This is part three of my continuing adventures as a Japanese Lolita. If you need to catch up, part one is here, and part two is here.

After picking out a dress with the famous (and deathly cute) Misako Aoki, it was off to a salon in Harajuku. The salon is called Maison de Julietta and they actually just started offering Lolita makeover packages, so if you’re interested in getting your own Lolita makeover in Tokyo, it’s possible!

How could we be Lolitas without tea and cookies?

Because this is Japan, every single person in the room (including me) is taking photos of the cookies and tea.

 Ughhhhhh, why is Misako Aoki so adorable?

They cut my hair into straight bangs (which every hairdresser in Japan so far has done), and curled my hair. Keiko’s face is the best part of this photo, even though there’s not that much to be shocked about. Apparently straight bangs and curly hair makes a difference, but I think I look pretty much the same. I also learned that the little pieces of longer hair that hang on either side of your bangs (you can see them better on Misako) are called hime (princess) pieces. Of course they are.

Lolita hair complete!

Just what I love: being poked at in the face while someone takes photos.

They slapped some blush and fake eyelashes on me and now I’m a Lolita.

LOLITAS FOREVER.

Misako took this photo of me with my iPhone. My inner five-year-old is pleased.

Misako shows off how this Lolita thing is done.

I am but a poor imitation.

With the Maison de Julietta stylist. What are we looking at? Someone probably threw candy at us or something.

 This is the most Japanese that I will ever be, I thought to myself as we wandered the streets of Harajuku.

You might  think that walking around Harajuku would have been the most embarrassing part of the day, but it totally wasn’t. It is completely NOT WEIRD to dress like this and no one even gave us a second glance. I felt more normal than I do as a tourist.

Posing with our cake after lunch, because that’s what Lolitas do. Lunch was at some restaurant in Harajuku that is apparently popular with the Lolita crowd. Over lunch, I found that Misako is a nurse in her non-Lolita life!

After lunch, we headed to one of the greatest stores in Tokyo — Kiddyland! Kiddyland is packed solid with five floors of toys. The fourth floor (my favourite) is devoted entirely to Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma. Part of my prize included ¥100,000 (just over $1000 CAD) to spend on Harajuku shopping. YES, ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS TO SPEND SOLELY ON CUTE THINGS.

Another store we went to was Spinns. It’s not Lolita fashion, but they have a lot of fun, cheap stuff. I was kind of in shock or something while I was shopping. The $1000 to spend was a surprise — I didn’t know that it was part of the prize beforehand. I ended up with a bunch of skirts, including one with a pancake print, and this one with unicorns on it! UNICORNS.

We also went to Milk and Baby, the Stars Shine Bright, which are both full of Lolita goodness. At Milk, I picked out the same heart-shaped bag that Misako is carrying (but in black, because I can only go so far with this Lolita thing in real life).

Covert photos by Mike of the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright store.

It was about now that they told him he couldn’t take photos.

This is one of the assistants posing with all my bags of stuff.

Shopping makes you hungry and if you’ve ever been to Harajuku, you’ll know that crepes are the primary food source of Lolitas.

Strawberry cheesecake crepe for me! My favourite kind, and I didn’t even pick it. Someone just handed it to me.

I do not know how to make my face into the appropriate expression for posing with a crepe.

Random Misako Aoki fans came by, dressed in their own awesome way.

This might be THE MOST AMAZING PHOTO EVER. It basically sums up Japan for me.

Onward to a store devoted to legwear. Tights galore!

Hello Kitty tights!

Heart tights! The store ended up giving us some free tights, I assume because Misako is famous and I was just there.

Yeah, not weird at all.

After shopping, we were ushered into a very cool Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant. It was kind of crazy, because they’d booked the entire restaurant for us, so it was otherwise empty. But more about that in the next entry!

In the final part of this Lolita saga, I try to eat myriad Alice in Wonderland dishes with faces made out of sauce, get presents from Misako Aoki, and finish up my time in Tokyo before heading back to Osaka.

 

Yeah, I know I said I’d stop posting about cherry blossoms and they’ve long stopped blooming here. But! I did go see them one last time in Osaka, at the Osaka Mint Bureau. The Mint has a ton of late-blooming varieties so it’s open for viewing a week or so after the regular sakura trees have lost their petals. Most of the trees are yaezakura (double cherry blossoms), which are much fluffier than the ones you usually see. The Mint has specific opening hours, and you can’t hanami under these trees, but it’s still nice to see the cherry blossoms one last time.

I hear that the cherry blossoms are blooming in High Park at home right now — so if you’re in Toronto, you can still hanami it up.

Fluffy!

Two varieties of cherry blossom on one tree? How that is possible, I do not know.

After we wandered through the cherry blossoms, we were hungry. The park surrounding the Mint is lined with food stalls at night. For me, some takoyaki (of course)! Mike had a variety of sausages on sticks but that’s boring so no photos.

This was some sort of Chinese thing. I don’t know what it’s called in English, but in Japanese it’s シャーツビン. It was kind of like a very large steamed bun that was flattened on a grill. It was DELICIOUS. It was greasy and salty and chewy in a good way.

You can tell that food will be tasty if there’s a long line.

Tamago senbei (egg rice cracker)? What is that? Well, for only 200 yen, let’s find out…

Why, it’s a giant senbei with an egg, rice crispies, and a liberal amount of Japanese mayo!

This just looks so cozy. Oh, Japan.

I did not eat these チーズボール (cheese balls) but I wish I did.

This will REALLY be the very last post about cherry blossoms. Unless I go to Hokkaido, where they’re still blooming. But that’s pretty unlikely…

…or is it?