Goth girls come out to play… at night with Kenzo-A! The Rituals designer has a new monthly Goth music event, The Head Shop.

What’s spookier — my luminescent makeup, or the stuffed dog in Seba’s pants?

First, we filled up at a Shinjuku izakaya (Japanese pub). I’m carrying a souvenir from my coolhunting travel TV show… soon, you’ll find out what it means!

One of my favorite flavors: shiquasha, a green Okinawan fruit. Delicious, mixed with alcohol.

We ran into frightening individuals in front of Studio Alta (a common meeting place in Shinjuku).

Did you know that Atsushi and Takashi are twins?

The Head Shop has live DJ sets all night long (techno, house, Gothic, electro) — as well as bands and fashion shows. This “Kenzomas” event was at Shinjuku Motion (next to Club Marz, where Midnight Mess and Tokyo Dark Castle go down).

Party’s in the elevator.

You can spot blue-haired Kenny Creation from a mile away.

Kenzo’s Rituals clothing is available to purchase. If you wear his clothing to the event, you get a discount.

Yes, that’s a man in a glowing bra.

Seba and Atsushi get frisky with neon glowsticks.

The master of the festivities, Kenzo-A.

Don’t miss his next Head Shop party: Friday, September 23, from midnight to morning at Shinjuku Club Marz. There are DJs, bands and a fashion show to celebrate Ritual’s 3rd anniversary. Full details and prices (including discounts) are on the flyer.

For a taste of the music, check out my video above and here (footage from the last party is near the end). What do you think?

Where are these Tokyo Goth Industrial clubs? What are they like? How do you get in? All the details are in my Club Guide.

PS: for party announcements, giveaways and more, please subscribe to my mailing list.
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Song of the Day: DJ SiSEN – Brutal (SiSEN is currently and happily residing in Berlin!)

This year, I had the best birthday to date… a Hello Kitty party at Los Angeles’ glammest nightclub! Huge hugs for Luke and Lenora, who collaborated with me on the event.

And thanks to LA Weekly for featuring my bash in a slideshow, titled La Carmina’s Super Cute Birthday @ Mr. Black LA.

It’s my birthday, and I’ll pile on the makeup if I want to. Glitter, gems, gloss. Two layers of eyelashes.

Seba took the same approach to his hair. Forceful spikes and loads of hairspray.

Doesn’t he look like Cloud from Final Fantasy?

Earlier that day, we made our usual pilgrimage to Toni and Guy, where they styled my hair into a Hello Kitty hair bow. My red dress is by our friend Ako, designer of Blablahospital.

Outside the club (Bardot Hollywood), I met the incomparable Jeff Paice — who made an accessory inspired by my kitty, Basil Farrow!

Ladies of the night: Lenora Claire, La Carmina, Melissa Brown.

Thank you to everyone who came, and got down with dressing up for the theme.

So many creative interpretations of Hello Kitty.

We had VIP table, with a vodka bottle.

Mr Black is infamous for its bare-butt servers. For my birthday, this fellow affixed a Kitty-tattoo!

Yes, my hair is crimped.

So good to see friends, old and new.

Wild things.

A joy to be reunited with Clint Catalyst and Zoetica Ebb.

Thank you to Shannon Cottrell for photographing La Carmina’s birthday for LA Weekly.

Funny story… at first, we didn’t recognize our friend in the middle! Can you guess who it is? Hint: we hung out at the alternative New Year’s party in LA.

What’s the best birthday party you’ve ever thrown, or attended? Wish you were at mine? Maybe next year!

Song of the Day: Air Supply – Making Love Out of Nothing At All (why not? It’s a karaoke favorite for me.)

Hello Tokyo, Japan! Spookyville is back in black. And we’ve made a frightening new video about our nightcrawl to Decadance Bar and Midnight Mess. Scroll down to witness the Gothic madness…

Yukiro Dravarious has gotten ghostlier than ever. La Carmina wears:

Bone necklace: My new favorite. From the Monomania shop in Laforet Harajuku.
Demented panda skirt: Got it for a steal at Kinji, the secondhand store in Harajuku (shop photos to come).
Lace top and tank: Old things
Blue shoes: from the B+ab store in Hong Kong.
Hair bows: gifted from Sproos Shop (more photos here)

Our first stop: Tokyo Decadance Bar. We ran into Kanae downstairs at Christon Cafe, the cathedral-themed restaurant. Love her military fashion show.

Two Gothic Lolita-like girls sat at the entrance of Decabar, indulging in cake! (I like how they put their personal spin on Lolita fashion.)

Drinking absinthe while being zapped with neon lights.

Tokyo Decadance Bar has a new design, highligting the colorful flyers and cybergoth fashion. (More photos of the bar in this post.)

An evil, leering face painted on the wall. (I think it’s supposed to be bartender Kengo.)

And in the glass case: a kigirumi head. (From a full-body anime doll costume.)

Time to dance all night at Midnight Mess. We met up with Gothic beauties Kana, Cotton Bale, Raisu.

While waiting for the doors to open, we filmed a funny video — please watch it here! (You can also see footage from Kenzo-A’s Rituals party.)

There’s nothing like the streets of Tokyo at night.

Kenny Creation and a blue-haired lass.

Lovely to see Selia again.

On stage, she turns into a nightingale, singing opera in multiple languages. (You can see a snippet here.)

Mistress Maya, who runs this dark event, ties up a new victim and drips hot candle wax over her body.

Don’t you wish you could join our nightcrawl? You can see the action up-close in the video above and on YouTube (please subscribe).

Where are these Tokyo Goth Industrial clubs? How do you get in? For full info, including addresses and maps, please read my Club Guide.

Are you happy to see that Tokyo’s Gothic scene is thriving? What do you think of the outfits; which are your favorites?

PS: Congrats to Seba’s band DNR: they’re playing at V-ROCK (largest Visual Kei music fest) in Tokyo, along with Gackt, Versailles, Vivid, Sophia, Mix Speakers Inc, Black Veil Brides and more Jrock greats!

Song of the Day: The Gothic dance track in the party video (can anyone recognize it?)

Muahaha! Very soon, I’ll be reunited with Evil Queen Yukiro Dravarious. (If you forgot, I’m in Tokyo for a Fuel / Discovery / National Geographic travel TV show; details in this post.)

Yukiro and my First Mate Naomi recently nightcrawled at Department H, Japan’s kinkiest club night. Here’s his vivid report of what went down.

My fashion inspiration for the party was the 80s cartoon Rainbow Brite. So I did my own crazed costume version of it, with rainbow eyeshadow, leg warmers and nail art (of course). I also designed my rainbow lashes myself.

Naomi and I started the night with a bang, at the crazy puppet restaurant Kagaya. Which you can read all about in La Carmina’s fabulous book of Tokyo’s craziest theme restaurants. After, we met up with other friends to go to a secret fetish birthday party in Ebisu.

Around midnight, we turned our backs to the dark and gloomy, and entered a more erotic, glamorous and extravagant world: Department H. It’s by far the most outrageous club I know of. And where else would I go in this ridiculous rainbow witch outfit?

The entrance fee is rather high, especially if you don’t dress up (about 5000 yen). But if you’re in fierce Queen fashion or have a high quality coordinate, you’ll get in for 3000 yen.

The event starts with a Killer Drag Queen fashion show, which always blows me away. You are allowed to bring your own booze to the club; since they have no alcohol license, they’re not allowed to sell it. Therefore you should stock up before you go in.

There’s always a weird variety of people there. Everything from gigantic monsters, fierce drag queens, naked bitches and Tokyo Decadance staff. Not to mention the creepy full-body sized doll-persons. This time, they showed some amazing anime in between the performances.

The queue outside was enormous, I never saw so many people waiting to get in. I’m happy the fetish party is doing so well. Kinema Club has other events on the first Saturday of each month, which draw a lot of the same alt crowd.

One negative point is the “shokai,” where people get up on stage to introduce a club, event or activity… this process takes forever. Two drag queen MCs say bitchy comments to everyone who dares enter the stage.

One crazy new body modification that they introduced was… getting a hole drilled in the cranium! I’m not sure why you’d like that. But why not?

Deparment H’s motto is “Don’t ask, just come” — and I think that sums up this party pretty well.

Arigato Yukiro for your colorful narration. He and I will be all over Tokyo in July-August, so you can expect more Evil Queen-ness on the blog soon.

For previous coverage of Department H, and Tokyo’s best alternative/Goth/fetish parties, glance at my Japan club guide. There are maps, contact info and more. (Here’s Porta Porco, bartender and performer at Decadance Bar, on the train home.)

PS: I’m dipping my toes into Google+, the new social network… are any of you on it? Will you kindly allow me into your circles? Click to add my Google Plus profile.

Do you find Japan’s underground kink culture disturbing, fascinating, invigorating? What other strange body modifications have you heard of? Did you find Waldo in the photos?

Song of the Day: Rainbow Brite intro

Back to Hong Kong for a quick science lesson… involving hard liquor! I subjected myself to cocktail experiments at Hush, a mod bar in Lan Kwai Fong / Central, Hong Kong. Mixologist Gibson Chan specializes in molecular cocktails, using ingredients and techniques typically found only in labs.

In this new video, Gibson shows La Carmina how to make a deconstructed margharita, with a salty foam created with a fish tank pump. Then, he mixes a cocktail made with what looks like caviar — but what is it really? Watch the video to find out!

I was happy to learn that the strange-looking powders were actually made from natural ingredients. Each drink was a topsy-turvy experience — the flavors and textures turn the expected on its head. Sip a glow-in-the-dark cocktail at Hush, 2 Glenealy in Central, Hong Kong.

I also went to Ozone, the rooftop bar of the new Ritz Carlton Kowloon. My ears popped as the elevator shot up to the 118th floor. But it was worth it for the killer view of Hong Kong at night, with nothing overhead but the sky.

I know my life is confusing lately… so many travels and projects! I re-designed part of my website to reflect the changes. Here’s a breakdown of my current work:

† BLOGGING: I post near-daily about my underground fashion and travel adventures.
† TV HOSTING & COOLHUNTING: My Pirates business is currently in overdrive. We have our hands full with Tokyo TV jobs and subculture consulting (such as introducing Western buyers to Gothic Lolita Punk brands.)
† WRITING: In addition to my current columns, I’m writing for AOL Travel. My three J-pop books are also available here.
† FASHION DESIGNING: We just released the HOPE t-shirts to benefit Japan. You can see my previous clothing collections here and below.

These pages may also be helpful…
† BIO: A summary of my work, along with my TV show clips.
† PHOTOS: A gallery of my Goth-cute outfits and makeup.
† PRESS: Media mentions.

† CONTACT: Email me if you’re interested in sponsorships, advertorials, collaborations – or simply want to say hi! I try to reply to all messages, especially on my social networks.

Funny how I’ve become Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. There’s more international travel in the works, and major projects involving TV and fashion. Soon, all shall be revealed!

PS: I’m featured in a new Spanish book called Coolhunting Digital: A la caza de las ultimas tendencias. In the “Colaboradores” section, I’m photographed and interviewed about my work as a subculture/underground coolhunter.

I invite you to browse the new website pages; I hope they present a clearer picture of my work. And please enjoy my new video, where the Hush bartender walks us through molecular cocktail-making. There’s more fun food and bizarre theme restaurants on my YouTube channel (please subscribe).

Have you heard of molecular gastronomy before, or tried it? Do you consider it a mind-opening experience, or an overrated trend?

Song of the Day: Thomas Dolby – She Blinded Me With Science