Annual Midwest Lolita Meetup 2011

Yesterday was the second anniversary of the Midwest Lolita Meetup!!  I had a lot of fun both seeing old friends and getting to meet new people!!  It seems like the meetup has grown in attendance since last year, so that's also really awesome ^_^  Too bad it ended up raining (spectacularly, if I might say so) so we couldn't have our picnic outside in the park, but we ended up taking over the Cultural Center's cafe area, which worked out pretty well.

First off, my Dessert OP from BTSSB arrived just in time.  Well, technically they tried to deliver it Friday but my roommate decided to be awesome and deliberately ignore the mailman (*sarcasm*).  So I ended up picking the package up from the post office in the morning before the meetup.  In any case, it worked out pretty okay XD  It's a simple outfit, but I rather like that about it - I think I tend to have a penchant for simpler outfits anyways.  My hairstyle was inspired by a recent post from Midori, in which she showed off "Minnie Mouse" hairstyle with a giant bow.  Good thing too, since the only hairthing that really matched was my giant sax bow...

OP: Baby the Stars Shine Bright

Headbow: Handmade (LJ Millenaire)

Shoes: Secret Shop

And I actually remembered to bring my camera to the meetup this year (although I  still failed pretty bad at remembering to use it XD).  In any case, here's a few snaps of my friends (old and new)!

Paris: Catacombes + Cimetière du Montparnasse

Day 2 of my trip started with a quick stop at the neighborhood bakery, where I picked a delicious pain au chocolat.  Somehow it was just more delicious than any chocolate croissant I've ever had in the US... maybe simply because it was nice and fresh.  Who knows, but it was delightful!

And then, I went to the catacombs...  I waited in line, in the burning sun, for almost an hour before I finally got in.  The tour is entirely self-guided, and goes through both a quarry section and a catacomb section.  There were a lot of pretty things in the quarry section, which I didn't quite expect.  For example, this lovely model:

We also walked past several wells, of which this one was the best lit and the prettiest.  My camera was not so good at taking photos in dark places without flash, so things in lighted areas were pretty much the only things that came out.

As we went from the quarries to the catacombs, we were greeted by this lovely entrance message:

The catacombs... they're so cool!  So many bones and skulls all piled together, complete with random concret slabs with morbid inscriptions on them.  Also, just generally dark and wet (there was water dripping from the ceiling).

There were also several interesting crypts and other structures, including this Sepuchral Lamp.

And as if I hadn't gotten enough of death, I stopped by the Montparnasse Cemetery after a quick lunch break.  The cemetery was very pretty, but pretty unremarkable - I mean, it's just like many other cemeteries.  There were some pretty crypts, but I felt sort of weird walking around being too obvious about taking photos.  I stuck to photographing really old graves, or more "famous" graves.  Including that of Alexander Alekhine, world chess champion!!

Next stop: Eiffel Tower!!

Monster - 嵐 (Arashi)

Guess whaaat??!! That's right, another Arashi dance cover ^o^ I started learning the dance to "Monster" fairly soon after I learned "Lotus" but it took a bit longer to really polish up since the footwork is a little more complicated and I didn't have as good a set of reference videos (all the live performances have mostly been taken off Youtube already). Also... I had to learn how to do it in 2-inch heels.

Yes... 2-inch heels... Because this was also a project in sewing for me. I decided to create a Lolita version of Oh-chan's outfit. I chose Oh-chan rather than Nino because his outfit was the most distinctive without looking tacky or hard to construct, given fabrics available to me and my own sewing skills. The outfit will get its own post as soon as I have time to touch up the photos XD

So yeah, anyways, here it is! A dance + dub + cosplay of Arashi's "Monster"!