Trip to Ikebukuro

it´s been around 9 months since I updated here, wow...

The explanation would take ages, so I will shortly summarize :

I experienced a mental breakdown in November that I couldn´t get over until I finally got my summer vacation, because I never got a long enough brake to acctually deal with it until summer came around.

Another sad cricumstance: my phone had a stupid accident, so I lost all the pictures I took in Japan after the end of October... so yeah... it will be pretty hard to show the things I did there... 

However! I plan on making two more updates about my trip. 

It will be this one, which is about the trip I took to Ikebukuro,

and I will make a little entry about the trip we made to the local Shinto Shrine and Buddhist Temple in the area I lived in, in Japan :-) 

Just so everyone knows, I am back in Norway now, and I have been since February started! 

I decided to make the explanation about all of this as short as possible, because I don´t like writing apology after apology every time I update this blog.  If you wonder about any details, please don´t hesitate to ask, but know that this is a sensitive subject to me, so I might not be able to answer completely to your satisfaction...

I am chronically ill, so my updating will always be irradic, and after almost 9 years of living with it, I guess it´s time I realize that I can´t promise anything. I have to live day by day and see how it goes...

BUT NOW! 

It´s been a long time, So I might now remember everything completely correctly,
but I will shortly talk about what I did in Ikebukuro
back in the 9th of September 2015:

I don´t know if I have told any of you, but I do have a japanese friend called Ayuko!
She is a year older than me and I met her when she was an exhange student in Norway a year before I went to Japan! So it´s sort of funny: we´ve both been able to show eachother around our own country hehe. Because actually, it was entirely Ayukos doing that we went to Ikebukuro in the first place!
I just wanted to meet up with her, since it was so long since we´d met, but I left it up to her to decide where, since she knows more about the city she lives in than I do. 

The day I headed out to meet Ayuko, there was a thyphoon in Tokyo, which basically means that the sky decideds to turn into a literal waterfall, and it rained more than I´ve ever experienced in my life, without there being an actual storm. 

I however, didn´t have boots or anything, and I figured since there was no wind I could just as well wear a simple, cute outfit, wearing my canvas slip-on shoes... oh boy did I get drenched that day!

Before that though, we managed to do a lot of interesting things!
After meeting me at the Ikebukuro subway, Ayuko showed me the Sanrio gift store!
Those stores are dangerous when you´re a poor student with a weakness towards kawaii hehe ^^"

She surprised me by then taking me to a really cute café with a galaxy theme!
It was called
The Milkyway Café

In Japan they have amazingly life-like plastic replicas of the food they serve outside of many different restaurants and cafés!

They had SO many cute cakes, parfaits and other cute dishes, also even savoury ones that still looked cute! I think Ayuko had a curry dish with star shaped fried cutlets and rice + greens, but I could not resist the temptation to try out something cute, since I tried to think that I probably wouldn´t have the chance to go there again (which I was correct in!) 

I went with the "Taurus"-parfait in their "Constallation desert" series!

(Fun fact: my star-sign isn´t even Taurus, I just liked the design hehe)

It had vanilla icecream with matcha cream, dango, sweet cookies and even a dorayaki and extra red bean paste with a caramel-sauce drizzle on top! Basically the prettiest desert I´ve probably ever had in my life, and I only managed to eat about half haha xD

After this, Ayuko showed me the famous "Animedia"-shop, which is a chain-store that sells manga and anime goods. The special thing was that their main-shop happend to be located in Ikebukuro! Basically a shop that had 9 floors only dealing with anime and manga, and I was completely awed to say the least... Also forgot about taking pictures in my excitement >_>"""

Lastly, we visited Sunshine-city, which was good, because by then my feet were so wet and cold that I could have needed some sunshine by then. The rain was furiously pouring down harsher by the hour, so by the time we had got around to go in there, which was one of our last stops of the day, the rain-water was litterary splashing up from the streets!  

For those of you who doesn´t know, Sunshine-city is a big shopping mall with loads of different shops and many floors. In there we stopped by a lovely Studio Ghibli Shop, and even though my  phone was almost dying, I just HAD to get a last couple of pictures.

I even managed to get one of my outfit for the day!

Please don´t mind my hair being totally killed by the humidity, and also overlook the fact that my clothes are so plain, I was struggling a lot with self-confidence at the time and didn´t want to attract to much attention. Oh, and if not exactly wet, most of my clothes were atleast moist at the time from the weather, so I.... I really don´t know why I even bothered posting this image in the first place haha XD 

And a selfie with the lovely Ayuko! <3 

She is such a beauty <3 ah, just writing this makes me miss her >_<

We had been looking around ALL day from around noon until 7 pm, so after a quick little warm drink and a bite to eat, we decided to part ways. A day with Ayuko is always fun, and I still remember our first outing in Tokyo with loads of happy memories. Typically I forgot about taking pictures since we were so busy all day, and most of the ones I took was sadly not of a quality that I would be comfortable posting ^^"

Anyway, that was the end of my Ikebukuro adventure! ^^

I hope you enjoyed this long-overdue little update about some of my adventures as a exchange-student in Japan! I am really impressed that you guys are still sticking around even though I can´t update as much as I probably should... thank you all for being so patient and lovely, and thanks for all the nice comments you send me, they really warm my heart and keep me encouraged to keep up the work with this blog! <3 

+ romanticing summer : nostalgia feelings +

I thought I write a little entry about my general status and life at the moment, for those interested.

If you are following my instagram, you might notice that that is where I post most often. 

I have this tendency to forget about this blog, or feel like my life is to event-less to write about.

But who says there is a rule to what you can and can´t write about? It is my blog after all, and my goal was to create a space for me to express myself, and talk about things that inspire me and that hopefully will inspire you! 

 This summer I had about one month of freetime, and a couple of weeks, before I started my summer-job at the same library I´ve been working at every summer for the past 3 years.

It felt strange, being back in my hometown after having lived in Oslo for about a year now! I am actually working at the local tourist-information this year, since our local town is very small and the library doubles as a tourist-information. I felt really eager to promote my homeplace to the tourists this year, and my mom says it´s because I´ve been away for so long. You get a different view of things when you return after having been away. It´s probably good for my social anxiety as well... I feel happy when I can help people get good experiences when they visit here ^^

When it comes to my personal health, I have become lost in a deep rift of bad-selfconfidence, which basically renders me into a pattern of dressing in the same clothes over and over (having them be oversized and boring) and trying to stick out as little as possible... This is a part of my disorder, and it always becomes worse when I am really sick... 

Another reason for not posting pictures of myself is because of that. 

So! I wanted to summarise some events over the past few weeks/months,
all presented to you by some of my recent instagram-posts:

 

When I came home, one of the first things I did was this jigsaw puzzle, featuring flower fairies, and 1000 pieces in total! It went remarkably fast, as I downloaded the Audible app from Amazon, and listened to exciting audiobooks while doing it ^^! I would reccomend this to everyone, very calming and it makes you feel pretty accomplished finishing a jigsaw puzzle with this many pieces 

 

 

My oldest sister came home from South-Africa this summer! She had these white fabric shoes, that she didn´t really use, and as we can use the same kind of shoes, she told me I could borrow them for the summer! I of course was very happy, as I only had shoes with ties on them, and these were so easy to wear since I could just slip them on. Later on, she actually told me I could have them if I wanted, and that she originally bought them to draw on them, but never got around to it! That was my idea also, so I ended up with this cute little egg-design that says "tamago tomodachi" in japanese, meaning "egg friend" haha ^^

 

When I was down in Oslo, I desperatly wanted proper drawing-things and as quality can be sort of pricy, I actually asked my parents for a favour, helping me get a new artbook and some good drawing pens.... The nice thing was that they actually said yes, so after coming home for summer vacation, I started my brand new 240 page A4 size drawing-book/sketch-book, determined to make every page count ^^ This was a hair-study I did that I was quite happy with!

Another page in my drawing-book, showing off my brand new OC that still lacks a name... if you have a good idea, please let me know ^^ hehe

 

(don´t mind my oversized outfit)... And that brings me up until last weekend. My family, at that moment my next-oldest sister and her boyfriend were joining us, and my oldest sister had gone back to South Africa, took me with them on a trip to another island, about 5-6 hours by car from our own island to join in on the 50th anniversary of an old family-friend of ours. This consisted of driving in a 5-person car that was quite heated due to the weather and having it be completely full.... We slept in a small camping-hut that we rented on a local camping-place in the area, and because I´m a light-sleeper, I could hardly close an eye the day before leaving, and almost not at all on the night we spent there, as my roomates were a bit ... ehm... nosiy in their sleep.... 

BUT it was a lovely experience through and through! I haven´t gone on a trip like that with my family since my childhood... there was no connection to internet anywhere and everything was just nature, clouds, wind and sun, grass and ocean *sigh*

Just look at the beautiful sunset on the night we stayed there!

 

And lastly, I wanted to mention that I went to a wedding this week! The first ever wedding I´ve attended, being able to remember it! My family says I was at a wedding when I was about 3 or something, but I only have vague memories from it, so this was basically a new experience for me!

Me, my mom and my dad arrived rather late, as all of us had work to attend to before being able to go. My sister and her boyfriend however, are still on vacation, so they could go directly and experienced the whole seremony. 

I was a bit scared of going because of just having finished that trip with everyone, and it´s really stressfull for me having social events scheduled to go to...( needless to say, I became sick afterwards... brain overload) I had a hard time finding anything I could wear that wouldn´t be revealing at all, and ended up with a white, foot-long maxi summerdress, with some pink details!

 

 

So yeah, decided to brake the "don´t wear a white dress in a wedding"-rule on my first wedding-attendance! Well, it wasn´t a very big deal, since they were the kids of family-friends we´ve known since before I was born ^^ hehe

And that pretty much is the things I wanted to mention up until now.

Other than these events and my current summer job, I haven´t been doing very interesting things this summer. Spending a lot of time outside in nature, climbing the local hills and mountains, working my way through interesting looking movies from all kinds of categories, and preferably around the 80s. Playing some games, and also drawing a bit ofcourse! 

It is now 31 days until I leave for Japan!

 

 and I must admit I am quite eager to get back into business! This is by far the longest summer-vacation I´ve ever had, being a university student, it´s about 3 months! 

I want to write an entry about some of the movies I´ve seen lately, so I might do that in a not too distant future ^^ stay tuned! I hope you enjoyed this entry!

Angelic Pretty event in sweden: part 2 - teaparty!

 

The second day of the event was even more fun than the first day in my opinion!

I was so excited to be able to attend a real teaparty, that I could hardly sleep that night! >v< 

The theme would be chocolate, and the party wouldn´t start until 1:30 pm, so we had plenty of time in the morning to get ready. But I felt so nervous even then!
I didn´t have much accessories to go with my outfit,
but I thought I came up with something ok in the end ^^

What do you think?

I was so lucky as to borrow the entire outfit of Chess Chocolate in brown, with a matching bonnet, from my friend Melva, so I even could match the theme! ;V; yay

It was my first time putting on a bonnet for an actual outfit though, so it was quite new to me!

Ultimately, I actually quite liked it, even though it was a new experience, and I was a bit unsure beforehand. 

Presenting the one and only selfie I got ^^" 

Here you can see the new and beautiful ring I got the day before!

We hurried along, because even after getting ready and stuff we acctually made it just in time for the teaparty to start! >.< We had to take a train once again to get down into Stockholm sentrum, and from there make our way to the same building as before. We were lead to a super cute little room at the end of an aula, where the decorations and furniture looked like antiquities, and the classical music that was playing sounded really beautiful <3

at first we just rushed in, got a pair of pretty decorated pins with numbers on them (for the theme contest and popular choice contest, we later found out) and was seated just in time for it to start. I sat at a table together with Emilia, Amanda, Jennifer and three cute chinese girls! ^^

I think it took me about 10 minutes to realize my actual situation:

and then I got teary-eyed and cried a little bit. This was like a dream come true! I had never experienced a real brand teaparty before and it has always been a dream of mine.

The whole feeling of the setting was so grand and wonderful!

I was in a room with almost 30 other beautifully dressed lolitas who had done their utmost to look spectacular, and the whole feeling was so princessy and fairytale-like I could almost not bear it >.<

There was tea and high-tea assortments and everyone got a tiny gift bag with things like stickers and other cute stationary. At first we just stayed by our own tables, but after a while we mingled and made sure to look at eachothers outfits, to be able to vote for a favourite in the end!
We also took plenty of pictures, and I was sooo amazed by everyones creativity, having handmade so many of their own accessories! 

Typical picture of me... *mindblown* xD
haha... everything was so pretty ;V;

(also, please look at the amazing, handmade headdress of Jennifer next to me O_O)

 Charlotta made that book accessorie by herself!!!

I was so lucky as to get my hands on loads of pictures from the teaparty!
Most of these are taken by either Agnes or Katarina <3 

I tell you, this trip was, if anything, an extremely inspirational trip, it almost felt therapautical in the end and I was overjoyed by the full experience and more or less mindblown all the time. 

Then it was time for the contest!

Two lovely girls from the group got picked by lottery, and one got the first price from popular choice!

They also gave out the main price for the chocolate theme, and it went to the lovely finnish girl

Charlotta, for her amazing chocolate themed outfit! ^0^ So well deserved! She looked stunning! But really, they all did, so I don´t think I would be able to pick a winner >v< hehe

She was sooo lucky winning that jsk! *___*

After this, we went out to take a group picture and some individual shots, and smaller groups shots!

I got to take some with my darling Melva <3 ^^

(We are gonna elope together ;;;-3 )

 I love this one xD <3 

Sadly, only picture I got with my new finnish friends ; ^ ; <3
Katarina looked so amazing in little bears café! She made her staff herself,
and Laura (in the middle) made the trumpet accessorie!

Chess chocolate goodness * V * 

I also just have to post this picture of Amanda and Emilia!

Emilia hand-made that staff herself! *_* And the amazing cocoa-cup and the "eat-me" brooch!

I was sooo impressed with her! And she was only one of the ones that did stuff like that! 

Thanks to Katarina, I got an outfit shot ;V;

Look at the pretty nails Emilia did <3 And my beautiful ring

After this, we were all a bit tired, so we went downstairs to the booths that we had visited the day before, to look at some more of the Angelic Pretty items being sold (since they had started selling some allready the day before). I had already got two super cute hairbows, and a beautiful ring the day before, but this day I decided on another ring and a couple of postcards ^^

I also got another plushie, even though I had decided stricktly to not get more than one haha

In the end we also visited the cute nail-artist girls from Japan, who had done our nails the day before! I wanted to get a nail-art pencil from them, because they had some wonderful stuff they sold ^^

I also got to show of the beautiful nails Emilia had done for me the day before! 

They were sooo cute and even took pictures and stuff! I think they were quite impressed by her skills, and I tell you I felt so princessy with these nails and I felt so lucky she could do them for me!
She is amazing really <3 

We were really tired again that evening, so we decided to go home and meet up with Melva shortly the next day just so we could talk and be together a bit before I had to go home and Melva had to catch her train. 

That evening again, Emilia and I just talked and watched more movies together. I had a lot of time the next day to pack my bags, since I wasn´t leaving for home until around 4 pm, and I only had a small rucksack with me that contained all my stuff for the weekend. 

The next day was really nice. We met up with Melva at a small café and had some tea while just chatting ^^ Me and Emilia even had time to look around a couple of shops before I had to leave. It was funny though, since I had to take my new plushies as handluggage on the airplane, I basically carried around a plastic bag with plushies. Needless to say, it felt a bit awkward when I checked into security-control in the airport ahaha xD 

It was sad saying goodbye to Emilia again. It had been such an amazing weekend, and I will never forget this event. I feel like this time we had even more fun than the last time we met! It is so nice being with her, she is an amazing friend <3

When I finally got home I felt kinda sick for like 3 days afterwards because of the pure exhaustion of all the things having happend throughout the weekend >.< there was just so much going on at all times! And I was kinda mindblown and adrenaline-kicked by the experience, so I didn´t realize how tired I was until afterwards! Went on with my life but was quite tired ^^" 

I will treasure this in my heart always <3 

I hope I will get to experience more things like this!

It is such a long time since I´ve felt so happy <3

Thank you for reading!

I hope you enjoyed my blog update