The Lost Boys

Happy Halloween everyone! I'm enjoying looking at all of your costumes, they're putting me to shame. I haven't dressed up for Halloween in years, oops. Last night I went to a special screening of The Lost Boys at the cinema I have been helping out at recently. It was brilliant, amazing cocktails at their new Jameson bar, takeaway cartons filled with sweetie snakes and spooky music and prizes. The film is just so cheesy and wonderfully 80s. And I can't resist a bit of Kiefer Sutherland if I'm honest. The movie was filmed in Santa Cruz (standing in for Santa Carla) and watching it reminds me of the summers I spent there, it still looks exactly the same as it does in the film (minus the vampires...probably).

Dress - A-wear

Scarf - H&M

Tights - Dorothy Perkins

Boots - Primark

Necklace - Galibardy

Ring - A-wear

I did the nails with Barry M paints, and the leopard plaster is there because I managed to slice a proper chunk out of my finger with a pair of scissors.

Spooky Jameson cocktails by Drinksology

If you're around Belfast check out the QFT, I may be biased after years of classes there but it really is a great cinema and shows loads of films you'd otherwise not get the chance to see on the big screen. And if you haven't seen The Lost Boys yet, get on that.

Enjoy Halloween everyone!

Bad Passion

When Jackie of This Charming Girl announced a few months back on twitter that she was starting a new jewellery company I knew it would be something to get excited about! So at the beginning of October, Bad Passion was opened and it did not disappoint. I intended to wait until pay day to treat myself but I couldn't wait that long and before I could stop myself I had clicked a few buttons and this wondrous creature was on its way to me! Check out this baby! Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I love mad, insane and most importantly - tacky, jewellery! The bigger and weirder the better.

The necklace is seriously heavy duty and really sharp - it could do some real damage! Anyway, I love it and you should definitely check out Bad Passion. And if it's all a bit too hardcore for you, there's always the delightful sister site This Charming Girl.

Nails were done by myself with a Models Own nail pen, the polish is Models Own Goldfinger.

Apologies for not having more outfit posts lately, it's too dark to take photos by the time I get home as you can see from the photo below! I do have a very exciting parcel on the way to me and a special post built around it which I can't wait to share, and a Halloween post coming up. Thanks for reading! x

Dress - Primark

Bag - River Island

Tights - Matalan

Shoes - Topshop

Tokyo Part 3: Ueno Zoo, Ikebukuro and Shibuya.

Me annoying a goat in the kids zoo.

Ueno Zoo was somewhere I'd managed to miss the first time I went to Tokyo. I'm so glad I went this time around! The zoo is MASSIVE and has lots of animals I'd never seen before. It's also in the middle of Ueno Park which is completely beautiful and has a few shrines in it so you can make a whole day out of it. I was also really pleased (and slightly proud of myself) that I managed to find my way to an epic toy shop called Yamashiroya I vaguely remembered visiting last time I was there. It's 7 floors or so of just pure amazing, Japanese craziness.

Anyway, on to more cute (and scary) animals from the zoo. The crocodile was amazing and so bloody creepy.

This bird terrified me and I hate it.

And some cute (as is always the case in Japan) food from the zoo.

Anyway, enough animals (for now). You'll probably see a lot of Shrines in Tokyo but if you're anything like me you'll never tire of them. They are always amazing and calm and just an absolute haven in the middle of such a busy city.

Next I wanted to share some photos from Ikebukuro and Shibuya. Ikebukuro is the prefecture of Tokyo I stayed in last time I was there and I have a certain fondness for it. It's also home to Sunshine city, a 60 story skyscraper with shops, an aquarium and an observation deck. I think seeing the views over Tokyo at night from the top was a moment I'll never forget in my whole life. Just wondrous, it's such a massive city you can't even see how far it goes on for. And football pitches on top of buildings! Amazing.

Of course there's a souvenir shop on the top floor. I kind of wish I had bought these now.

Sunshine city also has Namja town in it, a theme park of sorts. It has lots of Japanese games that I couldn't understand because there was no English, but it's really cool to walk around in, it's cheap and there's part of it that's called Ice cream world. Sold. There's also a whole part of it dedicated purely to gyoza, one of the most wonderful foods in the world.

That's chicken ice cream. CHICKEN. With bits of chicken in it. They have any ice cream flavour imaginable, sea urchin, garlic, squid. Who knows why. The chicken was disgusting. I had some strawberry flavoured snow as well though which was delicious.

GYOZA! ALL THE GYOZA! Amazing.

Lastly here's some photos of Shibuya. It's where all the teenagers hang out and it's just generally mental. Brilliant though, you might recognise the Hachiko crossing from Lost in Translation.

Tempura and cocktails in Shibuya. Nom.

Anyway, I thought this would be the last post but I still have a few more photos to share. One more and that'll be me back to regular blogging! I feel a bit bad clogging the blog up with travel photos instead of outfits and baking, but I just love this bloody city and want to share it with you all. Also I work a lot now, I do three days in the office, two days in my retail job, one minding my niece and then the day I have off I do work on a film festival on the evening. Loving it, but it means less time for nice outfits and the like! I do have some coming up though. I may have bought the most beautiful bag ever and I want to share photos.

Oh and before I forget, I need 2 more followers to reach 1000 and then I can do my next giveaway...and generally just be awed that people actually read this little blog of mine! Which if you hadn't noticed yet, is a .com address now! Well, back soon! Hopefully I won't leave it two weeks this time. Bye! x

Tokyo Part 2: Shinjuku and Akihabara

Shinjuku from the bridge of the South exit. That's the Park Hyatt in the distance. Our hotel was just past the corner on the left corner.

Thanks for all the comments on my first Tokyo post. I'm glad you didn't feel overloaded with photos! I thought I'd share some more of my favourite parts.

Shinjuku

Our hotel was the Sunroute Plaza Shinjuku which was lovely. Small rooms but everywhere is small in Tokyo. It was very fancy and I managed to clear out the free toiletries every day and come home with 7 hairbrushes. Stop judging me! I can really recommend it, it was reasonably priced (which is rare for Tokyo, about £500-600 for 7 nights for a double room I think, double bed in Japan is more like a largeish single though). The location of the hotel was amazing. Firstly we had no problem at all finding it, compared to when I stayed in Ikebukuro in 2007. We got the train from the airport to Shinjuku station and the hotel is about a 5 minute walk from there. It was so good to be in Shinjuku, where you can get Yamanote line (JR train) which is basically a loop which takes you around anywhere you'd want to visit on a trip to Tokyo. It's the busiest train station in the world - apparently 2 million people pass through there every day.

Don Quijote.

Don Quijote Shinjuku (also in Akihabara if it's more convienient - actually the Akihabara one is way bigger and more exciting so go to it if you have to choose).

Japanese girls are OBSESSED with false eyelashes and contact lenses. I love my false lashes so this was great, but my eyeballs are too pointy for contacts. That's both a true fact AND a quote from Liz Lemon. We have so much in common.

Don Quijote is the most fun shop EVER! It's basically a maze of craziness and such a fire hazard that it'd never be allowed outside of Japan. You can buy anything here, and I mean anything. From laundry detergent to a Hello Kitty vibrator. I'm not even joking. You can check out a video of how mental it is here.

Around Shinjuku.

Shinjuku is also home to the Park Hyatt Hotel, as seen in the film Lost in Translation (one of my BA dissertation films). Lost in Translation is shot almost entirely in Shinjuku and neighbouring Shibuya. We went for drinks at the hotel on the last night as a treat. The New York bar is on the top floor and offers amazing views. If you're going get there before 8pm. At 8pm they charge a 2200yen/£19 cover charge (as there's live jazz). The cocktails alone are around £18-20 so unless money is not an issue I recommend going before the cover charge sets in. You can also get a spoonfull of caviar for £130 if you fancy it with your drink :P We went around 6pm as this way we got to see the sun setting and see the Tokyo skyline by day and night. The cocktails were delicious, it was so fancy. I felt a bit out of place but as with all Japanese staff they were very welcoming and polite. If you do go, I recommend the Climbing Rose cocktail. Or if you're after a relaxing time, you could make it Suntory time.

We went for dinner elsewhere (the bar food alone started at £50!) and I managed to embarrass myself by knocking over my full glass of coke and having to apologise (gomenasai!) profusely as I was so embarassed. And this was just a casual place - sooo glad I didn't do it in the Park Hyatt! I managed to pull a whole tablecloth and all the cutlery and glasses to the floor in a fancy restaurant here in Belfast once. So red faced.

Akihabara

How can I put this? Akihabara is basically THE MOST FUN PLACE EVER. It's otaku town, otaku meaning geek. It's full of shops selling manga, action figures, maid cafés (we went to one in 2007 and it sort of creeped me out to be honest), electronic shops, game centers and yummy places to eat. And giant pikachus to buy.

Also I got really excited because from a little googling I was able to find Ja La La, a cat café I wanted to go to. It was so awesome. Basically you pay by the hour (I like to call it cat brothel but this isn't recommended) and you get a drink and can play with the cats all you want. There are some rules so the cats stay happy, like you can't wake them up if they are sleeping and you can't use flash photography. You can buy snacks to feed them. I was in heaven! We went to another one in Odaiba but I'll post photos from that in the next post.

Amazing cuties at Ja La La

I was going to write about Ikebukuro here as well but it's already a bit full! I'll save it for next time :) Hope you liked this, ask away if you have any questions. At the end of these I might do a Japan guide on things like money, customs, travel etc. Does that sound like something you might like to read? x