Paris: Non-Expo adventures

I have no idea how to start/organise this entry, so I'll just jump in.

Dinosaur biscuits 8D

French dub of Inbetweeners.

Friday:

On the metro on the way back from Expo, a Japanese man handed me a note written in French (with the pronunciation in katakana underneath haha) explaining that he was a fashion designer, and wanted me to model his clothing. I told him (in Japanese) that I was English, and he seemed super relieved that he wouldn't have to struggle to speak French haha. He showed me some photos of his clothing, and I agreed to shoot with him the next day after Expo. Dodo, Memz and Bree weren't arriving in Paris until a few hours later, so we went to a McDonald's near the station to wait for them, and ate/chatted in awkward Japanese until they arrived. We then all went back to our hotel (good old Etap lol), then drank until the early hours, and used Go (the fashion designer)'s French/Japanese textbook to learn new vocab in both languages haha. 

Glorious bugles

Saturday:

After Kyary's performance, I met with Go and his team to shoot around Montmartre. I really liked the clothes, so I look forward to seeing the photos.
At the Expo, Dodo and I were given flyers for some sort of J-pop/K-pop clubnight that evening, and as we'd wanted to go clubbing anyway, decided to go. So when I got back to the hotel after shooting, Dodo, Phoebe and I went. Satsuki performed. I'd never really listened to his music before, and while it's not really my thing, he was very good, and I enjoyed his performance.

This blur is Satsuki performing
The club in general was really fun haha. At some point, some guy let us in the VIP area (not sure why lol, we didn't actually try to go in), and we ended up talking to Satsuki (I think he was just happy to find Japanese/English speakers), and he is the sweetest guy ever. He hugged me just for saying his music is good, aww. All I really remember talking about was how he was liking Paris, then he asked about what music we liked, then he talked a bit about the MICRO HEAD 4N'S when we said we liked D'espairsRay.

And this blur is me with Satsuki lol. You can only just tell.

We kept eating these glorious microwave burgers for breakfast.

I remembered loving DooWaps as a child, so I bought some, and they're still amazing. 8D

Sunday:
Dodo and I stayed in on Sunday night. We drew on our faces and talked about feels lol.

I was meant to be Mameshiba haha, and Dodo... I don't even know.

Then Bree came back, and we formed babby374.

Monday:
On Monday, we went to the Annual Lolita Convention. As we hadn't planned to go, I didn't have much lolita with me, so my outfit was fairly simple:

I bought Chantilly socks.

And this! It's wonderful.

Grenadine

In the evening, we met up with some French and Finnish lolitas we'd met at the convention for drinks, but had to leave quite early to catch the metro back. :<

Tuesday:
We visited Boddywood (shop that stocks brands like Angelic Pretty) and the BTSSB store, then went to Princess Crepe (a Creperie run by BTSSB that does amazing Harajuku-style crepes).

Raspberry cream cheesecake crepe

After that, we went on a quest to find a KFC, because we'd heard it's better in France. Turns out it is.

We headed back to the Eurostar station a couple of hours before our train, then waited in McDonald's. You can get macarons there!

-Finlay

Paris: Expo

I've decided to do two entries on my trip to Paris, separated by Expo and non-Expo happenings. Expo first, as that was the main purpose of the trip. 

The Japan Expo in Paris is sort of like London's MCM Expo, only much bigger and better, and they actually have good guests. I went from Friday to Sunday. Friday was fairly uneventful, as my friends didn't get to Paris until the evening, and there wasn't a lot going on on that day.

One of my favourite parts of the Expo was the Nico Nico Douga booth, where anyone could go up and be interviewed and broadcast live on the Nico Nico site. The fun part is seeing the comments of the viewers, which scroll across screens shown at the back of the stage. Depending on who was currently being shown, the comments ranged from the extremely cruel to "I love you, marry me" haha, and no matter how boring the current interview, the comments were always hilarious. 

I went on on Friday, then again with Dodo on Sunday when we were maids. 8D

Amazing Versailles cosplayers.

Project Diva. I played this a LOT in arcades in Japan, and was already missing it by the next day, so I was really happy to see it at Expo.

ParaParaParadise. I also used to play this a lot, but haven't since the Trocadero arcade closed. :C

Kyary and Mameshiba shops. I'd seen most of their stock in Japan for about half the price, but there were a few things I missed:

Little post-it note things

Stickers 8D

I think the bag they gave me alone made it worth it haha.

Here's the only Expo outfit shot I took (with Dodo):

As I only had a day to pack after getting back from Japan, I didn't really have enough time to come up with any new outfits/costumes. I love wearing this though haha. 

On Saturday, there were two lives. First was Anli Pollicino:

They were amazing, and I was really surprised when they played their Dead or Alive cover, which I absolutely love. Shindy (vocalist) has gorgeous hair. 

Right after was Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Her set was very short (about 5 songs), but she was great. She's adorable in real life, but surprisingly short (she walked by me at one point, and was tiny). 

Her backup dancers were two of the most fabulous children on this earth. I spent most of it just watching them haha. As well as being better dancers than Kyary herself, they mouthed the lyrics with such dramatic facial expressions too haha. Adorable. They were in this video:

One of them (purple, apparently), who was also Kyary's dancer, is a boy!

And on Sunday was DaizyStripper! They were also great (and most of them were super short, too).

No picture, but I also bought just three mangas (Doubt and Judge), and was given this ridiculously large bag to carry them in. It's bigger than my suitcase! I had to leave it in Paris. We put Mameshiba stickers on it and used it to decorate our hotel room haha. 8)

-Finlay

Tokyo: Shin Okachimachi

I've decided to separate the blogs about Tokyo by place/what we did rather than by day, because I'm not very good at remembering when things happened haha. Forgive me if this entry doesn't make much sense; I'm jetlagged and barely awake right now, but I wanted to get an entry up before going to Paris tomorrow for Japan Expo.

Shin Okachimachi is where our apartment was. It was lovely, and about 2 or 3 metro stations away from Akihabara. There was a mall there called AbAb that I really liked. It was mainly clothes, but also had random cute things and stationary etc. 

Here's our apartment:

As you can see, it's just one room (with a separate bathroom), but it was lovely. 

In AbAb, we went to a place called Sweets Paradise, which is basically an all-you-can-eat dessert buffet (there's also pasta and stuff). You pay about 1200 yen, and have an hour to stuff your face with cake. Glorious.

Shirokuma Cafe milk coffee 8D Best coffee I've ever had.

Shin Okachimachi gets:

Blatant Monomania replica ghost ring

I loooove the Eyemazing ones.

Mameshiba socks

...I don't even know what these are.

I love this thing. You rub it on your skin and it leaves sparkles. 8D

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-Finlay