Passing the fantabulous Chanel store in Omote-sando, Lina sneaked a shot. I figure why not. Was a nice day any how :P

... which reminds me, its a national holiday here in Japan on this monday, and finally experiencing an entire day free of shoots and/or castings, should be taking advantage of the insanely kick-ass vintage shopping here! Having been blessed with the worst insomnia know to man, and showing no signs of giving in until at LEAST the 48th hour of my wakefulness, nearly forgot. I have a lot of things I want to do today. Searching for amazing vintage is one of them. The other you ask?

find sleeping pills...

... among other things.

So good night or good morning depending on where you are, I'm off to the city streets!

cheers.

SO EXCITED!!!!

In this pic is a few of my friends, and my sister (the cheeky blonde) just before going out to celebrate my birthday at the end of october. I had the best, and surprisingly most surreal birthday ever, and didn't sleep until at least 8:30am for an hour before heading out for french toast. After all, my ACTUAL birthday wasn't until then anyhow...

...Oh, the power of redbull, 5-hour energy drinks, and 5am cappuccinos.

ANYWAY, I'm getting distracted from my point! My sister Melanie did a lot for me for my birthday, and though plagued with exhaustion early in the evening, she went home, I was still so excited that we could spend my birthday together. Its becoming less and less often that I get to see my other half, and even birthdays are a hard bargain. Though Mel came and toughed it out with my birthday, I missed hers. Only two weeks after mine, I had already left my home town in Canada, flown back to my home in New York, Packed my bags and was in Tokyo putting on my yellow suede LouBoutins for castings before I could even blow a kiss goodbye. I missed Mel already! ... and miss her right now as I write this...

But the EXCITING part of all this is that SHE'S COMING TO TOKYO!!! I was able to book her a flight for the 14th of December, and we'll be on the flight back together. I'm SO excited.

If there's anything I've always wanted to be able to do, it's to share my experiences with travel with my fam'. Hopefully her first time in Tokyo is as amazing as it should be.

If she can get around her general disgust for raw fish, that'd be a good start ;)

Another leaf for my tree,

^_^

hmmm....

All i have to say... is only in japan

Exploring Tokyo, and Finding Gems

Exploring the streets of Tokyo with my Swedish friend Lina, we came across the coolest place! At first glance what seemed to be a heavily graffitied shack, turned out to be an underground art gallery and monjayaki restaurant. Here the younger (and in my opinion, cooler) Japanese come to hang out, look at the crazy, sometimes awesome, and sometimes terrible art and photography covering the inside of this building. There's everything from illustrations, to hand made crafts and nick-naks, to artistic photography, a lot of which is for sale. And when your done scanning the walls of the many entrancing rooms, or perhaps before, there's a restaurant in the back under tents and trees and planks of wood. Here people are found gathered with their friends around tables which are almost entirely made of a giant hot-plate (minus a few spare inches around the ledge). Here you simply get a bowl of ingredients, and cook your own food! .... and its so strange and interesting how. When we first ordered, we weren't sure we were doing it right because it looked like puke. When we asked about it, it turns out we were doing fine. It does look like puke. BUT it tasted pretty damn good anyhow... And they have crazy-awesome drink specials at lunch time ;)
One of the most surreal buildings I've come across, and well worth the visit.

This is definitely added to my treasure

:)



To get a look at the insane Tokyo street style, you should check out my friend Lina's Blog:

http://linadimoda.freshnet.se

Thoughts of Lines and Ladders

So letting my mind run, and my hand do what it wanted, i ended up with this. What do you take from it? knowing no one will see it quite the same way, I'm curious to know.

To Dream a Dream

I know its girly, but i did in fact have a dream involving fairies and monsters. Ever since i was a kid, I've had vivid dreams with characters, and plot lines.
In this particular dream, I was a character plagued by nightmarish monsters. I knew I was in a dream, and that the monsters after me were from my nightmares, but there seemed like there was nothing i could do about it but run. So I did. Running through the night time landscapes in my head of forest and field, I came across a friend whom i recognized from my other dreams. She told me that she was having the same problem with these bloody nightmare monsters chasing her around, and completely ruining a dream she was in involving mass amounts of ice cream. she was as pissed off as I was that this "lucid dreaming" had stupid monsters in it. we started to brainstorm for ideas. We both tried to wake up, but couldn't. Every branch we picked up for protection seemed to protest at the idea of touching monsters, and shriveled up. Every place we tried to hide was always too small once we got there. we were about ready to give up and just see what horrible stuff would happen next just to get it over and done with. And then we saw someone else. or something else. Some giant, fat, genderless being with sticks for hair, auburn skin and red eyes wobbled over in our direction. We then realized how small we were. We'd have no escape if this were a monster at last, but in the way of dreams, I knew it was not. It said that this dream was indeed having problems with monsters, and knew where we could go to fix it before it was over. It told me and my friend to hurry along, because we had to meet them there within the hour. "go where, who are we meeting?" I said. "better not be taking us to those monsters mann, I've had enough of this! I'd rather be awake if you could do that instead"
Turning around, the Creature said, "no you idiot, you'd be tortured or dead and awake in a cold sweat by now if I was in league with the monsters. There's actually two fairies in the middle of this forest that once you meet them, they can help you, and the monsters'll be no more than dust once they get to you... well, for this dream at least. They're not in every dream you see. But anyway, all this explaining is wasting time, and now the monsters are getting closer! So if you don't mind...".
This time we shut up and ran alongside the creature who continued to wobble along at a casual pace. We were both feeling anxious as the enclosing monsters could be heard making their slurping, growling, gnawing, and clawing in the distance. It seemed about 15 minutes or so ( but time is pretty irrelevant in dreams) before we saw the blue and glowing mist in the distance ahead. We ran for it. The monsters were so close by now, we could smell morning breath. Running at full pace, we dived under a shelf of tree roots just under the glow. We peeked out. looking, we could see the two fairies. We could also see all the other dream people and creatures who came here to get protection, or perhaps something else. Either way, somehow the gibberish, and sounds, and almost music that i was hearing in my head let me know that everything would be okay. Sounds were mixing like kindergarten recess, warm and windy summer evenings, and light rain on grass. My anxiety began to lessen. The growling and slurping grew into a loud and strong wind. A wind i could feel warm on me. Then a Breeze. Then it was still. I opened my eyes, not realizing i had closed them.
And there i was in my room. Awake. My window tapping with rain reminded me to close it, and all of my pillows and blankets were in a heap on the floor.

... so then i drew what i saw in my head, and hope to come across them again.

and here i add a leaf to my tree.

My Blog

Hey there everyone, my name is Elyse.

Trees and Treasure is about many different things:
growth, change, creation, random abandon, and life in general (trees), and the many objects and materials that bewitchingly pull us in whatever direction they are, so long as we get to them (treasure).
I have travelled all over the world searching for a nameless treasure that will always be the next street, city, country over, so I suppose I'll be moving until i can't any more. Because always when I think I've found the X, there's another dazzling possibility within eyeshot that I cant resist!

I'm a model with a love of not only fashion, but also with all the randomness in life; drinking cocktails at noon because we've got nothing better to do on a wednesday; partying in Yoyogi park until 5am alongside people who cant speak english, but are eager to play badminton anyhow; being best friends with a person met a day ago, and dancing in the west village streets to a song you sing yourself... the list goes on.

I'm constantly surrounded by the most creative and inspiring people, places, and things, that I feel like sharing them is the best way to express my appreciation for a life, that I sometimes forget, is an amazing one.

triumphs, failures, dreams, nightmares, adventures abroad, and explorations of the soul.

So here i give to you, both my trees, and my treasure.

cheers.