We shamelessly love Valentine's Day. For a lot of people it's a gigantic waste of time - a soul-sucking, money-grabbing ploy masterminded by our great enemy Capitalism - but for us (although it is also all of those things), it's a dedicated day for celebrating how much we appreciate each other. Sappy. Lame. Totally romantic. We celebrate our relationship every month on the 8th with a dinner, and buy each other little gifts and tasty goodies and treats all the time anyway, so we don't even need Valentine's Day. But we like it. We celebrate it. We use it as another excuse to spoil each other rotten, and we make the most of it.
This year we spent the day in the city. My mother bought us a Scoupon voucher for a box of Walker's Donuts (we have a serious relationship with Walker's Donuts), which we promptly redeemed and consumed. Then we visited everyone's favourite pop culture specialists down at Minotaur and bought manga, because why not. The boys were having a rough day - a blue-haired teen vomited all over their carpet, and not five minutes later a man heavily under the influence of something illicit had to be forcibly removed for refusing to leave and getting aggressive. Bad day at the office. From there we did some casual shopping along Bourke Street, then wandered up to Good Games where I napped for a solid hour. We saved a poor discarded rose from a sad and lonely death on the floor of Melbourne Central station and took him adventuring with us, and killed the last of our time at Flagstaff Gardens, because the weather was gorgeous. Then boyfie took me for our surprise Valentine's dinner. We had a seven course... experience? at Hibachi restaurant - miso soup, takoyaki (fried octopus meat), gyoza dumplings, prawn sushi rolls, assorted tempura, fried tofu in sweet and sour sauce, with sake to accompany and green tea ice cream to follow. The food was fresh and delicious; I'd highly recommend eating there if you're visiting the city one night. Just typing it now is making me hungry; I already want to go back. So good. And then we jumped on the freeway and headed to the planetarium at Scienceworks for their special Valentine's weekend show. Sadly the sky was too cloudy to be able to use the telescopes to stargaze afterward, but it was still a lovely night.
I wore this knit especially, obviously. I've had it for a very long time, and honestly I think I'm ready to part with it. It did its job well, but it isn't my style anymore and I wouldn't buy it if I saw it in a store now. It came from one of those affordable, cute Asian fashion stores. Shorts from Uniqlo. White tennis shoes were not my footwear of choice, but I had to switch my black boots out when I realised how much walking we'd be doing all day. I swapped them back again for the planetarium and felt much better. If you celebrate Valentine's Day, happy Valentine's Day! If you don't, I hope your weekend was as wonderful as ours. x
Hello, internet friend. Long time no post. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. My week was so intense, I pretty much completely unplugged from the world wide web just to be able to juggle it all. And now I can tell you all about it, so let's play catch up.
I actually wore this outfit twice in a row, because life is crazy. Last Wednesday after work I drove into Richmond for the HardieGrant-Edgmont summer roadshow, which a few of us from work attended. It's basically an evening where publishers and authors talk about new books that are due to be published throughout the year, and they often come with free hors d'oeuvres and goody bags (reading copies of said new books). Free stuff is always extremely exciting. It was a good night - sometimes roadshow can really drag on, but this one didn't run dramatically overtime - and they had the best miniature cupcakes I think I've ever had at an event. They come pretty close to beating out Matt Preston's miniature creme brulees at Macmillan's roadshow last year. Not quite, though, now that I'm reminiscing. Those creme brulees were absolutely amazing. Anyway, I drove my colleague home afterward, and we stopped for Maccas and ended up sitting there for hours. I think we were both too tired to leave, to be honest.
The next day - Thursday - I hopped in my car after work and drove to my friend's place (the one who likes Sailor Moon), where I changed (in my car, in the street - classy dame), and jumped on a train to the city. Here I am in a shoe shop at Melbourne Central. Photo-taking opportunities didn't come frequently last week. My friend invited me out to a pre-organised dinner with her friend (who recently returned from travelling the U.S., lucky lady; she also has delightfully curly hair) because I was feeling a bit like I needed a pick-me-up. Good friend is a good friend. Melbourne was busy preparing for Chinese New Year this weekend, so we joined the buzz of Chinatown and dropped into Fukuryu Ramen for delicious ramen bowls, alcohol and matcha soft serve. It was a really lovely evening, and I think I really needed that time with my friend. I don't socialise too often, and sometimes I think being a hermit can make you go a little crazy. I should probably try to get out more.
Peach knit is from Valleygirl several winters ago. I have the same in pale blue. They're comfy and versatile, and often I just swap the colours out of this exact outfit and wear it numerous times, because lazy and comfortable. These intricate, fleur-de-lis-eqsue leggings were from Cotton On the same year. I have a feeling it was 2013. I've worn them almost to death. Peach handbag came from Kate Hill only a year or so ago, pretty much specifically to go with this outfit. Black ankle boots are from Payless Shoes as far back as 2006, because my feet stopped growing when I was eleven (I was not eleven in 2006, though) and somehow my shoes last pretty well. I think this year will be their tenth winter. They have cute buttons down the side that you can't see here. Maybe I'll show you next time. Gold fleur-de-lis (see the emerging theme here?) statement necklace was also Valleygirl, I think, or Temt, a couple of years ago. This style of necklace hasn't gone out of fashion yet, so there are probably very similar designs still floating around. Aaaaand my almost invisible scrunchie (lol, greasy hair days) came from the children's section - like, kindergartener age - at the Pokemon Center in Japan. It's cute. It's pink. It has fennekin on it. I wear it. Don't judge me. x
