Today I had planned to meet up with my Japan Shipping Service Lolita Desu. I have been using her sevices for a little while and when I mentioned that I was coming over for a holiday to Japan, she very kindly offered to show us around Nagoya. By some stroke of luck, it also happened to fall on the day that Angelic Pretty decided to release Melty Cream Donut. I had never attended a release before, so Fox was happy to meet us and show us the steps!
For the Nagoya Angelic Pretty store, you are required to be there early and line up outside the department store. When the staff are ready, the come downstairs and count the amount of people in the line. They then draw a
raffle to determine the order in which you can choose to buy things, so it doesnt matter if you are first or last in line when you draw the raffle number! They then went along the line with a pink AP bag for everyone to be able to draw a number, I was really nervous when it came to my turn and I could believe it when I saw the number…. I had drawn number 1!!!!!! Cue six lolitas jumping up and down and squealing! I think we were all a little shocked that one of us had drawn number one, Fox said that she had never done that before so we were all very excited.
When everyone had drawn their numbers the Angelic Pretty staff lead the line into the department store and up the escalators to the store. Each person was called one by one and was allowed to have full access to the store to choose what they wanted to buy. As far as I know, no time limits, so being at the end of the line could mean several hours of waiting before you know if there was any stock left over from the release.
The advantage to being number one, is that I had first choice to everything! There was a small problem with this particular release and no skirts or OPs were available yet. Thankfully I wanted the JSK so they had everything in stock that I wanted. The Angelic Pretty staff showed me each of the displays with the new stock and I grabbed one of everything. During these releases you are only allowed to have one piece of each item, I think this is to stop scalping and /or people making money from buying multiple items. While there were wrapping up my items I happened to spot A Holy Lantern special set (the last one left) which I very promptly grabbed and purchased as well, very successfully blowing my budget for the fourth day in a row! (I’m getting good at this!)
I had a bit of a look around the floor of the department store while the other girls waited in line to buy their stuff. Once we had all made our purchased we decided to have lunch (waiting and shopping is hungry work!)
Fox suggested a place that she had been to before called Sweets Paradise, all you can eat cake, with some lunch and drinks included as well. We were very keen to try this out and it didnt disappoint! It cost ¥1500 and it was all you can eat for two hours, plenty of time to do some damage! We started off with a small lunch, they had curry, pasta, miso and rice and a pretty large selection of teas, juice and softdrink. Once we had eaten enough to satisfy “having had lunch” we progressed onto the dessert bar! The dessert bar was far bigger then the lunch one and had a very large selection of cakes and sweets, there was also fruit and a chocolate fountain (YUM!) I’m pretty sure we all on sugar highs after dessert, so after this we head out shopping again! After our very calorie heavy lunch we decided to walk as opposed to taking the train down to the other shops. It was actually a very pleasant day, the sun was
shining so the walk did us all good. On the way through one of the arcades we came across a giant mushroom who we thing was advertising Docomo (not 100% sure) but it was a giant walking mushroom, so we had to get a picture!
On the way through we dropped in at Mandarake, which again had a small amount of lolita and very good prices! As well as the standard anime and pop culture merchandise. Fox also spotted a new store, Style Juicy that she had never been into before, but grabbed her interest because it had a rack out the front which she spotted lolita in. We all bundled into the store for a look around, I found a Emily Temple Cute Strawberry basket OP and a Juliette et Justine skirt. Even better was the fact that they were having a store wide sale, so I got
them both at cheaper than the marked price. There was not a lot of lolita in the store, but there was some great offbrand and classic finds for coordinating, definitely worth a peek in if you are nearby. Another really good store that was in the same arcade was SKUNK, had some great pastel and sweet items that would go great with fairy kei or sweet lolita.
My favourite store of the day had to be Violet Blue though. The store was very similar to Closet Child, carrying both sweet and gothic lolita. I spotted a nice range of brands including Moi Meme Moitie, Angelic Pretty, MILK, Baby the Stars Shine Bright as well as some lesser known brands. I found some really cheap popular items too, I picked up a black Trick or Treat Bat bangle and ring from Angelic Pretty, I almost had a heart attacked when Fox called me over to check them out. I was like, ill pretty much take everything in this display cabinet… not really… but almost! I also grabbed a couple of novelties including a Angelic Pretty pillow and nail set, as well as a belt, a blouse, cardigan and Sexpot revenge leopard print skirt.
By this stage we were all pretty pooped out. We thanked Fox and her friends for taking us around, they were all very lovely and head off home. We were all pretty tired so we didnt want to go far for dinner, luckily Sharon spotted a restaurant that did Okonomiyaki just around the corner from where we were staying. everything was absolutely delicious, including the white chocolate mango truffles that I had for dessert! It was such a shame that we were leaving the next day!
♥ Alyssium♥
Continue on to Day 5
Go back to my previous visit to Japan 2 years ago.
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