Nagoya Passe Mall + CECIL McBEE

Well, it's definitely summer now! It's been so humid and hot this past week here in Japan! I'm used to the weather being really bad since it's always really sunny and hot in Southern California but when you bring humidity into the equation, it's never fun!

Friday night, me and some friends decided to go clubbing in Sakae! There was a lot of people walking around, including lots of hosts! I wish that I would have taken photos of them, the hosts hair that night was better than any other nights I've been in Sakae!

I was rushing to make my train and meet up with friends there that I didn't have enough time to take a picture of my clubbing outfit! When I'm in Osaka, I'll be sure to take photos of it next time! I got called 'LADY GAGA' by random guys so I guess that can tell you how I dressed up?!

On Saturday, after downing a few cups of coffee to wake me up from getting home so late the night before, I went to Nagoya Passe Mall! I heard that they were having a HUGE summer sale there, so I even woke up early to get there to get a chance for some lowered sale items. But it didn't matter since it still was crazy and packed full of people when I got there!

My first stop was of course CECIL McBEE!

I've never gone to any gyaru stores in Japan, and I've loved CECIL McBEE for so many years now, so I felt so happy being able to go into the store and see so many lovely gals there! I felt so inadequate even being in the same area as them!

Now, I don't know about you, but I'm obsessed with bags. I'd rather buy a super expensive bag over a super expensive top, no matter what brand it is. That's why I have two Louis Vuitton bags and no real designer tops!

After looking at this bag, I instantly knew that I HAD to buy it! Have you ever had that feeling of finding something you weren't initially looking for and after seeing it, you just feel like you need it!? I think this is the shopaholic in me talking now!

I am totally in love with this purse. The design is so beautiful!

The inside, although small, is really wide, so you can fit a lot in here if you need to! This is a really sexy and convenient purse, costing about ONLY 3,500-4,500 yen or so! With the wallet, the total was under 6,000 yen!

One thing that was really surprisingly is that they gave me a shopping bag for my bag and wallet! I was also very pleased with how friendly and nice they were to me since I was expecting the opposite! It was like a mad house in their store since they are the first store you see once you take the escalator up to the second floor.

This wallet was on sale for 1,550 yen! I snagged it SO fast after seeing the price! I really love the style and the design, even as simple as it is!

I've been looking for a small wallet since the messenger bag I brought with me is too small for my Coach wallet. This is the perfect wallet for me! I'm going to look for a coin purse to put all of my coins in (and I have a lot of them!) but I'm in love with this small and convenient wallet!

W♥C was also really packed! It's on the floor below the top floor, so I had trouble finding it at first, but I was so happy to see it! Next to it is COCOLULU, but I didn't have the opportunity take a photo of it. I was trying to be SO sneaky by taking these photos! I was a bit disappointed with how small the store was, but they had lots of cute summer styled clothes!

LIZ LISA and ROSE FAN FAN

LIZ LISA was probably the most packed! The shop staff in the white was standing on a tall ladder and yelling across the floor about their sale. She had such a big voice! I was so surprised to hear that come out of her tiny body! The shop staff at LIZ LISA were also very nice, and everything I looked at, the girl with the brown hair in a bun (in front of the shop staff in white) would comment on and ask me about it.

One of the LIZ LISA shop staff gave me this really cute fan! And I also gave in and bought this korilakkuma notebook!

I also walked into EGOIST, SLY, and d.i.a. but I didn't really see anything that caught my eye! I think I was so in love with the CECIL McBEE bag, that I wasn't too interested in anything else! The EGOIST shop staff were also very nice and really friendly, and managed to understand my horrible Japanese somehow!

I also got this bag from a shop staff at VENCE, which is a brand that I never knew about before! They had a lot of cool LADY GAGA designed t-shirts, but I was hoping to see better ones. I did like that they were playing all of her songs but remixes of them!

Nagoya TV Tower and the park across from OASIS21

During the day on Saturday, there were a lot of bands/artists playing covers or their own songs. This band was only playing MUCC songs! I could hear them playing all the way from Sunshine Sakae, so I had to of course run over and watch them play. The singer actually did sound a bit like Tatsurou!

This is my last week here in Aichi-ken, and then I leave for Kansai! I'm going to miss my home here, but it's always fun to start a new adventure!

☆ AEON + CANDY DOLL + FOOD!☆

Happy Wednesday!I officially only have one more week left at my language school and then I'm off to the other side of Japan for my next adventure! It's been the shortest month and a week I've ever had, but I've enjoyed myself in one of the places that I can call home outside of California.

If you didn't see my announcement, then I'll tell everybody on here what they missed out on. No, I won't be going to Tokyo this weekend. Why not? Basically long story short, my bank messed my account up so it made me unable to go to Tokyo this weekend. There is more to the story, but that's the basic reason as to why not. I'm really upset that I can't go, but I had to make the decision to not go due to the understanding that if I did go, I would be stranded without money. And who goes to Tokyo on a BUDGET anyway?!

But I will be back again next year I hope, so I will have time to see all the lovely gals that made time out of their busy schedules to try and meet up with me. Thank you so much, I really wanted to meet all of you, but once again, things didn't end up going my way!

This past weekend I did a lot of things outside of my day trip to Kyoto.

AEON in my city; at McDonald's with a friend!

Every time I would go to the AEON in my city, I would only go in one section because I didn't realize that AEON was more than just one part! So to my surprise, while shopping with friends, I was introduced to the OTHER part of the mall!

On the bottom level they had a few cars laid out, just like they do in America for sales purposes, and I was so excited to see this Pikachu car! I've only seen this kind of car in photos, so it was so cool to see up close! My friends and I were taking so many funny photos next to the car, people actually stopped and watched us act so goofy!

I'm not sure if this is for all AEON malls, but the AEON located in my city is three stories! Not even the mall in my city in California is three stories! I had a lot of fun looking at all the stores and was so tempted to buy so much! Especially more of the gyaru-looking trends I saw.

And of course, the Engrish on the tshirts I saw was priceless!

It was still a few days before Father's Day when I went to the mall, so they had tons of Father's Day greetings everywhere. Funny enough, they were all in English! Well, actually it was more like Engrish, really, but I loved the cute messages that I saw!

And of course, I could not pass up checking out all of the makeup!

I've heard a lot of people go crazy about Jun Komori's line, but I really wasn't impressed! I was expecting a lot more in sense of bigger packaging and better fake eyelashes. The only real thing that I liked about it was the super bright pink blush that she has in her line... if it was bigger I would totally buy it but it's not worth the money she's asking for, in my own opinion. Maybe I'm just used to the big packaging that American makeup brands have but 笑

The first brand that I even saw was Tsubasa's Dolly Wink/Candy Doll collection! I've been pinning after her cute pink blush for the longest time, and was so upset to not see it!

Since I'm so cheap, I don't think that I would pay 1,200 yen for one of her small lipgloss tubes, but I do love the colors that she has! Especially her eyeshadows! I definitely will be going back to AEON and picking up her silver + light brown glitter colors!

After shopping around a bit, my roommate and I went to this really popular Italian restaurant! There was so much to choose from, but we decided to share their most famous pasta dish!

I loved the pepper!

The cheese was HUGE! Supposedly they imported it from Italy! I've never experienced this kind of Italian dinning, rather I'm always used to my mother's cooking or Olive Garden!

Yes my hair is a bit off!

It was realy hot that day so I had to put my hair up, sadly! But I did manage to achieve a big hair look, hopefully! This picture doesn't show my makeup or my curled hair (with my colored extensions in them!) but I did get a lot of looks when I was walking through the mall!

And this is what we got in the end! This pasta was so delicious... I think I gained 5 pounds just looking at it! I definitely am still working off the calories after eating it!

My friend's cup! Super cute!

Well, I'm really quite sad now because I'll be leaving my temporary home and going to my next temporary home. Time really has flown by! I've enjoyed every second here and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything in the world. Having fantasies about Japan is totally different than actually living in Japan, something that I often confused myself about before coming to live here; even if for such a short amount of time.

Tomorrow I'm going to karaoke again with friends for a few of my friend's graduation, and hopefully Nagoya shopping this weekend!

ALSO! I had gotten a blog award from the lovely Rii of Utsukushii Gal! I just wanted to say thank you very much! I will do my own blog awarding in my next entry!

And also putting together my first giveaway! Sit tight!

I ♡ 京都！

Happy Sunday! There has been a lot that has happened within the span of (almost!) one week since my last update, so there will be a nonstop flow of entries to follow this one!

For those who follow my twitter, you would know that I had visited Kyoto yesterday! It was such a fun time and I went to places that I've never even heard of before. It was an experience that I won't ever forget!

So for this entry, I'd love to share what I saw when I visited Kyoto!

You see the fog? That's where we rode into!

I was hoping for some sunny weather for my day excursion, but it turned out to be very foggy! I was quite upset since we took a specific route to see the Kyoto scenery from atop Hiei-zan, a super tall mountain located in the midst of Kyoto's eastern mountain range, and especially because the route we took was more dangerous than taking the toll roads.

The road was very small, very windy, and you couldn't even see anything in front of you!

After driving down from that, we got to see such beautiful scenery.

I love being able to go by plots of houses/land and just take in what I see. It's so beautiful! Even if there really isn't anything there, it's still enjoyable in comparison to seeing old, dirty buildings while commuting to Los Angeles in California.

This car was so funny! Can you guess who their favorite team is?笑

Our first stop was Nijo Castle in Kyoto, being known as the place where Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned as the last Shogun of Japan and gave power back to the Imperial Courts.

The castle wasn't very big in comparison to Nagoya or Osaka Castle, but the cool thing about it was that the floors you walked on were the same floors that were used during the days of the Shogun in Japan! It felt eery to walk through the rooms and see the real sliding doors and ornaments in the palace hung up. They wouldn't let you take any photos inside of the palace, so you'll have to see it for yourselves!

The view from atop of one of the towers was amazing. There wasn't a lot of people there so we got to enjoy the scenery and hear the sounds of nature without hearing any kids cry or anything like that---it was great!

We parked in a parking lot not far from our second destination in Kyoto: Yasaka Shrine!

Probably one of the most well-known shrines, Yasaka Shrine was packed full of people when we went. I remember seeing those lanterns in many pictures from the internet, so it was really cool to be able to see it in person! It is located at the east end of Shijo-dori in Gion, and can be seen from a bit away, especially at night! Yasaka Shrine hosts the very well-known and very popular Gion Matsuri every year, as well as being a popular place for the New Year celebration.

I especially liked the Shrine because it had such a vibrant red color, which contrasted well against the green plants and trees surrounding it!

Once you step outside of the shrine grounds, you met with this busy and fast-paced view of Gion. I had to get accustomed to seeing foreigners other than myself, and actually made friends with a young French couple visiting Japan!

One really cool thing that I saw was this old looking Kabuki theater! I've never been to a Kabuki play, or any play other than high school/community plays, so someday I hope that I can see a Kabuki play. I did hear that they were very long though, but the experience itself would be amazing!

There were lots of tourists that day, surprisingly! I really enjoyed walking through this old Japanese looking street. It made me feel like I was back in the samurai days of Japan!

Looking down an alleyway, it really was so awesome. I thought that I was on a movie set!

It was really busy that day, even though it started rainy pretty badly! That still didn't stop people from enjoying themselves though!

I really loved all of the restaurants and buildings on this specific street that we walked on. I was so much more taller than all of the entrance ways, it was crazy!

Ichiriki Ochya, one of the most well-known and historical tea houses in Kyoto, was at the top of our list of things to see.

As of right now, the same family owns the tea house (just handed down from generation to generation), and one night spent here could cost up to $7,000~$10,000! It's also invitation only, so not even Obama was allowed here.

My friend and I waited a good hour to hour and a half, and managed to see numerous Geiko!

They were quite tricky though, always hiding under their umbrellas or rushing into the Ochya, so we never got to see their faces until this one walked down the street towards us! It was really a fun experience!

My friend got this awesome picture of a Geiko riding in the back of a taxi outside of Ichiriki Ochya. Everybody looked at us because of her flash but I think it's an awesome picture!

After seeing the Geiko, my friend and I walked around Gion a bit! There is tons of things to see, from the small alleyways of restaurants to the main shopping street, you can't be bored!

In my case, shopping was at the top of the list! There was such great clothing stores and I wanted to buy so much, but since I'll be going to Nagoya Passe mall this week with friends, I need to save up money!

I saw so many stylish gals there, I was so upset that I didn't get all gyaru'd up! This girl that was walking in front of me was too cute, too bad she was walking so fast! It's kind of blurry, but her top was so bright red and was polka dot style---too cute!

We walked back through Yasaka Shrine to get to our car, but in contrast to during the day, the shrine was so calm and serene. It looked so beautiful with all the lanterns lit up!

I really loved Kyoto! It was such a great city, with its modern aspects and old traditional aspects fused into one. I would love to visit it again someday in the future!

I have a lot of fun entries to post up soon so sit tight!

I hope that you all enjoyed my trip to Kyoto!