Topshop and Muffins

This past Thursday, Topshop/Topman had its grand re-opening. They closed THREE days before I came to Tokyo so that kind of sucked but I guess it was (supposed to be) worth the wait.

Because the H&M opening in Ginza had two hour-ish lines the day it opened, I decided to wake up early and grab some food at Pure Cafe and then wait in line for the opening.

After only thirty minutes or so of sweating in queue next to two French girls, we were let in.

It was SUPREMELY disappointing. The clothes were uninteresting. It was basically like H&M in terms of style of clothing ( blah / nu-wave remnants ) and also in terms of shitty quality. Even if I had found something interesting, the prices were 'chotakai' (extremely expensive) as they say in Tokyo.

Ohh well. With all the money I saved on not buying anything there, I went to Shinjuku and bought some Cheap Mondays I had my eye on. The highlight of my dad was certainly my vegan choco orange muffin and coffee from my perma-favorite restaurant "Pure Cafe":

Princess, Jokers, and Slayers University

Well my three day weekend iscoming to a close and thus begins midterm week. Basically I have two art history exams and a Japanese oral thing. It should be whatever.

Yesterday, we did a little shopping and then went to "Tokyo School Night". This party is held the night before a day off from school ( aka typically a school night ). It was held on two whole floors at Trump Room. How fun! The dress code was school uniform or "castle" ( which entailed princess, jokers, or slayers ). Themes are always so fun because people usually play around with it and never do a straight up literal interpretation of a theme. Also, sometimes a theme will be something strange like "the boudoir of Danae" or "Andy Warhol's threesome with John and Yoko". You get the idea.

The night was really enjoyable and we made some new friends with people that we constantly see at parties and what not.

Here are some photos:

Trump Room is basically what I want my entire house to look like someday.

Someone should really invent a dress that looks like that as opposed to it just being an optical illusion created by my camera.

Marie Antoinette took time out of her busy schedule of macaron eating to make an appearance.

"Syrup" girls and boy. Please note the following: cat mask turned into a hat, leopard jacket, lace dresses under leather motorcycle jackets, and general kawaii-ness. Not featured are the furry flats the girl on the right was sporting.




Hannah went for the school girl look.


Party people.

These girls are known as the "Spank Girls". We see them a lot. They went for the "princess" look. Also, apart from some stray stripper at the party, nobody does stupid "sexy" costumes which is such a relief. People always look mad classy.

Hannah auditioning for a spot as one of the Spank Girls.

I forget names like nobody's business, but this is one of our friends. He has these really great Jerri Blank jeans with braid details on the side.

Tokyo parties usually culminate into slumber parties.


Found objects: Gold crown, broken tiara, and hand cream.

This chucklehead was taking a photo of this sleeping girl so I thought I'd capture his creepiness. He turned to me and said "I'm going to send this into Vice" and proceeded to fix his hair in one of the mirrors. It was too perfect.


You put a pole in a club and this is bound to happen. Nobody really cares too much (as evidenced by those two people on the left more concerned with conversation) except that white girl in the blue wig was patiently waiting her turn. Oh and also, some awkward white guy (there is always one or two) was staring hxc.

This is our friend Tomo. He was at Narzib Saturday and was all excited about this party. We thought he'd be decked out in the best costume but he just wore what he wore the night before and fell asleep. Oh well. He's still awesome.


Blowin' bubbles out of a sword.

Well good morning! Does anything say 'school' uniform better than mixin' plaid? Also, considering how crazy in Japan dressed you think people wouldn't give me a second glance but I've never had so many double-takes in my life.

Oh well.

Now to study some Early Heian and Kamakura period junk. Ugh.

Come back and visit!

La Vie du Marie

On Friday night, after shopping Harajuku, Hannah and I went to a party two floors below ground that had the slightly pornographic film "Shortbus" playing on the screen. People were sporting such things as: Panda fannypacks, Sir Galahad / Ramones style haircuts, destroyed t-shirts, perfect blonde bobs, etc. etc. Also, the kids are still keen on "MGMT". At around 5 a.m. we staggered to the Harajuku station and went home.

I woke up around 4 p.m. and took the train to Ginza to meet up with friends for tea and macarons at this famous French pastry shop that's modeled after Marie Antoinette's private house ( Le Petit Trianon ).

Later in the evening, Hannah and I people watched in Shibuya while eating more macarons.

Macarons are probably my new favorite dessert and I'm going to try my best to veganize them.

Flavors I ate:

-- Pistachio
-- Lime
-- Coconut
-- Dark chocolate
-- Orange blossom
-- Strawberry
-- "Red fruits" (basically just tasted like raspberry)
-- Vanilla
-- Chestnut

SO good.

First here are some photos that are not mine:




And here are my photos:







I do not want to go to class tomorrowww.

Field Trip: Ueno

I had to go to visit an art museum on the other side of Tokyo for my "Russian Avant-Garde" class this past Saturday. Not a bad gig since it was right in the center of a fairly historic area that I explored a little bit after my museum tour.

Later in the night, Hannah and I went out to a neat little party later in the evening. This week has been very rainy but now that the rain is gone, there is no more soaring humidity and the heat has lowered significantly! After my two hour Japanese art history class is over today, the worst parts of my school week will be over!

Photo times:

I have to write a paper on this painting.

Narzib! We look good all things considered ( it was 4:00 a.m. at this point ).