chocoholic cafe

Today's super I'm-so-late entry will be about Chocoholic Cafe! A lovely little sweets cafe that I visited for the first time with Ri in the middle of a torrential downpour last weekend. I'd already been a bit sick and now I have full-blown bronchitis --which is awesome--but it was really fun nonetheless.

Such a dreary day ;___;

New shoes from Esperanza & F21 Dress :3

Going down into the station from Roppongi Hills

I had to go to Roppongi Hills that morning for a press conference for LUNA SEA that I completely wasn't prepared for but managed to turn out pretty well. It was really interesting to be witness to a part of the music scene in Japan that I'd come into contact years and years before. It was an opportunity I never though I would get so I hope I can continue to do a good job in the future. Here's my article for those curious!


After that I met up with Ri at Ebisu Station and we began the walk to Chocoholic Cafe in the torrential downpour. It's kind of situated between Ebisu & Daikanyama Stations so it's a little bit of a walk but I really loved the route we took.

And then finally we arrived! 

This is their store--filled with so many cute things you will cry--that's situated on top of the cafe. The cafe is down the stairs to the right and, because it was raining so hard were actually somewhat terrifying to go down.

Fresh ham & vegetable gratin

My face cake!

Ri's face cake!

This place was actually one of the cutest places I've been in a while.

It's really tiny and the atmosphere was so relaxed. The perfect place to spend an icky, rainy day. The price is a bit high--normal for Japan--but if you want the full experience of real food + the dessert expect to spend about 1500-2000 yen.

But I mean really. Are you going to pass up bear cakes with faces on them? Really.

For more info you can check out their OHP here. They're only open until 7:30pm and they're closed every Monday though so it's definitely not somewhere you can loiter all night like Starbucks or something (and there's no Wi-Fi which we were hoping) but the atmosphere is wonderful and perfect for a rainy day.

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golden week 2011

I can't believe I haven't been able to blog in over almost two weeks! Well, Golden Week was a little weird this year as it was broken up into almost three parts. 3 days off, work; 3 days off, work; 2 days off, back to a full week of work. Needless to say I wanted to rest a lot but ended up busier than I expected.

may 01
Went out with Caroline and her lovely Momma in Sunshine City! Hit a nice family restaurant called Casa and stayed there for a while eating our omurice and drinking way too much melon soda. Caroline's mom reminded me a lot of my own mother so it was really comforting and homey to be with the two of them.

may 03
Had my nails done at Carry again! I should really start asking Someya if I can start taking pictures of the process and such from now on. She and I created this design on our own and she took a picture for Carry's catalogue.

Oh! And I had no idea until after I left but the whole time I had been sitting next to the egg model, Aina Tanaka! I had no idea who she was at the time but here is the set she had done that day. Her hair color was gorgeous. So thin, too.

Later that day I met up with Ri and her friend Moa in Meguro so we could hit a family restaurant and talk "business". By that I mean, mostly boys but I also needed her professional opinion on business cards and such as lately, every time I've been introduced to a new designer or musician, I had no business cards to show them. Which I thought was kind of unprofessional? Regardless Ri had some great ideas as always and it was so great to get her opinion. Had such a great time with her and Moa!

Swedish candy! We won't talk about the licorice XD

Moa & Ri ♥

may 04
I want to out to the IKEA in Funabashi for the first time with the intention of buying a desk. I bought it. It's gigantic and I built it all by myself. I'm more than proud.



may 05
Hung out with my friend Rebecca for the first time since before The Quake! Straight hair again that day and epically weird weather that made me completely incapable of deciding what to wear.

If you think I wear this hat too much you're probably right.

We hit Baskin Robbins, and Donki to search out some circle lenses but I honestly don't know if I can do it. I really want to but I'm so wary to drop 5000 yen on them and then not be able to put them in my eye.

Instead I picked up the BVLGARI Omnia I'd be coveting since I used dish's in March. It makes me feel like a rich, sexy person even though I am neither.

After that we headed over to Nabe-Zou so I could have my first shabu-shabu experience! I have a terrifying ability to eat epic amounts of meat when it comes to things like shabu-shabu or yakiniku. Oh. There was also lulzy purikura.

Over the weekend I went to a show with Ri and Moa but I'll put both that and this past weekend's live into a music post tomorrow. 

I'm sorry I'm so behind on blogs!  

Going to spend the rest of tonight catching up! I was miserably ill last night and could barely get out of bed today so I had to take a day off from work but tomorrow it's back to the grind.

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extension rhythm @ takadanobaba

Finally finished editing the pictures from my new extensions! I wanted to dye my hair a light strawberry blond a-la my new idol, Ide Reiko but unfortunately my work told me extensions + blonde hair all at once was a little much.

However, I still really wanted to get extensions again as, contrary to what you may think, or well at least for me personally they're much easier to handle in the summer than my own hair because messy braids etc almost always look cute.

A messy outgrown bob? Not so much.

This time I went to Extension Rhythm in Takadanobaba. They were having a spring campaign that gets you 50 pieces just below your bust for only 8800 yen! I had her curl them day of for an extra 500 yen.

Hell yes I am abusing the hell out of retro PS tutorials. Please excuse the fact that I'm holding a sandwich in the first shot. There's a Starbucks between the station and my house and I was starving.

The next day I tried straightening them again and...I almost think straight is more flattering on me?

What do you guys think? Straight or curly? 

I'm also super torn on what to do with my bangs. I like this side-swept look but I don't know if I should get them cleaned up or keep letting them grow out a bit. I tossed around the idea of blunt bangs but I don't know if I can pull them off with my face shape.

Opinions?

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meet-up with ri

One whole week but I finally have time to write about my meet up with Ri last week! Write-up itself is small because we spent a lot of really lovely time talking so we'll go the scenic route.

And yes. I did retro-filter the hell out of these photos.

Anyway so Ri and I met up in Harajuku in the morning and walked over to Yoyogi Park intending on some last minute hanami but to our surprise we ran into the Doggy Carnival instead! I like cats too but I'm much more a dog person so my face was basically

We didn't see any particularly gorgeous hanami around--and by that I mean really any--so after getting solicited by a particularly handsome water salesman we parked it on a bench with some takoyaki.

Ri is ridiculously easy to talk to and super down to earth. We were both inspired by the same type of thing to come here and it seems like we're both slowly starting to be able to follow our dreams. So...yay!

 

When we crossed over into actual Yoyogi Park we found the Horde of Evil Crows. No really, they were insane. 

Despite the actual lack of hanami in the park, there were a ton of people there! Really nice to see Tokyo so full and teeming with life again. We did however find the above few trees and a lot of very young hanami groups and this very nice middle-age couple that took this two-shot for us.

Ri was so stylish and pretty in her coord, too!

After that we headed back to Harajuku so Ri could get a shirt from the Hangry&Angry store. So nostalgic! Also popped into Deal Design and Candy Stripper before running into this crowd of people waiting for a famous model who neither of us knew to come driving out of a back alley? Yeah.

Lastly we headed to Shibuya where Ri was giving an interview and I had a friend's show to go to so we popped into a cute cafe for some cake and ice cafe lattes. I think that was my third that day if I remember correctly.

After (sadly) parting ways with Ri I headed over to Shibuya Cyclone to see FEAR FROM THE HATE play. I used go to visual-kei shows, but I've been sporadically hitting up a few metal/screamo/hardcore shows and I have to say they're pretty fun. I don't throw down for them but it's still nice to watch metal and the atmosphere is so much more relaxed than visual shows. No stress. Just lots of death-voice. It's kind of nice to be honest.

Basically the biggest pain-in-the-ass to find livehouse next to Holiday, however

Got home stupidly late and got up bright and early the next morning to meet up with my bb, Caroline! We haven't seen each other since the quake and it was so good to be reunited. Had lunch at our beloved T.G.I.Friday's and sadly our little baby waiter wasn't there. He was lulzy. I liked him.

Afterward we proceeded to the PARCO in Ikebukuro where we were on a mission to have our matching EGOIST hat purikura.

Favorite favorite favorite!

Caroline's so cute here X3

The EGOIST in the Ikebukuro PARCO always has at least one rude staff girl working every time I go in but they were legit so nice to us that day! I think it's because Caroline was already dressed up and I was head to toe in EGOIST save for my black tank top and shoes. In the words of Janice Ian, "Suck on that! Aieieie!"

After Caroline and I parted ways, I met up with a friend so I could assist with something for his band. I don't really want to say anything else until things are more concrete but it was really fun and I'm glad I could help them out even a little bit. Hopefully I'll be able to say more later but let's just say I'm ridiculously excited that it looks like little by little my dreams are starting to come true, too. I still have a long way to go and I need to figure out how I'm going to get there but, I'm getting somewhere and right now that's all that matters to me.

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