One of the main reasons for my trip was to attend my favourite band's summer tour. I mean, I would've gone ofcourse even if they didn't have any gigs, but since they announced fanclub only tours for the whole year and one of them was during the summer, I waited for the dates and booked my flights according to those.

Once the tour dates were announced, I decided to get tickets for three of them (all in Tokyo, because I didn't wanna travel too far and get lost lol) and luckily I got tickets to all gigs I wanted to! Here's a little summary of each concert:

SETLIST 1 ART DRAWN BY VOMIT 2 agony 3 COCKROACH 4 LEECH 5 MOB 136 BARS 6 A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 7 GENTLE LIE 8 [子宮] 9 紅蓮 10 千鶴 11 13STAIRS[-]1 12 BURIAL APPLICANT 13 CIRCLE OF SWINDLER 14 HEADACHE MAN 15 OGRE 16 LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ 17 関東土下座組合 encore 18 Ride with the ROCKERS 19 ワイフ 20 DISCHARGE 21 Filth in the beauty

Okay, so! The first of the three gigs I was about to attend, was on my second day in Tokyo. I had just spent my first night in my rented room and woke up feeling kinda like "woah, where the hell am I?". Anyway, I got up, went to grab some breakfast from 7Eleven and started getting ready for the gig in the evening (I tried to curl my hair but wow, it didn't work at all because of the heat and humidity). Luckily I had an idea where the concert venue would be, since I had been to Odaiba on my previous trip to Japan. I got to the venue early enough, so I had time to look for the office box where I was supposed to pick up my ticket from. Found it, got my ticket, did some merch shopping (I bought the keychain and mini pouch) and started waiting for the gig. At this point I was all by myself, because Anna, who was about to join me for this gig, had some trouble getting her ticket (which she had bought from another fan), so she didn't arrived to the venue until later. After she arrived, I met up with her and her friends and we went to put our stuff into a coin locker at the train station so it would be easy to get them back after the gig. This was btw my first ever gig in Japan, so I was all new to the live culture in there. Unlike in Finland, you don't have to wait in line to get in to the venue, because you have a number on your ticket which tells you when you can go in. Mine was 1221, so I got in when they called people between 1200 and 1299 or something like that. After that you paid the drink fee (¥500) and got coin you could change into a drink at any point of the concert you wanted to.

After getting the drinks, we ran to the concert hall and took the spots we liked/could and waited for other friends with bigger numbers to get in and join us.

Finally the gig started and woooow it was something else. Now, I've seen the GazettE live twice before, but only in Finland and the atmosphere was totally different. When in Finland, the only thing you do during the lives is raise your fist (and then maybe changing to the other hand because your arm gets tired) and mosh, in Japan, each song has different furis (furi = things you do with your hands during the song, kind of a coreography) or other things literally everyone does during each song. I knew this was how it was going to be, because I had heard about it, but it was still so cool to actually experience it.

I was a little afraid I wouldn't know all the furis, but it was easy to catch up by watching what other fans were doing. So instead of just staring at the band, doing things and having fun together as an audience, is a much better way to spend a gig and just having your eyes glued to the band.

The songs I liked the most were probably 13STAIRS[-]1 because I reeeeally wanted to hear it live (it's one of my favourite gaze songs), ワイフ (waifu) because it's one of their first songs and it was really cool live, AND 関東土下座組合 (kantō dogeza kumiai) because they never play it outside Japan and it has a really specific feeling to it. It was great.

There was two weeks between the first and second gig I attended. At first I was prepared to go alone to this one, but I got to know that Domi, whom I follow on Twitter, was also coming to this one. I messaged her and decided to meet her and her friends once before the live! When the day came, I first went to just pick up my ticket from the venue and then had dinner with Anna and Rena (who weren't coming to this live) quickly before the live. The time went by really quickly and I had to run back to the venue after eating to get there in time lol. Because of the tight schedule, I had to leave my stuff with Anna and ask her to put them into a locker at Shibuya station, but luckily that was okay and she was able to just text me the locker code so I could get them out after the gig came to an end. After getting in, I spotted Domi and the others in the audience and joined them for the live! The spots we got were reeeally good because even though we we're on the "back", the venue was quite small and we were standing on a platform (and because japanese people are short haha) we had a clear view to the stage! In one of the pics I snapped, you can see a girl wearing a t-shirt that says "green moral" on the back. I thought that was funny since the GazettE's merch brand is called "black moral", so what the hell was that.... The best songs during this live were probably Sugar Pain and obviously [DIS], because I did not expect to hear that one live at all!!

SETLIST 1 ART DRAWN BY VOMIT 2 agony 3 HEADACHE MAN 4 Hyena 5 MOB 136 BARS 6 Sugar Pain 7 CALM ENVY 8 紅蓮 9 千鶴 10 13STAIRS[-]1 11 BURIAL APPLICANT 12 A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 13 CIRCLE OF SWINDLER 14 COCKROACH 15 OGRE 16 LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ 17 関東土下座組合 encore 18 Ride with the ROCKERS 19 [DIS] 20 DISCHARGE 21 Filth in the beauty

SETLIST 1 「剥離」 2 THE INVISIBLE WALL 3 LEECH 4 COCKROACH 5 MOB 136 BARS 6 BEFORE I DECAY 7 ガンジスに赤い薔薇 8 白き憂鬱 9 泣ヶ原 10 DIM SCENE 11 13STAIRS[-]1 12 A MOTH UNDER THE SKIN 13 IN THE MIDDLE OF CHAOS 14 HEADACHE MAN 15 OGRE 16 LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ 17 関東土下座組合 encore 18 Ride with the ROCKERS 19 Rich Excrement 20 DISCHARGE 21 Filth in the beauty

...aaand the final gig! Me and Rena had decided to do some outfit shopping and get our hair done before the live, because it was also the tour final! We met in front of Shinjuku Alta and continued our way to the top floor to buy red dresses from Fernopaa (also ended up being snapped for Fernopaa staff blog hehe). The idea behind the red dresses was because the GazettE has a song called 赤いワンピース (akai onepiece = red onepiece = red dress) and we were hoping they would play it for the final :D After we were done shopping for the dresses, we went to book a time for hair-dos. While waiting for our turn, we had lunch at Saizeriya. While eating, I tried to find a pic from Tumblr of the kind of hairset I wanted, so it would be easier to explain it to the hairdresser, because my japanese isn't that good yet. When it was time to get our hair done, we explained the kind of hair we wanted and the hairdressers started working right away. The salon we went to was Loove in Kabukicho. The hairset cost something like ¥1600 and it took 15minutes when I had 2 girls curling my hair, haha. Getting my hair done in Japan was something I've wanted to do for a long time and it was really fun and cheap too! If you ever visit Japan, please try it! After we were done, we met up with Anna and went to take some purikura before the gig. Shortly after we had to take a train to Shinkiba where the venue was located.

In the front of the venue we ran into Domi and the others and decided to join them for the live. The spots we got were kinda in the middle of the venue, a bit more on Uruha's side, but the venue was quite big so there was still a lot of people in front of us.

This live, being the tour final, started a bit different than the previous ones. The coolest songs were probably ガンジスに赤い薔薇 (ganges ni akai bara) because it had the cool flames and Uruha seemed to have some problems during the song because some staff members were fixing his things almost during the whole song lol. DIM SCENE had an amazing light show and it was extremely emotional, not to mention they played 白き憂鬱 (shiroki yuutsu) and 泣ヶ原 (nakigahara) just before it...

The audience got a bit too crazy during LINDA～candydive pinky heaven～ and people, me included, started falling over eachother. But luckily everyone was super nice and started pulling us back up right after we fell and everyone could continue dancing to their hearts content. Rich Excrement was also really nice to hear live.

Even though they didn't end up playing 赤いワンピース that me and Rena had hoped for, the live was amazing nevertheless. And I must say I have never sweated so much during a live! It was so hot that all of my lashes fell off and my hairset was totally destroyed (see the last pic, haha).

After the gig I decided to head home because I was sooo tired. I actually fell asleep in the train and drove past my stop and had to change it so I could get back, haha.

Going to lives in Japan was a great experience that I hope to redo sometime in the future! I would definitely like to see the GazettE again and also attend to my other favourite band's lives as well!

Throwback to last summer! Here's an outfit I never posted (except for the last photo). I ordered some merch from Black Moral when the GazettE's scene 02 aka Pulse Wriggling To Dim Scene -tour started. The items I picked were the white version of the t-shirt, a mirror and sunglasses! I was afraid they wouldn't arrive on time before I would leave to Japan, but luckily I got them a few days before my flight.

Anyway, this outfit also ended up being what I wore for the first two gigs. Except for the shoes, I didn't bring those white platforms to Japan with me. They would've been quite dangerous too because the gigs tend to get kinda crazy, so I chose to wear regular black boots instead.

What I really like about the GazettE's merch, is that it doesn't scream the band's name. It looks like something I would normally wear, but is recognizable to those who are also fans of the band. That's the best way I think, every other tour t-shirt I've ever bought, has ended up serving it's purpose as a pyjama or not even that.

The sunglasses were the most expensive ones from this bunch, but I don't regret buying them at all, since the quality is really good and not just some cheap plastic. I love collecting different glasses and sunglasses and I was missing this kind of basic looking pair, so they are a great addition to my collection!

Ah, looking at these pictures is making me miss summer so so much.

Yooo! I have a product that I want to review for you. It's a velour liquid lipstick by Jeffree Star and you've already seen me wearing it in a couple of my previous posts. I follow Jeffree on Instagram, not because of his music but because I like the makeup stuff he posts, so when he first started posting about his own cosmetics brand and these lipsticks, I took a mental note to keep an eye on the process because it seemed interesting.

After the long wait was finally over and these were released, there was 3 different colors to choose from and a bundle that included all three colors. I was first thinking about getting all three, but changed my mind because one of the colors was neon pink and I felt like I might not have use for it... So in the end I only bought my favourite color of the bunch, which is this gorgeous shade of purple; I'm Royalty. I love purple lipsticks so much.


The packaging is really cute and reminds me of Barbie for some reason, but it doesn't feel cheap at all when you hold it. I was really sceptic about the applicator and if you can do sharp lines with it, but you can! So you won't be needing a different lip brush for lining.

But if I have to give critique about something, it's the size of the cap you hold on to when applying. I wish it would be a bit bigger so it would fit better in my hand when applying the lipstick. But that's the only thing, hehe.

So! The package says you should allow about 60 seconds for it to dry and after that, it has become completely matte and cool. I filmed at little clip showing how well it stays on after it's dried:

Amazing right? I've actually been trying to eat different things while wearing this, so I could see how well it stays on :DD What I usually find the hardest ones to eat while wearing a lipstick, are salads and with oily dressings and other greasy food, because my lipstick always likes to run outside the lines.

This one on the other hand doesn't do that! The only thing I noticed is that when eating, it might start crumbling a bit from the inner parts, but that's super easy to fix when you're done eating.

Other good points are that it feels like there's almost nothing on your lips when you wear it, and if it's windy outside, your hair won't get stuck on your lips because it's matte.

The removal is a bit harder than with a regular lipstick, because you can't just grab a piece of toilet paper and rub it off. You have to use makeup remover to get it off, but even my non-waterproof remover works fine.


I also wanted to include a little lip lining tutorial to this post about how to make your lips look bigger and fuller, because I've gotten questions if I took lip fillers recently (the answer is no, I haven't :D) and requests for tips. So, here we go!


1. Start with bare lips! As you can see, my upper lip is quite small and I'm okay with that, but it looks a bit silly with lipstick if I don't over-draw the lines a bit.

For a matte lipstick like this one, it's recommended to scrub and moisturize your lips well before using it. So go do some scrubbing and put on lip balm when you start doing your makeup, BUT remember to wipe it off when you get to the part when you do your lips. Otherwise the lipstick might not stay on so well.


2. This step is optional. If you feel like you need some help figuring out where the lines should be, start lining your natural lip line first. Then start rising it slowly till you're satisfied with the size/shape of your upper lip.

I didn't have the exact same color of liner as the lipstick is, but it doesn't matter because the coverage is amazing as it will be opaque in one coat and will hide this liner completely.


3. Go over your lips and the lines with the lipstick. Let dry and you're ready to go!


I might've gotten a bit too excited about this lipstick, because I made an order to Lime Crime few days ago and bought 5 new lipsticks.... (3 of them are liquid ones like this and 2 are regular) I hope I will get them soon! If you wanna see the colors I ordered, go see my Facebook page, I posted a pic there.

Anyway, I hope you found this post helpful! See ya!

hat spirit store kimono unif romper unif shoes unif choker spinns

No, I'm not that addicted to social media that I couldn't put my phone away when taking outfit photos. The reason why I'm holding it, was because I was testing the new amazing feature of my new camera! My new Olympus PEN Lite E-PL7 has this feature where you can use your smartphone as a remote for your camera and take pictures of yourself, while checking from your phone's screen how you look like! Pretty amazing, huh? I feel like taking outfit photos just got ten times easier. Anyway, this is an all-black outfit I wore on 9th of January.

When deciding whether you should buy a certain piece of clothing, my mom always used to tell me that I should wait, if I wasn't 100% sure. But I dare to disagree. That's exactly what happened to me with this prettiest kimono I've ever laid my eyes on.

When UNIF first released it, I fell in love, but thought I should wait a bit and buy it later. And I've never regretted anything so much in my life (ok I'm exaggerating, just a litte bit). It sold out everywhere and I was left crying because I didn't freaking buy it. I waited for months and hoped they would restock it and decided if they ever did, I would get it no matter what.

On black friday, THEY DID!!! And the best part was, that it was 40% off  too! I cried tears of happiness and ordered it right away.

I finally recieved it and as I already said, it truly is the prettiest thing ever made. BUT, I must admit it's not the most practical piece of clothing for a shortie like me (165cm, hello) because the long fringe at the hem and sleeves sometimes get in the way when you do stuff. If I'm not wearing heels, I will step on it while going up the stairs and it's pretty much impossible to go to the toilet and do your business while you're wearing this. The fringe will get everywhere... you know, ugh.

But I don't care, it's still the prettiest thing in my wardrobe and I wouldn't change a thing. I feel like I can cast some spells while wearing this and I love it!

Yoshh, finally! This post series will be about the month I spent in Tokyo last summer and everything related to it (the nail post earlier this week was kind of a prologue hehe). I don't yet know how many posts there will be, so I won't be numbering them as "part 1, part 2..." and so on because I really don't know yet. Anyway, I'm planning to post about one subject at a time, and this one is about getting there and where I stayed during my trip!


The exact duration of my stay was from 16th of July - 11th of August. I booked the flights in March via Supersaver.fi and they cost me ~655€. I was flying with Lufthansa and had to change planes once on both ways. When going there I had a 1h 5min layover in Munich and on my way back I had 6h 10min in Frankfurt (which was pure hell btw).

The flights to Tokyo went pretty smooth and easy and I arrived in Haneda (which is the smaller airport, closer to the city) at 09:55am on 17th of July. From the airport, I took the monorail to Hanamatsucho and once arriving there, I changed to Yamanote and continued my way to Shinjuku.

From Shinjuku station, I took a taxi to the Fontana office, where from I had rented my room for the month.
I had been asking recommendations for apartments in Tokyo from my friends who have stayed in Tokyo more often and after checking few of the companies out, Tokyo City Apartments aka Fontana seemed to be the most suitable one for me.

Their minimum duration of stay is 1 month and the prices were very reasonable I think. The only minus I can think of, is that you can't book your room more than 2 months before your arrival and that was a bit stressful for me because I had to wait so long before I could book anything lol. When I was finally about to make the booking, there was only a few rooms available. But luckily their service is great, because I managed to book a room from them anyway and got a deal that I could change the room into another one, if I found one I liked better when more rooms became available.

In the end, I ended up renting a 12m² room (this one to be exact) from a guesthouse in 都立大学 (Toritsudaigaku) which is a really nice and peaceful area, only 5 train stops and ~10 minutes away from Shibuya via Tokyu Toyoko line. Some of the trains change into Fukutoshin line in Shibuya and also go straight to Meiji-Jingūmae/Harajuku and Shinjuku-Sanchōme, so the public transport connections were great for my purposes!


Here's some street view snaps from Toritsudaigaku. This was basically my walk to the train station everyday. There was a lot of small restaurants, one 7Eleven and a super market 1-2 minutes walk away from my guesthouse.


What I saw after stepping out of the guesthouse and turning right.


And this is the entrance to my guesthouse! One really good thing about Fontana is that they will drive you to your guesthouse or apartment after signing the papers at their office, so you don't need to go searching for it while being jetlagged. I think I was so tired when we drove to my guesthouse that I actually fell asleep in the car..... lol.

What really surprised me, is that they said the front door will be open 24/7 and I only need the key for my own room. I was like okay, maybe that's how they do it in Japan... Anyway, even though they said that, THE DOOR WAS ACTUALLY LOCKED 2 TIMES WHEN I CAME HOME. I panicked a little, but thank god I was able to climb to the apartment from the balcony on the backyard hahah. I wonder if some of the other residents had locked it for the night... because it was usually around the morning when I came home lol.


This is how my room looked like!! I forgot to take pics of the room, but these two snaps I found from my Facebook chat folder because I sent them to Tuomas right after arriving. That's why they're so small...

Before my arrival, I had emailed Fontana and asked if there's a mirror in my room (because I don't wanna occupy the shared bathroom for 2 hours while getting ready...) and they said they will arrange it! Good service once again. The guy who drove me to the guesthouse, actually grabbed this mirror from their office, put it in pieces and packed it in the car hahah. When we got to the room, he just put it back together :D

My room had a bed, computer desk and a chair, closet, some shelves, air conditioner and a sink in it. Everything else like kitchen, 2 bathrooms and 2 showers were shared with the other residents. Oh, and free internet was also included in the rent!


The view from the train platfrom when going to Shibuya.


The entrance to the train platfroms was on the left and on the other side there was the 2-floor super market.


And here's me taking selfies in my room one evening before heading out for dinner with friends!

My experience with Fontana was really good and I would totally use them again and recommend their services for everyone who are looking for a place to stay in Tokyo! Feel free to ask questions if you have any :)

So! My trip to Tokyo was getting closer and closer. How I got ready for it? With a new set of nails ofcourse! I was a little nervous about the design and if it's worth of Tokyo :'D It's funny, I know, but I mainly draw my inspiration for my nails from japanese nail art and it would've felt wrong to go there with shitty simple nails. Anyway, this is what I came up with.

I wanted the studs and pearls to match the color scheme of the nails, but I didn't have them in similar colors... I decided to fix the problem by painting them with the nail polishes as well! Would've you guessed it worked that well?

When in Finland people always ask me how can I do anything with my nails, in Tokyo the reaction was totally different. No matter which store I went to, the shop staff always commented my nails and told me how cool they were AND then showed their own nails to me so we could have a little moment of nail hype together! It was so much fun :D Nobody never questioned if I can get through daily stuff with these and it was really refreshing. Or well, atleast the women didn't. The guys I met, on the other hand, asked quite inappropriate questions lol.

Maybe it's because.. even if not everyone there has long nails like mine, it's still way more common to have something like these in Tokyo than it is in Finland.

Here's a list of products that I used: 

• China Glaze: Neon & On & On (pink polish)
• China Glaze: That's Shore Bright (purple polish)
• Color Club: Evolution (blue polish)
• Color Club: Platinum Record (silver glitter polish)
• Nail art studs
• Nail art tape in silver
• Swarovski crystals: SS6 (crystal AB)
• Silver cross charms from my trip to Italy
• Big pearls from Hobby Point

• Managed to save enough money and went to Japan
  I worked my ass off for a year, saving money and finally got to go on a trip I wanted to go on for the last 5 years! Last summer was one of the best ones I've had in a long time.
  
  
• Got a lot of new friends
  Made many new friends during the year, but if I have to point out someone especially, I would say Anna. We had followed eachother on Twitter for some time, but nothing more than that. I found out we were going to Tokyo at the same time and she seemed like a really nice person, so I decided to crash one of her and her friends' parties before summer so we could get to know eachother a little before the trip. In the end we spent the whole month in Tokyo together and I wouldn't have it any other way.
  
  
• Got to design my own nail polish
  One of my long-time dreams came true! Read the post about it here. I wouldn't complain if I got more chances to design stuff.
  
  
• My best friend moved back to Finland
  Alex moved to Stockholm for a year and it was hard to get used to not seeing him whenever I wanted to. We met a few times during the past year though and kept calling eachother and now, after a year it's like nothing ever even changed.
  
  
• Learned to drink tea
  I've always been bad at drinking coffee or tea, because I didn't like the taste. But this year I decided to learn to like tea! It's so much easier to attend social events now, because coffee and tea is always served. Now I don't have to stick with water only.

• Became single
  A three year long relationship came to an end, but hey, nobody wants to be in a non-working relationship. Sleeping alone sucks butt though.
  
  
• Had a couple not-so-good dates
  After becoming single, I decided to go out with some people just for the fun of it. Didn't really click with anyone though haha. But I guess it's not so bad not having to care about what anyone expects from you.
  
  
• Gained some weight
  Things got a bit out of hand during the summer. But I'm getting back on track now! As Jopo always says: "I cannot afford to grow out my of clothes".

• Had a break from blogging
  While I felt really anxious about blogging and didn't even want to open my own blog, it was also a good and eye opening experience to have a break.
  
  
• I wish I had known more japanese
  Going to Japan is a lot of fun, whether you speak the language or not. However, you will get to communicate with the locals so much better if you can actually speak the language with them. Sure some speak english too, but with many people, their skills are limited.
  I also wish I could've expressed myself better, because I'm so much funnier when I'm fluent in a language. This on the other hand made me want to continue my language studies!

These were my highs and lows in 2014! How was your year?