Under the Sea - Day 1 - Arrival in Amsterdam

I'm back home from Amsterdam and I can just tell you, the last weekend was AMAZING! I had such a great time at the event and in Amsterdam with my friends! I'm already sad that the event is over, could have stayed a day longer for the after party, but even without it was already awesome!

We arrived in Amsterdam in the early afternoon. Our train was perfectly on time, we were really lucky, because all my friends who took the train earlier or later had problems (though we had problems on our way back home, but I will come to it later...).

My friend Vicky and I travelled together and shared a small apartment in Amsterdam. It was in a "traditional" dutch house, that means very, very steep stairs, where "ladder" would be a better name for them. But somehow we managed to get our luggage to the second floor and were welcomed from the kind landlord.

After we dropped our luggage, we went to the "Hermitage" museum, where we wanted to look at historical clothes. You could choose between 3 exhibitions, but one was already expensive enough (17,50€), so we only chose one and apparently the wrong one, because we could only look at paintings. The exhibition was nicely made, but quite short for the price, however not too short for me because as someone who is not really interested in paintings, it got boring after a while (still I expected way more for my money).

Walking by the Sunday Tea Party location

Then we went to eat Poffertjes at a very old traditional café. We wanted to sit outside at the canal, but the people there just didn't wanted to leave xD. So after an unsuccessful search for another café we just took a seat inside and had some delicious food.

Delicious Poffertjes, only good with a huge amount of butter xD

And a hot chocolate at 25°C, because why not

After this, we just randomly walked through the streets of Amsterdam. The streets around the café were so beautiful and had a little magical atmosphere. There were barely any tourists, and in front of almost every house there was a bench or a small table with chairs, and the locals were sitting there reading a book or having a picnic. I found this especially magical because it was just a short walk from the city center and all the very busy tourist attractions. Generally all streets and houses are sooo beautiful in Amsterdam (except for the few tourist spots, which are dirty as hell), and I found it very surprising, because Amsterdam is just as famous as London or Paris, and the same size like my hometown (Cologne), but you would never find something like this in those cities.

In the evening we went to a surinamese restaurant. In Amsterdam it is quite common to find indonese or surinamese restaurants (and it is actually recommended in many tourist guides), because of the dutch colonies. Luckily my friend Vicky was already in Amsterdam before, so she could recommend good food places all the time :D

During the whole day, we saw other Lolitas at least 3 times at very different places in Amsterdam. It felt like the whole city was occupied by Lolitas for the weekend xD.

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Dokomi - Convention Days 1 & 2

The convention was over waaay to quick! Even if it was almost a 3 day event because of the Tea Party on friday, I still felt that it was over in a rush, faster than in other years. I'm really glad that Amsterdam is in 2 days, so I don't have to be sad that it's already over.

Funnily I didn't do much at the convention like always. This year I planned to watch the Dance off contest, and I swore to myself that I will really watch it no matter what, but I still didn't came around to do it xD. Of course I still had tons of fun, because I met so many people and basically every time I wanted to go somewhere, I was bumping into another person, so it kinda took the whole day to walk from the one end of the convention to the other xD

This year, the convention added a HUGE hall for vendors. It almost looked like Japan Expo!

Saturday

My friends and I were lurking around the Putumayo booth, because we wanted to attend the autograph session. However we were a little too early and Misako Aoki was still putting her make-up on, so we didn't wanted to disturb her xD. But in the end I finally went to her and I guess I was the first one of the autograph session, however I regret that I didn't took a picture with Hasegawa-san and didn't talked to him, I really wanted to say something but I didn't know what, and I don't speak japanese anyway xD

I bought a postcard set of Misako Aoki, they are really cute and I already hung them up on my wall. Now I also want to make such a candy photoshoot :D

I have to say I started to dislike Misako Aoki a little bit because of the AM drama and because she always have the exact same face, where you get the feeling that for her it's just a job, but after meeting her again I think she is a kind person and I guess you just cannot be all excited anymore if it is your 1000x Tea Party.

This was my complete outfit for the Dokomi on saturday (my sunday outfit is not worth mentioning, I only dressed up in a very casual outfit for the fashion show).

Usually I always spend time in the Fashion Area, because this is were all the Lolitas hang out. But the Putumayo stall and the food corner were in the vendor hall, so I spend more time there xD

At the end of the convention day, we wanted to try out the Host Club. Many of my friends said that the Host Club is a little cringey, because the Hosts take their job really seriously and it's weird if a 16 year old tries to talk to you in a very nice way xD But our host was not cringey, I guess that we were a group of 5 also made it less cringey, so I would say it is quite nice there!

In the evening, we also went to the japanese restaurant Maruyasu. Their rice is sooo tasty, I never ate such delicious rice in my life! xD


Sunday

On Sunday I didn't do much as well. I was part of the Lolita fashion show like every year, and Misako Aoki and Hasegawa-san were watching it too :D

Here is the video if you want to watch it (I can never watch such videos because I find it too embarassing to see myself walking there xD)



Otherwise I spend the day visiting checking out the vendors again and seeing a very tired Misako xD.

All in all the convention was great like always, I'm already looking forward to next year :D Let's all hope that we can have other Lolita guests again!

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Dokomi - Putumayo Tea Party

This weekend I attended the Dokomi convention. For the first time, they also invited a japanese Lolita brand and organized a Tea Party (mainly organized by Loopy ^^).

On Friday I met with my friend Rommily for lunch, who usually lives far away from me, so it was nice to see her again after a long time. We wanted to meet with my other friends too, but it didn't really worked out xD. Since we had time to kill, I showed her a well-known café in Düsseldorf, which Misako Aoki also had visited according to her Instagram xD. On the way to the café, we were stopped by a photographer who had a photostudio right next to the café and wanted to take pictures of us. I thought why not and so we were doing a little photoshoot (I will show you the pictures later when I get them).

In the evening, the Tea Party finally started. It was very nice, even better than I expected (the Dokomi is a great convention, but also a littlte chaotic xD). Weirdly, 1/4 of the seats were empty, even though all the people paid for their tickets.

Decoration of the tables with Goodie Bags

First, they opened the buffet, which was tasty. Then we had time for shopping and looking at the stalls. Hasegawa-san (the designer and owner of Putumayo) could speak english a little, and every time someone was looking at the clothes, he tried to motivate them to buy something xD.

Misako Aoki also selled some stuff, which was really cute, but also quite expensive. I was really doubting about buying something, but I also wanted to save up for my trip to Japan xD

Misako Aoki stuff, it was a collaboration with Cerise(?)

Putumayo stuff, they also had a table, similar to the Paris pop-up shop, but a little less items

Then there was the fashion show with 10 new outfits. Hasegawa-san tried to explain the outfits in english, it was really cute because his english wasn't good, but he really tried hard!

With cute Riina :) Picture by www.stoll.space

After this was the Q&A with Hasegawa-san and Misako Aoki, and there were some interesting questions.

In the end there was a raffle with prizes from Indiebrands, and an outfit competition, where Hasegawa-san picked his 3 favorite outfits by himself.

Picture by www.stoll.space

Hasegawa-san also walked around to talk to people and take pictures. I think he just wanted to take a quick picture with some of us sitting at our table, but we all stood up and made a group picture xD

This was my outfit. I don't own anything from Putumayo, but according to the Q&A, Hasegawa-san loves Alice in Wonderland, so my outfit fitted at least a little bit xD

And here is some part of the Goodie bag. The gifts from Putumayo were a postcard set and a set of bigger pictures with Misako Aoki. Of course there were also many flyers from indie brands in it as well as some discount coupons.

The Tea Party was 1 hour longer than planned, but otherwise I think it was a great success! I hope that next year we will have something like this again :)

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Documentary about Cosplay / Dokomi

Today, a (german) documentary was released about Cosplay and the Dokomi convention. I just watched it and it is really really good! It explains Cosplay as a hobby very well and shows everything you can do at a convention. If you have any parents / friends who want to know more about your hobbies, you should show it to them xD

Unfortunately it is only available in german. You can watch it here:

http://www.spiegel.tv/#/filme/manga-cosplay-duesseldorf/

My new flower hat + Dokomi outfit preview

Hello dears!

Yes, I made ANOTHER hat! And this time, I will even wear it soon, not like my 3 other hats which are waiting in my closet ^_^''' Maybe the decoration looks familiar to you, because it was once attached to a big pink hat, but it was just way to big and heavy, so I made a new one (which is still quite heavy, would you have guessed that a few flowers and pearls would weight that much? O_o''' )

I made the hat for my outfit at the Dokomi convention next week. I wanted to wear something more OTT this time. The last years I have worn more casual outfits because the weather was so hot, but this year it will be cold and rainy D-:

Aaand my flower princess outfit. Haven't worn my pretty overskirt for 2 years either >_<'''

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Sakura pictures (Rheinaue Bonn)

Hello dears!

This Saturday I met with some friends and took pictures with cherry trees! Cherry tree blossoms are really beautiful!

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3

Heart Hat

A few nights ago I got the urge to craft something, so I created a heart hat ୧(♡_♡)୨. I only needed 3-4 hours, I was really surprised how quick I was and that I could finish it in one go instead of sitting days on it and getting frustrated like I usually do xD.

I even have ideas for more hats, but I realised that I still have 2 other hats in my closet that I have never worn... but having too many hats is better then having not enough, right? xD

Thank you for reading,
Miuko~ <3