I like candy.

I bought a new scarf at H&M recently, and wanted to wear it today, but I seem to have misplaced it. I seem to misplace my clothes more than most people do. Like my brown jacket, that I had lost. I later remembered that I threw it in my brother's closet because I ran out of room in my own closet.

cardigan and brooch from flea market, blouse from Tokyo Fashion Co., skirt from Thrift Town, Mudd shoes.

I think this blouse was only about $8 or so. Clothes in Taiwan generally aren't very expensive, unless you're trying to buy Abercrombie and Fitch. A&F goes for three times the price in Taiwan compared to America.

I bought this brooch for a dollar at the flea market. It's handmade out of clay. I'm surprised that it's not broken yet.

More florals. This one is more of an antique floral, like my velvet pants. There's not much leg room in this skirt; not flowy enough for me. So I keep stumbling in it.

I went to a buffet twice this week already. Buffets aren't my place to be, because I'm just about done after the first plate. And then I don't eat the desserts because the things they have are too sugary. I like candy, though.

Love, Kai

just a trim.

My bangs were long enough to cover my eyes again, so I went to get them cut today. I normally cut them once a week on my own, and haven't had a problem with my own cutting skills. But my mom is always complaining about it so I decided to go to a salon on have them trimmed.

I gave the lady at the counter a few instructions. One, I want them straight and even. Two, they must be long enough to cover my eyebrows. Unfortunately, she cut them crooked and short enough for one eyebrow to show.

At least it photographs better than it looks. I've been wearing this pin in my hair all afternoon, trying to make the lopsidedness not look so bad.

The lady went chop chop chop straight across my bangs and finished in less than a minute, and charged ten bucks for an inadequate cut. In Taiwan, I can get three quick cuts or one expensive cut for ten dollars.

I think I'm just going to stick with cutting my bangs myself.

Love, Kai

a warm december.

Up until recently, it had been raining several days in a row. But then all of a sudden, the sun came out again and it was as if spring had arrived when winter had just officially started. I had to carry my parasol out because the sun was out and shining again.


Left: Me wearing cardigan from thrift, skirt worn as top borrowed from Nana, J Daheck skirt from Taiwan, bag from thrift, accessories from Forever 21, Mudd shoes from Famous Footwear Right: Yoko wearing her own coat, Baby the Stars Shine Bright dress, Bodyline shoes, and Mulberry for Target bag

I went on a stroll with my friends, who chose out pieces from my closet to wear. It was dress-like-Kai day. I dress like me every day.

For some reason, I've been in no mood to shop this week. Maybe it's because of my lack of money, but when my brother took me to a local mall earlier today, all I wanted to do was return home. It's no fun to shop without being able to buy anything. Besides, the lines at Nordstrom Rack were horrendous.

Simple in black and white today.

swacket from Harputs Union, top from thrift store, pants from Taiwan


There was no Christmas at my house this year. Only emission of negative attitude and a lack of spirit. Next year, I'll just not come home for Christmas.

My best friend Yoko bought be a bottle of Chanel nail polish as a present this year. So happy! She always manages to find something that I love. Last year, I received two necklaces with the prettiest charms on them.

From my classmate, I received a box of cute hair bows


It's been a gloomy holiday season with the family, so I'm glad I have friends to get my spirits up.

This is the Christmas picture I drew yesterday. It's not very Christmas oriented. Just a reason to draw, I suppose. It's been a while since I've been able to sit down and just draw. I also just noticed that the webcam takes mirror views of things. Took me long enough to notice.

I've been watching some old episodes of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and catching up on old times, and drew my family like Cheese from the show.


I wish it were summer break right now.

Love, Kai

nylon or wool?

I went back to San Francisco for my swacket yesterday, carrying the $400 I saved up for the nylon swacket, plus an additional hundred for possible Christmas shopping. And I'm glad I did. I underestimated the prices. The Harputs website definitely isn't the right place to go for prices. When I walked in, the first swacket I saw was $510. The second was $600. The one with the nicest fabric was over $1000. $510 was the cheapest.

After a month of contemplating, I finally decided on black. The tough part was choosing material. I thought there would be two choices: nylon and wool. There was both, but there was nylon and maybe about four types of wool. Nylon is too windbreakery for me. The common wool one was too stiff for me. I couldn't roll up the sleeves on that one, and it makes me twitchy. After about an hour, I decided on a piana wool one, with a marked down price to fit my budget (actually it was still a bit over).

Here are a few ways to wear the swacket.



There really are a lot of ways to wear it, but I haven't discovered them all yet. I'll be experimenting over the course of the next few days! I have officially spent all my savings, so there wont be much shopping going on for a while.

Love, Kai

renegade craft fair.

The Holiday Renegade Craft Fair took place this weekend in San Francisco, where a couple hundred indie artists sell their crafts. It was my first time there, and I was awfully excited. My two goals of the day were: 1) find the Seibei stand and buy a taco shirt for my baby brother and 2) buy a swacket.

Here's the venue, inside the Concourse Exhibition Center. I ran to the back to look for Seibei as soon as I got in.
Success! There, I met David, also known as Seibei's mastermind. I must have sort of spazzed, because I've been a fan of his work since the summer of 2008, when I first stumbled on a sandwich dinosaur t-shirt on JapanLA's website. I was going to buy a taco dinosaur tee for my brother and a mint/pink sandwich dinosaur tee for me, but in all my excitement, I kind of forgot. That, and I only brought $50, which was a mistake. There were so many amazing artists there, and I wish I had brought more money.

I love Seibei dinosaurrr!!!

From left to right, my dinosaur tank top, a navy/white sandwich dinosaur t-shirt for my brother, and a taco dinosaur tee for my other brother. The tote and buttons and signed posters are gifts from David.

Aside from Seibei, one of my favorite booths was Rebe. The designs were cute and comfy, my favorite style. I wanted the pants that was on the mannequin, but I was $130 short.
I had to take several shots before getting a not-as-blurry one. The lighting in the expo wasn't all too point-and-shoot friendly.

Dinosaur! I've realized recently that I really like dinosaurs. They might be my favorite animal after birds. This giant dinosaur caught my attention.
I bought a book at this stand.
I received some postcards as a free gift from the guys working there.
The two guys there were totally awesome and sociable, but for that reason, I had to wait for quite a while to get to them and pay.

I was looking around for some things for my big brother. If I had the money, I might have gotten this scarf. My brother likes scarves and he likes cupcakes. Maybe not pink, though. Made by Twinkie of twinkiechan.

Something came up in the early afternoon so my dad and I rushed back home. I spent four hours commuting to and from San Francisco and only spent an hour and a half in the city. Meaning I didn't get to go to Harputs for a swacket. It would be easier if I just lived in San Francisco. I'll have to go back sometime soon. Maybe when it's sunny again. I'm not a fan of walking in the rain. Oh that reminds me, my Docs aren't waterproof, so the bottom of the shoe has been pilling. Man.

This is Kaia, over and out.

Otis.

I went on a one day trip to Los Angeles on Friday to check out Otis College of Art and Design. After arriving in LAX I went to the fashion campus in the downtown. Otis' main campus and fashion campus are relatively far away from each other.By public transportation, it took about well over an hour.
Passing by Union Station on our way to the next bus stopSome sparrows that were accompanying me at the bus stop. You know, just hangin'.

Outside the fashion campus. Otis' art program is in a fashion building on the second floor. Pictures weren't allowed inside, so I took one outside.

I took a few pictures before the security guard started yelling at us. Only on the first floor. On the first floor, there were finished pieces on display, a convenience store, and a really amazing fashion bookstore.
Due to poor lighting, I couldn't catch an unblurry picture. This bookstore has the widest selection of fashion references and magazines I've seen in my life. There was an Alexander Mcqueen book for sale at $40. I carried $20 with me that day. The store also carries huge runway reports from Spring 2011 and earlier. It includes detailed shots of all of the collections. I would have loved to have it, but for $100, I could only admire.

I've been looking for V magazine for months, and finally found it in this store. But the New York Issue is out of date and not sold anymore. Bummer. Fashion Bookstore has every American fashion magazine I can think of. They also carried several European magazines and Japanese magazines. I even found an issue of Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone for Vogue Homme Japan. For over $20.

I wasn't able to catch any pictures of the second floor. I met some really friendly staff, and the fashion students there were impressive. I was visiting on a school day, so a lot of the students were there too. Andrea, who is a junior at Otis, showed me around and answered my burning questions.

The tour at the main campus didn't start until 2:00 in the afternoon, so there was a lot of extra time to just hang around. I got to admit, there wasn't much to do for three, four hours.
And here's the main campus.
It was better than I expected. I've heard that Otis is just a building, but there's a fence around it and somewhat of a yard and a small campus.


A lot of the majors seemed interesting. Besides fashion, I also liked their graphic design, toy design, and product design.

I met up with a councilor who did a Q and A session with our tour group, and reviewed my portfolio afterwards.

Walked a couple miles back to the airport after that. It had been raining all day, so I was soaking by the time I was at the airport. I arrived at the airport at around 4:30 or 5:00, when our flight was 8:30. All flights were delayed for hours; ours was pushed back to 11:30. Luckily there was a few seats available in an earlier flight.

Collegeee!
More applications tomorrow.
I'll make a more fun post soon.

Love, Kai

you win some, you lose some.

Took my last final today in Economics, and scored my A! Received a B in literature class, though, so. Whoo onto applications.

I didn't want to wear pants today, but it was too cold to wear a skirt. And I can't find my tights. So I wore my skirt-pants. Bad idea. I ended up tripping over myself all day. It might be a good idea for me to stop buying maxi skirts (or maxi...pants in this case).

Thrifted cardigan, Forever 21 necklace, mom's old broach, DIY watch necklace, thrifted cardigan worn as shawl, thrifted skirt-pants, Mudd shoes from Famous Footwear

I used to wear this netted cardigan a lot, but I threw it in the washing machine and it ripped a huge hole in it (well, the whole thing is made of holes).

I changed my pants after I arrived home so that I wouldn't have to continue tripping all over the place.


I did a little bit of thrift shopping after school today. Today's sales included $2 shoes! Some of the shoes were priced at $10 before so it was a good deal for those. But all the shoes that I liked were already $2.60. Saving $0.60 is still pretty good I guess.
Ended up just buying one pair. These are a little too big on me (or a full size. Maybe that's pretty big). But nothing a little sewing adjustment can't fix.
Gigantic netted sweater! I'm not sure how I'm going to wear this one. It's not very warm, but I guess that was obvious.

And yet another oversized cardigan. It's pilling pretty bad, but I'll fix that too.

Three things for a grand total of $6.50!

I think I'll start catching up on my sleep. I'll go to sleep at five. Got to wake up at 3am tomorrow, so no sleeping in for me.

Love, Kai