A Sweet Halloween Mini-Meetup

Yesterday I went to a mini-meetup with some friends to try out the Halloween special at a special ice cream shop, Glacio. It is a part of the "exotic" food court at 板橋大遠百/Mega City in 板橋/Banqiao.


For NT$280/US$9.60 you can get this limited edition pumpkin cake and ice cream set. The cut-off finger cookie is free with every order!

Since pumpkin is not a popular flavor in Taiwan (sob) I was excited to try this!



This is what it looked like. I'd eaten a Subway sandwich before coming, so I did not order any savory food. That was a good idea because the serving sizes for the savory food was ENORMOUS!


An ice cream spider with chocolate legs and a chocolate spider web sitting on whipped cream and thin slices of chocolate cake. I ate this little fellow first, as he started melting under the warm sun!


Some chocolate ghosts coming out of a pile of fruit and whipped cream. The cookie finger with jam sauce was also quite delicious!


Yum!


Pumpkin mousse cake on a thin slice of pumpkin cake. It would have been better if it had been kept colder. I was unable to finish such a rich cake!


Size!


I thoroughly regret ordering this hot chocolate to go with. I was far too full and the hot chocolate really wasn't that good considering it is a real chocolate block and was quite expensive...


My outfit from the meetup! It's the JSK from the Lolita Runway Challenge :)


Normally, this puff pastry dish is what Glacio is most famous for. KAMIKO ordered this with her boyfriend. It is good for two people to split, because it is HUGE!


KAMIKO had some adorable bunny ear muffs, so we took photos!


Her matching mittens!


Dinosaur Lolitas are taking over Taiwan!

Hospital Hiatus

Hello, I am writing this from my mobile. I've been in hospital since Wednesday, which is why I haven't been blogging. I do hope to get out this week, though!
Stay safe and healthy! Do you gave any funny or interesting hospital stories to share? I'm so bored here!

Slightly Terrifying

I saw this today and thought it was terrifying but so appropriate for the approaching Halloween holiday, so I wanted to share!

Mother Nature has made a creepy critter with a skull painted on its head to scare off predators. I most certainly think it is effective!! Images under the jump in case anybody has a phobia of caterpillars!



Side view


Terrifying View

New Halloween decoration idea: Print off photos of this little guy and post him around your house. Far scarier than any skeleton or monster!

Do you like bugs? Or do you have a phobia of creepy crawlies? I get a bit squeamish around things with no legs or lots of legs (except for snakes. I don't mind snakes!) such as worms, centipedes, catterpillars, etc.

Teddy in Taiwan~ Aeropress Adventure

"Open this coffee! It's pumpkin spice coffee from America!"


"Add the coffee to the Aeropress"


"Plus some hot, hot water. Be careful! This is hot!"



"Time to take the plunge! Push gently"


"Wow, it smells so lovely! Here is your coffee!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is my teddy bear, Violet. I got her when I was about 3 years old. Everybody calls her Teddy, and she is my best friend!

I bought an Aeropress so I can make my own coffee at home. One of my friends in Minnesota sent me pumpkin spice coffee because pumpkin isn't a flavor here in Taiwan (tragic, I know!). I've been making my own soy lattes in the morning, and took these pictures the first time I used my Aeropress. It is quite easy to use and cleanup is very easy! The coffee grounds are compressed into a disk so you can just pop it out. There are tutorials online and on Youtube of people showing you how to use this, but I wanted to show Teddy using it!

Coffee is fantastically delicious, but buying it every day can be quite expensive. A 360cc cup of soy latte is NT$45 where I get it at Hot Coffee. 360cc of soymilk is NT$15 and makes about 475cc of soy latte when I add my strong coffee to it. This way, I can save about US$1 per cup! Of course, I will need to buy coffee, but it is still cheaper than buying a latte every day!

I wish Starbucks here had Pumpkin Spice Latte, but pumpkin is not a popular flavor at all. So far, my homemade lattes do not have a strong pumpkin flavor, so I may need to buy pumpkin puree to add to it and bring some autumn flavors to my life!

What is your favorite coffee flavor? Do you take it black? Or are the fancy frou-frou coffees from coffee shops such as Caribou Coffee and Starbucks more your thing?

Also, share photos of your favorite childhood toy if you want! I'm curious to see who else is still hanging on to their childhood toys! Teddy has gone camping, traveling, and moved across the planet with me! I want to hear about your adventures, too :) I made the dress she is wearing!

More Brand Halloween Products!

Micro-post to share that Angelic Pretty has come out with more Halloween-theme products!


The complete outfit is very fancy, but the key point is....




Cat mask headdress? It's super cute!


But when else would you wear such a headdress?
No worry...


The cat mask comes off to reveal a headdress you can wear regularly!

I think this is such a cute headdress! It wouldn't be too difficult to DIY one yourself, either!

Have you got any Lolita-theme costumes planned for Halloween?

Another International Loliday?

Most Lolitas celebrate International LoliDay twice - once on the first Saturday of June, and again on the first Saturday of December. Today I saw posts from other Taiwanese Lolitas wishing everybody a Happy LoliDay

As it turns out, the Lolitas here celebrate another Internation LoliDay on October 11. Why October 11?

Well, it is because the date, when written only in digits, appears as 1011. In 1337sp33k that reads "loli." How cute!

Has anybody else heard of this LoliDay? I like the origins of this LoliDay. Of course, I will still celebrate the LoliDays that EGL came up with (Saturdays are better times for meetups and having it biannually means one can wear a spring coord as well as a winter coord). How about you?

Happy Double Ten Day!

Hooray for no classes or work today because... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TAIWAN! You are 101 years old!

I wrote briefly about the history of our independence day here previously if you would like to learn more!



I wish I could say I was doing something fun, but I'll be home all day doing homework T^T

When is independence day in your country? How do you celebrate?
Have a lovely day, everybody!

Lolita Blog Carnival~ Three Trends I Never Followed

I've recently joined the Lolita Blog Carnival! Every week there will be a new topic for Lolibloggers to blog about and you can choose to join it or not. This week, the topic is three trends you could never get into.



Food Headdresses
Cake hats, ice cream cones, jelly hats, or what have you. I have never worn food on my head! The occasional fruit headdress I think looks all right, but the desserts headdresses looked a little too "theme" for me! Perhaps some sized-down headdresses would fit into my style better.
If I remember correctly, BABY started with a slice of cake headdress (which I couldn't even find a photo of) back in 2007 or 2008. Then AP made one. Then the food headdresses just got weirder and weirder...
Angelic Pretty ended up topping it off with a full, two-tier cake:

There was a boom in handmade felt cake headdresses for a while, then caulk and silicone cake headdresses. The ice cream and jelly never caught on quite like cake did, though...



images all from Angelic Pretty


Lots of Plastic Jewelry
When plastic/acrylic jewelry first made it into the Lolita scene a few years ago, some people commented on how cheap and infantile/childish they looked. I definitely agreed! While I DO wear plastic jewelry, such as my black ribbon ring, I personally don't care for the KandiKids/decora look of lots of plastic bangles and accessories. Some of them really are very cute, though!
I think I don't like the clear, glittery ones because they tend to look more like dollar-store kids' play jewelry such as these:

images from Angelic Pretty

I prefer the solid ones like these:

image from Angelic Pretty

And I'm on the fence about these ones:

images from Angelic Pretty, Angelic Pretty, and BABY, THE STARS SHINE BRIGHT

Wigs
In recent years, wigs have become a big thing, mostly in Deco Lolita. They are really nice and quick and easy to change up a look, but I personally don't like them very much! Especially the very obviously fake-looking wigs. Full, natural-looking wigs are OK to me and seem less like dress-up/costuming.

Wigs used to be used only in ads and magazines or photoshoots, but now your daily Lolita might be wearing a wig every week!

It started with the vertical split-tone wigs (a crossover trend from Gyaru fashion)

and later became blended like so:


Before the unnatural wigs, half-wigs, curs, and hime wigs were the most popular, like this:

It saves your hair from daily heat stylers and backcombing!

I have thought of getting unnaturally-colored hair extensions so that I don't need to dye my hair but can still do candy-colored hairstyles. Mixing unnatural hair with natural hair would create a more realistic and everyday style.

What trends do you like or dislike? Will you be willing to give one of them a try? I think I'm going to make a tone-down ice cream headdress and give it a try. Partially as a homework assignment for my Jewelry Design class, and partially because it's great to try new things! I'm curious as to what trends other Lolitas follow or don't follow, so please share in the comments below!

Please remember that these are just my opinions ;) I think it's great that other girls can wear full wigs or like plastic accessories or crazy headdresses! We're all different, anyway and it doesn't make anybody better or worse!

Other Blogs in the Loliblogger Carnival:
Will be updated as they are posted!
A Lace Jail
Starry Dreams
Ramble Rori
F Yeah Lolita
Make Lovely
Xylia X
Dollhouse Diaries
Rainbow Star Candy
Sweet and Simple
Laurita
Lolita Cor-de-Rosa
Lolita Poupee
Pop Princess
Darkly Darling