Sunday, March 27, 2011

Visiting the Gibson House Museum

I was in Boston for the past week, and on Friday I went to the Gibson House Museum.  It's a historical house from the Victorian period that was preserved by its owners as a museum piece.  It's located right in the heart of Boston, and sadly is the only one that is left preserved, as its neighbors have been renovated into apartments or college dorms.

Here it is!

We got a one-hour tour of the house, which consisted of the basement, ground, 2nd, and 3rd floors.  I took a couple of photos of things I found particularly interesting to me, but feel free to visit their website to find out more if you're curious!

We saw the dining room first:





 The tableware was very pretty, and there were several more sets stored in cabinets around the room!

The next picture I have is from the music room.  The piano is a Mason-Hamlin, and it has a butterfly hinge design, meaning that it's symmetrical, and the lid can be opened to either direction.  That's pretty cool!!  If only I could have played it XD


Next, we went up the back staircase to get to the 3rd floor.  There was a really cool-looking telephone on the wall:


And the third floor had... a study room, which I didn't take any pictures in... and a bathroom!  Which incidentally didn't look all that different from bathrooms nowadays.  The toilet is prettier?



And next to that was the bedroom, with beautiful furniture.  I only took a picture of the writing desk, because that was my favorite:


Oh, apparently the Gibson House was particularly awesome for a Victorian house, because it actually had sort of a central heating system.  There was a big circular channel going up through the middle of the house from the 2nd floor up, which apparently would help all the hot air circulate up the middle of the house and into the living areas, and allow the cold air to go down the back/side staircases, creating a nice airflow and distribution of heat.  I tried to take a picture, but the sun made it kind of hard:


Last but not least, we went into the basement to see the laundry room and the kitchen.  There was an awesome call-bell system that was still in place:


Also, I thought the rice jar and its matching littler cousin was pretty:



So there you go!  A brief whirlwind through the Gibson House.  There were lots more things in there that I didn't take pictures of, partly because my camera was giving me the low-battery warning T_T.  For example, there was a cabinet Victrola in the music room that was really cool, and there were sooooo many books all over the house!!  Also, the butler's pantry had awesome teacup sets - including a pastel-colored set, where all the cups were a different pastel color <3<3<3  Such an awesome idea... I totally need one!!

Anyways, a more fashion/outfit-related post pertaining to my trip will be coming soon, but I thought the Gibson House was too awesome to not share (^o^)/

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Tea Party @ The Drake!

To open this post in a less-than-bubbly fashion... Everyone knows about the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, with the subsequent nuclear reactor situation.  I'm lucky that all my friends live in Tokyo, so they are all safe and in much better conditions than the hard-hit regions.

I had stopped following American news media, mainly out of laziness, but after seeing how they reported this natural disaster, I have decided they are largely full of money-grubbing/ratings-chasing idiots and will now actively decide to not follow/highly distrust them.  Their fear-mongering of the nuclear situation was entirely unnecessary, and only incited panick rather than helping anybody.  I'm also now painfully aware of how gullible large portions of the US population are...  But then again, most people don't have much knowledge about radiation/nuclear science; heck, even I have very little knowledge, and trust my boyfriend to be honest about giving me the info on this stuff.  What makes me mad most is that it made everyone essentially FORGET about the people are still struggling to survive in the shelters all over the Tohoku region...  A lot of people, living in winter weather with no heat, no food, no water...

That said... please, especially now that the nuclear situation is coming back under control... if you haven't already, please donate to any of the number of organizations that are helping with relief efforts in Japan.  Even a little bit, $10, will add up if a lot of people donate.  So please do so!!

List of good organizations (both US and international) can be found here: http://thecrowandtheradio.blogspot.com/2011/03/list-of-international-trustworthy.html

Now on to less ranty/sombre stuff...  Weird juxtaposition, isn't it?

**********************************************************************************

I got to go to a lovely fancy tea at The Drake yesterday!  Many thinks to Alice for working so hard to host the party!

It was my first time going to any sort of fancy tea service, and I was very pleased <3  The tea was great, the snacks were tasty, and I had a wonderful time meeting new people and hanging out with friends ^o^

I used this opportunity to debut my Viennese Waltz Frill JSK from Innocent World, as well as my pink heels that I bought specifically to match "IW Pink" (the dusty rose color that IW tends to call "pink").  I also spent like a hour curling my hair so it would blend in with the two large-pieces from my extension set.  I think I need more practice at being a girl... an hour just to curl hair and clip in extensions is way too long XD

Picture!

JSK: Innocent World
Blouse: Metamorphose
Socks: Innocent World
Headbow: Innocent World
Shoes: Secret Shop

I think I need a better petticoat for my empire-waist dresses...  And I just need a new petticoat in general, but that's another issue. ^_^

Tea was followed by hanging out, and going to a vintage sale as well as I Cream, where they make liquid nitrogen ice cream!!!! <3<3<3

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Jpop Bonanza!!!

Well, totally not fashion-related, but getting new CDs is always an exciting part of my life, so I figured I might as well share ^o^  ESPECIALLY ARASHI CDs!!!

Lotus, their newest single! ^_^  I absolutely love this song... it's different from the majority of their other songs which tend more to the bubblegum pop side, or at least gentle ballads.  Lotus is on the more intense and dramatic side, which is cool!  And all the boys sound great in it, especially my lovely Nino ^o^  And the dance is awesome too, so much so that I'm even considering learning it as a dance cover, even though it's a little weird for a girl to dance-cover a boyband? I don't know XD
I got the Limited Edition because I wanted the pretty lyrics booklet with all their photos in it >_>;;  That means I don't get the 2 B-sides, and I have a DVD that I can't actually watch in any of my DVD players... but IT'S OKAY, right?  Pretty pictures...

Also, also, also, AKANISHI JIN's debut single Eternal!!! Containing two of the most beautiful jpop songs (in my repertoire, anyways).  While his voice can't compete with my lovely Nino's, or even Ohno's heavenly one, he's still fantastic, and the fact that he can COMPOSE such awesomeness makes up for any vocal lacking...
Got the... some-letter edition... XD  There were like 5 versions...  This one didn't have the extraneous DVD, but still had a pretty insert-sized photo booklet.  Yay!

And the third jpop awesomeness is AAA's new album Buzz Communication.  ^_^  I adore this group... they have an awesome mix of singing, dancing, and rapping skills, and one of their leads Takahiro Nishijima has one of the most wonderful male singing voices ever (I love him so much, even if he looks kinda awkward in some pictures) XD  I really like their most recent style, which works out great for this album ^_^
It came with so many unexpected extra goodies O_O  A member trading card (I got Urata...), plus a really beautifully done glossy-covered photo booklet!! Haha awesomeness!! ^_^

Also... my roommate bought a soysauce flavored KitKat bar on eBay, and we tried it today.  It was... interesting.  Tasted more like a cross between white chocolate, vanilla, and maple syrup.  Certainly not soysauce XD


On a more fashion-related note, my package from Innocent World arrived today, but I ordered with Yoshi-chan, so I won't be opening until we meet up on Monday evening ^_^

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

[Outfit Post] Lolita at School

One of the things I'd really like to write an entire entry about one day is that of balancing my fashion taste with what's considered appropriate for my everyday lifestyle.  Being a graduate student in a social science, I have more leeway with what I can wear on a daily basis (no restrictions from lab activities, etc), but at the same time, I have to be careful when attending conferences and other events outside of my home university.  It would be unfortunate to become "that girl who wore the crazy costume at the LSA".

At the beginning of my Lolita journey, I was very much straddling the sweet/classic divide, and felt magnetically attracted to all the OTT sweet things.  To the point where I even attempted a bit of a dabbling (for example, I have the Bodyline carousel skirt in pink, and a variety of fluffy Chocomint bows of all sizes).  However, I've more recently started being more honest with myself, and realized that while I looooove looking at OTT sweet (and I mean looooooooooove), I never really feel comfortable actually wearing anything that flashy, and it's really a more muted type of sweet, bordering on classic, that really makes my heart throb, and makes me feel most at home.  And luckily, this direction also fits in better with trying to not look toooo crazy to the academic world.

Long-winded stream-of-consciousness is long-winded.  The point is, I decided I wanted to dress up a little for a presentation today, because hey, dressing up makes me feel better, even if every other aspect of my day is a failure.  So I put together a very simple coord that is comfy (yay cutsew), but still pretty.  I've been finding that my headbands, lovely as they are, all give me a splitting headache, so until I have time to remove the decorations and turn them into clips/demi-headbands, I've just been mostly foregoing head decoration.  Which makes me sad, but hey, spring break is soon, so I can revamp all my hairthings then!

As for my outfit... le voila!


Skirt: Bodyline
Cutsew: Innocent World
Shoes: Secret Shop

Now I just have to survive the rest of this quarter before I get a short break!! ^_^