Baby G watch & new nails (✿ ♥‿♥)

 I recently got something I've wanted for a really long time now, a Baby G watch (✿ ♥‿♥) They were super popular in the Japanese surf style mags from around 1999 which are usually my favorites. I was surprised that this brand was still making the same model that they were making in 1999, just in different colors :0 

I took forever deciding on a color, as usual xD it's so hard ordering things online because I can never really tell how it's gonna look, and I couldn't find many reviews online either. In the end, I picked this transparent teal/blue shade. 

Isn't it so pretty? (✿ ♥‿♥) I love it. I'm so happy I ended up with the blue one!! There's even an animal animation that plays every 30 seconds or whenever I press the button, it's a dolphin here but there's several different animals. I'm obsessed. It's such a perfect 90's transparent color and it fits my arm perfectly and everything. It also has a lot more functions that I was anticipating, like apparently you can store phone numbers in it xD 

I also got my nails done on Saturday! I went quite a bit shorter than I had been since I wanted squares this time and it's hard removing my contacts with long square nails, lol. I might try to get a better photo later, but I really wanted to show them off and this was the only one I had. 

I recently found my nail artist Rui near my new house and shes AMAZING. She moved here from Japan so she knows all about Japanese style nail art and understands the type of styles I like. She likes doing intricate nails too, so we always have a great time discussing the designs. This time she even had a display of tropical nails to show me based on a photo I sent her of one of my surf magazines. (◕‿◕✿) I feel so lucky to have met her!!  

6% dokidoki fashion show... looking back

 I've been so on and off about blogging that i've missed some major life milestones haha. For me, modeling in a fashion show is one of those because it's been my dream since I was a little kid. Last year I had the incredible honor of modeling in 6% dokidoki's fashion show and it still feels like a dream ☆(❁‿❁)☆

6% was very inclusive and let me walk with my cane on the stage, I never felt awkward for needing to use it. I have a problem with one of my big toes, so the cane can make it easier sometimes. 

They also let me bring Melody Jr. onto the stage with me xD I dressed her up in a 6% bow and some other accessories I made and the stylist really liked it and asked if I wanted to walk with her, and of course I absolutely wanted to. I had such an amazing time on the stage, the music was really fun and it was a party from start to finish. I would've walked multiple times if I could! 

I also got to meet Sebastian, if you aren't familiar with the brand he is the founder and a well known artist. He was super cool! I really never thought I would get picked to walk, let alone for such an iconic brand, it was really a dream come true. 

The photos look kinda weird in my blog format for some reason, but if you wanna see them more clearly just click on them, they're much clearer that way. 

Thanks to Maya Lovro for the photos!

The day after the show was the jfashion tea party, and I ended up winning the phone case Sebastian autographed. I think this was my lucky year for conventions xD 

OOPS.. comments are fixed.

 OMG. making a quick post because I feel awful about what happened to my comments. 

I’ve had the “always moderate” setting on for about a YEAR. guess what. I’m so air headed. I thought it would email me when someone commented. NO. it’s a separate tab! No notification!! I found out when I was bored at work clicking around on here!! I feel like a jerk!! 

I have a YEARS WORTH OF COMMENTS. I am so sorry D: you all probably thought I didn’t wanna hear from you. In reality I desperately wanted to hear from all of you. Some of you I don’t have on Line or other messengers and I thought you didn’t read my posts anymore :( when I discovered the messages I was truly so happy. 

I hope you are still reading and please leave comments because I fixed them now. 

Have a photo of my most recent nails as tax. I’m responding to the comments when I get home 😭 

Reconnecting with Creativity

Recently I've gotten really frustrated with the way the internet is. I've posted about it before, and then always just went back to the way things were, mindlessly scrolling for hours and always feeling bad afterwards. And then I fell down a rabbithole of digital minimalism videos on youtube, and the more I learn about the algorithms and apps and smartphones etc. the more I am sickened by them. 

Learning about how the companies manipulate and use you made me look inwardly and realize how addicted I have become to my phone and how miserable it makes me. I never finish scrolling Instagram and feel happy, my mind always feels gunky and anxious. 

I reflected on how over the past several years, I've let media convince me that my ideas and my self expression are not enough if other people do not appreciate it. 

I think it all started when I posted photos of the kind of tropical gal outfit that tends to get likes online. From that moment, I realized how good it felt to be the kind of person that got compliments online and at conventions. I didn't even get very much attention online really, but it was more than I was used to. I felt like I had to keep up that look and it destroyed my self-image. I felt ugly if I wasn't wearing dramatic makeup, tanning, getting super long nails and wearing over the top outfits. I felt like I had to have the perfect image of gal all the time or I wouldn't be worthy of friendship. If I stopped doing any one of those things, I felt like no one would accept me anymore. I started equating that specific look with my worthiness as a person. Old habits die hard, and I eventually realized I had made gyaru into another rigid set of rules I felt that I needed to live by in order to be accepted and avoid ridicule. I didn't feel free to explore ideas and make up my own mind about how I wanted to look anymore. 

I value creativity a lot, and my freedom to create outfits that I thought looked good felt stolen by this pressure to attain external validation. 

Here's my most important thought. I want to be free to wear exactly what I want, be inspired by what I want, and look bad if I want. I want to look ugly if I want, and not care if someone comments on how I'm doing everything wrong. If I like the way I look, why does it matter if someone else says it's ugly? No one I want to be around would abandon me for looking ugly anyways. I don't think it matters to me if other people think I'm a gal or not. I don't want to dress for others as a performance anymore. 

I no longer want to be a product for social media to profit off of, so I finally deleted Instagram from my phone. I think I feel better now that it's gone. 

For the first time in months, I opened up my surf and gal magazines from around 1999. I felt so happy looking through them. I felt inspired to create again. I saw photos of people I think are cool, but felt no pressure to look exactly like them. In fact, I felt relaxed seeing outfits that I can actually imagine myself wearing in my daily life. 

A large part of me reconnecting with my creativity is using my phone less. I wish I could eliminate a smartphone completely, because honestly I don't trust myself to not scroll on something even without instagram, but for several reasons I'm not able to get around day to day without it. I want to get an mp3 player, digital camera, and a watch so that I can eliminate most of the reasons I end up trapped somewhere in an app. I always end up opening my phone for one of those and then end up on some other app wasting my life. If I don't need to open my phone, I think the chances of that happening are far less. 

I don't know if my journey will be successful, or if I'll even want to post about it or post here at all. I could write private posts but I think part of myself still wants to connect on the off chance someone here feels the same way I do. 

I think I'm starting to feel more like myself again, and that makes me happy ✿◕ ‿ ◕✿

Crepes & Adventuring! (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

 Today my friend and I met up at a small town near us to go to a crepe cafe (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ 

I had a strawberry and Nutella crepe and a chai latte ♥‿♥ It was really good and I want to go back soon! 

After crepes, we decided to walk around the town a little bit. I had no idea that there were so many cute shops and historical buildings in the area! 

The first place we happened upon was the weaver’s cottage! We met two really nice ladies who were part of the yarn club here. They had a ton of looms and spinning wheels inside and it turns out that they teach lessons and have meetups for knitting and other yarn crafts! We want to go back for the day when they bring sheep. ≧◡≦ I love animals so I’m excited to meet them. I’ve also always wanted to learn how to spin yarn, so I want to look into this more. 

I ended up buying a scarf for me and a hat for my baby niece! The scarf is sparkly and I felt like it goes with my colorful style. (✿◠‿◠) The hat will definitely be too big for my niece, but it was so cute and she’ll grow into it. I hope her parents think it’s cute too. I’m her only aunt so I feel like I have to spoil her a little (▰˘◡˘▰)

Another cute house we passed! I don’t know if this is one of the ones you can tour or if someone lives there. Some of the houses are preserved as museums since it’s a historical site. I thought this town was so neat because there were some really old log cabins, some not-as-old houses like this, and then some modern ones as well. They’re all mixed in together on the streets :0 which is pretty rare here, at least for my area of the US anyways. 

Some interesting antique shop finds! I can’t believe this random small town somehow has an animation cell from the Pink Panther? I almost bought it because it was so random, lol. 

We actually saw another bakery and we bought some baked goods and iced tea! Now that I think about it, I can’t actually remember what this was called… it had mint and some kind of fruit in it xD 

Outfit and makeup of the day! I got my hair cut ♥╣[-_-]╠♥  Ofc I forgot to take these until the evening so my face makeup is a little faded.. but this is my usual eye makeup recently!  I try not to edit my skin too much in photos but just to be transparent, this one is edited to remove blemishes and smooth my skin ~ Seeing edited photos online has messed with my self confidence a lot, so I like to make a note when I do edit my skin so that it might affect others less. My skin can’t really tolerate real foundation anymore, I’m either allergic to it or it catches really badly on the dry and textured areas of my cheeks and then it just looks worse than my redness, lol. I found something I really liked mixed in with my skin tint to make my skin look better but it isn’t working for me anymore and I can’t find a replacement that I’m not allergic to, so I’m trying to just accept it the way it is. Oh well, I’m hoping the trends change and brands switch to a preservative I’m not allergic to soon. Maybe someday xD. 

That’s all for tonight, talk soon! ★~(◡﹏◕✿)

New Skincare

 My rosacea decided to act up suddenly once I started wearing my usual sunscreen again for several days.. my skin is all dried out and breaking out in weird places, and the burning feeling came back 〴⋋_⋌〵 I honestly haven’t had my skin burn so frequently in about a year. I’ve been really stressed at work, so I’m sure that doesn’t help. Some of my friends said that maybe my sunscreen expired even though it should last about a year, and that maybe it was sitting on the shelf for a really long time before I bought it. I also took a look at the ingredients and it has fragrances and phenoxyethanol which my skin can’t handle much of, so I decided to go look for a new one. The annoying thing about my skin is that a lot of sunscreens irritate it, but it seemed like last year my skin also got irritated just from taking a short walk outside without sunscreen (it’s pretty cloudy here) so I have to work something out. 

This is what I ended up buying. I tried it in the store and it’s a super thin consistency, almost like a serum. I wasn’t expecting that from the bottle, but I really liked it. I was able to try it on one of my cheeks and then wander around the store for a while, and it actually stopped the burning feeling in that cheek which I was really happy about. It was pretty expensive, but with my skin being sensitive to both phenoxyethanol and zinc, my options are pretty limited. I looked at the bottle this morning though and saw that it has an expiration date of June?! I don’t think that’s normal, so I might have to go back to the store and ask to exchange it… it’s a pretty huge bottle so I don’t think I can use the entire thing in only 2.5 months. Hopefully they have another bottle that’s newer, especially since I didn’t use it yet. Otherwise, idk what I’ll do. Maybe just return it? I probably won’t reapply during the day since I’d be wearing it under makeup if I leave the house, and otherwise I’m inside all day xD 

I’m hoping that since this formula doesn’t have any irritating ingredients and is really thin it won’t aggravate my skin. My previous sunscreen was the regular lotion type and it felt kind of thick going on, which I think is sometimes also an aggravating feeling for my rosacea. I’ve heard thick products can trap heat and make rosacea feel worse, so maybe that was part of it. 

On a similar note, I’m really sad but I think I might also be sensitive to this super expensive Dior skin tint/highlight I’ve been using. It also has a fragrance, and I am worried that since I’ve worn it a lot my skin eventually got irritated. It seems fine for me to use something that has a fragrance a couple times a month, but the repeated use seems to build up and irritate my skin o(╥﹏╥)o I’ve tried looking for a replacement but everything I can find has some ingredient I can’t use in it. I loved the Dior one because it is very shiny but it’s not glittery at all, and it does have a skin tone pigment that evens out the bit of redness I still have in my cheeks. The shininess and tiny bit of tint is enough to distract from my redness and spots, it gives my skin a sort of blurred effect.

Tbh I wish companies still used parabens because I think that I’m not sensitive to those, I’m only sensitive to phenoxyethanol which is what replaced parabens. :| I didn’t even believe that it hurt my eyes and skin for a long time because everything I read just told me how safe and harmless it was, and that barely anyone had a sensitivity to it. But as soon as I cut it out, my eyes and skin stopped burning o(╥﹏╥)o Oh well… maybe I can try to mix my own version of the Dior product by combining another liquid highlight and a skin tint or foundation. Right now I’m just letting my skin calm down for a while and not touching it until the burning sensation hasn’t happened for a few days. Hopefully once April rolls around I can find another skin tint/highlight at the Sephora sale to try out!

New York City trip

 My husband and I went on a trip to NYC with our friends at the beginning of March! We had so much fun  ≧◡≦ 

The trip to the city wasn’t too bad, we got to take the train instead of a plane! I really dislike everything about planes so I was fine with that. The train was actually super packed on our trip which was unexpected, but it was nice to be able to at least get up and walk to the cafe car instead of being stuck in an airport or on a plane. 

The view from our hotel! We got to stay in Times Square. 

We arrived in the evening, so all we did on the first day was go to dinner and drinks! We went to a really cool restaurant that was around since the Victorian era :0 

My outfit for the evening! Thank you Kohi for the alba and the jeans, I treasure them (▰˘◡˘▰)

On our first full day we went to the natural history museum! We stopped by this chain bakery called Pret beforehand. When I tell you I’m obsessed.. but they don’t have any in the area I live in o(╥﹏╥)o Their matcha was super amazing, and nothing at home compares to it. 

My outfit for the day! I was so excited to get to wear my new colu top. 

Wore my Dino to be festive for the museum xD 

Museum finds ♥╣[-_-]╠♥

For lunch we left the museum and went to a restaurant called Madison Pickle. It was good but a LOT of food.. my stomach hurt afterwards because my eyes were bigger than my stomach o(╥﹏╥)o

This bread is what they’re famous for! 

In the evening we went to eat at an Italian restaurant and then a bar called Death and Company. It was Bryan’s birthday and he had really been wanting to check out this bar. They had really unique cocktails and even wrote him a birthday card! 

The next day we went for a tour of NBC studios! They didn’t allow any photos inside the studio unfortunately but the tour was really cool! I had a harrowing journey actually getting there though. I was 20 minutes early and needed to find a bathroom, and the workers gave me directions to what I thought was a single person bathroom that was occupied, but it was closed. I ran around this giant building trying to find another, but I just got hopelessly lost and ended up being late for the tour (◕︵◕) luckily they still let me in LOL. 

I’m not much for celebrities, but we got to see a few TV studios that they use for the various shows there which was really fascinating. We also saw the production studios where they do editing and sound, and they even let us do a little mock news show! I got to be one of the hosts xD I love being in front of a camera so I volunteered right away. They even sent us the recording! 

Later that day, we went to see a musical based on The Great Gatsby. They had some technical issues, so we did have to wait about an hour past the original start time, but I enjoyed it! I’m a pretty intense fan of the book and the modern movie and they did change some scenes around for the musical which I didn’t love, but the set and the costumes were amazing. They really did an amazing job with all of the scene transitions by using projections or screens inside the set pieces. 

After the show, our friends went to an Oscars watch party and Bryan and I went to explore Times Square some more! There was a really good taco place attached to our hotel, so we started there. 

Then we went off to explore some shops! I’d already been to several stores in Times Square since we were in NYC briefly on our honeymoon, so we mostly just hit the ones we missed last time. I really enjoyed the m&m’s store because it still has a lot of interesting theming that a lot of stores don’t have any more. 

We also round this random World of Sardines store xD As ridiculous as that sounds, it was actually a really cute and heavily themed shop. The picture in the photo is actually a screen that displays a little movie of different scenes. 

We left our last day open so that we could explore Korea town and some more shops! It was a relief to have so much open time after being booked pretty much back to back the other days. We started by visiting Hollister on our walk to Korea town. The store in NYC was probably 3x the size of the Hollister stores at home, but no interesting theming or anything. I kind of miss when these stores were made to look like a beach! Still, they’re really the only current store that I enjoy so despite the store not being all that special looks wise I knew I wanted to stop in. Here’s a couple things I ended up buying! 

They had hibiscuses out for spring (✿ ♥‿♥)

Then we continued on to Korea town! My main stops here were a makeup store and a bookstore! I made the photos as big as I can so you can see everything ~ 

Makeup store gets! I also got a free gift blind box, which turned out to be glittery hair gel but I don’t know where I put it so I didn’t get a photo. This store was so amazing, I was so overwhelmed being able to actually see all of the Korean and Japanese makeup brands in person! I definitely went a little wild, but I figured I’m not going to be able to see any of these products again anytime soon! I haven’t used all of them, but I really like everything I’ve tried. I really needed the namida bukuro liner, so I’m happy that I found one I liked! 

I got a Paul & Joe lipstick! Ofc I couldn’t resist once I found out that they’re shaped like cats! I got this clear glitter shade because I thought it would look good over a lip stain or even just on its own. I don’t usually like bold lip colors, and I had an urban decay lipstick almost identical to this several years ago that I loved. I thought it was really cute that you get to choose the case too! I chose the limited edition Cinnamoroll case. I hope it holds up so that I can refill it one day!

After the makeup store, we found a cute cafe! I had originally planned on getting boba from this shop that serves it to you in a cup shaped like a bear, but I hadn’t realized that the shop is just a walk up stall with nowhere to sit and it was pretty cold. So we walked around a bit and found another boba place instead! They also had tanghulu, which I keep seeing online and wanted to try. It was SUPER good, I wish I could get this at home! 

Next was the bookstore where I finally found a Newjeans light stick! I also picked up the pikachu the day before when we were exploring the stores around the NBC studios. I really wanted it last time and didn’t have space in my suitcase, so I was really happy I could bring her home on this trip

 ♥╣[-_-]╠♥

Then we went to get soup dumplings Ｏ(≧▽≦)Ｏ I’d never tried them before but they were amazing. I want one now just looking at the photo. 

After that, we went back to the hotel to relax and had a quiet night! The train ride home was much calmer than the ride there which was nice. It was such a great trip and I hope I can go back soon! Next time, I hope I can stay somewhere near Korea town because there were so many places I wanted to go to eat and drink xD