cosplay marathon.

Last weekend, Lullaby and Requiem came to town. We stayed at Symphony and Fantasia's place, where there was much wig brushing, fangirling, eyebrowing, and general mayhem.

While I can't show any official photos, I have plenty of photos from my phone, taken with little or no artistic sense. So here they are in all their noisy, unedited glory...

teaware.

I'll just put it out there so there's no confusion:

I really, really like tea.

I like to try different types of tea, I like high teas/tea parties/afternoon teas, I like tea sets.

Recently, a family friend inherited a whole lot of tea cups and saucers from her grandmother, who had sadly passed on a few years ago. Our friend didn't have much need for all those cups and things, so she kindly gifted them to me. Thus began my collection of teaware.

At the moment, it's a humble collection. I haven't really got the time or money to acquire such items. Still, I love every piece to bits. Here are a few...

Tea-for-one with pink polka-dots, a birthday gift from a family friend a couple of years ago. It's by far the one I use most often for its size and convenience. Because I'm lazy like that. It was also my first tea-for-one set.

Royal Albert cup and saucer, a birthday gift from a friend last year. The poor guy has never seen me in person without a wig on, yet he was nice enough to get me this for my birthday.

Tea-for-one with blue polka dots. A gift from my waifu. I don't think he realised how expensive it was going to be before he bought it. *_* The saucer is also gigantic and quite heavy, in case you couldn't tell. So more often than not, I will just leave it in the cupboard and use just the pot and cup...

Salisbury Crown China 3 piece set from the grandmother's collection. This photo really doesn't do it much justice - the design is so lovely.

Colclough 3 piece set. Bought this one from the Tea Room stand at the craft market that's on in Wellington every Saturday. I'm in love with the combination of gold and pastel pink.

singapore.

I really do wonder if the Singapore leg of my journey is worth writing about. Really, I did nothing much in particular except eat and shop (like a real Singaporean, minus the working/studying-your-ass-off thing). So here's a bunch of photos I took so you can see just what I ate.

akihabara.

That's Akihabara station. I know it's not obvious, but that's what it is.

This one deserves a whole post to itself. We probably spent more time here than any other place in Tokyo. The bulk of the stuff I brought back home was also stuff I either bought from a store in Akiba or won from a UFO catcher or Gashapon machine. 

asakusa, ginza, odaiba.

Night view of Tokyo from Odaiba

These were three locations I had not visited on my previous trips to Japan. Waifu and I went to Ginza mostly to see how many things were out of our reach. I wasn't remorseful about it though - I don't think I have much use for a Hermes scarf that costs even more than my laptop does.

5 sweet treats.

Ah, Valentine's day. The commercial holiday. No doubt gift stores and florists and chocolatiers love this day (well, the bosses love it, the staff probably hate it...). Shop windows are filled with red and pink hearts, and the price of red roses shoots up to stupid prices.

But enough about that. The reason I'm posting this list today is because sweets are a common gift given on Valentine's day, and I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I've been known to do more baking than cooking, simply so I can subsequently wolf down my creation almost singlehandedly. I will eat pretty almost anything if it's sweet, but here are some towards which I am particularly partial.