The next morning we woke up a bit later. After our nightly adventures of shopping for plugs at Don Quijote, we needed a bit more rest. x) For our last day in Osaka we had planned a shopping day and since the shops wouldn’t open until 11 am, we had plenty of time. ^^
We got dressed and bought some things at the 7/11 for breakfast. It was actually very good!
Because we were going on a shopping spree, I wanted to wear a cute outfit. Actually, I put a lot of effort into all my outfits upfront, but for this day I wanted to wear one of my favourite outfits, so I went with my light pink, ‘Très Cool’ outfit, as I called it. My mom also wore one of her favourite dresses. ^^
Do you see the cute, matching shoes my mom and I are wearing? We both really loved those shoes so much we both bough them, but unfortunately, this is the only day you will see us wearing them. I hadn’t walked enough on them back home, so my feet started hurting pretty early on and I never wore them again during our trip. My mom did wear them at home before our trip, but somehow she had the same problem. So we carried them in our suitcases for nothing! Oh well. x)S
We tried to get rid of the last sleep we felt and then went on our way to Shinsaibashi. Shinsaibashi is a long, roofed shopping street right across from the Glico man. The sun was shining and the colours of the advertisements looked so pretty, I couldn’t help but pose in front of the Glico man again. Initially I did the traditional pose, but I ended up liking a different picture better! ^^
Beware: my mom took a lot more pictures than I did that day, so you’ll be seeing more of me than of her. ^^’ Sorry.
The sun was shining so brightly all the neon advertisements looked so colourful! It was like a rainbow! It made me feel really happy and excited for our shopping adventure!
We entered Shinsaibashi and so began our first shopping day! The long street seemed to be endless! Up until far in the distance I could see people walking and shopping. I got very excited!
Before our trip, I had looked up all the touristic attractions we wanted to visit, but I had also made shopping maps! It took a lot of work, but it helped me focus on where to go without having to look (too much) for the stores we wanted to visit. So we went on our way!
There were many, many shops in Shinsaibashi, most of them unknown to me. One of the first shops we entered sold fairly normal bags, however they were all completely blinged up with sequins, rhinestones and sparkles. They were very pretty, but also very expensive! Other shops we entered sold socks and tights or cute frilly underwear. I also spotted a café called ‘Maison de Gigi’, which I recognized from one of Deerstalker’s videos.
We continued our way and soon arrived at a Sega arcade. It was absolutely huge inside! The first floor, on Shinsaibashi level, was filled until the furthest wall with UFO catcher machines that contained the most varying items! It was amazing. And there were so many! At the front of the arcade were taiko drum games and big billboards indicated there were special purikura floors as well.
Both my mom’s and my attention were drawn to a young man who had just started playing the taiko drums game and he was so goood! It was truly mesmerizing to watch him play! He also continued for quite a while. Such dedication!
We entered the arcade and just walked around, looking at all the cute items inside the machines. The noise was incredible! There was loud music and lots of different noises coming from the games themselves as well. I quite liked it actually, haha. x) It’s such a shame I am absolutely no good at catcher games; there were so many amazing items that you could win! The cutest plushies, aaah!
I also spotted a Lolita dressed in Putumayo playing one of the games by the way, she looked really cute. :3
We left the arcade again (we would keep the purikura in mind for later) and walked on. We soon arrived at… the Bodyline store! Bodyline has a really big, two floor store in Osaka and it was hard to miss! The typical Bodyline red with typical Bodyline gold letters greeted us from the left.
Some people hate Bodyline, but I love their shoes and blouses and I definitely wanted to shop there! I was hoping to find the gold shoes I had wanted for so long there. We browsed the ground and second floor for a while and I saw some cute items, but nothing I really wanted to buy. I did, however, notice the same hyper Disney music they have been playing at Bodyline in Harajuku for years here as well! Those poor staff people. x)
After browsing for a while, I asked a shop girl dressed as Snowwhite whether they had any gold shoes in my size. The only gold shoes they had on display were just a tad too small. Unfortunately, these were apparently the last ones and since they didn’t fit 100% right I didn’t buy them. I hoped to find them in the second Bodyline store that was apparently also in Osaka, according to the site.
yellow pair in the corner looks pretty awful! x)
We continued our way and passed several amazing shops and cafés. I did spot some shops I had seen at the beginning of the street as well, which saddened me a little. Big cities in my country often have several shops of the same brand, which I really dislike. But well.
We walked on for a while and arrived at the Disney store! I absolutely love the Disney store, in whichever country I visit it, because we don’t have any in my country. But the Japanese Disney store really is the best of all (in my opinion)! During our trip we visited several Disney stores actually, but since this was the first one everything was new of course.
We entered the store and my God… I fell in love! ♥ I swear, everything they sold was amazing! The Japanese Disney stores are really focused on young adults, selling the most beautiful jewelry and accessories. Wherever I looked, I fell in love with something. One of the first things being the Baby, the Stars Shine Bright x Disney collaboration. Baby had designed a beautiful Alice in Wonderland set, with a blouse, a skirt and an adorable soft bunny capelet. That capelet and me? Love at first sight! I absolutely adored it and almost hugged it, haha!
Aaah, I loved this bunny capelet so much! It was so soft…
Before jumping on buying things, we walked around the store for a bit. They had several cupboards filled with amazing jewelry and I didn’t know where to look. Beautiful pastel bags, statues, jewelry boxes... We didn’t take many pictures at the Disney store unfortunately, we were just too amazed!
We walked up the stairs to the second floor, which seemed a bit different from the ground floor: there was a desk where you could buy Disneyland tickets (I think) and the cupboards on the walls were less full than downstairs. However, they had a sale corner and when I walked up to it my jaw dropped: there were items from the Angelic Pretty x Disney Rapunzel collaboration there! The dress had been incredibly popular so of course that one was sold out, but the amazing lavender hoodie that I had loved so much when I saw it online was for sale, 50% off!
I could barely believe it and had to check the tags (and my eyes) twice! I tried it on and it fit really well despite being a small size! Naturally, you can tell what my first purchase was going to be. :3 I also spotted the Rapunzel rings (that I also really liked) for 50% off and decided to get those too. I felt like I was dreaming, it was such a steal! I went to get a basket and had a feeling I was going to need it. XD
Meanwhile, my mom had found an adorable Chip & Dale camera bag, also 50% off, and I managed to convince her to buy the amazing Snowwhite bag that was also for sale as well (my mom has a thing for bags). <3
We went downstairs again and went on to browse the rest of the store.
I found some amazing The Little Mermaid earrings and a darling perfume bottle-shaped Marie from the Aristocats necklace. My mom, who is always a little doubtful about whether items are ‘fitting for her age’, needed some persuasion again but ended up with a gorgeous Chip & Dale acorn necklace that was cute yet subtle. I discovered a nice special deal that offered three rings for the price of two so I went to browse for a bit as well. I have to admit I had misinterpreted the deal as ‘two for one’, but it didn’t matter since I found some really sweet rings. I ended up with a little crown (from Elsa I am guessing), an Ariel one and a Tinkerbell one. Finally, I also bought a beautiful shell-shaped Ariel key chain. I really had a thing for shells this trip. Stay tuned for more shell-related items!
I decided to postpone buying the cute bunny capelet until I was certain I absolutely wanted it. It wasn’t cheap and the price of the items in my basket was quite adding up.
I went to pay and skipped out of the store, I was so happy! We walked on, past an amazing display of Randa x My Melody shoes and soon arrived at the Sanrio store!
Whooaaa, that store was so cute! You really couldn’t miss it! It was pastelly, had colour changing light in the walls of the entrance gate and the sign saying ‘Sanrio’ sparkled! Inside, everything was just stuffed. Everywhere you looked there were pastels. Cute items, utensils, plushies, hoodies, pyjamas, jewelry, bags, suitcases, so many things! Ad these were just some items I named from the top of my head. So many cute things!
There were three floors in total: the ground floor carried mainly clothing and bags, the second floor jewelry, more bags and cute utensils and the third floor had many Japanese-themed items, key chains and Funassyi items. I couldn’t help but laugh at a ‘praying in front of a stained glass window Hello Kitty key chain (we called her ‘Holy Kitty’, I thought it was hilarious). My mom ended up buying a mini plushie of Bon Bon Ribbon. It may or may not have been my fault a bit… It was cute, ok?
We left the Sanrio shop and by then our poor feet started to hurt really bad from our shoes, so we decided to return to the hotel, rest for a bit (go us!) and change shoes. But of course, while walking back, we needed to pay the purikura floors at the Sega arcade a visit!
Apparently there were two floors, but we only browsed one. There was even a sign with a floor plan showing all the purikura booths! We didn’t have much trouble picking our booth: we chose the ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ one, a forget-me-not blue booth with a Western model on it. You could choose between two styles of shooting: cute or cool. I didn’t really see any difference between either (heck, the girl wore a ponytail for the ‘cool’ style and her hair down for the ‘cute’ style, that was it! XD) so I went with ‘cute’. Always a good idea. ^^
We took pictures (man this always goes so quickly!), I managed to film it and then the decorating started. Since it was a quiet moment we had plenty of time and we took a while to look through all the stickers and pens. We did our utmost best to decorate our pictures the best we could. There was also a shell pen, yay!
Our pictures came out quite cute, despite our alien eyes hihi!
On the way back to the hotel we got some drinks from a vending machine and then took a bit of rest. Our poor feet. And our pretty shoes. :( Oh well.
After a bit of rest, we went on our way again! Direction: Amerikamura. Amerikamura is like the Harajuku of Osaka: lots of shops and very fashionable. Or so I had read, I didn’t know what it would be like yet of course! ^^ We decided to walk there from our hotel and even though it looked like quite a distance, we arrived there quite soon. We walked through a long street, which was clearly ‘the upper class street’, judging from the Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel and Prada stores. Also, there were high, green trees on both sides of the broad street. Usually, that’s an indication as well, believe it or not!
I tracked our footsteps on my map, we went left a the Apple store and soon I spotted a familiar building. It’s called Tom’s House and undoubtedly it sells clothes, but I didn’t enter it. However, I have seen it on many pictures of Amerikamura and therefor made me happy!
And suddenly, we found ourselves in front of Maiden Clothing. Maiden Clothing is like the Closet Child of Osaka: it sells second hand Lolita clothing. I knew there were two stores. One a bit shady and the other much better. I had no idea which one of the two this one was, so we went inside to find out.
We took the tiny elevator up to the second floor and entered… the most terrible shop ever. It reminded me of the Closet Child in Ikebukuro, only worse: it was filled to the brim with CDs, second hand rock and gothic clothing and black and grey colours everywhere. The wall on the right was filled with racks of Lolita clothing, but somehow it just didn’t feel right. And the music… they were playing an awful scream CD. It surprised me the singer didn’t choke on his own voice, it was so awful! Nevertheless, my mom and I bravely tackled the second hand Lolita clothing racks. We found some nice pieces, but they were rare: most of the clothing seemed old, wrinkled, sometimes even torn. They sold terribly mistreated brand bags for low prices, but they were looking so awful I still didn’t want them. In the end I did find a really nice dress: Angelic Pretty’s Sugar Time jsk in white. I tried some other things on but this dress fit me quite well and looked nice, despite the minor flaws the shop girl managed to point out. By this time (we had spent quite some time at the shop), the noise of the music and the claustrophobic layout of the shop almost drove me crazy, until I remembered there was a second shop, which I had somehow forgotten (a small flyer next to the counter also spoke of it as far as I could read it). I told the shop girl I would return later and asked for directions to the second shop. She kindly explained it to me as best as she could and my mom and I left the shop. I was hoping with all my heart that this had been the ‘bad’ shop. Surely the second shop couldn’t be worse! Right..? Only two shops away we spotted a sign that said ‘Maiden Clothing, 4th floor’. We walked up some stairs past a nail salon, entered the even tinier elevator and went up to the fourth floor. The doors opened and… Calmness. Peace. Quiet. A mannequin wearing an Angelic Pretty navy Dream Marine jsk next to a classical picture frame framing the words ‘Maiden Clothing’.
at the 4th floor where Maiden Clothing is.
My mom and I warily looked around the corner and we almost squealed. A hallway led directly into a neat, tidy store filled with pastel Lolita dresses. Sweet garlands hung from the ceiling and soft harp music was playing. We had arrived in heaven! *o* Okay, yes, that is exaggerated. But compared to the previous store this place was like a sanctuary! We walked into the store and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Rows and rows of dresses, neatly hung by category of brand and even colour! The store was absolutely lovely! ♥
Of course, I was immediately drawn to the Angelic Pretty wall on the right and my mom and I started browsing. I saw a lot of gorgeous dresses, rare ones even, but they were quite pricy. Some were even very overpriced. I had already read about this fact, but I was still a bit surprised. I browsed through the dresses and spotted a lot of nice ones, including two dresses I know are on my friends’ wishlists (Merkator Antique Shop in mint for example). However nothing really drew my attention. During my trip I really noticed I am not drawn to every single sweet Angelic Pretty dress anymore. My style is slightly shifting. However, of course I was hoping for a dream scenario.
And then it happened. In between the blue dresses I spotted a strip of royal blue beaming at me. It was as if time stopped for a moment and my breath stopped with it. Dramatic much? I can assure you this is how I truly felt, because between the Angelic Pretty dresses hung Crystal Dream Carnival.
Now, in order to understand how I felt, I must tell you a little story. Ever since this print came out, I have loved it. I loved the cuts of the dresses, I loved the colours it came in, I loved the print that was both that mature sweet and that classic princess-like that I had been looking for and slowly shifting to. Yes, Crystal Dream Carnival became an instant wishlist item to me. However, it wasn’t until I got to try on my friend Iris’s princess one piece that I knew how amazing this dress truly was. Of course, the princess one piece had a truly stunning cut, however I would never wish to own it in that version. But I felt so beautiful wearing it. This print didn’t give me the feeling I was cute or pretty. It made me feel elegant, refined and beautiful. Ever since that day I have wanted this dress more. I have literally dreamt at night of buying this dress, whether navy or blue. In the depths of my heart I dreamed, imagined, hoped I would find this dress during my trip to Japan, but hoping for a certain dress has never resulted into finding it before. And now it did.
You might think I am overreacting and perhaps I am describing what happened a bit more poetic than it actually did, however this really was a very special moment for me and this is how I felt. ♥ Back to my incredibly humoristic self now. *shoop* Time started ticking again and I walked up to the dress. I wished for it to be a cut that would fit me, to be a version that would look good on me, to be affordable. I pulled the clothing hanger from the grasp of the other dresses and quickly realised it was a set! It was the special set, released for the big New Year’s sales. Not only did the dress come with a small, matching side bow and matching socks, the cut and colour were also different from the ‘normal’ line of this print. This version was fully shirred! And if there is one thing I know it’s that fully shirred Angelic Pretty fits me guaranteed! But would it look good on me too? I chose another dress to try on and asked the kind (and adorable) shop girl whether I could try the dresses on. She prepared them for me and left them in the spacious dressing room. While my mom waited outside I put the dress on over the shirt I was wearing and over the petticoat provided. Then I stepped out of the dressing room. I vaguely remember quietly fearing when I walked up to the mirror. Then I looked up.
Despite wearing my non-matching shirt, non-matching necklace and non-matching socks the dress looked great, even without a real Lolita outfit. Even I, despite all my insecurities, could see it. My mom agreed and when she heard it was one of my Ultimate Dream Dresses, she said something along the lines of ‘Well what are you waiting for!?’ The price, really. Because this dress was indeed overpriced compared to the price it went for when it was in stores. It is against all my principles to buy a dress that costs more than retail price and this dress was. It wasn’t an enormous difference, but enough to make me doubt. However wearing it, holding it in my hands and realising I could buy it here and now (plus the positive exchange rate and my mom’s encouragements) I went for it! And so, Crystal Dream Carnival became mine!
I didn’t need to try the second dress on anymore and I barely browsed the rest of the store. We had spent enough time there already, plus I was about to spend a big amount of money too. I walked up to the counter and the adorable girl smiled and wrapped the dress for me. A small moment of stress occurred when the credit card machine didn’t work, however apparently only a button needed to be switched and I was good to go. I told the shop girl this was my Dream Dress and started crying, oops. x) She was very sweet about it. ^^
She walked us out of the store and we took the elevator down, back to the street.
I never went back for the dress in the first Maiden Clothing by the way, haha.
We continued our way to our next destination: Angelic Pretty! I was very excited to visit this store, because this shop is actually an acual store in a street and not a corner in a shopping centre. We followed my map and soon I spotted a bright pink shop front!
We had arrived at Angelic Pretty! Its pinkness was hard to miss in the otherwise pretty grey street. Aaah, the store was so gorgeous! And you could easily take pictures in front of it, so great!
Two mannequins in the shop window wore Whip Jacquard coats and dresses and the other window contained a cupboard filled with the typical old-fashioned toys found at every Angelic Pretty. It was so cute!
We entered the store, where the shop girl dressed in a sweet black-with-pink-polkadots dress was the only person present. We walked around the store, which was very spacious and so wonderful. They had beautiful items on display, a classical coat called ‘Lacy Mademoiselle coat’ being at the top of my favourites. They had gorgeous bags, lovely dresses, beautiful blouses… I didn’t know where to look!
While planning our trip, I had found out that we would actually be able to visit five Angelic Pretty stores if we wanted: one in Osaka, one in Hiroshima, a new one in Kyoto and two in Tokyo. My mom really loved the idea of visiting them all and agreed, so the Osaka store was the first one we visited! Since I like making memories, I decided to buy something small (as far as that’s possible) in every store. So I went on the hunt for a cute item. Luckily, it wasn’t hard to find something I wanted. There was some jewelry on sale, but nothing really drew my attention. However, to my great happiness they still had the ginormous Angelic Pretty shell necklace in pink! Another one of those items I loved online but couldn’t buy and now it was right in front of me! Naturally, my choice was made. ♥
Luckily, something I was hoping for happened as well, although earlier than I expected: my mom fell in love with an Angelic Pretty item. The Dolly Cat special edition in ivory had just come out and there were some lovely Whimsical Cat necklaces on display to match. Both my mom and I immediately fell in love with this sweet little kitten, with its bonnet and bows and sparkly round eyes. I had secretly planned to buy my mom a silly gift: something Lolita and very eye-catching, because she is the best Lolita mom in the world! And this was perfect! So I offered to buy her the blue version of the Whimsical Cat necklace and although she was a bit flabbergasted at first she was super happy!
Finally, we left the Angelic Pretty shop.
We went into the building next to the Angelic Pretty shop, because located there was the second hand Lolita shop called ‘Near’. Despite the kind of creepy looking hallway we had to enter, the shop was kind of neat. They did have a lot of dresses, but nothing caught my interest and we left quite soon. Also, I was still elated by Crystal Dream Carnival: nothing could live up to that!
It was getting dark by now and we decided to quickly visit Baby, the Stars Shine Bright before grabbing a bite to eat. We walked through a super cool and fashionable street, our attention briefly drawn by the incredibly colourful shop called ‘Kiitos’. They had such amazing clothing there and the shop girl was just too cute!
We also passed Putumayo. I took a picture of the shop front, when suddenly a shop girl appeared at the doorstep. It turned out she wanted to show me the newest collection in the shop window, haha! She looked super cute as well.
We soon found the Baby shop and took some pictures before we entered.
I have to say: this shop was beautiful! Not only was it big, with lots of racks of clothing and an enormous glass jewelry cabinet, but they also had a corner filled with old fashioned furniture that looked perfect for a photoshoot! The walls along the counter were filled with posters and I got an overall happy feeling. However, the two poor shop girls made me feel a little awkward. I had read blog posts about girls visiting the Baby Osaka store and having bad experiences with rude shop girls ignoring them. I am not sure whether these girls were more attentive or were just forced to cater to me since I was the only customer, but they didn’t ignore me at all! x) I felt very watched. I walked around the store and wished for something to pop up that I wanted to buy, however I barely dared to ask anything because I felt so awkward in front of the shop girls. However, I soon spotted a gashapon machine that contained cute buttons! One of the shop girls explained to me it was an exclusive machine, only found in Osaka and Kyoto. I decided to get a set for myself!
Finally, I left the Baby shop and joined my mom (who was sitting on the outside stairs
by now).
We went to get something to eat and decided on fast food. Initially we wanted to go to McDonald’s, however I spotted a poster at Burger King that drew our attention: the black burger, a special burger with black meat, black sauce and black buns. I didn’t think we had this burger in my country, so we decided to go for it! After we ordered our burgers, I got to pick a ballot from a box as if I was joining a lottery. I guess because it was a special deal, you got to join a little game. ^^ My winning ballot contained a discount for the next menu I ordered, haha!
We took our burgers up a floor and sat down, admiring our… interesting meal.
The burgers turned out to be really good actually! We had to get used to the taste, but they were quite nice (despite the… interesting colour).
While eating we discussed on what to do. I suggested to ride the Ferris wheel on top of the shopping centre Hep Five. It might have been better to return to the hotel, but we were stubborn and went on our way anyway.
We took the metro to Umeda. My mom was very amazed by the ‘woman only boarding points’that led to ‘women only’ cars. We arrived at Umeda and when I finally found the right direction, we arrived at a very high roofed shopping centre with a gigantic hanging sculpture of an orange(?) whale. We went to the toilet and then went to visit Liz Lisa (after asking for directions again. XD) Aaah, this store. These clothes. I adore Liz Lisa, they always have the most beautiful clothes. But I think that, no matter how much weight I lose, I will never fit anything from them. x) Oh well.
We also visited Axes Femme, which has an amazing store in Paris as well, but didn’t find anything to our taste at that moment.
We took the escalators up, but before we went to the Ferris wheel we got distracted by a Disney store. They had the cute bunny capelet for sale as well, but because I was very tired (and didn’t like the store as much as the one in Shinsaibashi) I decided not to get it, even though I got to try it on. Yes I am weird. ^^’
Finally, we went up to the floor of the Ferris wheel and bought two tickets. We followed the small line and were asked to pose for an official picture in front of a green screen. Then, finally, we could enter our car.
The bright red Ferris wheel moved very slowly, so the ride took quite a while. Usually, my mom is the one who doesn’t feel very comfortable in Ferris wheels, but this time I was the one who was actually scared! Ok, I wasn’t really scared, more a bit nervous. This Ferris wheel was on top of a building, don’t forget that! It went up really high! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the ride a lot because the view was very nice.
Finally, we arrived back and left our car. We passed the official picture stand and our picture had turned out so nicely, I decided to buy it as a souvenir (something I rarely do)!
It took us a while to find the way back to the subway and once we got back to Nanba, it took a while until we found Dotonbori. We walked back through the busy street and realised we would be leaving tomorrow. I felt a bit sad: I had to come to really love Osaka despite our rough start and slight ups-and-downs. I hope to one day return!
We bought some snacks at the 7/11, including a bag of matcha Kitkats and went back to our hotel. The Kitkats were really nice and so were the cute pancakes we had bought. Almost everything we bought on a whim turned out to be really nice actually!
I took purchase pictures (which took a while), packed a little bit and then we went to bed. I was super tired, but super happy! I normally don’t show purchases I make online during my trip, but afterwards. But Crystal Dream Carnival needed a special spot on my Instagram. ♥ Finally, I went to sleep. It had been an eventful day!
And to end this post with, here is the video I made about our adventures in Osaka! I filmed a lot and tried to make the best videos I could about our trip. I hope you will like it! ♥
You can find day 4 from 6:50 until the end. Please take a look if you want! ♥
Thank you for reading! ~☆~
