Cherry Blossom Festival in SF Japantown +

Hello all!!

( ^_^)／ やぁ！

As many may know, the past few weekends have been filled with activity in Japantown due to Cherry Blossom Festival!

I had missed out on it during the first week, so I tried my best to make it to the second week!

FOTD

I finally took the time to use my 3-prong Conair hair curler/waver that was gifted to me on Christmas by Rayna! A light mist of hairspray all over and my mermaid waves stayed on the whole day! FOTD courtesy of Rayna again, because she got me Naked 3, which has pink neutrals and browns.

To go with the pinkish theme, I wore a dusty pink/neutral flowy blouse (H&M) with a black mini peplum skirt (Zara) for some contrast. To give a more tamed look, I wore the pointy maryjane flatforms (unbranded), and finished it up with a pop of color with my orange Kate Spade cross-body bag.

Upon arriving Japantown, Obiwon and I started hunting for parking..

..for at least an hour.

We gave up and parked at a market nearby, only to later find 3 tow trucks removing cars from the lots (the parking is for customers only). We ran into Nijiya market to grab some food quickly, ran to the food booths and shoved our faces, and left to find something else to do. We did not want to risk getting the car towed.

Sadly, that was how my one hour in Japantown was during the festival. At the very least we were able to enjoy the festival food, but with such a short amount of time, I did not take any photos.

ヽ(　￣д￣;)ノ オテアゲー

Green tea daifuku from Nijiya Market

Filled with red bean!

Kirin Peach & Raspberry drink. New favorite!

Trying to find something to do, Obiwon and I decided to stop by to get some coffee then peruse around Muji.

I feel quite lucky that Muji is now more available in California. More recently, a store has opened in SoCal! The one that Obiwon and I went to is in SoMa.

I love that Muji gives us such simple designs that do everything we want. Getting the innovative Japanese products we want is always hard since it usually costs more than I can really afford. Fortunately, Muji makes everything easier for me! My small haul:

Face brush, wire organizer, cotton L/S shirt, wash bucket

I made these small purchases as a way to start migrating towards a more simpler design lifestyle (though I tend to go back and forth). The face brush is typically used by men to apply shaving cream to their beards before shaving. However, I purchased this as a manual version of the popular Clairsonic face brush. My skin is relatively sensitive, and Clairsonic is quite pricey for me, and so I opted for a manual brush. This face brush is made of white horse hairs and hinoki wood, and gives a wonderful fresh and woodsy fragrance! The wire organizer is for my sink as my facial products are taking up space and makes my sink area look messy. It looks a lot better now! The L/S shirt is so soft, and the colors are nice and mellow, great for lounging and wearing out casually. The wash bucket is mainly for face-washing since my sink is so deep, I end up taking forever filling my sink and use up more water than I need to.

That was essentially my Cherry Blossom Festival experience. Quite disappointed as I did not get to take my time to see everything (but no regrets on the Muji purchases!).

On another note, I have taken a few photos of my outfits since I had just recently got a mirror in my room!

ASOS, Uniqlo, Zara, Sperry, Coach

H&M, vintage, Gap, Sperry

H&M, Zara, unbranded, Kate Spade

And some food!

Homemade dumpling with noodles

Homemade pork ribs

Homemade pork chops and chicken soup

Homemade sandwich

Homemade...epic bread lol

Talon Update

I finally took the opportunity to take better photos of Talon in the new apartment. He seems to enjoy his new home!

Though I was not able to go to the festival, my apartment-mate Stef came back from SakuraCon with a small gift for me:

This super cute pencil pouch! Light colors and big size, great as a makeup bag, or pencil bag, or even a small errand bag (ex. for receipts, pen, checklist, small change, etc.).

Thank you Stef!

Hopefully I get to go to Japantown events earlier and miss out on the traffic and parking havoc next time.

How was your weekend?