style – Diary of a Norwegian in Japan

At the border of Niigata and Gunma; Tanigawadake

Saturday morning, again at 3am, we got up to be on our way to Tanigawadake with Teddy’s family.

We took the ropeway (which might have been the first time for me), and then the skilift (that didn’t have a bar like the one I used last time years ago when going snowboarding) to get to the top and see all the mountains, including Mt. Tanigawa, surrounding us on all sides. Such a stunning view, an experience to behold.

If you strain your imagination you can catch the outline of Mt. Fuji all the way in the back on the last picture

Teddy is saying we will climb (!) Mt. Tanigawa next time, but I am not so sure, it might take too long at my fitness level (crying)

We went and had some soba afterwards, with tempura, and soba-yu, and soba tea, and soba tea pudding. Everything soba, except the tempura. As I lived in Nagano when I first moved to Japan, I do love soba.

On the way back we chanced upon a foot hot spring and some autumn leaves at a little roadside station, the foot bath was really refreshing!

Maybe I will think about climbing Mt. Tanigawa, one day…

衣替え from summer to autumn

衣替え　(koromogae) is the seasonal change of clothing, switching out the warderobe from one season to the other. The beginning of October is the perfect time for koromogae.

Darjeeling as (un)helpful as always.

I was able to do some decluttering as well, but not as much as I would like. I still get stuck on the «I might need this» or «I might want to wear this again one day».

This time I left the pieces that I didn’t wear last year in with the summer clothes in the storage box, so if I don’t reach for them this season I can hopefully declutter them next spring.

Now my warderobe looks like this;

I realized I mainly use greys, blacks, whites, mustards, and a tiny splash of pink. At least it’s not all black. It feels calmer.

I hope to be able to do a 100% perfect konmari one day. Maybe next year.

Tomorrow the weather will be lovely so I plan to get all the laundry done and even hang out the futons.

What do you do on sunny days off?

Potato donuts and a chic day off

Today it is a public holiday here in Japan, don’t know which one, what matters most to me is that I have a day off.

I have seen online that they have different potato donuts at mister donuts here so I decided to try them out. I can’t remember the last time I went to a donut shop, nor when I last ate a donut, so it must be a while since it happened. Anyways.

We have mitsuimo (honey potato), mitsuimo and butter, daigakuimo (candied sweet potato, literally university potato though haha), sweet potato, and murasakiimo (purple fleshed sweet potatao, very appetizing name).

Mitsuimo was ok, mitsuimo and butter not to my taste (not a fan of butter taste?), daigakuimo was ok, sweet, sweet potato was good, and murasakiimo was the best I think. I wanted to like the sweet potato one more, but it didn’t have as much sweet potato taste as other sweet potato sweets, like wagashi, usually have so.

Darjeeling was also interested, but not enough to have a bite haha

Today I felt very french, with my parisienne favourite perfume from SHIRO, and a dress and belt from the collaboration between uniqlo and Ines de la Fressange.

I have been reading another book by Dora Tauzin lately namely; «パリジェンヌはいくつになっても人生を楽しむ» or “A parisienne enjoys her life no matter how old” (loosely translated).

Anyone tried the donuts from mister donuts lately? Or any other good donuts out there?

Getting out of a black hole

The black hole that was my warderobe. Up until the beginning of this year I would wear black 9 times out of 10. It would be the colour I gravitated towards in the stores. The safe colour.

I had a period during middle and high school where I would only wear colored clothes, so screamingly bright that it would hurt your eyes. But as I got older I thought about dressing more adult, and so black became a staple.

Since I met Teddy he would often ask “why are you always wearing black? I think lighter colours would look a lot better on you!” but in the beginning I would just brush it off. Black is safe, I can hide the parts I don’t like about myself in black clothes.

But after a while I thought, maybe I can wear some lighter colours? Or just any colour other than black?

And so this year I started little by little adding new colours into my warderobe. A white t-shirt, a beige pair of pants, a light blue summer dress.

While my warderobe is a lot lighter now, that is not to say I don’t have any black pieces of course. I have a black dress, a black sweater, black tights, a blacl cardigan, a black t-shirt, and a black pair of jeans. But black is no longer the main colour in my warderobe.

After starting to add lighter pieces, I have noticed I enjoy dressing a lot more. Putting together an outfit, feeling good going outside. I am not fashionable by any means, but I am enjoying fashion a great deal more.

I am slowly building a warderobe of clothes I like, finding my style. I am reading many different books on the subject, about fashion, lifestyle, etc., and they are helping me piece together that which is me.