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!

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。