Meeting Novala Takemoto and Wearing Lolita for the First Time

Hello loves^^ January has flown by so fast; it literally felt like it was December yesterday. The one perk is that hopefully we can experience Spring weather soon. Earlier this month Tif and I found out that the Baby the Stars Shine Bright/Tokyo Rebel store in NYC would be having an event with Novala Takemoto. I'm super mad that I missed AKIRA when she came, so I def wanted to meet Novala. Being new to the Lolita fashion, I'm still learning, but I had already heard that Novala, Mana, and Misako Aoki are very revered in the Lolita fashion community.

I decided to spend the night at Tiffany's house on Friday after work so we got get dressed together. Her family's house is really warm and relaxing, and it was nice to meet her family members. Saturday morning we woke up a little late since the event wasn't until late afternoon. Boy, did we have some outfit shenanigans lol We changed outfits a few times due to fitting issues on both sides and were both semi-frantic and frustrated. Eventually, we both let the other know that the other looked fabulous. We both were just overthinking our individual coords but that the other looked awesome. It just goes to show that people tend to be hard on themselves. Tif is really the bomb, I'm so happy that we became awesome friends. My previous job was very toxic for both of us, but she is one of the best things that came out of it for sure.

We made it to the store around 3:15, 3:30 and luckily there wasn't a line which surprised us. Novala greeted us as soon as we walked into the door and shook our hands. He was very nice :) He even complimented me on my hair and took a picture of it on his cell phone.

We took a picture together and I got his autograph ^_^

Parade: Book Review

Hi blog fam! I recently finished Parade by Shuichi Yoshida and really enjoyed the book. I'm also pretty proud of myself for being on my reading game and consistently reading books. I have yet to select my next book, but I am bouncing around a few titles. I would like to read more YA, so I may watch a few vids from a Youtuber I follow that reads a lot of YA titles and see what she recommends.

Parade follows five people that live together by chance in a small apartment. Each character has a chapter dedicated to them from their perspective. The novel explores what happens when people that have no ties to each other live together.  The novel explores complex human dynamics within ourselves and our relationships. Spoilers will be under the cut.

Characters

• Ryosuke Sugimoto- 21 year old male college student that is working part time
• Kotomi Okochi- 23 year old unemployed woman dating an idol
• Mirai Somai-  24 year old woman that loves to party
• Satoru Kokubo- an 18 year old that sells his body
• Naoki Ihara- a 28 year old man that works at a film distributor

LINE PLAY vs. CocoPPa Play

Hey bun buns! Hope you aren't freezing in this weather. It's gotten pretty cold here in NYC, but that hasn't stopped Boba and I going on mini dates. I discovered a new cell phone game called CocoPPa Play, and I absolutely love it! It reminds me of Line Play which I started playing back in 2013, but stopped in March. I wanted to take the time to compare both games.

First up is Line Play^^

Line Play is an avatar game made by LINE Corporation. This company also made the super popular messaging app LINE. Tiff and I visited their holiday pop up shop in my last blog post. You basically create an avatar and can buy items and clothing to decorate your avatar and your room. Some items included furniture like beds to Gacha items that can be character themed like Sailor Moon, Hello Kitty, and Rilakumma. They also have rooms for famous Asian stars like Lee Min Ho. The game of course has lots of J fashion and super cute items.

You travel to different rooms and can perform tasks that will give you gems. You use gems to purchase items in the game, you can also use your real money to purchase gems.  There's also mini games and other places you can visit.

Line Pop Up Shop in Times Square

Hey hey hey! I hope you enjoyed your holidays^^ I got to relax my butt off and play lots of video games with Boba, so I def had a good one. Speaking of video games Boba did his first live stream on Twitch of him playing Destiny on his Xbox One. He was super adorable! I was also able to spend a lot of time with a few of my good friends. Tiff and I decided to have a date and visit the Line Pop Up Shop in Times Square before it closed its doors as it was open for a limited time.

As soon as you walked in the door they had a super adorable Cony statue that we just had to pose with. Peep Tiff's adorable Line shirt with Brown and Cony on it. I think that those two characters are my favorite.

It was a lovely store and was quite large which took me by surprise due to its Time Square locations. Most pop up stores in that area are very small. They also had an amazing selection! They had different kinds of plushies, stationary, folders, cell phone straps, stamps, and much much more. I even saw plates and glasses!