I read Xiaxue's blog this morning and she talks about life changing things, like her starting blogging was life changing for her and it got me thinking about my own life, or that is mine and my sisters.

We share all the same interests, friends, bedroom and some would say the same face. So all through our life we've done everything together. In a way that is changing now, not much, just a tiny bit since we both have boyfriends (and no, we don't share them;P) and naturally that means more time spent separately. (though not too much!)

But I wanted to write about what I think has changed our life the most, even though to start with it isn't really a big thing, I mean how could liking a country ever change a person's life?

Well, I believe for us it did.

To start with we where just normal 8th graders (we where 14, 8th grade in Iceland) that had no serious interest, we liked mainstream things just like "normal" teenagers did, played video games from time to time, where kinda shy except with our friends and where happy with that. Not that I am saying anything is wrong with any of that:)

One fateful day at a library introduction we saw this thing called manga and as avid readers we were, we were very intrigued (we practically went to the library everyday, can't believe we had not seen it before!), so we went back after school and rented the manga. It was Inu Yasha. And oh boy did we love this manga! We read it over and over, took them to school and read some more, we even started drawing after the pictures (and by drawing after I mean we placed a paper over the pictures and drew after the lines) and even today we still own those pictures.

Like I wrote earlier we also played video games, and at the time Final Fantasy X-2 was hitting the shops and we saw a big poster of it in a newspaper... you could say it was love at first sight... sadly we still only had PSX..:(

We wanted that to change so we texted our father, who we did not live with, that we wanted PS2 and Spyro the Dragon as our christmas present, as it was nearing christmas. We got Spyro the Dragon, but no PS2...

We had a vague idea what Final Fantasy actually was, but when we saw FFVIII in the store, we just HAD to buy it! And I will never regret it, because that game is without a doubt what has really made us love video games as much as we do now.

Back to the PS2... after not getting it we were kinda disapointed, but we did not let it get to us... and of course our mother gave us the PS2 soon afterXD Then we went to Denmark and we bought FFX and FFX-2. We LOVED the theme songs in FFX-2 and since shortly after we got our first computers and started using the internet more, we started finding the japanese artist for those songs, Koda Kumi. We really liked her and found other artists like An Cafe, Alice Nine, Ayumi Hamasaki, Utada Hikaru and Miyavi. Our interest in these things and anime grew for the next years.

At the same time that we got our computers, we moved towns. We never felt like we fit in with the other kids in our new school so for the next two years we spent them mostly alone, in our computers. We grew to be some sort of lone wolfs, and in a way just closed ourselves off.... we then started High school and moved away. We where very shy and did not really get to know people, except for two girls and we began going a little bit out of our shells.

We have always loved beautiful things like artwork, makeup and such as in anime and manga. So when we first saw photos of Pullip we just had to have one, which have now become six.

In our last year of High school we started getting interested in fashion and started buying clothes off of yesstyle. It was in a way completely different to what people wear in Iceland, but still not out there.

Our way of dressing changed from wearing trousers and sweaters to skirts tshirts, dresses and stuff like that. And though I have to confess I did not feel comfortable at first, but I got used to it and for that I am glad:)

We did not know much about japanese fashion, but we knew of lolita and if I remember correctly we had seen gyaru from time to time, but nothing more than that.

It is so funny how things can happen to you randomly, we both added a girl named Brooke on fb and it was in a way because of her that we really started to like japanese fashion, she invited us to join Cherry Gal and we decided to try to become gal and from there we really started to love the style, even though we did not start dressing it until this summer. But we did go to Japan last year and bought a lot of gyaru clothes and some eyelashes, but it wasn't until we got our first circle lenses that we really thought we could become gyaru. Though we still have a lot of improving to do.

Gyaru is very different from everything here in Iceland, but I have never felt uncomfortable putting the makeup on or trying out different "gyaru" hairstyles, because I've already understood that what other people think of me does not matter, it is what I think alone that matters.

What I am trying to get through here is that with liking Japan, I learned that it is OK to be different. I was always scared of what people might think if I did this or that or said this or that. I'm still not able to say whatever I want, but I am able to be more me and feel comfortable with it.

I often wonder how we would have turned out if we had not moved away in the first place... we probably would not have closed ourselves off as we did, since we would be with people that we knew. But I often wonder if we would have become so interested in Japan. Would we even be where we are today? Learning Japanese in Uni, going to Japan next year for a whole year, be gyaru?

We had long since decided to learn japanese in the University of Iceland and go to Japan. And there we have acquired some of the best friends we could think of and they really are great!

I feel that this is without a doubt the best phase of my life and all because we started liking Japan!

This entry has been kinda all over the place, but I hope you get my point and liked reading this:)