Early

My second cousins from Yokohama, Mitsutaka and Mai, just left today after visiting us for a week. They were real troopers, coming to Chicago in mid-December after visiting San Fransisco for a few days. When they arrived at our apartment, they started unleashing the omiyage, or gifts, from the motherland. Christmas and Hanukkah came early!!!

Apparently their father gets a lot of cosmetic samples, so they generously shared some of their fortune. With the exception of the Chanel lip palette, the above are all sample products. Clockwise from the top left: facial moisturizing masks, hair treatment oil (that I saw and eyed at Mitsuwa, incidentally), heating packs, sun block base, more heating packs, flowery-scented lotion-soaked cotton wipes, strawberry-honey lip cream, buttery lip cream, sheer "sakura pink" lip cream, and a shimmery facial powder that supposedly makes one more photogenic.

The Chanel lip palette was from their mother--this set is apparently only available in Asia. I played around with it today and got overly excited and applied all four colors to my lips.

They had an early flight today, so when we got home I just fell asleep in the heated table. I couldn't even play Animal Crossing. After I woke up, the living room immediately started to fall into a most disorderly state. Naturally.