Day Two / Japanese Science & Internet Umbrellas

Ohayou! This is the outfit I wore yesterday for exploring some more of beautiful Tokyo! If you're ever going to Japan, you must make sure to check out Kichijoji. I spent the afternoon wandering the gorgeous Sun Road shopping street (see photos below). wearing sweater - Harajuku (and I forgot the name of the store) necklace - c/o Merrin & Gussy coat - my mum's coat tights - Ebay socks - Vintage bag - Rubi Shoes skirt - Ice shoes - Asos I forgot to take photos of everything cool I saw yesterday, because I was too excited by it all... haha :) however here is a shot of one of my favourite chain stores in Japan - Momo by Wonder Rocket. (There's about 3 of these in Harajuku on Takeshita street alone. They have the cutest stuff.) Oh and hey! I'm not going to forget my science posts either while I'm abroad! Here's a little Tokyo-themed science story. My next few science posts are going to be Japan-themed, quite fittingly! The photo you see above (from this news story) is an "internet umbrella" called Pileus, which displays a Flickr stream and google maps underneath the canopy. It can even play Youtube videos. Created in 2007 by two Japanese graduate students at a research and design laboratory, it's a cute use of technology and science with the aim of "making rainy days more fun". While displaying social media and the like on one's umbrella will probably not catch on - and I can also imagine it would cause a lot of people to bump into each other - it is a step towards the world of augmented reality (which many science commentators have declared is going to take off in 2013). Augmented reality is the science of having the world around you "augmented" or "enhanced" with things that aren't actually there. An example of augmented reality is like being able to look at a restaurant through special glasses, or through your iphone camera, and having it tell you the number of people inside and if any of your friends from facebook are currently eating there (seriously, look up augmented reality, it's awesome). In fact, google have already begun developing augmented reality glasses. I hope that you're all very, very well! More from me soon,

Snapshots from my first day in Tokyo

Hello from Japan! So apart from being completely terrified on my first night as I went shaken awake by a tiny little earthquake at 3am, I have arrived safely and have had the most amazing first day in Tokyo! I threw myself right into the middle of Shibuya and Harajuku to get reacquainted with 'essential' Tokyo, then spent the night wandering around Omotesando and had dinner in downtown Ikebukuro. Here's some pretty pictures of my day. Watching the moon rise on one side of the plane as the sun set on the other, about to fly over Japan. And it's definitely winter here - there's melted snow piles everywhere! A side street in Harajuku and my outfit for the day! Checking out the Disney store in Shibuya where they have a perfect replica of Andy's room from Toy Story! Takeshita Street in Harajuku - the most amazing shopping street in the world. I promised myself I wouldn't make the first day into a shopping day but somehow came back to our hostel with 5 bags of goodies. Oops... The most incredible (and cheap!) lolita-style store! (I may have bought a pretty wig) Very Harajuku-style clothing Cat-themed accessories are EVERYWHERE If you ever go to Japan, go to a Thank You Mart. Everything is 390 yen, or about $4 each. And they have the largest selection of vintage clothing and cute accessories. The above photo is what I got and it all cost me $12 (and the socks were 2 pairs for 100 yen!) Went to the famous Avant Garde in Harajuku and had a nice chat with the owner! This is a printed tights store, who print their own designs on tights for around $30 a pair, and is basically the reason tattoo tights became super fashionable last year. It was awesome being in the place where the trend originated. Late-night snack in 7-11. I love Japanese 7-11. You can buy whole (and good) Japanese meals here for about $3. Wandering the extremely fancy Omotesando and window shopping Dior, Chanel, Swarovski and Anna Sui who all have MASSIVE stores here. A little something I bought myself in Harajuku... how could I resist?? Went to a Book-Off chain and bought a bunch of back-issues of magazines, which all cost me about $12. Got myself some recent Nylon magazines and a Kera from May. Full of so much inspiration! I will have an outfit post for you guys very soon. Hope you're all super well!

Tokyo!! .....almost ;)

SO! I should hopefully be on a plane right now! This post is scheduled to go live while I'm 10km up in the air and heading for wintery Tokyo, and hopefully that's still the case and nothing has gone wrong with this scheduled post and/or the flight (the latter is probably the one I should be more concerned about). I'm probably not going to get around to blogging anything for a few days, so this post shows some of the best photos I took last time I was in Japan - that was more than a year ago in 2011 (and I am ashamed to admit I only just got around to going through the photos properly a couple of weeks ago, which is why you would have never seen them on the blog before)! Anyway, enjoy! One of the most amazing second-hand stores I've ever been in - yeah they had a whole section just for Vivienne Westwood stuff. GIANT MOTHERFLIPPIN' SPIDER CRABS Getting excited for some more weird shopping experiences... We stumbled across this last time while in Osaka... Ronald McDonald doing some community service..?? Posing for a lookbook photo in a Japanese vintage dress (see original post) More from me once I'm in Japan!  さよなら, (I've totally been practising my Hiragana and typed that myself, wooooo!)

Packing my bags..

Packing a variety of wigs and other pretty hair accessories... (floral headband is DIY) Finally, today I'm getting around to packing my bags. Gosh I hate packing - but I know I have no justification for whinging because I'm packing for a very good reason, so that's the very last complaining you'll hear from me. Planning my outfits... (minus the hundreds of layers of thermals I'll also be wearing beneath) Totally set for Valentines day in Japan AND my 2-year anniversary thanks to the extremely speedy delivery and arrival of these tights this morning c/o My Tights Versatile leather skater skirt and all the jewellery I'm taking with me (mainly provided to me by Merrin & Gussy and Oasap, and of course, my handmade sunflower clips) I'm really excited to wear that bat necklace with some black lipstick and creepy doll dress! Entirely necessary 5 lipsticks I'm bringing... red, black, pink, blue and lilac Some handmade presents for people I'm meeting up with in Japan! It is going to be Valentines day after all... My lifesaver for the long plane trip... my amazingly amazing Kindle loaded up with about 50 science fiction books, Carl Sagan essays and the Origin of Species which I will make myself read! Plus a couple of trashy novels, because, well, you know, it is a long flight... SO, this is goodbye from me for a few days! I'll speak to you all once I'm in... *deep breath*... TOKYO!