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!

Outfit Snap: Dinner @ Sagano

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!