11/14 - Where I like to shop + My christmas gifts to myself Pt 1 (And some of part 2)

 Hi everyone!! I usually post hauls and I think in the past I've posted in the past where I shop, but I figured why not detail the most up to date shopping spots!

I'll start with the shopping and then detail my haul below for the first half of my xmas gifts. I usually spend a stupid amount of money on myself every Christmas because I work a really rough Q4 every year. I also gave into the lolita fashion demons so that's like... a lot of my xmas gifts to myself.

Ok, the simple answer might be "mercari JP"", but I think the more important part is how I search on mercari JP. There is of course looking up specific brands, but I've also found some really cool stuff by looking up more basic terms like "pink one piece" or "kyaba dress". Sometimes I use just the categories or sometimes I use just the search terms. Not every piece is labeled w/ a brand, or has a brand name to it. Sometimes I'll even look up gal brands who moved onto jirai because you'll find an older piece for sale and can nab it. So many ways to search!!

I also look for hours. on Hours. On hours. I am a shopping addict because I love to window shop to de-stress. I also create bookmarks to help track items I like and I put them in folders. I used to use tab groups in safari, but I've moved to duckduckgo on my phone and their app doesn't have tab groups like safari does. Then like once every few weeks I flip through my bookmarks to see if I still want to keep the item in mind, or remove it because I don't like it or it sold. 

Other site's I've used include

• In this haul
• Direct from JP websites. It's not secondhand so I only like to do this with items that I cannot find secondhand. I've done this w. Prisila in this haul. But I've also bought from gyarumy and honeys. Luckily my shopping service Japan Rabbit is so helpful with all that!!
• Xianyu - which I call chinese depop. I've used this twice before and you REALLY need to translate every seller's caption to ensure they're actually selling it and not renting it or looking to buy it. So much confusion on there... I swear. I use Superbuy for when I wanna buy from there. You also have to be aware there's a chance you will get a replica. Especially if you're going for ma*rs.
• Not in this haul:
• Bunjang for korean secondhand goods, it's a pretty smooth process. 
• Directly from korean websites.
• Taobao for chinese stores
• I have made one successful depop purchase in my life (thank u cindy).
• Directly from US gal brands
• Fril and Yahoo Flea. I rarely look as it seems Mercari JP is the hot spot, but sometimes you find something that wasn't listed on Mercari JP.

I don't actually buy from a lot of western seoondhand stores a lot. Usually because the stuff I'm interested doesn't end up there, or if it does, it's priced up the wazoo and it's still better priced if I buy it overseas pay the crazy shipping and pay the duty fees. Wild. Also because I always have a proxy to deal with sellers for me when I shop overseas... hehe.

My searching skills on the other websites... not as great as Mercari JP. Maybe I need to get like that w/ taobao tbh.

10/25 - The Haul(tm) of October

We start this blog looking back at a goal I wrote on my first ever blog post here:

And we LAUGH AS THIS IS A HAUL POST LMAOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I cannot stop shopping. I cannot. I feel like I've done a lot more like... single item purchases vs hauls but it's still a lot. Like yesterday I was putting laundry away and realized I am out of hangers and need more storage for my gal pieces. In general I've been wearing a good chunk of my gal tracksuits and gal office pieces, but I always feel like I need something more. It does not help I don't doomscroll on tiktok, I doomscroll on mercari JP... LOL.

So this consists of a few hauls, so I'll talk through my thoughts on each purchase. This is not in the order I got them in the mail, but I believe these all came in from Late Sept to October. 

Also for US readers who are interested in additional tariff/duty fee costs, I'll post my numbers. 

For context; I use Japanrabbit as my JP proxy and DeliveredKorea as my korean proxy. I also ship with DHL for both so all of my customs fees tend to come with a 14 dollar fee (unless its one of the two orders from korea, I prepay customs so I don't believe it includes the 14 dollars but I could be wrong?)

I personally prefer DHL as they make me pay the customs before I get the item. I know a lot of people have been having issues with DHL but I think a chunk of the issue is the sender not filling in information correctly. 

4/18 - April Gets!

Hi everyone!! I realized I have missed so many things to blog.... I think tonight I might draft up a few posts, including my gosh... forgot to talk about zenkaikon and that was almost a whole month ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I was also not feeling very good last night. I had to take off work today and get rest and didn't really get up and around until 10AM... I usually can't sleep in past 7 am, but if I am sick my body allows me to sleep in. Luckily once I finally got some much needed rest I was back to normal in the afternoon. 

For today's post, I want to show some of the gets I got this month. Some gal, some related to my other interests... my shopping addiction continues. I also have another shipment coming next week, but with tariffs and also just... life right now... I am going to hold off on making any more mercari jp purchases unless my dream dream dream isos show up at a reasonable price (which... I doubt lmao!!)

Starting with the fashion!!!

 

First, I was inspired by the idea of twinning with Lynzee and I was like ooo I should find the same dress she has from ma*rs... and then I saw it in the white colorway, its so pretty! And I also got my first primelo dress which was suuuuper exciting! It's super cute, but interestingly the way the design is printed on the fabric is different from ma*rs... I'm not into textiles so I don't know the best way to explain it. You know how like most places print the design on white fabric and you can't see it on the other side? It's like that. Does this mean I might've been duped...? I'm unsure, but either way, its super cute.

AAAND!!! I bought a piece from Cindy as she reached out and asked if I was interested!!! I really like this print, and the cut of this dress is cute too! I definitely will pair this with a cardigan (I'd like to one day find the matching cardigan for this set!!!) Bless up Cindy such a sweetheart and wrote such a nice note!! I am definitely going to work on coordinating this for upcoming Wednesday Karaoke!!!

And ofc... on the less agejo and more casual side... it's very usagi core. 

I will definitely post the second half once it comes, but I have some chiikawa tracksuits coming!!!!! I am slowly turning into an... ot3? fan... I mean I love them all but I definitely collect the main 3, but Usagi is my huge favorite. I use the purse regularly with some keychains on it, and I sometimes wear the backpack in combo (it doesn't fit much tho lol). I also went a bit crazy one night and wore the spa headband over a hat!! I actually wore this to a new fave cocktail bar of mine on a Saturday and everyone was dressed up in like... going out outfits... and I was in a tracksuit... lmao...

AND NOW!!!! Onto the PLUSHIES!!!!!! I love plushies. They bring me so much joy. I am planning on eventually creating a Chiikawa shrine in my office or my bedroom (I still have to get the TakiSabi shrine up somewhere too, one will go in one spot and one will go in the other).

For now, they all live on my bed and hold on for dear life when I roll around in the middle of the night! Here is (almost) the full collection! One actually fell under the bed and I didn't realize until later LMAOO

I have... been going a bit insane going to various miniso locations to find these. The most recent gets where the two big ones!! I was at the providence location and the manager told me that braintree might've had them. So... I go to braintree and they tell me they're out! So I decided to go crazy and drive an extra hour to burlington and lo and behold!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big friends. These were expensive, I came in expecting them to be though. How does adding a pochette add 50 dollars to price? I did note my Hachiware is 10cm bigger than my usagi according to tag... so many different sizes... 

BUT!!! IT IS SO HARD TO FIND CHIIKAWA!!!!! The lil creature is so popular up in new england!! I do have some other plushies coming so I will have more Chiikawa soon.

I put Usagi in the passenger seat lol... I want to get a big chiikawa and just have a day I drive them all somewhere and have them hangout in my backseat... but I'll have to clean my car.

And then!! This was kind of a wild purchase, I went crazy on Rika plushies. Miss Rika Pokemon... my wife, my girlfriend... my wife FR!! At zenkaikon there was no Rika and I was so sad so I went on Mercari JP and bought 14. 13 came in this shipment, and the last one is coming next week! I plan on fixing up my Rika wig for Anime Boston and putting together a Rika itabag. Looking back at it... did I need to order 14? PRobably not. I rarely try to buy mutliples of the same thing anymore since the Heavens Rave / Takisabi Days. 

I also still gotta play the dlc... so many video games I need to play....

But yeah!!!!!!!! That's the haul for April minus the gets of next week. I am going to try to like... stop looking at Mercari JP and also STOP GOING TO MINISO!!!!!!!! This week and next week has been the pause of bingo... so maybe if I bring back bingo in May I will have to pause on the shopping...

But... life has been really good. I have recently been stopping on my walks to places and realizing how good life is. It's funny to think about.

OH. I got an ipod nano too. I will probably make a separate blog eventually about my journey to de-smartphone. The ipod nano might need a new battery even though I was told it was a new battery.

 

1/23 - The Final Haul (for now)

Hi everyone! I wanted to share my recent haul, and it's going to be the last major haul I do for awhile. I'm trying to work on my consumption habits, and work on wearing more of the items I  have. I am also trying to see wtf is going on with how tariffs and de minimis will be, so instead of trying to buy as much as I can before it happens, I'm holding off. I of course don't think it'll be 100% easy, my mercari jp addiction is hard to mitigate at times.

For now, I'll detail what I picked up and why. Let me also make this clear to my blog readers who probably know this, I spent hours on hours scouring Mercari JP for some of these items. These are all second hand and won't be easy for my to just share a link to another exact version of. I highly recc you take some time to learn how to search secondhand if you ever want to get into digging for some gems!

Ok, let's start!

1/20 - The Boston Trip!!

 Hi everyone!! Welcome to the grand blog post about my Boston excursion on Friday and Saturday!! This is going to be a long one, with codes, convention thoughts, and some small hauls!! 

I had three goals for this trip: Go to Anthro New England with friends, Go to Newbury Street (specifically Reiwatakiya and MoreFun), and dye my hair!! I had about 48 hours to get this all done! 

So, let's start with the detailing of my codes!

1/14 - Casual Co*de and Thrifting Wins!

Hi everyone! Happy Tuesday! This week has had many non-gyaru related curveballs thrown at me and it is only Tuesday. My god. 😔 My friend and I are hunting for an apartment and one we had our eyes on isn't going to be available like we thought. But! We have another lead thanks to Monday night Bingo!! 

I wanted to blog about Sunday and share what I got at the thrift store!! My karaoke friends and I decided to head over to the Savers in East Providence to see if there was anything good. I initially was going to go all out, but it's been so cold in Rhode Island that I am suffering and most of my Agejo clothes are not meant for the winter. So I went with some inspiration from back when I did my Rin scans on Saturday!!

Seeing Double and losing my mind

 Hiyo!! Short post for today! I did lots of christmas shopping but didn't end up taking any pictures LOL. But I wanted to blog about how I made a mistake when shopping on Mercari JP, but didn't realize until today! I had the last two items of my christmas haul come in, and one of them was a dress from An. When I looked at it, I realized it looked quite familiar to the dress from Selina I got in the mail yesterday.

I was honestly kind of confused... but also not heartbroken because I really like this dress so it's nice to have two different types of necklines! That just means now I need two hibachi dinners to go to (since I wanted to wear my Selina one to hibachi.)

The crazy thing, is that not only is the lace the same, the fabric the same, but the tag placement on the inside is the same! Which is like... very interesting! I guess these two dresses both were manufactured at the same place! Which, I noted that there were a lot of gal brands who made the same clothing with the same print. MA*RS I think is more unique, but with stella, growing rich, golds infinity, etc... you could find what you needed from another brand if you looked enough.

What's also crazy is I didn't even notice this when looking at the listing photos. Looking back now (shown below, images belong to the original sellers) they're basically the same!!! I think if you're looking into older kyabajo dresses (and... probably modern day kyabajo dresses) you should keep an eye out for this! Both of these were similar prices (27 vs 30 usd), but if you see a cute one for 100, look for other brands :)

Also, both gave me the impression the skirt was a cream color, but it's like a pure white in person!

12/20 - The big holiday haul

 Happy Friday!!!!!!!!!! I hope you all are doing great! I am still sick, but today is a great day for me because I had a huuuge package come in! I think this has probably been my largest clothing haul this year, and will probably be one of the largest ones I'll do in awhile in terms of volume.

I was doing some searching for yumetenbo to dig for some cute items, and found something that started this haul. The theme for this haul was "it's missing in my closet/I wanted to not buy anything from MA*RS". My goal this January is to wear as much of the items I can to see if I want to get some similar items, or if this is just a one time piece (that I will continue to wear). Every piece in this haul was also under 30 dollars! I actually have two items coming next week that I originally ordered, but i'll post about those once later :)

So... let's start! I'll try to group these since there's some similarities

First! We have two Rady sets! I work from home, so a lot of the time I am just in my PJS or kigus, but I wanted to get some cute roomwear and Rady is a great place to get some. I really like the marbled design and love pink and purple. The more muted one is much for softer, while the vibrant one is more terrycloth, but you can't feel that on the inside. I definitely would consider getting some more of these, but for now I'm going to be wearing these a LOT!

Next, I picked up some cute pink sets! The jacket and shorts set are from Emiriawiz, and the jacket and skirt set are from Dazzy Store. I love pink, and sometimes I want to wear something a bit more business-like. I don't go into the office too much, but when I do I want to wear cute stuff! I also think both of these could work for just wearing something not super-duper agejo out when I am out with friends. 

Along the theme of business casual, and a color I love to wear but don't own a lot of: minty green/blueish clothes! I love pink, but I also love wearing these colors once in awhile. The minty set is from Delyle Noir, while the blue/white onepiece is from Sugar! I own a few pieces from Delyle Noir and I really like the quality of the clothing, so I was happy to add this to my cart. I can definitely see myself wearing this to like, a drag brunch. (I really want to go to another drag brunch lol). The Sugar onepiece was one that just kept showing up in my Mercari JP searches... haunting me... I finally gave in. There's supposed to be a matching belt but this listing didn't have it, but I have a few I could make it. I actually LOVE a peplum. I know, very 2010s of me... but something about it is just... so great.

Speaking of Peplums, I also got this SUUUUUUPER cute onepiece from the brand Selina. I was shocked at how white the skirt was as the listing photos made it look cream. I also have a very very... like almost very similar dress coming in next week but it's from an. I definitely will be working on coordinating this for karaoke, but also maybe if I go to any fancy schmancy places with my friends next year!!! My friend Sam were talking about Hibachi, which isn't the fanciest thing, but it's an excuse to wear this! I also noted this dress comes with padding, so no bra needed (always exciting!). Can you tell I really like some of the old school kyaba dresses? LOL. They're so cute...

And finally! The reason this haul started! SHOES! I think I finally wrapped up my shoe collection for now, and there's no more shoes I need. Let me show you the final two pairs!

The pink shoes are from Mon Lily! I have tried to find a nice pair of pink heels, but both attempts I have tried didn't work (didn't fit, open toe which I don't like). I was a little nervous these wouldn't fit, but a try on and I found out they did! These will be a bit difficult to coordinate with my pink outfits, so I may need to use these as a pop of color in the future. 

And probably my most favorite item of the shoes. These knee-high DearMyLove Boots! Deary? Dearly? DearMy? DearML? That old logo is so hard to read. I found these boots for 16.69!!!!!!!!!! and my god I was ready to gamble if these would disintegrate the moment I put them on. I was also nervous they wouldn't fit. Luckily the seller put the exact mesasurements for these (and the mon lily shoes! same seller!). The only downside is they are kind of stiff, so I need to work them in. My pal Elin told me they'd look really good with my MA*RS fur trim items and I was like :O you are soooo right!!! I am definitely going to be wearing these a lot. I have some basic black thigh-hights, but I think these will work super well with some winter code ideas I have.

And that's it!! I technically had one more big gift for myself coming, but with the US postal system, I actually don't think I'll ever get it. LOL. But I am excited to incorporate these into my wardrobe!!