I’ve started 2 new projects in the past few months!
One, I have already mentioned before is a fashion blog!
Fashion Maki is over here at: fashionmaki.wordpress.com
The other is a store selling stuff I’ve made and any of other cute items I come across!
Just made and posted some items today!
Find my creations at http://rikos_emporium.storenvy.com/
I also just came back from Australia with my friend Kelda, hope to write about it soon.
I quite miss blogging :P
I was watching “Stuck in Love” the other day, I would not recommend it unless you are like totally emotional (like on your period) and a hopeless sob like me. I quite liked it cause I related to some of the issues, hating your mum, wanting to be a writer… and also…. how I have not experienced life enough.
Some people look at me with my full make-up on and my japanese-styled clothes and go, “Oh, you must be a party girl”, “Total wild child here”, “How many boys have you snogged?”… And the truth is .. I’m just a goodie-two-shoes nerd who just happened to like some … “goth”? “dark”? things. I’ve been to a club twice, I’m sadly allergic to alcohol and smoke makes me cough.
I grew up in life never being in detention more than once (unless the whole class was ordered to by the teacher, so that doesn’t count) and that one time was probably because I forgot to bring my textbook to school.
When I was in primary school, we had a demerit point system where if you misbehave, you will gain 1 demerit point. Once you “collected” a grand total of 5 points, you will be in a lot of trouble. What trouble that is, I don’t really know. I never had a demerit point throughout my school years. I was always afraid of being bad.
Being “bad” was such a taboo thing, since it was drilled into my brain (courtesy of my primary school teachers) that you will suffer dire consequences. I think back now and the main reason why I strived so bloody hard to being “good” was because I wanted to please my parents so desperately.
Parents who viewed me as the black sheep of the family, who never wanted a girl, who never expected a second child. I was a sad accidental baby they had, unlike the golden child of the family: my elder brother. Who was the perfect child, scoring good grades and never getting into trouble. I had to strive to be better than him, or even on the same level as him just to get my parents’ approval.
I think back now and feel sorry about my childhood because I wasn’t daring enough. I was the sort of wallflower introvert and I hung out with people that was slightly… quieter. I was happy and in my comfort zone, I didn’t bother to go out of my way to make other friends. I was happy with the company I had.
Sometimes I feel embarrassed to admit that I’m not the ohsodaring person people think I am. It was awkward for me, talking to friends younger than me and who looked up to me as an elder sister, when they were talking about their bedroom activities because I had none to share, nothing to advise.
I think back about the choices I’ve made, the paths I took and wonder if it’s worth it. Is it worth it to be be “good” all the time? Miss primp and proper? Just to get a slight nod from my parents?
In 2014, I hope that I can find the courage to be more daring and adventurous because it is certain to me now, that I would never live up to my parents’ expectations of me, and any other effort on my part is such a waste of time. Waste of my life. I want to live a life that when I’m old and wrinkly, I can look back and feel appeased that I have stories to tell and experiences to share.
As I sit here and type this, I’m in the midst of a (already) 2-hour skype conversation with my best friend, alone in my room on a Saturday afternoon.
There’s not much a of a conversation really. The only sounds I make are the tic-tats of my keyboard and clearing my throat once in a while as I surf the net. And my best friend only says, “Oh shit ! Oh shit” from time to time, as she plays Left4Dead on her laptop. On and off, I can hear the distant sounds of her cousin fussing around in the kitchen.
As weird as it may sound, it is strangely comforting to be connected to someone (whilst wanting to be anti-social, #isthatweird). I caught a bad cold a few days past and am very reluctant to leave the house. Not because I would be spreading germs to innocent people, but the thought of not having enough tissue papers to curb my dripping nose is daunting.
While I do want to be a couch-potato; watch TV and snack on cookies all day, my taste buds have gone wonky and eating cookies feel nothing more than chewing on crunchy air. There is no taste and definitely no joy in my treasured treats. As such, I have holed myself up in the comforts of my room, hugging a soft toy, surfing buzzfeed and listening to my bestie curse over our call.
I am bored, hungry and upset but at least I feel somewhat “connected” to someone in my hour of gloom. Thank you glorious technology. For if without, I would be probably on the floor, scratching out carvings on my wooden floor.
I want to start writing again. Maybe it helps me mentally, if I pen down all my thoughts. So I don’t worry too much.
I hope to start again soon! Even if it’s a slow take-off, I will get there eventually (:
“I write to empty my mind and to fill my heart.” – Paulo Coelho
Finally backtrack to AFAID !
What can I say but.. wow! Haha.
AFAID experience prepared me for what was to come for AFASG’12!
It was chaotic and scary! Haha.
But I forged stronger bonds with many people!
This time, it was my responsibility to take care of the cosplay celebrity guests as well as some of the exhibitors.
We invited popular cosplayer Akatsuki Tsukasa!
She was admittedly, not my 1st choice, but I could not contact Mon Shie (.__.);;
BUT! Tsukasa was a surprise! I’m so happy it all worked out!
There were many embarrassing moments I will not say, but thank you for putting up with me, Ah Si!
We became friends since, together with Judy!
Also became friends with their care-taker, Alvin!
He’s amazing and always watching out for our health haha!
With the pretty Ah Si!
With Judy Jie~
Team Tsukasa!!!
I also got closer to Hajime-san, famous Japanese photographer! Haha!
He is hilarious! He gave me lots of gifts, keep squishing my cheeks and SUDDENLY did Japanese stretching exercises with me haha!
Also got closer to Mika-boo, whom we shared a room with!
I was worried for her non-stop (T_T)
Another person I got closer to was Kaname-san haha.
We finally talked haha!
I had to rescue him from fans and get him to his schedules on time!
He also crashed one of our colleague’s hotel room on the last night to eat all our left-over food haha!
4 of us were having a pity-party! haha!
We were so out of it, we bursted into song while watching MTV while Kaname looked at us like (o_O)? .
Kaname kept going “piKAAAchu!” on the second day too haha.
He is super good looking as Saruhiko!
I told him I wanted to cosplay characters from K too, and he suggested I go Kuroh~
Well, it’s on my list as well hah!
All the handsome butlers:
I gained another dongsaeng, the very good looking, Jino! (Top left) Haha!
All the pretty maids:
=3=
Missing Tora though (.__.) I forgot to colleage her pic aigo…
I also got closer to other colleagues as well! It was a good trip that I made many wonderful memories from!
I had the most fun there really! (>A<)
I never liked overly round glasses, but my recent trip to Japan and One spo changed my mind when the whole store was filled with shop assistants in cute dorky glasses! (*__*) So much cute!
Taken from one spo blog~ !
I remembered them being quite pricey .. and I know Singapore would have cheaper ones, so I quickly went to Bugis street to get my own XD
Tada!
Some outfit coordinates :
^ WC top, forever 21 shorts and tattoo stockings (random from Japan)
^ listen flavour top, nekomimi ears, leopard stockings from japan and black shorts from ONLY
Thought I would share something I came across yesterday~
I always had a fascination with Maiko and Geiko, I bought several books on them and loved the beauty and dedication of these beauties.
Click into YouTube for the rest of the episodes ^-^/
Decided to finally blog again due to unrevealing of all the lucky bags I purchased in Shibuya and Harajuku.
To be honest, I was only going to get lucky bags from Shibuya, and not go back into punk and lolita, but there were many good deals, so I couldn’t help it >_<
Harajuku started their fukubukuro sales first.
I eagerly queued up at Liz Lisa’s!
I wanted to get the premium trunk bag!
HOWEVER!
to my dismay… the trunk bag was sold out !! ahh! I missed it by ONE person infront of me!!
I bought a cheaper lucky bag:
<LIZ LISA>
All white coordinates!
The next day, I went to Shibuya 109 at 7.45am, and queued for like 15-30mins at the stairwell.
To my surprise, they had A LOT of trunk bags left, and there were 2 colours! White with pink accents or pink with white accents
Whatever they stated on their brochure / website is more or less what you will get~
<LIZ LISA>
The cashier who attended to me remembered me from the day before! She was like, “ah you were at harajuku!!” haha.
On my 2nd last day in japan (5 days after fukubukuro sales), liz lisa in shibuya 109 still had 3 pink trunk bags left~ The white ones were sold out~ they also had all the other bags~
Anyways, I’m not sure what time shibuya 109 opens, but it was definitely earlier than 7.45am! I saw many people with bags by the time I got there!
<WONDER ROCKET>
One of my first lucky bags was from wonder rocket.
I like most of their items (from momo) so I purchased one on a whimp..
To my surprise, it’s all mori-style!
I love a lot of fashion styles, but mori isn’t something I ever though of trying….
I love the skirt though! So poofy! No idea if I want to sell the skirt yet or not.. I’m still thinking >_<
<SWIMMER>
I also went to Swimmer.
I didn’t take much photos cause there were too many items!
Some of which includes, spectacle box, lantern night light, a pot, jewellery stand, a lot of stationery and notebooks, an apron, a pair of shorts
<ALICE AND THE PIRATES>
Feeling dismayed on my failed liz lisa trunk get on the 1st day, I went to harajuku and spulruged on alice and the pirates.
The Jumper skirt set was sold out, so I purchased a prince set:
From the site:
I went to Shinjuku Marui one and purchased the Jumper skirt set 2 days later!
<ALICE AND THE PIRATES>
In Harajuku, the BTSSB sets were sold out after one day, you can find most of the sets at Shinjuku Marui one though!
Since I purchased a metamorphose set earlier, and gotten a dark blouse, I wanted the coordinate with the white blouse instead.
I told the sales lady and she helped pick a lucky bag with a white blouse! I realised some customers do that when I was shopping, and tried my luck. Actually on the bags itself, the one I wanted to pick had the letter “W” and circled, so I suspected it was a white blouse, and the sales lady also picked that one up! The others were labelled “kuro”, so it was a dead give-away!
<ANK ROUGE>
For me, the ank rouge set was the most disappointing one :(
It had a lot of sweaters / thicker wear which I did not need.
<TRA LA LA>
The 5,000yen tralala sets were all very cute, so I bought one and am very pleased!
What you see in the brochure is mostly what you get~
<LDS>
I didn’t want to buy the LDS bag, but the shop assistant was yelling with such passion!! Also the bags were so cute!! I purchased a 5,000yen one (brown bear). There was a 10,000 yen one with a different bear.
Came with a pvc skirt, sweater and another pullover and a bear which I gave away ~
<PINKY GIRLS>
I walked around shibuya 109 and purchased a pinky girls fukubukuro as well!
The sales lady was very nice, explaining to me about what was inside.
For some reason, they also gave me some aroma sticks!
The pinky girls lucky bag is my favourite and most unexpected bag, because I really had no intention of getting it at the start. Also the fukubukuro bag was really well made!!
I wore 2 items (blouse and skirt) from the pinky girls set on my first day of work in 2013:
<ALGONQUINS>
One of my favourite punk brands is Algonquins! So naturally I would buy a bag! Although I had no idea what would be in it.. the sales girl tried to explain but I didnt understand a word haha.
A bit disappointed with this, I only used the outer wear a lot !
<METAMORPHOSE>
Their lucky bags came with styles, you can choose from, I bought this on the 2nd day of sales in harajuku, so many of the other styles were sold out.
Not too happy with a dark blue blouse, matching a white skirt…. so I may sell something, not too sure yet (>_<)
What I didn’t get cause they were sold out :
1. One spo: I dillydallied on the other floors, when I came down, the person infront of me got to the last bag first arghh
2. D.i.a: I went around the building so many times, but I hesitated, when I finally decided to purchase it, the bags were all sold out >_<
3. Cecil mcbee: I think these were long sold out before I could even blink
4. Putumayo: they had A LOT of bags on the 1st day, but sold out on the 2nd. Angelic Pretty as well!
Another brand I noticed with long queues besides liz lisa and d.ia is BACKS. So be sure to ge there early!
I didn’t get tutuha, mars, golds infinity, glad news, gilfy, mainly because the coordinates didn’t look nice or I had no clue what was in it @_@
See more gyaru reveals from Universal Doll!
SALES
I’m selling some of my stuff!
Please check my facebook album here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.117462625041411.17872.100003330226925&type=3
Shipping not included!!!
Please email me at narikodesu[AT]gmail.com with the items you want and your country, I will get back to you with shipping quotes.
Payment via paypal or local bank transfer.
I ship out every Saturday. But if I have more time, I will ship on weekdays ~
I have feedback on DenOfAngels under nariko_bisshi here
Oh goodness, I have not blogged in 6 months!
It must be my addiction to social media recently haha!
I shall now backtrack these 6 months of my life Haha!
As my friends know, I’ve recently joined a different company, after bumming around for 6 months and getting countless of rejections, mostly because I’m demanding too much for my salary haha!
I’m really thankful to have been accepted, Japanese pop culture is my passion. but not just pop culture, I love everything from Japan, from their traditional arts and crafts, their eccentric fashion, the music and down to geeky anime things like cosplay etc.
There were many ups and downs…one time I got so stressed, I went to the stairwell ,called my elder brother and cried my eyes out.
And everyone knows I HATE crying infront of people. Just gahh!
BUT!
There were many happy moments, like meeting all my favourite artistes and cosplayers! and I got to experience a lot of things I’ve always wanted to experience; event managing and copywriting (although not too big on this part =_=)
So my first event was Anime Festival Asia, Malaysia!
This is AFA’s first satellite event overseas! (ﾉﾟ▽ﾟ)ﾉ☆彡ﾜｰｲ♪
My first business trip overseas as well!
YAY!
Set-up of the stage!
Ly’s and my hotel room turned into a war-room/ store room as well haha!:
During my time in Malaysia, I got to meet a lot of wonderful friends! Thank you for a great time!
This is Kenny and Jay ahah!
Another great friend is Jeremy!
Kenny is my favourite bitchy buddy! Jay is always there to help out and so was Jeremy!
There were some unpleasant instances of course, but mostly my memories were filled with happy thoughts!
With super star cosplayer, KANAME!
Didn’t really talk to him much, I was being too fangirly, thinking about SPCats!
And here they are:
GOODNESS. Tasha is my number 1 cosplay idol!
I was too shy to say anything!
When I met them at the hotel to help them check-in, she automatically came up to me to say hi ad give me her cosplay card.
I was like star-struck so I didn’t talk much to them either (TT___TT)
I didnt even take a polaroid with them OTZ
I only snagged one pic with Tasha during the uchiage (>_<)
I also managed to watch some anisong concerts!
One of them being FLOW! fufufu!
They are super laidback and cool!
FIGHTING DREAMERS!
My fondest memory of flow was them hanging out at uchiage! And the plane ride back, one of the vocalist, Koshi, asked me what I was holding haha. It was 2 cushions from Kuroshitsuji haha!
I also grew really close to this guy, kai:
I actually didnt like Kai at the start HAHAA. He gave me a really bad impression when I first met him.
We became really close after AFAMY! haha!
My spend at AFAMY! Only purchased from MUSE:
Love these! They should come up with ones for Alois and Kuroko no basuke too!
Anyways, I’m really happy I made a lot of friends in AFAMY and forged stronger bonds with others.
There were times when I was scared? nervous? anxious? haha but all these experiences made me a stronger person, I feel! Haha! Also, due to the lack of sleep, I was a lot thinner haha!
I’m now going to fast-forward to AFA ID in my next post!
And skip a lot of things inbetween, like the wonderful, kick-ass OOR event! haha!
It’s hard to look right at you baby,
but here’s my number,
so call me…maybe?And all the other boys,
try to chase me,
but here’s my number,
so call me….maybe?
Coz that’s how I feel right now haha!
parfait prince ♔ 