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!

Smitten Little Kitten / Delicious Science

One quick last outfit post while I'm still at home! I'm taking both this amazing sweater and skirt with me to Japan, so you'll also see them in outfit posts there, but I was wearing this outfit the other day and couldn't resist snapping a few photos... wearing sweater - c/o Romwe skirt - c/o Sheinside socks - Cotton On shoes - c/o Topb2c I've been collecting these photos for ages and finally have a large enough collection to share: science food. There are some amazingly creative people out there and I'm happy they're sharing their love of anatomy, astronomy and animals through food! And Octopus cake. Yeah. (source) Anatomical Pancakes (source - and check it out because he's also made reptiles and dinosaurs) Space Cupcakes (source) Anatomical heart danish pastries (source) This is not as amazing as the ones above but it's still cute - and you can totally try it yourself ! ;) Oreos showing the phases of the moon (source) Who's hungry?

Alice in Wonderland / Creepy Chemistry

For some reason when I put on this black Abhair wig, I want to dress up like a character from childhood stories (see my Snow White post from a week ago here). Well, it's happened twice now anyway, haha. I owned this beautiful illustrated Alice in Wonderland book when I was little and read it so many times, and it lended itself nicely to this outfit post with my awesome new illustrated Alice in Wonderland tights! I made these lace cuffs for my Japan trip so I can instantly cute-ify any socks I buy while I'm over there. And I'm wearing these gorgeous lolita platforms from Topb2c again. I'm a bit obsessed. (Also sidenote: Topb2c is running a deal at the moment, to get 8% off use the code topb2c8 and to get 15% off - if you're one of the first 100 to use it - use topb2c15.) wearing dress - c/o Sheinside tights - Ebay shoes - c/o Topb2c socks - Vintage wig - c/o Abhair So Alice in Wonderland was full of some pretty trippy chemical reactions - pebbles turning into cakes, etc (see what I did there? I'm great at these segues into science... haha). Here's two amazingly weird chemical reactions, and a little explanation about what's going on behind them (thanks to Kailey for sending them to me!) Simply mix two small quantities of hydrogen peroxide (what you use to bleach your hair) and sodium iodide (this is a salt, you'll need to add water) and a little bit of soap. And then back right away. The sodium iodide speeds up the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. As hydrogen peroxide has the formula H2O2, when it decomposes it breaks down into water and oxygen. The crazy-looking reaction is caused by the oxygen blowing up the soap bubbles in the solution as it escapes. You can even DIY this chemical reaction using these instructions! This creepy reaction is done simply by setting alight some mercury (II) thiocyanate and watching it go. It's what's known as a decomposition reaction, but the whole reaction is a little lengthy to type out here, so if you want to know the specifics then have a look here. And I don't recommend doing this one yourself... it's particularly toxic at just about every stage of the process. This is proof that chemistry can be ridiculously cool (and creepy)! Do you know any crazy chemical reactions? Much love,

Pineneedle & Thread Mini Magazine

Guys! Yesterday I woke up with SO much stuff to do, organising everything for my trip to Japan, finalising accommodation, packing my suitcase, etc... so I spent the entire day making a magazine instead. Don't ever say I'm not good at procrastinating - I'm really, really actually very good at it. Anyway, this is what happened. I lay all the blame on Glossi for telling me that this thing existed. If you can't view the embedded magazine below, then click here to have a little look. I hope you guys like it - it's got a bit of science, a bit of online shopping and photos of three very lovely ladies whose style I adore. Please let me know what you think! p.s. click here if you're having troubles viewing the embedded version. I also made it available as a printable pdf that you can download here (and print out as a booklet format).