atami.

A two hour train ride from Tokyo, Atami is a little coastal town backed by beautiful mountainous terrain. Rick and I went there for a weekend away with friends to one of their holiday houses.

Catching up with friends, drinking to the early hours of the morning, taking dips in our own private onsens and playing with fireworks, it was a pretty damn good weekend spent! The views up the mountains were breathtaking. Lunch was spent in a little organic dairy farm enjoying the crisp country air.

These are just a few snaps out of the many drunken ones we took over the weekend!
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wonderland.

I wore this simple but girly outfit when I went to Disneyland, loose and light, just right for a day trip to Disneyland. It was rather windy, and my skit being so light kept flying up when walking between buildings where wind corridors happened to be. Some of the photos you'll actually notice that I'm trying desperately to hold down my skirt.

I bought this little beanie/scarf thing in the style of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. The bold colours of bight hot pink and purple and besides the fact that I ADORE Alice in Wonderland really made a perfect Disneyland souvenir. You could actually buy arm and leg warmers and a matching tail to complete the outfit too. Being in costume, I just had to try out all the cute girly facial expressions as shown. Cheesy, right? =) 

(Lace Shirt: Dotti, Skirt: Ellery, Belt: Lisa Ho, Beanie/Scarf: Cheshire Cat, Bag: Alannah Hill, Sunnies: Rayban, Rings and Shoes: ASOS)

Hoping everyone will be having a great halloween weekend! 

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tokyo disneyland.

One of the happiest places on earth, I felt like a 5 year old again with all my childhood Disney scenes and characters come alive. Spending it with the boyfriend under stars, eating bad, overpriced, cafeteria food and watching the firework show was one thing that I won't forget for a long time. Along, of course with all the rides and awesomely designed sets of EVERYTHING DISNEY, made me one very happy girl!

Being in time for Halloween celebrations, we saw Disneyland come alive with orange and black decorations of pumpkins and ghosts and all sorts of various spooks. Visitors were invited to dress up in their favourite characters. It was good to see people embracing the festiveness of the season, some parents were completely decked out into from head to toe in costume!

My highlight attraction of the day was most definitely the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted House. Being a big Tim Burton fan, I couldn't help but squirm with excitement when walking through the iron wrought gates and through double wooden doors into a dark and eerie waiting room. The attraction had such great set design and use of technology, my eyes couldn't keep up with the amount of detail in the ride that I had to go twice! Won't say too much to spoil it for those who are yet to go =)

The Alice in Wonderland Banquet Hall was also an experience! They had everything Alice in Wonderland themed, including heart shaped meat patties and desserts to a full decked out kitchen with love heart ovens and doors!

There was also a Halloween party parade. The colours of the floats and costume designs were amazing! It was rather weird though hearing all the Disney characters speaking Japanese. =)

Unfortunately we did miss on a few rides as the waits for some rides were immense and we screwed up our fast ticketing thing. Oh well.....maybe next time.

I got into a little festivity as well and bought a beanie scarf thing in the colours and shapes of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. So stay tuned my Disneyland outfit post is coming soon!

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flow.

Its been a while since I've done any outfit posts. These were taken in the Sagano area in Kyoto. I had quite a limited wardrobe while travelling in Japan and most of my outfits were on high rotation, thus resulting in minimal outfit posts!

The pants were perfect for the warm summer humidity as they don't cling onto skin, nor were they heaps stuffy. Nice and flow-y, with heaps of leg room, these pants were a welcome change to my often go to bottoms of skinny jeans, leggings and skinny pants.

(Tank: Zara, Pants: Country Road, Flats and Rings: ASOS, Bag: Alannah Hill)

I can't really remember the last time I wore something as bright as this top either. While it was rather breezy wearing a sleeveless top in the summer humidity of Kyoto, it proved to be rather impractical as I was devoured alive by mosquitoes! Please ignore the miniature welts on my arms in some of the photos, they were created by the little blood sucking monsters.

I'm devoting my week to catching up on my blog posts from Japan so I can give you guys a more up to date version of my daily rantings! Be prepared for a serious influx of posts! =)

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memoirs of kyoto.

I had a whole post, previously prepared for this entry, but once after re-reading it, it sounded like a little piece of kitsch mush, too corny to post. So dot points again to the rescue, hehehe, but kinda takes the nostalgic edge away from the blog post title. =)

- Day One was spent riding around the Gion district on shiny new electronic bikes supplied to us by our hotel. The backstreets of Gion were amazing, kinda like a little Venice with it's little restaurants and bars built on a meandering river that run through the city. Best idea ever for taking the bikes with us as it was the best way to actually "see" the city.

- We also saw a Geisha parade outside Choinin Temple. Possibly to welcome the Autumn season?

-Rode to Kyomizudera Temple (Pure Water Temple). The temple itself sits on a gigantic hill amongst a gorgeous green backdrop of bamboos, over looking the city of Kyoto. I hear that during the Autumn seasons, the tree tops turn into a beautiful golden brown canopy, none-the-less the temple never ceases to amaze me every time I visit it.

-Spent the evening in Kyoto Tower, watching the sun go down over the city and slowly watching the city light up with its night life. The sky was so clear we could even see through to Osaka.

- Day Two was spent in the Arashiyama area. A 20 min train ride saw us arrive by the Oi River.

- Took a little half an hour cruise on a boat up stream, admiring the scenery around the Arashiyama area. Our boat driver knew little English but still didn't fail to make us feel less at home and tried his very best to explain the surrounds of the area. We ran into this really cute little convenience store operated entirely on a boat!

-Rickshaws were everywhere and I really wanted to ride on one, but I doubt they could've pulled both me and Rick on one, together.

- Took a stroll through the peaceful and tranquil surrounds of Sagano Bamboos. It was really amazing how green and how tall the bamboos were. Probably my favourite part of Kyoto. The mosquitoes however were relentlessly vicious, seven-bites-in-half-an-hour-on-one-arm kinda vicious!

- Took 2 trains and a bus to Ginkakuji (The Golden Pavilion) just in time to see the sun set and cast stunning golden rays of light on the temple. Covered in gold leaf, the Temple stood in the surrounds of a pond that was an amazing contrast to all the other black and white temples everywhere else.

We missed a few temples this time around, especially the ones with the Buddhist Zen gardens, but as most temples closed at around 5pm, we could technically only do two destinations in one day. Next time I'm in Kyoto, I'd love to spend a week and travel to Nara for the more modern architecture provided by some of Japans top architects like Tadao Ando and SAANA. It was quite a whimsical trip, one that I thoroughly enjoyed with Rick. I think one thing that I realised this trip was the fact that I much rather more culturally and artistically rich "towns" as compared to more metropolitan "cities".

Also there's a sneak peek of an outfit post that is to come! Hope you guys had an awesome weekend and have enjoyed this post!

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