD XD XD You wouldn't believe the sheer amount of relief that is coursing through me right now. I must say, the university had perfect timing. Rather than spending my whole weekend miserable and anxious about my results, I can enjoy my holiday freely and happily!! XD

What's so special about this weekend, you ask? Just so happens, tomorrow I'm going off to Pangkor Laut, said to be one of the premier resorts in Malaysia. It's actually a privately owned island, and the owner turned it into a spa resort. My mum and sis went there for a wedding last year, and they said it is really luxurious (and the pictures prove it!) :D I can't wait!

I hope my sister managed to book us places in the Spa Village for Saturday morning. Mwahahahahaha!!!!!!!!

I'll be posting pics when I get back! (That is, if I can actually manage to upload pics onto Flickr from here. Stupid internet....)

Speaking of pics, I really need to remember to post about:
1) Kinokuniya books
2) Extension of April's yukata picnic
3) yesterday's shopping rewards

Okay, I'm still waiting to go home coz my mum's got alot of work to do. I'm going to log off now so I can make a quick getaway once she's done :D Bye!

Going To Singapore!

2009-07-13T18:12:00.004+08:00

Okay, I'm heading down to Singapore on the 22nd of July for a business trip. It isn't confirmed yet, but I may have the 24th off, and may stay an extra day and leave on the 25th.

If Mel is free, I will MOST DEFINITELY (!!) be spending the day with her. If not, I'll roam around Singapore alone. Either way, I have a long list of places to go to, including a long list of yukata shops that I'd gotten from SGCafe.com (many thanks, AngelZhou!!!) XD XD I can't wait! I haven't deliberately gone hunting for physical yukata shops before!!!!!!! Dangit, I wish we were going to Japan this summer XD

I'll need to go to Singapore armed with a load of cash, a few credit cards (or maybe just one unlimited one :P) and a large suitcase. Maybe a map or three as well. And then notebooks and papers with addresses of the places I'm going to......

Or maybe I shouldn't go to all of them this time, and save some for the next time we go to Singapore for a shopping trip? After all, for this trip, I also need to go to Kokon Tozai, une nana cool and Blum at Hitachi Towers... Then again, while at une nana cool, I may as well visit the yukata shop there because it's in the same building (Takashimaya)! :D

If I were free enough, I'd plan out my entire day, so that I can visit all these shops with minimal waste of time. :D

Oooooh I'm so excited about this XD

Event Announcement: Bon Odori 2009

2009-07-12T19:16:00.005+08:00

I am not going to Bon Odori this year because I'll be in Pangkor Laut then, but I thought I'd post about it for other people who may be interested in going :)

Bon Odori Festival 2009 (Malaysia, Selangor)
Venue : Panasonic Sports Complex (formerly Matsushita Centre)
Address : Lot 4, Persiaran Perkilangan, Seksyen 21, Shah Alam, Selangor
Date : 18th July 2009
Time : 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Tickets : Free Admission
Phone : 03-2274 2274 (Japanese Club of KL)
Transport : Free Shuttle Bus from Shah Alam KTM Station to Matsushita Stadium is provided.

ATTENTION
● Strictly no smoking except for designated areas.
● No high-heels allowed in the dancing field.
● No wearing stuff like Goth lolita and any stuff that are considered not polite. You wouldn't want people to insult your ancestors that way now, would you?
● NO COSPLAYING. Please show respect towards the Japanese culture and tradition.

Malaysia
In Malaysia, Bon Odori Festivals are celebrated every year in Penang and at the Matsushita Stadium in Shah Alam, Selangor. This celebration, which is a major attraction for the state of Selangor, is the brain child of the Japanese Expatriate & Immigrant's Society in Malaysia. In comparison to the celebrations in Japan, the festival is celebrated on a much smaller scale in Penang and Selangor, and is less associated with Buddhism and more with Japanese culture. Held mainly to expose locals to a part of Japanese culture, the festival provides the experience of a variety of Japanese food & drinks, art and dance.

Map

(Info from Tourism Selangor)
(Map from the Comic Fiesta Forums)

Go HERE for a flyer.

tired Cupcakes!!

2009-07-12T18:15:00.006+08:00

(Warning: again a long, rambly post)

I'm so sorry for not updating regularly this month!!! This week's been busy and I've been feeling really tired :/ *sighs*

Key highlights:
1) Started work on Monday
2) On Monday, went for two-day business trip to Perak & Penang
3) Had baking session on Thursday night from 10pm - 1am
4) On Friday, we went to Shook!, Starhill for YTL's A Midsummer Night's Feast. Italian food. It was alright - last year, we had Stephen Mercer and it was waaaaay better!
5) Yesterday, I had a facial, then spent 5 hours baking and decorating cupcakes, then had a dinner at Overseas Restaurant, Jaya One (yum!!).
6) Today was my church's Family Day. More on that below..

I got up at 5.30am today and went to church at 6am to help my mum set up everything for the church Family Day, as my mum was sponsoring one booth to raise funds for Maranatha (the church's retreat home, which is run solely on donations). The theme of her stall was "Little Penang Cafe", and was selling alot of nice Penang food like char kuay teow, assam laksa, rojak, sotong kangkung and various preserved fruits and vegetables. My mum actually hired a caterer to sell these, and it was really popular! :D

I wasn't manning that booth - I helped out with the RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults) because my mum is their secretary. The theme was home-made food. One auntie sold these incredibly delicious ham and cheese mini quiches which she made herself, all 200 of them. Another person made fresh pittas filled with roast chicken, cheese and homemade coleslaw. Both were really good!! I had two of the mini-quiches for breakfast, and one of the pittas as part of lunch. I bought another pitta to bring home, and am actually eating it now! :D Mmmm...

My mum contributed via reuseable bags made of recycled material that had been printed with the church logo. I sold those, and a big bunch of cupcakes that my sister and I (with the decorative help of two cousins and my mum and our maid) baked yesterday.

We made 30 boxes of 4 large-ish cupcakes each and sold them at RM12 per box. We were rather worried it would appear expensive to others, so we didn't mark up the profit margins that much (a profit of only RM1 per cupcake). Lucky thing we priced them at that level, because another booth also sold similarly priced but incredibly cute homemade cupcakes. The ones who made them were professionals - they said that for us to have made these cupcakes at "our age" (not sure how old she thinks we are) with absolutely no training but for pictures in books, ours were really really good!

As it was, we weren't sure if we would actually be able to sell the cupcakes, and we had a limited amount of time to make them anyway, which was why we made so little of them. (Although it doesn't sound too little when you say 120 cupcakes, each decorated individually...)

We had also made some tiny bite-sized individual cupcakes (about 160 of them I think) and sold them in little trays of 4 for RM3. They weren't as pretty, but were much easier to eat. We originally made them for people who prefer to eat just a small bite of cupcake rather than a full thing, but it turned out very popular with mothers with small babies, because it was very easy for the babies to eat.

I'd say the cupcakes were actually a big success compared to what we were expecting. We started selling at 8am, and were completely sold out of cupcakes by 11am! Considering that the event was supposed to end at 2pm, that was really quick. I feel proud :D

I came home as soon as the cupcakes were sold out because it was so hot and I was so tired that I was constantly swaying if I stood up without steadying myself somewhere. I'd originally meant to play around with kimono this afternoon, as everyone is out of the house, and maybe dress in a few ensembles and take pics, but instead, I decided to take a quick nap - and woke up 5 hours later ^_^"" But I will admit I feel tonnes better and more refreshed! :D

We're going to go to Uncle Max's house tonight to see the puppies their dog had. Ooooooh I can't wait for all the cuteness!!!! :D I gotta go get ready soon, so bye!

(And sorry for another long rambly post so soon after the previous one >.o I promise I'll have pictures of the past few days set up as soon as my sister gets it out of her cam!!)

Event Announcement: SFX Family Day 2009

2009-07-10T01:02:00.001+08:00

Just a quick post before I sleep, but my church is having its annual Family Day this Sunday. If you're in the area and free, do come and contribute to the church, as well as various charities and fundraising organizations :)

Here's details:

Location:
Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church

Address:
135 Jalan Gasing,
46000 PJ,
Selangor

Date:
12 July 2009

Time:
8.30am - 2pm

We're "going green" this year, so please bring your own (empty) lunchboxes if you want to takeaway food! :)

Oh, and sadly, I will not be wearing yukata, because it's really really hot, and this year's theme isn't Japanese. I'm absolutely dying to wear one, but I won't have an opportunity to until we go to Pangkor Laut. Will blog more about that later.

Okay, am very tired now. My sister and I were up till 1am baking cupcakes as a test round for what the RCIA is selling on Sunday (no, we don't man the RCIA booth so we won't be there to take questions :D Lucky) and I have to get up early for work tomorrow.

G'night people! :D

Warning: LONG Page of Rambling

2009-07-05T16:37:00.005+08:00

Okay, so I decided to use today to catch up with all that I'm supposed to update about. Of course, since I'm feeling lazy, I'm going to do part of it in list form, with some ramblings on the side.

Patrick's time in London! We:
1) had Il Bordello one last time on the Friday he came down to London.
2) spent that Saturday pigging out at Borough Market, then watching Sister Act.
3) lazed about all Sunday. Did we go out even a little bit?
4) went to eat at Richoux on Monday, then stopped by Harrod's to get good macaroons and lipstick. It was also the last day I spent with Hong D:
5) spent the whole of Tuesday washing final round of laundry, packing up everything for Mel, packing up everything for home, and just generally cleaning the flat before I had to leave forever :'(
6) were late leaving for the airport, but got there in time to check in, get past security and spend time in the MAS lounge anyway. The guy in front of us took half an hour to check in!! Even worse is that there was only one business class counter, so we had no choice but to wait :/ My brother and I checked in 3 bags, and we were just a few kilos over our weight limit, but the lady didn't say anything. Yaaay!!! :D

The flight:

We originally had nice seats in a private area, where there was only space for 4 passengers when the area was closed off. It was right next to the door and where the staircase to the upper deck was. Of course, it would've been noisy anyway because it was right at where the galley was. Still, it was fun sitting there, watching the cabin crew work.

About half an hour after take-off, an air stewardess came to tell us that there was someone on the plane with swine flu symptoms, so we had to give up our seats to quarantine the person. They switched our seats to the upper deck (my favourite seats!! YAY!) and we got the seats right behind the cockpit, so we still had plenty of legroom :D

(Randomly: The flight didn't feel too long, but didn't feel short either. I didn't get to sleep much (what? 3 hours maybe?) but I spent hour doodling and playing Tetris and Bejewelled. The food was good. The fish Patty had for supper was amazing. I love business class.)

Patty and I didn't discuss the possible swine flu case out loud, because obviously it's common sense not to cause a possible riot on an already airborne flight. And we were damn right to do so - when the flight landed, the crew announced that health officials were coming on board to check the health of a passenger, and immediately everyone on the upper deck started shifting uneasily. They certainly were quick to get off the plane when we were finally given clearance.

Because we were sitting in those seats and were therefore considered to be in "close proximity to the ill passenger", we had to be quarantined off as well. But my brother thinks it was a false alarm because we got let go very quickly. Although I didn't at first, I am now inclined to agree with him. Still, it was an experience! :D

That was most certainly the most interesting flight I'd ever been on. I admit to having been alarmed when we were first told, but after a few minutes, I figured there was no point panicking - we were already airborne, so if I get it, then I get it. Besides, people do recover from it anyway.

Of course, we were placed under self-quarantine for a few days (not the full 7 days as recommended by the Health Minister) but neither of us showed any symptoms, so we went about as usual (eating, mostly :P). I can't believe it - we've only been at home for one and a half weeks, and we've already hit 8 restaurants on our list of 32 places-to-eat-at!! No wonder why I feel fat (aside from the fact that I'm incredibly bloated - it's the week before my period arrives. Sry if that's tmi :P).

OH speaking of feeling fat, I figured that having such a small waist compared to my chest and hips isn't so bad. When I was trying on some skirts from my mum, I couldn't fit some of them around my hips. Then I tried putting them on the other way around - from the top. I managed to squeeze into it, but surprisingly, once they got past my chest, the waistband was actually loose around my waist! XD Talk about flattering myself!

And speaking of the skirts, I've just finished sorting and hanging all of them up on my cupboard and HOLY COW! I knew there were alot of skirts, but after counting them, it feels ridiculous!! Get this: I now have 49 skirts hanging in my closet. O_O I knew there were many, but this many?? These aren't even counting the skirts that aren't being hung up, and the ones that are on their way from London!

.......... Is it bad that the only thing going through my mind now is that I have to get more tops to balance out my closet? :P

*coughs* Anyway! Tomorrow I start work. I'm going to intern in my mum's office again, and the reason I'm starting so soon is that my mum is going on a Penang trip with clients and I can learn alot from just watching everything. So yeah, I start work tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Okay, I think I've rambled on enough already. I'm going to take a nap before my sister comes home from Bali (their flight should be landing any minute now, if it hasn't already). Bye!

kimono daisuki // blogspot.com

Happy Chinese New Year 2012!

Belated Happy New Year

Outfit Snap: Birthday Kitsuke! 2011

Kimono Challenge Tag!

Back~!

Video: Kimono & Obi Dressing in 5 Minutes

Kimono Know-How: Furisode Musubi, pg 44-45 from Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007

Closet Feature: Pink & Teal Summer Wool Kimono

About Kimono: Accessories - Three-Section Himo with Elastic Bands

Closet Feature: Pink & White/Black Hanhaba Obi

Video: How To Dress Yukata & Kimono Part 2

Closet Feature: Kokon Tozai Antique Furisode Remake Bag - Lilac

Kimono Know-How: Fancy Obijime Ties from Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007

Kimono Know-How: Fancy Obiage Ties from Furisode Daisuki! 2006 - 2007

Closet Feature: Kokon Tozai Antique Furisode Remake Bag - Mustard

Outfit Snap: Sweet Roses Yukata

Event Announcement: Tokyo Street Pavilion is open!

Outfit Snap: Periwinkle Rose Yukata

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2011 - Take 2!

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2011

Event Announcement: Jusco Yukata Fair 2011 - Till Sunday, 17th July

Outfit Snap: My Brother & His Girlfriend - Friday Night Dress-Up!

Closet Feature: Red Yukata & Black Obi

Outfit Snap: Navy Blue Yukata & Seafoam Green Obi

Closet Feature: Black Yukata & Hot Pink Obi

Blog Layout (again!)

Blog Restructuring

Event Announcement: 35th Bon Odori in Shah Alam, Malaysia

Event Announcement: Tokyo Street opening in Pavilion Kuala Lumpur (July 2011)

Coordination Comments: Yellow Snowflake Komon & Purple Obi

New Layout~

Outfit Snap: Yellow Polyester Komon

Ivory & Purple Cheongsam

New Layout!

Closet Feature: New Red Sakura Furisode

Outfit Snap: Pink Plaid Kofurisode

Tips & Tricks: Choosing Your First Kimono

*phew*

Tips & Tricks: Where to Buy Kimono

Christmas Wishlist

Event Aftermath: Sleepover Night

Event Aftermath: Kitsuke Teach-In Session!

Quick Update~

Event Aftermath: Bon Odori 2010, Shah Alam, Malaysia

Long Weekend~~

Layout Change~

Style Tips: September

Video: How To Dress Yukata & Kimono Part 1

Delays

Event Aftermath: Yukata Meet @ KLCC

Suggestions?: Obi-Matching Dilemma

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2010 - My Finds!

Event Aftermath: Jusco Yukata Fair 2010

Review: West Side Story the Musical

Event Announcement: Yukata Fair at Jusco Mid Valley

It's Alive!!

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Iketeru

Gluttony~

Happy Chinese New Year!

Event Aftermath: Yukata Picnic April 2009: Part 2!

*phew*

Layout changed!

Changing Layout

Outfit Snap: Kevin and Miyuki's Wedding

Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas!

It's Official

*grumbles*

Event Aftermath: Stuff from Japan Charity Bazaar

Spending Money....

Outfit Snap: Rose Yukata Ensemble

Chima Jeogori

Event Aftermath: Japan Charity Fiesta & Bazaar 2009

Outfit Snap: Happy Birthday to me~

Event Announcement: Japan Charity Fiesta & Bazaar 2009

First Lolita Attempt~

Back from Singapore! (again)

*tired*

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Sagano: Take 2

phew

phew

grumbles

tired

tired Cupcakes!!