Miss Filigree

Backpacking right now is all the rage. Instagram and Facebook are littered with people showing off their latest stay, and while I'm not a fan of showing off my entire life like that, I LOVE travel! I always wanted to backpack and some months back I got to make my dream come true when I left for Japan for three months. However one thing I really wasn't looking forward to was backpackers clothing. Not only do I feel horrible in the usual backpackers getup of jeans or leggings + tank or tunic, dressing like a tourist is how you get people to treat you like one too! Instead of going out and spending money on clothes I wouldn't like and that might get me singled out or even ripped off, I decided I was going to dress in my usual style for the trip. It worked, by the way, as several people I met thought I was a longterm resident! The bag I bought is this Samsonite spinner, a real backpack wasn't an option due to my bad back so I chose this multifunctional ...

This day my mother and I took off to the fabric district! I had intended to buy some wa printed cottons, some lace, mayyybe look for a kimono for remaking. I’d looked at the best shops to go beforehand, because to see all 80+ shops I’d need a whole ‘nother three weeks of vacation. I chose Tomato as my shop to definitely visit and I figured I’d see what else I’d find on my path. We walked through the district, which was a seamstresses heaven! Shops for leatherware, supplies, trims, I even saw a shop 100% about tassel trims! Pretty quickly we found Tomato, or rather, one of the five(!) Tomato branch shops on that street. We went in and just...it was. Lolita heaven. Dreamy floral prints, oodles of the most gorgeous lace, I even saw some lace I recall BTSSB using, and they had two lolita coords on display as example!! The blouse on the left has woven flowers in the fabric too! If you’ve ever tried to sew anything lolita related yourself you probably know that th...

I designated the fourth day in Japan as a full on shop day, as there was a lolita secondhand market scheduled that day. I went on my way late-ish, so I didn’t expect to find the bargain of my life, but I hoped to find some cute tops or jewelry. I was worried that finding the place was going to be hard, but as soon as I entered Takeshita Dori I saw signs pointing me in the right direction.  The red sign was for the event space! Cheap buys this way! Strangely enough the hand was pointing at some stairs going down...which was the wrong way. Oops! One was held by a lolita in a very OTT outfit, even on Takeshita Dori it was hard to miss! I went up into the rented space and was, to my surprise, greeted in English by a western girl. The “international lolita” thing turned out to be actually true!  One of the event hosts. Such a cute coord, and such a cute dress! Event space. By the time I arrived most of the good buys were gone, but still fun! The market itsel...

On friday I went to Kawagoe, in Saitama prefecture but technically still in Tokyo, to meet my Japanese family! My great-grandmother was Japanese, and even though we share the tiniest bit of blood we were really excited to meet! I’ll keep their names shortened for their privacy.  I was invited over to Kawagoe because it was nice and central for all my family members, and it’s a beautiful old village. It turned out Kawagoe is also called Little Edo because half the city center is authentically Edo, including a bell tower that’s famous throughout Japan. I met up with A-san and Ai-san at the station (after walking right past eachother, followed by a panicked phone call where they were) and we took a bus to the center. A-san had booked a kimono rental service and reserved lunch for the day. The kimono rental place was incredibly small! It consisted of a small porch with hanging curtains, a heightened tatami floor with kimono racks and a dressing room the size of a big closet.  ...

Heya! Guess who’se online! Unfortunately I can’t upload any pictures yet as I didn’t bring my laptop, so these posts will be just text until I get back and edit these. Sorry!   12/04 edit: here are the pictures!   (I’ll make some posts depending on how interesting the things I did were, I’ll probably combine days where I didn’t do too much) Nothing happened on our very first day in Japan, we spent it dragging suitcases around Tokyo and cursing, and when we got to the airBnB at 4 in the midday we went straight to bed, that’s how badly the trip wore us out! The second day however, we got up early to head to Harajuku.  The first half of the day centered around bank problems, because it turned out even though the logos on our cards were on any and every ATM, we couldn’t actually withdraw any money! We figured out a way eventually but it was a super convoluted one and having to fight with bank employees while you just want to shop really puts kind of a bad aftertas...