05/10/2013 - Paris Manga & Sci-fi Show and Nuit Blanche

Last weekend was the Paris Manga & Sci-fi Show. The event itself wasn't very interesting; mostly just shops, and it was very overcrowded, but I still had fun hanging out with people~

 I didn't bring any actual cosplays to France, so I did my usual lazy thing where I just throw together some clothes and a wig in the morning and try my hardest to look like an anime character:

Skirt: Rose Melody (Taobao)
Blouse: Warehouse
Tights: Lockshop
Shoes: Bodyline
Veil: Piece of material I found in my house lol

 I have no idea what I was supposed to be, but I had fun being it anyway~ 

I actually went alone, but after looking around everything once I ran into Christophe and a couple of his friends, so I joined them. Soon after that we found the adorable Nicole, who I'd briefly spoken to on Tumblr before. She joined us too. c: 

I loooove when people incorporate fandom T-shirts (her wig is kinda hiding it, but it's L from Death Note's logo) into good outfits rather than just wearing them with jeans or something C:

From that point onwards we pretty much wandered around chatting in English (as it's Nicole's first language too) while Christophe made us be in photos with like every single cosplay he (or we) liked haha 

Sashaaaa

We also had fun borrowing weapons for photos~

I felt like a video game character 8D

That night was Nuit Blanche (a yearly event where loads of museums/shops/galleries etc. in Paris stay open really late/all night), so after Paris Manga finished, Nicole and I decided to go home and get changed then meet up later. 

First we went to Notre Dame. I was super happy that it was part of Nuit Blanche, because since I first saw Notre Dame at night (it looks like a beautiful, crazy vampire castle), I'd desperately wanted to go inside it at night. It wasn't very well lit, so there was a lot you couldn't see at all, but it was still super cool! It was my first time going inside, though, so I'd like to go back some time when it's actually light enough to see. I'm generally not a fan of tourist attractions, but Notre Dame is just gorgeous. 

 It was wonderfully creepy with the terrible lighting. 

Notre Dame selfies lol

Neither of us really knew what there was to do because there was so much that there wasn't really a list or anything, so we decided to just wander for a bit and see if we could find anything. We didn't come across much, but I was just happy that I could go inside Notre Dame haha. In the end we went to a crêperie, then wandered around a while longer before calling it a night. 

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

02/06/2012 - International Lolita Day and Slimelight

Saturday was International Lolita Day. There was a meet that involved going to some kind of exhibition. I was tired and missed that part, but I still wanted to celebrate the day haha, so I met up with people after. It's been a while since I've worn lolita, and even longer since I've been to a meet, so it was really nice. Here's what I wore:

And I finally wore my headband from Necrosarium:

Dodo had also missed the exhibition, so we met up and bummed around Piccadilly Circus together whilst waiting for the others. 

We noticed a NeoPrint machine (something I haven't used since I was about 7), and decided to use it for laughs.

We pretended to be in the 90's haha. 

We finally met up with the others, and after failing to find somewhere to have cocktails, we settled for a pub instead. 

Pimm's 8D

I'd been wanting to go to Slimelight (a goth club) for a while, and as there was some kind of special night happening there apparently, I convinced Memz and DeMc to go with me. Conveniently, I live about 5 minutes away from the club, so after the meet, we headed back to my house for pre-drinks. 

First, though, Memz and I had to change, as we weren't sure whether or not we'd get in with what we were wearing (and clubbing in lolita is not so fun). I was lazy and pretty much repeated what I wore to see SCREW, but I had fun dressing up Memz, who doesn't usually wear anything that isn't related to lolita. 

Before

After (I had too much fun with the sparkle brush, shh)

A lot of Nachtmahr, vodka and mead (I don't know why this was in my house lol) later, we were ready to go!

I'd only been to Slimelight once before, to see Nachtmahr, but we didn't stick around after that, so I'd never properly experienced it before. All I can say is that it's amazing, and now my favourite club. Lots of smoke, cages, and glorious industrial music. And a barbecue! There was also a crucifix:

The lighting makes this picture really scary somehow haha.

I'd heard that it's usually pretty dead in there, but there was some kind of  event going on, so it was really busy, and we met lots of lovely people. I got to practise French and Italian on native speakers, and I actually ran into the only cybergoth I'm following on Tumblr (I seem to be meeting a lot of people from Tumblr lately). Nearer the end of the night, we met some lovely gay guys, at least one of whom was into J-rock, so we hung out with them for the rest of the night, then all went back to mine for pizza at about 5am. They headed off at about 7am, and the rest of us collapsed into our respective beds, sleeping patterns thoroughly destroyed. 

-Finlay