Friday

25.12.09

MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS!
This Christmas has been one of the best yet. Good food, good people and good presents. As always it was stinking hot here in Australia (I still long for a white Christmas) but there's always air conditioning and I can't help but be filled with Christmas spirit. Also I finally had an excuse to wear my red Dorothy shoes that I bought in Japan. GAH I love them.
Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Saturday

Bedrock

I. Love. Japan.
You may have of heard of Bedrock through Sea of Shoes (I know I did) but if you haven't all you really need to know is that it is the most AMAZING store EVER. First of all they don't advertise, have a shop front or even have a sign. To get in you have to walk through a tiny cafe named The Forbidden Fruit Cafe, located in Omotosando Hills, and down a back set of stairs. It should be noted that the cafe itself is pretty cool, the offer some great juices. Anyway, once you get down to the boutique you immediately realize what all the hype is about. The interior is just amazing, whoever designed it is a genius. The clothes themselves are beautiful and their collection of vintage shoes are to die for. I think I could spend hours in there and not get bored. Below are a few pics I managed to snap, the quality is pretty poor because I wasn't sure if you were allowed to take photos or not. (A.K.A. I have a strong feeling you weren't... but no one directly told me not to... so I did.)

Harajuku (how I love you...)

Takeshita Dori
Kris and I are already pretty familiar with Harajuku so it was fun to be able to go back and explore a lot of the lesser known places and back streets. If you look a little harder you'll find great restraunts, vintage stores dedicated entirely to Vivienne Westwood, hilariously small apartments to rent, insanely stylish hair salons, tattoo parlours and more...
On the other hand it was also great to visit some of our old favourites like BodyLine, a store that specialises specifically in the whole Gothic Lolita look:
All the dresses are unbelievably well made and most are around $40AUD. Although I'm no goth, it's always fun to take something and make it your own. I bought a cute little floral dress and a pair of awesome pink Doc Marten-esk boots, which will probably be featured many times over the next few months.
In between shops we snacked on the old favourites, melon soda and crepe (kiwi fruit + cream + ice cream = heaven). If you haven't tried a Melon Soda you haven't lived! Haha no seriously, Melon Soda is my god. You should be able to find it in most Asian grocery stores.
While wandering the back streets we came across a really tiny, cute, funky salon and decided to make an appointment for a few days later. I was pretty inspired by the crazy Harajuku fashion and decided that I wanted to dye my hair bright blue. They tried, they really tried, but my black hair just wouldn't budge and eventually I ended up with a blue / blonde/ grey hybrid. I got over it pretty quickly and decided to rock it until I could go home and fix it.
Besides my hair failure the whole hair salon experience was HELLA AWESOME. The people there where unbelievably nice about everything and they had two bulldogs that roamed the store and sat on you while you had your hair done. I fell in LOVE with them, by the end of it I was ready to take one home with me. Also (like everywhere else in Japan) you can smoke! Smoking and getting your head massaged is a winning combination.

In the end Harajuku didn't disappoint. I think I could live there for a whole year and still be entertained by the crazy street style, shopping and overall atmosphere... have I mentioned that I LOVE JAPAN!?

Wednesday

Welcome to Japan!!

Back to Japan Land!!!
Absolutely THRILLED to be back in Japan! I could go back to Tokyo every year for the rest of my life! We arrived at our amazing hotel, the Shibuya Excel, exhausted at around 9.30 at night. Checked into our room on the 23rd floor and ventured out into Shibuya to grab a quick dinner, before returning to the room and passing out from exhaustion haha. Below are a few misc. photos from my first night, including the view from our room.
Kristen infront of just one of Tokyo's many vending machines.
Our first meal, pretty sad that it's McDonalds BUT if you like prawns, the Ebi burger will rock your world.
Much more (more cohesive) photos to come...