Shopping & trade fair

Today we went to a trade fair called 'Naisday' (pronounced as 'niceday' lit. 'women's day') in Turku. The expo featured companies offering their products and services especially for women, such as accessorizes, fashion, sports, nail art, make up, massage, just to mention a few. I was (as always) most interested in the accessorises, and this time also some of the nail products, though I didn't end up buying any of those. It was very interesting as the companies present weren't the most popular ones you see in every shopping mall and I got to know some interesting brands I had never heard of before.

As an example I'd like to especially mention this brand, called Mazu. It's a Finnish brand creating jewelry from pearls and semiprecious stones. I think the products were very cute, they had different colours from pink to black and the design was very pleasant. 

So this is what I bought, it was quite expensive, but I really loved the design and the colours. They would've had a necklace with similar design that would've been perfect with this, but I had already spent some money, so maybe next time then. Whatsoever, I'm very happy with this bracelet.

I've been obsessed with Claddagh-rings since watching Vampire Slayer Buffy some years ago. I've had a normal silver one for probably 4 years and today I bought this red one, as I'd like to wear a prettier one for my graduation in July. I basically wear the plain one everyday, so I guess this will be a 'special event' one. This one was bought from a company called Kelttikorut, they also had a stall at today's expo. 

My clip-on hair extensions arrived last week, so I'll include a picture here (sorry for the crappy quality, it was windy, rainy and I only had a pocket camera). They didn't quite match my own hair colour, which first worried me, but in the end I was very satisfied as I it actually looked quite nice with some different shades. 

This was seriously the news of the week, An Cafe is making a come back! This was announced on April 1st (and was not a joke). I've never been a head over heels fan of them, but their music is still quite entertaining. I find their music very positive and Miku (vocals) has nice, sort of softer voice that fits their style well. The picture above features my An Cafe collection; their oldest album 色彩モーメント(Shikisai moment), 極魂Rock Cafe (Gokutama Rock Cafe) and BB パラレルワールド (BB Parallel World). I'm looking forward to their new songs and wish that they'd start touring too. 

I'm going to London on April 17th and will be back by 22nd. There will most likely be no updates during that time, but after that yes. I hope I'll be able to meet some friends studying in the UK at the moment. I might also visit the Universities I got an offer from, we'll see. Unfortunately my final exams are getting closer and closer (starting May 3rd with SL Math), so I must study even during the trip. Well anyway, Camden Town, here I come!

Purikura

Today I thought I'd have a little culture post and introduce Japanese purikura. Purikura, usually written as プリクラ is an abbreviation from the word 'print corner'. Purikura is very popular within junior high school and high school students, especially girls. However, many older (and younger) people also enjoy taking purikura. It's typical to take pictures with a small group of people after for example going to karaoke, shopping or movies. The pictures are then edited, printed and shared within the members of the group.

This picture is taken from the city where I used to live in, called Fukuoka. The place is actually a game center, but the uppermost floor has more than 10 purikura machines, and is very crowded especially during weekends and after school hours. Different machines have different backgrounds, different editing options, fonts and so on. Some of the machines make you appear in a certain type of way and usually you can at least choose eye size, as the machine generally makes one's eyes appear larger than they are. It's also possible to change your hair colour on the picture etc. 

Just another machine from the same place. After taking and editing the picture, there's typically a small game (usually a memory game) that can be played on the screen (seen on right of the picture). It's possible to get a little extra present, if you do well on the game. I usually got false eyelashes (and thus have a nice collection of them). 

An example of false lashes I got from a purikura machine. The design varies, most of them are quite nice I think. 

This is how the purikura machine looks from the inside. As there's only a limited time I was in such a hurry taking this picture, sorry for the quality! You can leave your bags etc. on the sides, the camera is the black spot seen on upper part of the picture. Backgrounds/ themes are often selected from the screen, in some very rare cases they're selected afterwards. Here are the steps how the pictures are taken (in most cases, there's some variation).

1. Put in the coins (usually 400yen)
2. The screen might ask you to choose between themes/ brightness and/or eye size.
3. Choose backgrounds, be careful, as you cannot change them afterwards! There's a time limit, so choose fast. The number of backgrounds chosen varies, you can see empty boxes which fill as you click a background on the touch screen.

4. The pictures are taken, there's a timer. It's typical to also take 変顔 (hengao)　'funny face' pictures (at least one), where everyone tries to look funny/ stupid. 

5. You might be asked to choose more backgrounds, after which more pictures are taken. There might also be a 'photo of the day' where you can take a picture with that day's theme background.

You might be asked to choose the photos you want to keep (and edit) before leaving. This is a good opportunity to get rid of the worst ones.

6. You are asked to leave machine to either right or left. There you will find a small corner, usually covered with a curtain, where you edit the pictures. There's a time limit. 

7. After time limit, go to the printing machine (outside the editing corner) and wait for the pictures to be printed. There might be a mini-game while waiting.

Useful Japanese symbols to recognize for purikura:

消す　= delete (during editing, if you want to undo something you just did)

終わり　or おわり　= end (when you've finished editing and want to print)

決定　= decision (you might need to choose something during the process)

右= right (leave the machine to the right)

左 = left

Here's my 'purikura wallet', for purikura pictures I took during high school time. I have two purikura wallets full of pictures, I think I have way over 100 sheets of pictures. I'd post some, but as there's always someone with me, I cannot do it without the person's consent, so unfortunately only Facebook friends can see them at the moment. 

This is all for today. I hope this was somewhat interesting or helpful. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Emilie Autumn's show

I've been waiting to see Emilie Autumn live since a friend of mine introduced me to EA's music about two years ago. When I heard that she'll perform in Helsinki I of course had to buy the tickets. I went there with a friend and luckily we actually found the place and got quite good place in front of the stage. We wanted to buy the 'Fight Like a Girl' - tour shirts before the actual show, in case they'd be sold out after. They were also selling different kinds of shirts, some of them featuring the Bloody Crumpets, perfume, posters etc. We got in around 9pm, but EA started performing closer to 11pm.
I must say that the show was incredible as expected. It's just so much more than a 'concert'. For those who aren't familiar with her music or live performances, basically Emilie Autumn sings and plays an electric violin on the stage, while the Bloody Crumpets perform and do some backup vocals. The Bloody Crumpets are all female and more of travelling circus companions than backup vocalists, showing their various skills on stage. Same members aren't present in all shows, this time we had Naughty Veronica, Captain Maggot and Blessed Contessa. Veronica is my favourite and I love her 'Rat Game'.
The show was amazing and also very fun. Unfortunately some people in the audience didn't have a clue of how to behave, but that didn't bother me much. So yeah, thank you EA, the Bloody Crumpets and all the little plague rats & muffins out there!

Here's a picture of the tour shirt I bought (front). It was so cool, I'm obsessed with the picture. The tour dates and locations are written on the back of the shirt with a golden font. I would've loved to have the Contessa-shirt aswell, as it had a realistic heart picture on it. I had to save some money to get home, so I decided to go for this one only. Maybe next time.

Completely unrelated to the live performance, but I started watching all the Studio Ghibli movies I have together with my sister. We just noticed that they're like four times cheaper here in Finland than in Japan and bought quite many of them (at least 10 I suppose). I was thinking about writing short plot summaries and a review of all those we have after watching them. I think I've seen them all before, but I liked some of them better after re-watching. We've already watched a few of them, but I'll only write about the first one this time. The plot summary contains some spoilers, but isn't too detailed.
So we watched　'The Borrower Arrietty' (2010) (in Japanese), telling the story of a young borrower, Arrietty, living under a house with her and borrowing everything necessary from the humans living there. A young boy called Shou, who has a heart disease moves to the house and sees Arrietty, whose family is not happy to be exposed to humans. As the story moves on, Shou and Arrietty become friends and together save Arrietty's mother who has been captured by a maid living in the house.   In the end, Arrietty's family decide to leave the house and look for a new home, Shou's heart operation will take place two days later. Shou says that seeing the borrower's fight to survive has given him hope to make it through the operation, though it's never revealed whether he survived or not.

I liked this movie very much and I thought it was a beautiful story about the friendship between a human and something 'weaker than a human' (personally I think that Arrietty represents the nature and all other living things). The movie also showed how someone that might be weak even in their own eyes compared to others (Shou, having a severe heart condition) can do good and save someone else. I think the movie tried to make us think about the coexistence of humans and nature, and how we should respect all the living things.
I found the movie interesting, and it definitely had a deeper meaning as many Ghibli movies do. While the plot was interesting, it was quite light and easy to watch. The end was quite touching, and while it was a happy ending, not everything was resolved. The music was nicely composed and fit for the movie. 

Overall I'd give the movie 5/5 stars and would recommend it for anyone interested in this kind of movies (this movie is also suitable for younger watchers). 

That's all for today!

New contact lenses

The contact lenses I ordered arrived yesterday! What I ordered was Princess Mimi Chocolate Brown lenses from Shoppingholics.com. They were packed very nicely and were as I had expected. They arrived in about one week (weekend included). The picture above shows the package, including the lenses, a case, 'Thank you' - card and some extras. The free gifts I got were a collagen eye mask and sort of a paper that keeps your hair in place while for example applying make up. I might post a review of those later, when I have time to try them on.

Here's the case, it's like a yellow bear I think. Last time I got a pink elephant one. The lenses were in the present-package. I love the cases one gets here, they're so cute!

So here are the lenses. I have bad eyesight so I need corrective lenses. I must say that they were almost as good as the ones I get from the optician, so no problem there. I have different correction to both eyes and it wasn't a problem to get different ones which I really appreciated (sometimes you must buy a pair of similar ones, which is bad for me). They also had the GEO-authenticity mark, meaning that they actually were their product and not some copy. 

So here's me with the lenses on. I think the colour was nice and it covered my own eye colour perfectly. They also made my eyes to appear larger. At first they weren't so comfortable to wear, but after changing the position slightly they were ok. The contacts give sort of dolly eyes, but they look quite unnatural. It took sometime for me to get used to looking at my own mirror image. Whatsoever, I like them a lot and would recommend for anyone who likes this sort of a look.

I apologize for the bad quality, but here's a picture of my overall outfit. The t-shirt is from Gina tricot, leopard print one from Spiritstore and shorts are 'Madonna'. The cross-necklace is from a store I can't recall just now. I liked the t-shirt very much as it wasn't the usual skull-shirt you might have, this one features birds and then a bird skull, so I found it a bit different. Now I just wish the snow would go away and I could actually wear this outside.

And some general updates, I started a part-time job, which I quit immediately as it was simply impossible to do. I was supposed to deliver commercial papers, which should've taken about 2 hours. Well I worked for over 9 hours with no breaks and in the end I had to ask a friend to borrow me a car so that I could finish it. Seriously I don't know how one was supposed to do that. What a rip off I'd say. Now I need to look for another job, but anything else is going to be better, this one was physically impossible to do.

And tomorrow I'm going to a gig with a friend, I'll post something about it next time!

A trip to Helsinki / 1st entry

This being the first entry of my blog I'd first like to shortly introduce myself and what this blog is going to be about.
I'm 19 years old high school student currently living in Finland. I go to an international school and will hopefully graduate this year in July. I've previously gone to a girls only high school in the southern Japan and came back to Finland 3 months after the big eathquake in 2011. I'm more or less fluent in English, Japanese and Finnish. I've also studied Swedish and German, additionally I can read some Chinese. I wish to study languages after graduating from high school. I've currently applied to study in England, Scotland and Japan.
This blog is mainly going to be about style, my life and other interests. I'm inspired by gyaru-style, but also　by some other styles. As such, I don't consider myself as 'gyaru'- only, just inspired by it. I play a Japanese instument called tsugaru shamisen (津軽三味線) and I'm interested in different kinds of music. On my freetime I enjoy watching movies, doing some sports, reading etc. My blog entries will be written in English, but may sometimes include parts in other languages/ short translations if I feel like writing one. Please comment and feel free to ask anything you want to know.


Last weekend me and my sister took the train to Helsinki and went to do some shopping (+ sightseeing). We also realized that one simply can't do so much in one day, so next time at least I will definitely stay for the night. In the end we only visited the Helsinki Cathedral and one art museum. Besides that we tried to find the most interesting shops, and I was happy to find out that there certainly was more variation than in Turku. Even so I would've loved to see some more of the city as I don't know Helsinki that well. Luckily people were very helpful and told us how to find the placed we wanted to see. I also found the book "Howl's Moving Castle", which I've wanted to read for sometime, as one of my favourite movies is based on the book.

I've been drooling over some Micmac bags earlier, mainly because of these cupcake accessorises. I didn't like the design of the bags that much, which is why I haven't bough one, while I have been interested in getting one of the cupcake keychains. When I accidentally walked into this store I was more happy and had to really think what to buy (as I could've ended up buying all the different colour variations). I didn't even know they sold these separately! I decided on the pink necklace and blue keychain ones. I almost bought more, but figured out that the shop won't run away and I can easily get there some other time, even though I don't live that nearby. Can't wait to wear them. I also bough a shirt from gina tricot, but I'll include a picture when I actually get to wear it.
I was slightly dissapointed that I couldn't find any nice shoes or more clothes for summer, but I guess I can as well order some when ordering my hair extensions.

On our way back I realized that I won't see the cherry blossoms this year in April as I did last year. It's really a shame as that's the sign of spring and I'm already sort of in a 'spring mood' though there is still some snow on the ground. Because of this I decided to choose my second most 'spring mood' yukata and look at some old pictures. I also wanted to wear the hair accessorises I got when I was a kimono model for one commercial. I must admit that the hairdresser knew how to use them much better than I do! The picture on right is from Kagoshima-ken and taken somewhere in March/ April last year. Back then we had a flower-watching picnic in the evening and during daytime, called ohanami.
This is all for today as it's already way past midnight. I'll try to update every now and then, at least a few times every month.
去年のお花見の写真です。最初は鹿児島県の旅行に行って、福岡帰って、ちょうど鹿児島と福岡の桜が見たんです。今年はフィンランドで、桜が見えないんですが、それでももうそろそろ春というきになります。こちはまだ雪が溜まってるんだけどね。まー、夏に日本に行けるからお楽しみ、桜が見えなくても今年はお祭りとか見たいんです。