♡ Little Twin Stars Fukubukuro Review | Sanrio Lucky Pack 2019 ♡

Hello sparkly bunnies! 

Firstly-- Happy New Year! I hope 2019 is magical for you all ♡

Although I look forward to the new year each year for many reasons, there's one particular thing that I'm always excited for... the release of fukubukuro!

I imagine that if you're reading this post, you already know what fukubukuro are, but in case you aren't familiar with them, I'll briefly explain.

In Japan, a lot of shops release fukubukuro, or "lucky packs" at the beginning of the year. These lucky packs are usually full of mystery items, and are valued at several times greater than what you pay for the actual lucky pack. I believe this was originally created as a way to get rid of old stock, however in more recent years, shops have started making items particularly for these lucky packs, so you know what you're getting (for example, the Ank Rouge LP I reviewed last year). If you're getting into Jfashion, or want to try out a new brand, I think fukubukuros are a great way to become familiar with their clothing, and instantly acquire a lot of items that you can mix and match!

This year I didn't pick up any clothing lucky packs, however I did see one that I knew I couldn't miss out on... from Sanrio! They had several character themed fukubukuros, and when I saw they had a Little Twin Stars themed one, I knew I couldn't miss out on it ^^ And so today, I'll be sharing what I got in it! (Spoiler: I am a very very happy bunny).

Let's begin!

I should first begin by briefly saying how I ordered this, since I know people will be asking.

I have an account on the Japanese Sanrio site, and as such I get frequent emails from them (such as when they have new items in stock). Near the beginning of December, I got an email saying that they had released their lucky packs! 

However, their lucky packs were only viewable to people who had accounts on their site. So, assuming that they do the same thing in future years, you'll need to have an account if you want to buy a lucky pack! (Their site is in Japanese, naturally, but with the help of Google translate, it's all very straight-forward).

The listings are long gone from the Sanrio site, but from my purchase history, I was able to find the 'stock photo' for it! In case you're ever purchasing one for yourself, and aren't sure what to look for ^^

I ordered the lucky pack directly and just had it sent to Tenso, my forwarding service (I'm not going to go into detail about Tenso, since there are plenty of guides out there for how to use it ^^). Due to the fact that you had to have an account to order the item, I was worried that using a regular shopping service might have some delays, and I didn't want the LP to sell out! I should take this chance to say that when I checked back a few days later, all the lucky packs were sold out, so you'll want to be quick!

The lucky pack was 5,400 yen (about $50 USD) and if I'm not mistaken, claimed to have a value of greater than 15,000 yen (a bit less than $150 USD). I must say, that's quite a nice deal! Lucky packs are generally valued around 3x more than what you pay for it, so this was quite typical. I considered getting one of the other character lucky packs (such as Cinnamoroll, another favourite of mine), but since I hadn't purchased a Sanrio lucky pack before, and all the items were a mystery, I decided to just get Kiki and Lala's fukubukuro~

The lucky packs were set to ship in early January, I believe (which makes sense, since that's when fukubukuros are released in stores). It arrived at the Tenso warehouse on December 29th (surprisingly early!), and after a bit of trouble choosing the shipping option (I wanted cheaper shipping, but it turned out the package was oversized, so I had to choose the more expensive, but thankfully faster, EMS option). My package was shipped to me from Tenso on January 5th, and it arrived on January 9th! (However I had to pick it up from the post office the following day, since the mail arrived when I wasn't home). 

With all the logistics out of the way... let's get into the actual lucky pack!

As all my Sanrio purchases, it arrived in a really cute Sanrio-patterned box ^^ I love that they decorate their boxes-- it instantly lets me know where the package is from!

Inside the box, all the items were held in a very cute plastic bag with a lot of characters on it!

I have no idea what that simplified odd-looking panda (?) at the bottom right is though (or the pink bear at the top, for that matter)... if anyone knows the character, please enlighten me!

From the customs form, I knew that there were ten items inside-- I was already excited!

The first thing I pulled out from the bag was this really cute Kiki, Lala, and boar plushie! I have a suspicion they made this specifically for the lucky pack, since the boar has '2019' written on it, and the tag for the plushie is quite a bit simpler than their usual tags. It's one of my favourite items from the fukubukuro however! They're not the softest/cuddliest of plushies, but I love the colours and design~ And the lavender coloured piglet is just too cute! I need to find a nice place in my room to display this~

The next item was a plush Kiki popsicle charm-- I remember this collection from the summer! It was really cute and juice/fruit themed~ I really like the design of this charm; the colours on it look a bit more warm toned than usual, so it has a very charming 'retro' feel! I also really like the clear star beads sewn on~ This is a fairly firm plushie, since it's filled with some sort of foam rather than usual toy stuffing, and as such feels a bit more like a squishy!

Another Kiki plushie! This is also from a collection a little while back. I can't say the design is my favourite (I'm not much into the sporty aesthetic), but I do like his fluffy pompoms, and the fact that the visor is made of a clear plasticky material! This too, is charm-sized (he's about as tall as my palm). He has a ball-chain at the top; I think it would be cute to hang him from a gym bag or something like that!

And last of the plushies, is this bunny costume Lala! I don't quite remember this plushie online, but I imagine it was from around Easter? I think the fact that she's holding and egg designed as one of the bears that often accompany Kiki and Lala (Pim? Poff? Puff? I have no idea what their names are, but there's also a blue one-- like in the picture below!)



Like the two Kiki plushies, this one also has a ball-chain so you can attach her from your bag (or anywhere else!). When Sanrio releases plushies, they're either full-sized (about 30 cm tall), or this sort of "mascot" size. I do wish I had gotten a larger plushie, but I'm still very happy with the four that I got! And I imagine this way, it was easier for them to include more things in peoples lucky packs ♡

The next item was this little pouch, from the same collection as the cheerleader Kiki plush! It's made of a canvas material with the design printed on, and has a cute tulle pompom on the side~ At the front, the flap opens up to reveal a main storage pocket, and it closes securely with a metal snap (I think that's what they're called?)
At the back is another sort-of pocket-- I believe it's for holding tissues! I imagine this is the sort of thing that's useful to have in your bag for storing makeup you might need during the day, or other small things like that~

The next item is another favourite of mine, although I don't have any use for it at the moment... it's a card holder! If you live in a city that has a metro/public transit system, you can put your card in here, attach the strap to your bag, and just tap it when needed, rather than having to go into your wallet to get it ^^ The strap is attached to a string that's wound up inside the small circular bit near the strap, so it's very convenient!
I love the magical design of this, and though I have absolutely no use for it at the moment, I'll keep it with the hope that someday I'll live somewhere I can use it ;v; I just love the look of it so so much!

A small, but rather useful item: a trinket dish! It's made of melamine, and has a cute, sort of vintage Little Twin Stars design on it~ Perfect for storing jewelry you take on and off frequently! 

Something I can never have enough of... stickers! Honestly I prefer sticker sheets to sticker flakes, but it is nice to have multiples of each design, so I don't mind ^^ I've been journaling more frequently lately, and I like to decorate my pages with cute stickers, so these will be perfect for that purpose!

The next item was a full-sized bath towel! It features a lot of Sanrio characters, including some more obscure ones! I don't know who the strawberry girl reading a book is, but she's very cute~ This is a fairly thin towel, so not the kind I would use on a day-to-day basis, but I imagine it's very useful when traveling, or perhaps to bring along to the pool or beach! 

The last item was this super soft and fluffy lap blanket! Like the towel, it features a lot of different Sanrio characters. The vibrant, limited colour palette gives me a sort of 'vintage sporty' feeling, but I think it's quite cute! One side is soft minky patterned fabric, and the other is ultra fluffy off-white fabric. It's so soft and cuddly, and although it's quite small, and not the sort of colours I'm usually drawn to, I quite like it!

Finally, an image of everything I got together! I'm really really happy with everything I got ♡ I admit, not everything was my taste, and I'm not sure I would have gotten any of the items if they were full-priced in store... but I'm still very pleased with it all! And that's the fun of lucky packs! ♡
I think it's definitely worth more than the price of the lucky pack (even when you factor in shipping to the US from my forwarding service). I wanted to find the items online and give their prices (since the Japanese tags don't write the prices on them) but sadly it seems they were all taken down (I assume they placed all of them in lucky packs?). However, based on my rough estimate/experience with Sanrio prices in the past, everything does add up to about $150 USD!

I'm definitely going to be purchasing more Sanrio fukubukuros in the future-- this was a very very positive experience! I had high hopes for it, and it certainly lived up to my expectations ♡ Sanrio also offered larger lucky packs ($100 for $300 worth of merchandise) for several characters, but I don't know if that's something I could spring for >< However, it would be fun to get lucky packs of several other characters! If they have Cinnamoroll again next year, I think I'll want to get his lucky pack~



I hope you found this review helpful! If you're reading this around the time I post it, it's unfortunately too late now to buy any lucky packs, but I hope you'll get the chance to next year, if you'd like! ♡ Regardless, I hope you enjoyed seeing the things I got ♡ Let me know what your favourite item was!
Thank you so much for reading~
My next post will be another Day in Paris, so stay tuned for that! ♡
Bye-bye~

♡ Paris Day 0 + 1 | Travel and Arrival ♡

Hello hello!
It's been quite a while since my last post, but I've returned to write about my recent Paris trip! ♡
If you're a follower of my Instagram (@milkiiprincess), you'll know that I was in Paris for two weeks- I had such a wonderful time! Although I shared bits of what I did on my story, I wanted to have a more thorough chronicle of what I did, so I decided to write about it on here, like I did with my London trip (of which I still have one more post to write... oops).
I left for Paris on December 10th, and returned home on the 24th, so I have a fair bit to write about!
Today's post will be fairly short though (since traveling is fairly self-explanatory, and on my first day I didn't do very much), but anyways, let's begin! ♡

The Flight
I've never traveled very far alone, especially not to an unfamiliar location so I was quite anxious in the days before my trip... My flight was in the afternoon on Monday, December 10th, so luckily I didn't have to wake up too early for it~ After having breakfast, my mum drove me to the airport, and I arrived there several hours before my flight. This was a good thing though, since there was an issue with the plane and I ended up having to change flights to one that was a bit later in the day... also the line for security was massive, so it was nice to know that I had a lot of time to figure it all out; otherwise I would have been quite panicked >< 
After getting through all that, I still had a fair amount of time before my flight, but aside from getting a coffee, I didn't do much interesting ^^ My flight wasn't direct to Paris, and I had to transfer planes in Miami (it felt a bit silly to have a forty minute flight..!) My layover wasn't too long though, and soon after landing, I was on the actual plane to Paris!
The flight itself was quite ordinary; I watched "Midnight in Paris" (it seemed a fitting film for my destination!) as well as some small documentary about holiday sweets throughout Europe. They gave us a meal about an hour or so after takeoff (pasta with two sorts of sauces, it was quite mediocre), as well as a meal about an hour before landing (yoghurt and a blueberry muffin top, which was quite nice with coffee!).



Arrival
I landed in Paris early in the morning on December 11th, and got through customs and picked up my luggage miraculously quickly. Luggage in hand, I figured out how to get to the metro, and then followed the directions to get to the place I was staying! 
(On the way I passed by a McDonalds, and I thought it was funny that they had macarons and canneles!)



My dad's roommate from university (and his wife) both live in Paris, and they were kind enough to host me on my trip! Once I arrived at their apartment, I ate some tasty curried butternut squash soup (which was very much appreciated after the bland plane food), got settled in, took a short nap, and was then ready to explore!



Exploring
I didn't want to go too far on the first day, because I was quite tired by the flight (and it was around 1 in the afternoon by the time I went out). The apartment was located very close to the Eiffel Tower... so I decided to wander around there!

It was so cool to see it in person! The buildings in Paris aren't too tall, so it really stands out on its own, even from far away ^^
I wandered down this little island-strip on the Seine to get there- it was quite pretty!





Also passed by this pretty statue! There were two couples near it taking wedding photos, which I thought was interesting. It's a shame it was a bit of a gloomy day, but I hope their photos turned out well nonetheless!



Once I got near the Eiffel Tower, I was surprised by how much security there was! Although I suppose the fact that it's such a touristy location, combined with general terrorism threats and the recent protests, that was to be expected...
I didn't have any desire to go to the top of the tower, but it was interesting to walk around!
(I thought the view from underneath was quite cool!)

After walking around the tower for a bit, there wasn't much left to do, so I decided to further explore the area! Once I got away from the very touristy spot, it was much more pleasant, to tell the truth ^^" Perhaps it's because I was tired from the flight, or because of the people, but I wasn't too charmed by the Eiffel Tower... also there were lots of people pandering towards tourists (the infamous pickpockets that ask you to sign their petitions before trying to take something of yours, or even just regular street vendors trying to sell cheap Eiffel tower keychains... it just all felt a bit predatory?)

I didn't really do anything specific after this, just walked along the streets, looking at all the little shops~ There were so many fromageries, with so many interesting types of cheeses!

I thought the blackish one looked a bit like a rock, it was so interesting! I've never seen cheese like that...

I stopped inside a mall to warm up a bit, and thought their little photo-set was cute! Then again, I love anything with mushrooms~

 I wandered around a little while longer, stopped into a pastry shop for a croissant (which sadly was very mediocre- but it's okay, as I had a much better one later in the trip!), and once it became dark, headed back to the apartment~



And that's pretty much all there is to say about the day! I had dinner and went to bed quite early, since I had slept very little on the plane and was rather tired ^^" I had to build up my energy for the next day: my first proper day in Paris!
That will be a post for next time though, so stay tuned!
Thank you so much for reading- this wasn't the most eventful of posts, but I wanted to write about these two 'introductory' days so that I could begin at a logical point in my trip~
And because my next post will likely be in January- I hope you have a very happy New Year celebration!
Bye-bye ♡