12 / 27 / 18 - This is one of my favorite memories that I have. I spent some time with my cousins in their somewhat small town! It was the first time my parents had allowed me anywhere without them (I'm not a bad kid lol they're just really protective), so it was especially exciting for me! On this particular day, I went downtown with the two cousins that I was staying with. As strange as it sounds, considering it was just a bunch of kids riding together in a car, I felt real and independent for the very first time. It felt like a real coming-of-age teen moment lol. The three of us walked around the streets of vacant stores downtown. We stopped at a cute chocolate shop that carried big chocolate letters and numbers, wrapped in bags with colorful bows on them! Super cute! We ended up buying the cutest chocolates together. Among the streets, there were sooooo many antique shops!! There were even some cute boxed Kewpie dolls! One of the shops carried a chest full of cute assorted pins! I specifically remember seeing a cute Winnie the Pooh one that had a moving balloon on it. I never saw a pin with that kind of functionality and in my excitement, I frantically went to show my cousins. "You're so easily amused" one of them said, lol. A large majority of the things there were super cheap (the earrings, mini bear, block, and Sesame Street bag cutouts featured above)! Some of my cousin's friends tagged along, and we all got ice cream and lunch together. Every night that I spent there in their town, we made messy microwaved smores and messed around in their basement. We danced around one night while watching Napoleon Dynamite, and my little cousin taught me how to fortnight dance. :/ I could go on about other fun things that happened during this time, but this day in particular was my favorite that I chose to write about :]

11 / 16 / 18 - Poppy and I went to our school to see the Cinderella play performed by our school's theater department! She gifted me some cute rainbow stickers (the star ones on the page above as well) that we put on our faces beforehand! During the intermissions, we had lots of fun cracking jokes and messing around. It was a lovely play! Although I can't remember a whole lot about it, I do remember that the lighting was one of my favorite things. ❤ The stage setup and lighting were lovely!! Lovely colors for the lighting were chosen! So good!! After the play, we picked out some ice cream and went home (๑❛ᴗ❛๑)

10 / 30 / 18 - I got to celebrate my birthday a bit with some of my friends at school! Kinda lame to some, but it was fun for me! I decided to wear a Little Twin Stars dress (depicted above)! Poppy seemed to be more excited about my birthday than me lol. She gifted me a cute rainbow cake slice, amongst other things! I brought sugar cookies for our little friend group at lunch because I thought it would be cute! Just like elementary school! A friend of ours just happened to have a lighter on him and we decided to put a candle in one of the cookies. I was exhilarating to look around to make sure no one was looking before we lit the candle lol. I had to blow it out super quick! Poppy brought a Filipino bread, mamon cake, for all of us to share as well. Even though it was short, it was a cute and fun time with some close friends of mine! ❤

10 / 7 / 18 - My father and I went to a movie theater downtown to watch Attack on Titan: Roar of Awakening and the Season 2 premiere of AoT! I was super into Attack on Titan at this time, so it was really exciting for me! I felt it was appropriate to bring my Armin Arlert ita bag with me :] Surprisingly, more than the movie itself, the trip to the theater is what I remember to be the most pleasant! We rode a streetcar to the theater and had some time to kill, so we walked around the area for a while and got lunch there! The sun was setting and gave a pretty glow to the surrounding buildings. After the movie ended (around 10:00 PM), we rode the streetcar back to where we had parked. There were only about 2 other people on it since it was nighttime, and everyone, including my father and I, spread out among the space. It felt so surreal to ride at night because of the absence of people that usually flood in at once. In the pitch black sky, you could see the glow of the signs from buildings perfectly. It was somewhat of a dreamlike experience for me :] I highly associate the song Tong Poo covered my Akiko Yano with that day, as I listened to it for the majority of the day.

10 / 6 / 18 - I went to a Japanese / anime mini-convention with Poppy for the first time! She dressed in decora and I dressed in fairy kei as best as I could (depicted in the drawing :) )! A lot of the vendors there were super nice!! We found lots of cute merch there and tried melon bread together! It was a super fun and surreal experience for me, as it was my first time going to an event like this with a friend!