Lioness in Japan

I’m just spring cleaning my beauty stash so mosie on over to my beauty blog to nab Naruko and My Beauty Diary goodies!

It’s not often I get flowers to put on display in the house. It makes such a big difference to my mood as well. I got these from a friend who came over for dinner a few weeks ago. She said yellow reminds her of me. How cute. I do like yellow…

I went to the Ikea in Yokohama with a couple of friends and got this pretty floral lamp as a “sleep time” lamp. It feels nicer to switch this one off than get up and stride all the way to the entrance of the bedroom to turn off the main light. My house is far from being decorated the way I want it to be — perhaps taking small steps is better (and easier)…

We held a really small housewarming dinner with some close friends and they got us a straw kangaroo with a big hollow belly. This lil guy makes me laugh whenever I look at him…My friend said, “It’s sort of like something you would get Derek.” How true!

And they tied an Aussie flag to the nape of his neck — so cute…

Methinks I’ll fill the belly with house slippers for guests. A touch of Japanese in something Australian?

I know this picture has beauty goodies so shouldn’t this be on my beauty blog instead? Well this post is not really about what’s in the picture but who gave them to me.

Xuan, a fellow blogger from Singapore, helped me get Clarisonic brush heads from the US (waaay cheaper than in Japan — half the price!) and kindly threw in some goodies as well.

I finally met up with her in Singapore and we had lots to talk about. We had known each other online for a couple of years now over various social media platforms so perhaps that’s not so surprising. We actually wanted to meet up in Tokyo last year when she visited but couldn’t for various reasons, especially after the March 11 earthquake. She had been thinking of moving to Tokyo since she has a Japanese fiance and so thought it would be wise to read up on how Singaporean expats lived here.

It feels really nice to get to know people through this humble blog of mine.

Our new pug, Cookie, in Singapore is a ball of energy and just what the family needed after our two beloved dogs, Coffee and Taffy, passed away within three months of each other.

Yes, our family has a thing for food names and pets.

Cookie looks a little guilty here because she had been scolded by us for rummaging through our stinky Vietnam clothes.

Hello again, sorry for being MIA as wrapping up 2011 was just exhausting and time-consuming before we took off on our honeymoon in mid-Dec. But it was worth the stress as we have upgraded to a bigger place.

Just a few photos to show you how small our previous one bedroom pad was…

We couldn’t pack a few days beforehand because there just wasn’t any space. If we did, we would’ve had to sleep on top of our boxes!

I had loads of Beauty Box inventory, packaging etc. so that was a real headache as well. Our apartment was a jungle of cardboard…

We also took our sad-looking plants along which were already wilting from the cold winter air.

We were amazed at how much stuff we collected over four years. Seriously, we had maybe four suitcases and a few Muji boxes to take with us to this apartment, but we had a whole truckload of furniture and boxes for our new place in Nakameguro.

Here’s a shot of our old-school mail box outside our house which has our names in katakana. In Japan, you need to put your names on your mailbox to receive mail. Some companies are fine with sending mail to boxes without names but some are pretty anal, like the folks who run the JLPT exams — it is a rule that they would only send the results to a labelled mail box.

To be honest, I feel a bit funny posting pictures of our house’s exterior (privacy reasons and all) and I don’t have nice ones for the interior just yet. We basically moved from a one-bedroom to a three-bedroom house so we are lacking in a lot of furniture. E.g: our bedroom just has our futon, a TV (on the floor), and a desk (because we have no where else to put it).

More updates coming up soon!

Once in a while, I like to touch base on this blog. I’ve had this space for so long that it’s gone through some morphing. In the beginning, it was a travelogue and food review blog, but then it became more of an advice portal on how to cope as an expat/trailing partner in Tokyo plus observations of the city as a foreigner…Then I kind of struggled. It’s not cool to say your blog sucks or lost its way or got put on the back-burner. I had three blogs and it’s very hard to be good at all three, so I stopped blogging at Raw Bento and focused all my creative energy on Beauty Box.

So what’s become of Lioness? Well, shall we just have fun here? I kind of like it to be more of a personal diary actually. I put a lot of thought into thinking about Beauty Box’s content so I just want to relax back here at LIJ with no obligation to blog a certain number of times a week or a month.

For this entire year, I kept getting mentally blocked by having to think of topical issues to write about and I’m just over giving tips or trying to get all sociological with understanding Japanese culture. I still like to think about such things but I just don’t want to write about them for now. Hope you’ll enjoy the ride as I go with the flow…

I’ve been obsessed with photo collage apps on my iPhone — partly because I don’t have Photoshop so I like it that these apps crop and arrange your photos for you. Here’s a collage of what my fave eats last month. On the top left corner is my all-time fave, vegan taco rice, from Eat More Greens in Azabu Juban. Their food is just so tasty that I think even meat-eaters would love it. And the cafe has a boho-chic vibe to it rather than the dreary utilitarian atmosphere typical of veggie joints, so I tend to stop by Eat More Greens for a serving of this before my Japanese lesson on Thursdays when I’m just too busy to make lunch for myself at home.

On the top right corner is a snap shot of my dessert at three-star Michelin restaurant, Joel Robuchon, in Ebisu. Before you think Beauty Box has boomed and I’ve transformed into a lady of leisure, I (or rather, the kangaroo and I) were given a lunch treat by his client for simply getting married – haha! We should do this more often!! This place deserves a post of its own with pictures of each course…

And the bottom picture is of a tall juicy veggie burger at a cute cafe near Toritsu-daigaku (in Meguro-ku) called Takiey Dining Cafe & Bar. If you are wondering what the heck a couple of gaijins were doing outside the JR Yamanote line, we were house-hunting.

The kangaroo was dying to indulge in some MOS Burger which is not my favourite so we met in the middle and chowed down on these made-from-scratch burgers instead of scary I-don’t-know-what’s-in-the-meat fast food ones. You can see we are practicing marital harmony from our first month of being married.

For just 1200JPY, you can choose from a slew of toppings when you opt for their “make-your-own-burger” set lunch. I had guacamole, fried egg, veggies, tomato, and jalapenos – amaaaaazing. We are obviously discarding our pre-wedding regime of no carbs — I guess now the chase is officially over and we are letting ourselves go (and our waistlines!)…

Was it a strange experience getting married twice? It was and it wasn’t. The kangaroo still insisted on sleeping in separate rooms the night before because he believed it was bad luck to look at my dress before I walked down the aisle, but technically he had already seen two dresses in Singapore…

I did think having two weddings was very indulgent seeing that most people have just one and one is already very splashy, but it was truly unique and I was glad to have celebrated with a whole spectrum friends and family. Most of our immediate family members and a few close friends came to both but both weddings saw two very distinct sets of people. The Hokkaido one was definitely more work-centered and most of our Tokyo friends flew up for the event.

Compared to the drama that went down in the morning of the Singapore wedding, the Niseko one was a stroll in the park.

Look at me…all relaxed…I slept before midnight before the wedding day, made myself a green smoothie in the morning, and took a leisurely shower before heading down to get prettied up…

My sisters and I got dressed and made up in a “Beauty Room” on the same floor as the banquet room so it was all very convenient and comfortable…There was a changing area and big mirrors and we could order room service because it takes hours to get through hair and makeup.

And we looked like this after….!! Three Chinese girls in cheongsams…

From noon, the kangaroo was messaging me about whether we should hold the wedding outside or inside. The weather was very cold at 8 degrees with big winds. He had his heart set on getting married with Mount Yotei in the background and it didn’t help that the hotel sent a gorgeous photo of the outdoor setting months in advance so we could visualize it…

After consulting various family members, it was concluded that it wouldn’t be enjoyable at all for 85 people to be shivering in the cold, so it was put indoors…

Our Western-style ceremony was really sweet and simple and it makes me chuckle over the circus we had at my parents’ place in Singapore with the games, gift exchange, and tea ceremony. We got a close family friend, Chris (who is the kangaroo’s mum’s good friend) to be our celebrant who interviewed us separately so she could talk about what we thought of each other…basically very lovey dovey stuff that I won’t write here *shy*…

Our Singapore ceremony was very short in comparison and our vows were literally three lines scribbled onto a piece of paper by the JP which we read out. So this was definitely more romantic that we composed our own vows and said them to each other in Hokkaido.

We had a cocktail reception after the ceremony and I managed to take a photo with my sole flower girl…

…and my younger sister snapped a really cute one of our flower boy in his kilt. He’s not even two years old so he still has very much a mind of his own. His mum carried him down the aisle although he can walk — it was just that we wouldn’t know which direction he would go…He was soooo adorable nonetheless…

Our entrance into the banquet room…I think the kangaroo looks very handsome in his kilt here…

It felt oddly medieval to have our “thrones” center-stage and we didn’t really know what to do until a Japanese friend came up to take photos with us and told us this was actually typical Japanese style where the couple sit on stage with a spotlight so everyone can look at them. I guess it makes some sense as the dinner is held in celebration of the couple but it was very strange. But soon, lots of people came over to take photos with us.

Check out our wedding cake….Awesomely decorated with pink and green macarons and plump strawberries…

The cake cutting was also a “huge” moment and again typically Japanese so I was really surprised when the spotlight was on us and we were given a sword to cut it…Okay I’m exaggerating but it was a big knife that was like a sword.

Our wedding dance was a success — I didn’t trip nor did my shoes slip off. We danced to Frank Sinatra’s The Way You Look Tonight and this would forever be “our song” now….I really like this photo because we both look like we were having so much fun…

And that, dear reader, was our wedding in Hokkaido…It feels good to have done this our way and to herald in the next chapter in our lives with much celebration and pomp and love and people who matter to us…

PS: And we had a very raucous time in the karaoke room at the after-party which went on till…..430am I think…

After the craziness of the Singapore wedding, I was glad to have some downtime in Hokkaido. We were busy getting stuff done but the hotel really took care of most things and we just had to get the pre-wedding activities happening…I slept well every night, compared to the week leading up to the one in Singapore….(and we were now “experienced” so there wasn’t much to fret over).

I totally enjoyed the road trip we took to Lakehill Farm, Showa Shinzan Mountain, and Lake Toya…We drove around in rented cars and it was truly a nice day out in the boonies…

I don’t really look identical to any of my family members but I think this photo shows similarities between my dad and me…Love the colours in this one! I would highly recommend this as a quick stop-over for ice-cream lovers because they have the best ice-cream in the area and a range of familiar flavours and really unusual ones like blue salt and pumpkin.

Family photo at the steaming Showa Shinzan volcano…I think my parents and sisters loved Japan…They were already talking about their next trip before they left!

Most folks who came a few days before the wedding just played golf or tennis, or took a dip or two in the onsen at the hotel. We headed out to dinner a couple of times to Hirafu, a small village in near the hotel but I think most people were happy to chill out and we didn’t have to worry about everyone having a good time. I think a lot of the folks who came had busy work schedules so the chance to nap, wake up late, head to the hotel spa was actually a luxury they were looking forward to do.

We also hiked halfway up Mount Yotei before most of the wedding guests descended on Niseko…Was a very lovely walk and the weather was warm but usually cooled by 4-5pm.

Then the weather turned very rainy and cold the day before the wedding…

We had a a bit of a recce in the rain and then we did a rehearsal indoors as a backup plan.

To be continued…