Happy Christmas!

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

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*

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

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....

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

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

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

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~

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

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~

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)

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*

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

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!