~LaLunaHollow

When we woke up at 8 on friday, we found that it was raining. So far, we had been very lucky with the weather, we had had sunny days all week. Though the smog had dampened the suns rays a bit it had still been warm. Today however it was poring down. We hoped that by the time we left the hotel it would have cleared up and to our joy it had... or so we thought.. short intense skurts of rain would follow us around all day! But of course we didn't now that as we walked to the subway that would take us to Harajuku.

Yes! finally we would be going to the place to be for japanees street fashion such as gothic and lolita! It was the one place next to Akihabara that I was looking forward to the most! I was really excited.
Our first stop was for crepés! the wonderfully sweet pancakes filled with cream or vanilla cream, ith fresh berries and fruits! we had fallen in loved with theese jummy masterpecies of snacks while in Akihabara and now we found them here in harajuku aswell.. it really was the jummiest breakfast ever in my life! I had a Vanilla Cream Dubble Berry! thats a crepe with fluffy vanilla cream and fresh sweet strawberries and blue berries! omg it was a tiny slice of heaven!
Just as in Akihahabara Harajuku is littered with small shops at the most odd places. If you think you can find a shop by keeping your eyes fixted in eyelevel you are greatly mistaken! many shops only have hints that they exsist at all. And those hints can be found in the windows at the 3ed floors in tall buildings, small signs at random doorwas or in another shops basment.
the second thing we did was to get lost. We thougfht we were walking up a street when in truth we were walking down it. finally we orient ourself by finding condomemania... yes, it's accatrly what it sounds like.. a condomeshop. It's filled with every kind of condome you can imagin to the novelty kind of "tiny whinner, equipted with a magnyfying glass to locate the tiny penis" to the fortune condomes, which as you open them with also contain a small paper telling your futer.. I can imagin it saying something like," you are about to have sex!"It was a crowded small store with lokts of giggleing teens and I can reccomend it for a laugh ^^
we had plannes to go to the big book shop named Book Off, it was suppose to be located close by , or more like, "accross the street from condomemainia lies Laforet, book off is located north of Laforet"... no... no it isn't.. it's not anywhere to be found.. really we couldn't find it and we looked for it almost all day!
we also visited fome second hand shops, hopeing to find second hand kimonos we were mildly dissepoined to find that the shops only contained western styl clotheing. we also whent looking for lolita stored but.. sadly we had probloms finding them too. However while (once again) in seartch of book off we saw a very cute lolita girl walking down the street! Seeing my chanse I walked up to her and in.. a very bad mix of japaneese and english I asked her where she had gotten her dress. She understod pretty fast what I meant and told me to go to Laforet!
we had walked past the big department store many many times never realizeing that it acctually contained at least some of the stores I was looking for! and let me tellyou.. even knowing they where in the department store, they where hard to find, manily cause we chose to go up... instead of down.. though really the place was littered with interesting stores!
finally finding the lolita shops in the basement I set out for the hard task.. choosing what outfit to buy.. and of course the clothes don't com cheep. One lolita dress was around 27000 yen thats 1500kr!! in other words I could only afford one dress, and that would be it as I was yet to find a furisode kimono.
at first it lookd like just one store, but it turned out the basment contaned many small shops right next to eachother with out any real way to keep them apart at first glaze. they did however hav thin walls seperating them and small signs. I only recognized some store namne s like Angelic pretty ( sweet lolita shop) Mary Magdalen (elegent lolita shop .. my favorit so far ^^) ..
I walked around in every store at least 3 or 4 times.. the store owners must have thought I was crazy walking round and round. Finally I found a red dress in [link] that I just loved and decided to try it on.. the young man helping me firts thought I wanted to know the price but he finally let me try it on.... and .. yes.. it was too small over the arms.. it fit everywhere else execpt the shoulders. crestfallen I tryed on a different dress at a different store, it was a yellowish champane color but it was too big! aargh!
finally giving up we left for the small back allies and streets. by now it was pooring rain but there where enough interesting shops to keep our spirits up... I found a sceond hand shop on the 2con floor in a back ally that had a lolita dress but this one was also too big...
as I walked out I saw a familliors sign on the second floor accross the street, Bodyline! running ovver I found not only the store, but also an outlet store for last season! YES lolita clothes on sale! Bodyline is acctually not the best bran of lolitha clothes out there as they are cheep and some of them look it. But I didn't mind as I knew from haveing visitet their webbpage many times that they had some nifty stuff aswell. Happy beond exsplanation I set in seartsh of the best dresses in the place.. and they had a LOT!everything from chinese dresses to punk to lolita to maids.. accrually they had the maidoutfit I had bought in a Akihabara for sale.. instead of 10000yen it was now 4000yen.. and so was almost everything else! I walked ournd for such a long time in there that Johannes got bored and went to sit on a bench outside (it had stopped raining for a while) I checked and compared every dress in there at least 4 times. Finally I settled on a gothic lolita dress, a lolita schoolgirl, a lolita kimono and a black headgear/ribbon/bonette. all in all I got it for the same price as one highbrand lolita dress and they looked like they were.
we then looke for a hundred yen store, where almost everything thinkabal could be bought for only a 100yen. Needless to say I bought allmost all my suviners in that shop. then it was back out into the pissing rain.. in fact it was pouring down so much we had to buy a umbrella.
We whent back to try to find book off.. still no luck... all the manga we didn't get to see or buy makes me sad -_- but we keept going for Oriental Bazaar and this is a place I can really recommend to everyone going to tokyo and wants to buy some tradisional japanese goods for a resonal price. they had everything from furneture to the kind og makeup boxes that geishas used. most of the stuff in there were replicas of the real deal but they had some antiq things mixt in. one of those things was a black silk obi with real gold embroderese. it was beautiful.
When I realized they had kimonos I got really happy, and seeing a comepletly wite kimono with long sleeves in a corner I grabbed the closes person that worked there and asked if it was a furisode. Suprised that I knew the word furisode she exsplaned to me that it was a wedding kimono, Johannes then asked for an obi (as he didn't know he already had a belt to tie his kimono) she then asked if it was for his mother... no.. after exsplaining she prudused a belt for him though a cupbord. Yes that right,.. everything wasn't on display. I once again asked for a furisode and she was more than happy for show me an entire cupbord full of them all hidden away where they couldn't be seen. and boy where thy pretty! I asked for a red one and she found a red and pink kimono with lovely blue and gray flowers printed on and small silver detailes.. it is the prettiest kimono I have ever seen Oo but.. it was pink, though I fit in pink it is not a color I like very much so I was hesitant to buy that one or a light green one... the lady then said I should try it on. Yes ^^ I tryed it on in the store ^^ it was so fun! she made me take my jacket off then she put a juban on me, at this time she realized my hair was too long in it's braid to look napanees and the diadem I was wearing had a big bow. she then set out, comepletly to my suprice to put my hair up in a bun, using her own small hairpins.. and of course my hair did not stay where she wanted it so she lft to get bigger hairpins.. still it didn not work and I finally hadf to put it up myself, though she seemed to find that a bit unthinkabal. I think she just got so frustraed with my hair that she didn't want to give up.
after puting on the kimono, she made me pick an obi, then she put that on aswell and tied it in a bid bow at my back. I looked wonderfull if I may say so myself ^_^
Now the woman took it upon herself to take my diadem and bend it (!!!!) and sticking it into my sad exscuse for a bun!!! she almost broke it! all so that I would look more japanees in my kimono. I finally decided to buy the red and pink kimono and she set out to find me the perfect obi. the entire time she did all this we chatted about all kinds of stuff. where we came from, how we loked japan, how much better she thought sweden was compared to japan and how we thought vise versa it was fun ^^ I really liked her a lot and oO I kinda wish she was my friedn.. or maybe my grandma hehe
I didn't have enought mony left to buy an obi aswell so I just bought the kimono. By now I had learned what the tray on the cunter was for.. you as a custumer is exspected to place the mony on the tray, that way you wont have to accidently tuch the person behind the cunter and so on.. I dunno why really.. it's just one of those things..
The lady made me promis to wear my hair up when I wore it and to use pretty jwelery in my hair to look more japaneese ^^ she even gave me an extra bag for the one I had gotten at bodyline had broken from the weight from rain and 3 dresses.
Oriental Bazzar was the last store we visited in Harajuku, for dinner we left for Akihabara and ate at Curry Kitchen. At Curry Kitchen you don't order your food like at normal resturants instead you buy a ticket for the food you want at a machine. the machine have pictures of the food so it's easy to use even if you don't read japanese. you then take your ticket and give it to the waiter at the cunter and sit down to wait, within minutes you get your food.. rice, curry and a peice of meat of your choise. if anyone have ever played Final Fantasy 7 you should know what I am talking about as Cloud has to do this in the slums.
after this we whent home.. wet tired and aching.. I had now comepletely run out of mony but it had been a great day..