Last week Momolita visited London for the first time. Though I’d met her many times in Tokyo, it was very exciting to meet her over here and take her to my favourite places. We worked on a little something together that will be on the upcoming issue of Dolly Dolly.

先週、モモリータさんはロンドンへ来ました。もう東京で会うことがありましたが、ロンドンで会うのはすごく楽しかったです。＾＾いいプロジェクトでいっしょに働きました。新しいDolly*Dollyを楽しんでください！

Left to right, Georgia, Linda, Bethany, Momolita and Holly. Lovely dolly ladies.

(The five photos above were taken by Bethany)

After a visit to World’s End in Chelsea we went to Brompton cemetery, one of London’s “magnificent seven” Victorian cemeteries. I’m determined to visit all seven this summer, though considering how incredibly gothic they are, bleak wintertime is certainly best.

Brompton cemeteryではカラスがたくさんいました。Daisy D/ひろこさんのことを考えました。<3 ひろこさんがいなくて、寂しいです。

Thursdays and Sundays in East London are wonderful. On Thursday there’s my favourite antique market around the corner, I only have one lecture, and at night, Princess Julia plays fantastic music at the George and Dragon. On Sundays, Brick Lane is bursting with markets; flea markets, fruit and veg markets, vintage markets, food halls, and then further down on Columbia road, the wonderful flower market. A bit further away, there’s the Hackney city farm, which at the moment looks wonderful because of all the chestnut trees blooming.

This past Thursday I embarked upon my 7th trip to Tokyo. I got really depressed just before for some reason. I hadn’t slept in 3 days and I was really stressed. I had to go to the airport the previous night because I was flying too early and that’s never pleasant. If you’re on your own at least.

The tube was empty, it was a bit scary really every time it stopped in a dark empty station.

The airport was very empty too, save for people sleeping here and there.

I didn’t feel like getting mugged so I tried to stay awake as much as possible. It felt like the longest night of my life. I had packed some pizza and a strawberry smoothie. ^.^ My ipod has been broken for months now and I couldn’t find a plug to plug in my Macbook and watch something, so I just sat there, and read Alice in Wonderland.

I was flying via Finland.

Finnair’s food is the worst. It’s worse than english food. Bizarre patties with unidentifiable ingredients and the jelly dessert was liquid! :-S

Their service however was wonderful, very nice and smiley crew and the plane was pretty and clean. The japanese flight attendant was especially cute. As I predicted, there WAS a Jennifer Aniston film in the selection. Nothing tickled my fancy so I didn’t watch any. I mostly slept, so it was a very smooth flight for me.

Flying over frozen lands.

Finally getting a glimpse of Japan!

Dustin O’Halloran – Opus 12

I went to the “London International Antique and Artist Dolls, Toys, Miniatures, Teddy Bears and Vintage Fashion Fair” today, which despite its elaborate title was sadly not all that much. It used to be held in Kensington and it was much bigger then, but now they moved it to Dulwich college in the middle of nowhere. It’s a much, much nicer place, with natural light, but so inconvenient that there was poor turnout of both sellers and customers.

Anyhow, there were lots of wonderful and extremely expensive antique bisque dolls that I’ll never get to own.

Some of them had the most amazing glass eyes.

I loved this one so much, especially her outfit.

I liked this Sasha. I can’t possibly resist white lips.

Antique teddy in cute outfit.

I was hoping to find some antique glass eyes for Noeru, my U-noa B-El, but there were none! So I only got a very very old, possibly victorian, baby’s gown that is almost compltely made out of lace, very beautiful.

It was a very good day, a rare occurrence around here.

I got this wonderful set at the local antique market today. They’re french made transluscent milk glass, glazed in these beautiful pastel colours, from the 1960s.

There are a few british habits I took on immediately as soon as I moved here, for example complaining about the weather all the time, even though I actually like rain. And there are others I thought I could never, ever get into, like their perverse obsession with tea. And I did pretty well, for three years. But then there was this one night, it was snowing, and it was incredibly cold, and I went to someone’s house and they offered me a cup. And it was so warming, so comforting, it converted me overnight. Now I drink a good few cups a day.

My favourite is Earl Grey and Masala Chai. These taste great with milk that I love, and they don’t need sugar which is good because I eat too much of it as it is. I hate English breakfast tea, and I hate Darjeeling. They taste like you soaked cigarette butts in water. Not really into herbal tea at the moment but I’ve learnt to never say never…

The english have TERRIBLE food. But there’s one thing they do well and that’s tea cakes. “Cream tea” is tea accompanied with scones topped with clotted cream and jam. Incredibly fatty, incredibly delicious.

I went out to run some errands yesterday and it started pouring as soon as I was too far to justify going back for an umbrella.

After a while I was so soaked I didn’t care anymore, at least it wasn’t too cold. I went to the post office, had some film developed, popped by the V&A Museum of Childhood while waiting for said film, then bought ingredients for soup and a cake and headed back home. The rain wouldn’t stop. But I had appropriate music.

While listening to Malice Mizer’s album Bara no seidou, I passed by St. Anne’c Catholic Church…

…which I thought was funny because the cover of the record looks like this.

It’s been snowing since last night, it hasn’t set very thickly yet though, but I hope it does.

Weirdly enough, this is the least cold it’s been all winter. Before the snow, it was painful to be outside.

Today I made spaghetti a la puttanesca. It has become my favourite pasta dish – it’s really cheap to make, really delicious, it means “whore’s spaghetti” and it gives me a good reason to buy those pretty cans of anchovies.

My narcissus bulbs are growing slowly but steadily. They’re the white ones with yellow centres, my mom’s favourites.