155. labyrinth labyrinthos

Rintaro's Labyrinth Labyrinthos (ラビリンス ラビリントス) 1987

Stumbled upon gifs of this short animation on tumblr and I just had to watch it. Labyrinth Labyrintho is part of the three part film, Neo Tokyo, it's about an exploration into the maze of a little girl's mind. I fell in love with it immediately, and I think some parts are rather eerie but the right kind. My obsession with entering another world never stops. I wish they actually made a full feature film of this because I would have liked to know where she went at the end of the film. It's only about 11 minutes long. ):

 Some parts also reminded me of Cool World, a little film Brad Pitt was in, way back when he wasn't as famous.

It feels so nice to watch this types of films again, I always feel the most of myself when I do.

154. nyan

Went to a Cat Cafe called てまりのおうちTemari no Ouchi today with someone new in Kichijoji!♡

The atmosphere here was really warm compared to the one in Odaiba, the entrance fee was 1200yen and you could just chill there for as long as you want, they also served nice drinks and food with additional cost. The cats would occasionally come to your table and sniff around which I thought of course, was super cute. You could pay 300yen for some cat food to feed them, which I did and oh my god, there were like 4 cats attacking me at one go. But I was happy, gonna be a cat lady in the future for sure. 

We stayed there for about 2 hours, had ice chai, talked and would occasionally play with the cats. Anything with cats make me happy! ^^

153. not shy of a spark

Yesterday was really really hot and humid, August is here and in Japan which means, me - dying and melting from the heat for the rest of the month or at until it decides to cools down. The past couple of days have been really hectic. Yuri has gone back to California on Thursday and I can't help but to feel a little lonely, but it's okay because I know we'll meet again next year when she returns to Japan.

I met up with Nana yesterday in the afternoon for late lunch, she found a really good sushi place at the basement of Tokyu Hands in Shibuya. Since she hasn't had any good sushi in Tokyo just yet, she really wanted to try and so I accompanied her and I'm glad I did. The fish was so fresh, the tuna literally melts in your mouth. She got the special of the day and I just got a Maguro Chirashi.

 

After lunch, we decided to go to Daikanyama because Hajime was telling me how much he loved it the last time we met. First thing I did when we got off Daikanyama station was, buy an oraganic berry and soymilk smoothie. I've been craving for so much fruits lately, probably because of the heat. We just aimlessly walked around, and explored Daikanyama. There were a couple of cute boutiques and western cafes. There were a lot of vintage, furniture and clothing shops there too. I got a set of vintage Alice in Wonderland stickers, so cute. Such a sucker for anything Alice.

There were a couple of really cute shops along the street where I got the Alice stickers, but I didn't buy anything other than that  because nothing else tickled my fancy. We slowly walked back and to the other side of Daikanyama, and somehow got to T-Site Daikanyama. There were more furniture shops, restaurants and a really nice Tsutaya. I've read online that this Tsutaya is especially for "grown ups" and theme for it is "A Library in the Woods". The architecture for it was really pretty and I would have spent a long time there but I didn't want to waste Nana's time so I just browsed through and plan on coming back with little sis when she gets here. 

We just walked around T-Site for a bit and ended up being on some other street where there were more vintage clothing boutiques which we didn't spend much time at, and decided to walk back to Shibuya. It only took about 15 minutes to get to Shibuya, we got on the Yamanote line and headed to Shin-Okubo for some Korean barbacue for dinner. Once we got into the restaurant, we both ordered a pint of beer and set meal, meat with rice. I love Japanese food but once in a while, I get tired of it and will lose appetite, that's when I always decide to go to Shin-Okubo. 

After dinner, I brought Nana to the dessert place I went with Yuri the last time. Frozen yogurt in summer is my saviour. I got the yuzu and blueberry flavour topped it with cornflakes. Nana was so cute taking photos of the framed idol pictures next to our table. We spent quite a while there talking and all of a sudden, she told me she wanted to go to Karaoke. I'm not a fan of it because like I've already said in previous entries, its hard to sing to the music I listen to. But I thought, this would be an exception because we used to go to Karaoke back in Singapore all the time when we were much younger with other friends and it was always so fun.

We actually spent the entire night singing Karaoke lol Since it was cheap from 11pm - 5am. She was mostly singing Korean songs and thankfully, there were some good songs for me to listen to or watch, I only sang EVILLY by lynch. She chose some Ayumi Hamasaki, Koda Kumi and other J-pop songs that I don't know of but it was still fun. We stopped singing at about 3am and just chilled in the karaoke lounge, talking and waiting for it to be 5 to get on the first train. 

Since she was hungry, we went to McDonalds which was just across the road of the Karaoke place. We were so tired but still talked about a ton of personal stuff till almost 7am, we only realized we needed to go back because the sun was so bright and shining on us. We parted ways at the station and I think I'm meeting her again next week!

††††††

I'm so happy it's already August. I just want to put all the things that happened earlier in the year aside and enjoy the summer with baby sis. Though I probably won't enjoy it as much as I want to because of the heat, August has always been my favourite month. We've planned out some things to do already and are going for SummerSonic! I'm actually more excited about travelling around but some live music is always good. 

Lately, I've been cooking a lot at home and am really enjoying it. I can't wait till baby sis gets here and we'll cook together because she makes some of my favorite food, and she told me she wants to bake as well once we move back to my old apartment. I'm so glad I'm moving back there because out of all the 3 neighbourhoods  I've lived in Tokyo, Kami-Itabashi is still my favourite, plus my place will be much bigger, so there will be more space for me to draw. Can't wait!

Also, this song has been stuck in my head for the last week. It's been on repeat, so happy it is because that means I'm actually excited to see Arctic Monkeys in exactly two weeks. :)

Not Shy Of A Spark
A Knife Twists At The Thought
That I Should Fall Short Of The Mark
Frightened By The Bite
Though It's No Harsher Than The Bark
Middle Of Adventure
Such A Perfect Place To Start

152. lemonade

Met up with Hajime today to go to Odaiba, we didn't do anything much but roamed around and eat. Gundam, Venus Fort, Starbucks, Strange Love ♡, Diver City, Ramen, Aqua City, Decks then we went back at about 9ish because he was going to meet up with some friends at Shinjuku later in the night. 

He gave me these really cute pair of Moomin socks, I won't wear it but I'll definitely think of a way to use it. We were chilling at Starbucks at Venus Fort but there were so many annoying couples that we had to keep moving around. Also, went to my favourite, Strange Love, and the girl staff that's always there was talking to us. I was saying 久しぶり〜 and she thought my Japanese improved a lot but lol, it didn't. Maybe　ちゅっと？ She's so cute, I swear I keep forgetting to ask for her name. We walked to the Ferris Wheel too, passing by Zepp Tokyo where The Birthday was having a live. On the way to DiverCity, we watched cars drifting on the race track in front of Venus Fort. I've never seen it before so, I was really happy. 

Hajime managed to get some presents for his family and friends back in Chicago at DiverCity, after that brought him to my usual ramen place, and we went down to the beach later on at night because he was taking photos with his film camera and told me that the little boats on the water reminded him of the ones in Spirited Away, now I feel like watching it all over again.

It's strange, the people you meet online turn out to be the best people you'll ever meet. Come to think of it, I also met Steph, who I've known for 10 years, online too. Indirectly at least. 

July is coming to an end already and thinking about how crazy this month has been makes me feel relieved, lonely and glad at the same time. All the things that happened - in the beginning of it to the end - drinking to drown another heart break, then got hurt again right after, attending little sister's graduation, being back home with the family, my birthday, meeting new and old friends and then suddenly... everyone's leaving.

Maybe that's why I can't go to sleep lately, I feel lonely when I think about it. All the important things to me are slowly disappearing, people I love are going to be faraway. I don't know how to deal with it and I just feel so lost. I'll take some time to figure out the things I want again, I need change. Change will be good for me. Currently looking for inspiration all over again, and once my schedule clears up, I need to find a job and concentrate on myself and my art again. 

Fell in love with CocoRosie's Lemonade while looking through one of my favorite artist's instagram feed. It has been on repeat for the entire night.

xoxo.

151. twenty five

It was my birthday on Friday, but I met up with Yuri on the 17th to countdown. I slowly made my way to Hiyoshi from Ikebukuro after hanging out a bit with Hajime since he was in the area. Yuri and I went to get sushi for dinner and walked down to Tsurumi Gawa, we stopped by Donki Quijote on the way to get sparklers, but we ended up also getting a little box of fireworks and bubbles! It was quite a long walk to the river but it was well worth it.

When the clock stroke 12, she sang happy birthday to me and lit a candle of the little cake she bought earlier on and told me to blow out the candle to make a wish. After that we gobbled up the cake and started playing with the sparklers. Some of them were hard to light up, but it was so fun because we were being lame and doing stupid things, and she was recording some videos, which was so nice! We lit up the fireworks too and was in awe of it, even though it ended so fast. I was happy we got a little one because I've never played with those before, since it's banned in Singapore. So definitely was something really really nice. Once all the sparklers were gone, we started playing with the bubbles. I swear, we act like we just turned 5. 

We decided to walk back to her place at about 2am and got some food and drinks on the way. We wanted to stay out to talk but it started to drizzle, so we just went to her place. We stayed up till about 6am when I left to go home.

I got home at about 7am but didn't sleep till about 10am. I met up with her later on again in the late afternoon for dinner! But first, we went to Silkream because I really wanted nice dessert on my birthday. I decided to get the most expensive one they had since it was a special occasion, and oh my god, it was so good. There's parfait, a mini waffle filled with fruits and at the bottom of the parfait, there was still cheesecake! :3 Made me so happy.

We walked to Harajuku after that because I wanted to go to the rooftop at GYRE but it was drizzling, so we didn't spend too long there. She took videos and I just played with the bubbles. We went to A to Z Cafe for dinner. This time I got the rice bowl with tuna and cod roe, she got the chicken with salad. But the tuna and cod roe was actually really good. We just chilled there, and was just talking like any other ordinary day. Later on, she got dessert and I ordered fries. We stayed there till about 10ish and decided to go back to Shibuya to take some purikura!

But the purikura didn't turn out cute at all, I'm not a big fan of purikura on top of it, so it was kind of a bummer. We ended the day just by talking near Hachiko like we always do.

This birthday was actually a really nice one and reminded me of the things we did last Christmas. We were so happy because we had each other. It was so simple but it made me happier. The simplest things are always the best. I honestly don't think my other birthdays would be this special, this was one of the best ones. It's so simple and I'm so happy.

edit : Yuri finished making a short video for my birthday. ^^ I really liked the Kamakura one more maybe because I was so happy back then, but this one is pretty nice too.