Category: daily life

Daily Life: Sick is Perhaps Less Fluffy

Daily Life: Sick is Perhaps Less Fluffy

by alice ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I’m afraid I haven’t posted in a while. I certainly haven’t run out of things to say, nor has my interest in lolita fashion dwindled. I’ve just been rather sick. ;_;

I suppose the most “lolita” thing about being ill is drinking lots and lots of tea! Thankfully I have many different flavors, so even 8 or so cups a day doesn’t get boring, and plenty of teacups. (Although I’m afraid that allows the dishes to pile up when I’m feeling very poorly.) I’m almost out of honey, though, having used it copiously to soothe sore throats.

Despite all this, I did host a casual, regularly-scheduled meetup over the weekend. It only lasted for a few hours, so I managed pretty well~ There were some other events going on that weekend, so only a handful of my friends showed up for a cookie swap. That’s alright, though, since I have a teeny-tiny apartment and not a lot of seating! We spent the afternoon flopped all over the floor, trying not to melt from the heat; thankfully the temperature stayed manageable in my house. I also prepared plenty of iced tea to keep things on the cooler side.

Everyone brought cookies one way or another (one of my close friends is a pastry chef, so she came with enough cookies to sink a ship!) and there were lots of varieties. I ate more than my share of sweets, which wasn’t very good for my cold but was very good for my soul~ ♥ There were multi-colored lemonade-flavored pinwheels, pink coconut crisps, buttery spritz cookies, oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies, and frosting-sandwich cakies. The lemonade cookies stole the spotlight–even from a massive pink cake shaped like one of Baby, the Stars Shine Bright‘s bunny-bear backpack purses!

I absolutely love having people over for tea, regardless of our attire. The four hours that were passed on the floor of my apartment, with plenty of tea and cookies, and a distracted viewing of Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain brightened my entire weekend~ I didn’t feel so sniffly or choke-y amidst the pleasant conversation and laughter. Not to mention that my house still has lots of cookies–maybe there is such a thing as too many!

It’s a little bit hard to feel at one’s frilliest when one is feeling under the weather, so I try to enjoy a few moments–like the crafternoon with my friends–or cheer myself up with a few momentos–such as using a pretty teacup or wearing cute socks on chilly toes. However, I’d much rather get better quickly than stress myself out too much trying to maintain a fancy outfit when I’d much rather be in pyjamas! Hopefully I’ll be back to better very quickly–my throat could use a rest from all this coughing.

Daily Life: Let’s Bon Dancing!

Daily Life: Let’s Bon Dancing!

by alice ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Alice at Bon Odori
Photography by Percy Mui

I spent the other day at Mitsuwa, a large local Japanese market, celebrating Obon at their Bon Odori or Bon Dancing festival~ I adore festivals of almost any sort. However, I rarely have a chance to attend any of the state fairs for the states I am surrounded by and sometimes miss the local summer fairs that crop up in various parking lots of the outlying suburbs. I try my best to make it to Bon Odori every year to watch the taiko performances and eat delicious food! (It’s also the only time of year that is really suited to wearing my yukata.)

It was supposed to be a lolita fashion meetup, but so many people came from different directions and everything was incredibly crowded. I kept seeing lolita pass me by, but sometimes I couldn’t get through to say hello to anyone. I spent a lot of my time at the festival running around and sometimes had to leave the market and return later. Not many lolita popped over to say anything, either, because I was wearing a yukata and had just gotten a rather drastic haircut. I did spend time with some of my friends, however, so I had a really nice time~ (The only thing that could have made it better would have been feeling less sick! I’ve caught a bit of a cold and kept coughing into my sleeve or blowing my nose like a trumpet…)

Bon Odori is one of my favourite festivals because of the Japanese food! I ♥ Japanese food of all types–especially festival-types such as takoyaki (octopus balls) and melon shaved ice. I did manage to eat several orders of takoyaki, tasted part of a beef bowl that my person ordered, shared some delicious salmon yaki-onigiri, and drank strawberry Calpico~ I didn’t quite get a chance to try melon ice pops, though I spotted several girls eating them and they looked quite tasty.

However, my festival was made complete with a matcha parfait~ ♥ Inside of Mitsuwa, there is a food court. In the right-hand corner of the food court there is a stand called “Re-Leaf” that specializes in ice cream and matcha drinks. They make a confection called a “matcha parfait” that I am utterly in love with. The bottom of the glass has matcha jelly, then vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, cubes of yellow cake, red bean paste, soft-serve green tea and vanilla swirl ice cream, mochi, red bean paste, and matcha syrup. The masterpiece is garnished with a stick of puff pastry~ I never cease to be amazed by it! I was ★lucky★ and actually had one-and-a-half parfaits, as a friend of mine decided she didn’t want the whole thing~

Despite my focus on the culinary aspects of the festival, it was really nice to interact with the friends I was able to catch the attention of during such a crowded event. I was able to watch the first taiko performance; the grace and agility of the drummers is always astounding! I tried to dance along for the actual dancing part of the festival, but I’m afraid I simply don’t have the right kind of coordination to do so. One of these days I’m going to have to attend practice in the week before the festival so that I don’t make a fool of myself.

I rode the train home exhausted, ill, and very happy. I had planned to attend a sleepover that same evening, but I was so sick that it just wasn’t possible. As I fold up my yukata and carefully return it to storage, I’m looking forward to attending the festival next year!

Daily Life: On a Date!

Daily Life: On a Date!

by alice ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

My person and I have been together for nearly five years (it will be exactly five years as of tomorrow), but I still get all giddy and excited about doing something romantic together–especially going out on a date!

Going out on a date is one of my favourite things that we can do together. It can make any day extra-special. Although we spend quite a bit of time together, not just anything is a date. Oh, no–a date has to be planned. A date cannot be running the errands or cleaning the house; a date has to be something at least a little bit out of the ordinary.

That’s not to say that it has to be expensive. The very best dates are the ones we do our best to enjoy with as little spending as possible. We can go for a walk along the lakefront, and then make dinner at home and spend some time cuddling together with the guinea pigs. We could borrow a movie that we’ve both wanted to see, play board games or card games, or try to one-up each other with funny video clips.

Today we were lucky enough to go to the movie theatre! My mother had won a movie theatre gift certificate at work, and she was kind enough to give it to me. When my person mentioned that he wanted to see Up!, we decided to get up early and see a matinee showing to get the most out of our gift card. Our bus got us to the theatre with plenty of time to spare. We were the only ones in the room–it felt really neat to have the whole place to ourselves while the movie played! It really came in handy, because I cried the entire time.

The movie was amazingly well-animated and the storyline was very well-developed, but I was really emotionally moved by everything about the story. After the first fifteen minutes or so I started sobbing, and cried almost nonstop throughout the rest of the film. It was incredibly embarassing–even when the credits were rolling I couldn’t stop crying! I was so glad that no-one else could see me. Going out for lunch hadn’t really been part of our original plan, but it was improvised as a bit of a cheer-me-up. We don’t usually eat at restaurants, so it was really a treat.

After a delicious meal at the Oak Tree (where I learned that their “toasted epicurean cheese” menu was some kind of slang for wonderfully creative grilled-cheese sandwiches), we stopped by more for dessert. Cupcakes are one of my favourite-est desserts in the whole world (although I have the stereotypical sweet-lolita love of all desserts), and more was closest to us. Today’s flavors all looked quite tasty. My person chose blueberry right away, but I had a really hard time picking from strawberry-rhubarb meringue, s’more, and key lime pie. Eventually I picked key lime pie, after much deliberation.

We brought our treats home and made some of my person’s favourite tea. (He really likes the Samurai Chai Mate from Teavana. However, since we don’t have any in-cup tea-strainers at the moment we don’t make it very often, since we have to make a whole pot of it at a time.) Then we relaxed in the kitchen, chuckled at the antics of the guinea pigs, and ate our delicious cupcakes. It was blissfully wonderful~

I don’t ever want to stop treasuring our time together, no matter what we’re doing. Days like these make me so happy that we’re together. My heart is so full of love and sparkles! ♥