Impulsive Sunny Singapore! (part 1)

Finally another blog post about trip! I've always loved this one cause blogging about my traveling time somewhat sharing a part of my happiness too for all the readers. I intended this post not to only showing you my photos all the time I was there, but I try to be as informative as possible!

So as you already all know, reasons why I have this impulsive holiday is due to my boredom when I was in my last office last March. I’m thinking of one sweet impulsive escape with low budget to fulfill my wish before I went to Japan on October: to travel as much as I can, especially in South East Asia (since it is still reachable BASED ON MY BUDGET).

Working will really absorbs most of my time in the future and maybe I will not have this much free time anymore again to travel! I definitely wont miss this chance. Anyway, I’m going to resign for my job here in Jakarta, and I think spending my (about) 1 and a half month of my  wages on traveling is not so bad. After all, I didn't intend to be working and saving much on my first job. I’t is just like a temporary stop and one sweet short holiday seems promising.

The next question is, where to?

Honestly, Singapore is my first and final decision to go to. My reasons were simple:

•  I really wanted to visit Universal Studios Singapore, Marina Bay Sands, and Gardens by the Bay, 3 latest big Singapore tourist attraction so far. I’ve been to Sg once but they still doesn't have these cool sites at that time, only their Sentosa Island and their super famous Merlion.
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               (All pictures taken randomly from google.com)

• I never really interested in visiting Cambodia, Philipines, Laos. I’ve been to Malaysia once, nothing much thre except the Petronas Tower. The rest is not so much different from Indonesia. I’m quite interested in Thailand and it’s Phuket, and Vietnam with it’s Halong Bay. Maybe my next wish list.
• Goes along with my budget. I expected that the least around $650 is enough for 2 people.. However scenario changed and my mom and dad goes along and here boom my budget. *sigh*
• I’m not too afraid of language barrier, Singaporeans speak English very well (even though they mostly use Chinese or Cantonese in their convo)
• Singapore public transport is easy to understand, saving on my budget to transport. It’s MRT is clean, safe, and have sufficient information to tourists. Since I thought I will be traveling only with my little brother (means I’m the leader) so as long as I mastering their public transportation it’s fine BUT as you know in the end both of my parents decided to go with me I’m not using public transportation as much as I expected before..

Decision has been made, and in just one week, I ordered flight tickets (luckily Air Asia have promotion seat at that time! Even heaven supports me to have this holiday!), booked the hotel and made my own itinerary trip to Singapore.  I went there from 25 to 28 of April 2013.

After doing some research, this is my proposed itinerary and actual itinerary:

The changes on Itinerary will be explained below in each day detail trip.

I arrange this itinerary based on my interest on one place, routes and access from my hotel. As you can see below is the map of Singapore Tourist Map made by me. You can re-check all of my destinations and routes of trip. They are close to one another, and the most effective by time in my opinion.

So here we are! Finally arrived at Singapore, decided to find a place to have breakfast. My dad who has been to Sg before wanted to have breakfast at Bugis so instead of went to Changi Village (which in the end I know that nothing much to see there), we went straight to Bugis and sightsee there after breakfast.

This is around the temple near Bugis (don’t know the exact location, but walk a little bit more there goes the Bugis Street). They sold some fresh flowers there, maybe for the purpose of praying?

Moving on, to Bugis Street. My brother bought a bag there. Just go straight and we’ll find Bugis Junction, a more high-end mall here in Bugis.

Finish with Bugis, we went straight to Esplanade and Merlion Park to take photos. Since my hotels only allows us to check in around 2 p.m, we decided to hunt several photos around Merlion Park first while waiting for 2 p.m. to come.

Photos taken from Esplanade:

Esplanade at noon is very cozy and calm, really suitable to rest here or just hanging out, and there are so much trees that covers sunlight off so it’s not hot at all. Very fucking different from Merlion Park, crowded, and so hot. Having enough rest, we managed to walk across the bridge to go straight to Merlion Park. Merlion Park taken from above the bridge:

Photos taken from Merlion Park:

The best place for taking photos of course is the Merlion Park. You can take 3 Sg statement buildings from here: the Merlion, Esplanade and Marine Sands Bay.

Satisfied with all the photos taken (and the stupid sunburn), finally we check in at our hotel and take a rest until 18.00. Having no more energy to revisit Esplanade and it’s Glutton Bay, we change our direction of Dinner to Whampoa, only several minutes away walking from my hotel.  The food here is so good and very cheap! Ranged for $1 to $7 at max! Singapore is indeed the best place for finding hawker foods!

After dinner, back to hotel and recharge out energy to prepare my trip to USS tomorrow morning. 

(continued to part 2, blame it on dropped stamina. Working on this post the whole day!!)

My Updates Lately

I know have been quite a long time since my last blog. It’s been one month already! Looking back to my commitment lately to be more consistent in blogging… I know I still have some struggling to keep my pace of writing as consistent as possible, like, 2 posts in a week or at least one post. But believe me! It’s not like I’m too lazy to write! Yes I admit it sometimes I am too lazy to write but the main reason there’s almost no post in April because April this year was such a...

VERY CRAZY MONTH for me.

There are so much things going on in a blink of an eye that I almost have no time to write about this stuff. So, I guess for this week there will be so much sequential update post of what’ve been happening these days.

So, what’s so special about April? Besides it’s so called Earth Month (yay! Discount in Starbucks! Got my Cold Hazelnut Chocolate half-priced for bringing their tumbler! Proud of my Tokyo tumbler!) What’s so special about it?

April, somewhat become a very chaotic yet the month that I always waiting for each year. Why? Because It’s my birthday! And my little bro’s too. And two of my best friend’s too. 4 shots in a row!! Imagine how much money I have to spill to buy them presents? Hahaha. Just kidding.

And this April’s birthday present for me and my brother was a little bit special. It’s an impulsive trip to Singapore!!!! Yaaaaaaay!! Gonna blog about that too! And a little bit of background stories why we decided to go to Singapore…

Beside birthdays, there’s another story remarkable in this April. This is about my resignation of my current job. Yes, the job I managed to get in early March, I gave it up on April. I told my manager on the second week of April and you know what? That week is the most devastating week I ever had in my life. I’ll told you the reason on the next post, why I gave up my job that fast and my whole drama that week.

So, this whole April was kind of a riot to me. Stressful week, and the preparations of traveling for the whole family (yes, it is my and my lil’ bro presents for our birthdays but my mom and dad insisted to go with us too), not to say I’m having a worst flu during it (even still not completely recover at this time I write this post) kinda wasting my time so much that I don’t really have time to blog after all.

Even after I have time to blog, my usual laptop is busted!!! Damn!!! Still didn’t have time to bring it to be repaired so I’m blogging this post on my current computer right now aaaand It’s very fucking slow WTF. Even to refresh the whole desktop needs about 10 seconds for the popup to come out you know! This is sucks!! But since I have time, I bear with it for a while and since I can’t suppress my feelings anymore, I have, HAVE TO write something to calm this uneasy feeling of boredom. Hahaha.

Soo…. What?

Birthdays, trip to Singapore, resignation stories, so much to catch up, eh?

At least for several days forward I have something to work on.

and..

Tomorrow is Thursday, Friday the day after that and suddenly it's weekend! Time flies so fast! I will have more and more time to work on my posts! 

See ya on my next post!

New Routines, New Commitment

Been so lazy to blogging these days. Still. This laziness I can't bear cause I'm too into my office work these days. Have I told you before that I'm already working? Yes, I am. Now I'm working in a motorcycle company which has the  biggest share market in Indonesia Astra Honda Motor. I think somehow I will blog about this stuff. The process of the interview and so on. I hope it helps people to get in to their dream company.

The exciting part is how fulfilling this company are (good wages, transport fee, lunch given and so on, not to mention very near my home) but on the other hand this kind of work somehow don't suits me. I'm currently working in financial related thingy which I can say is not my main interest. You know what is my main interest are. Working with makeups, fashion, work related to people, not data. But somehow I'm still praising my big Dad for giving me this job. He knows whats best for me. The only thing I can do now is hold still, try to give my best as I can and wait for another 7 months.

What will happen 7 months later?

I will write about this, but not now. I'll explain later, promise.

The whole job application and adventure actually are very terrific but I have to hold up for another several months to write about it in my blog because of several reason you'll know.

So, as you know, these days I've been stuck with this kind of new routine. Wake up early, go to work, from 8 to 5, go home tired, nap for half til 1 hour, waking up and exercise (yes, I push myself to exercise everyday), eat and suddenly feel fuckin' tired and didn't have any mood to blog at all. After my dinner, I just feel like only rolling up on my bed, doing crazy cross words, not even think of opening my laptop. There's this thinking once pop up in my head: is it better for me to discontinue my blog? Somehow it's tiring for me to maintain the blog, thinking about what to post, and sadly still no followers, comments if I'm lucky, and so on. Not to mention new exhausting routine that doubles the laziness. So, why matter?

But suddenly I remember that I'm writing this normally for myself, I love writing. I love to express. I love to share. Don't know who'll read this and don't care what will they think about, I will still writing my blog. I do what I like, and I reminded myself to not expect anything from the internet. Haha. Silly me. So, I will keep maintain this blog. This is my present, for me, for my memory. Maybe I'll laugh later in the future reading my older post? How can I be so silly when I was young like this?? Hehehehe.

Feeling that I've been not updating my blogs for 1 week, I feel like I have to write something. whatever it is. In the end I found several photos from last week that haven't been posted. Simply, just another unimportant thing about outfit and looks of the day.

This is my nude look from 2 weeks ago Sunday outing with my friends:

Just applying little BB cream, face powder, brows, eyeliner. and my usual lipstick from Revlon. What unusual is my lashes. Trying new upper lashes I bought from Japan! The result is FUCKING natural I myself can't believe it. The string of the lashes is transparent so its easier to blend in with the eyeliner. Not to mention the smoothness of the lashes, just like real hair. Japanese eyelashes are really on a different level.

Bottom lashes are from Dolly Wink while upper lashes I myself don't know what the brand are. The brand written in Kanji. After all, I bought them only for 100yen for 2 pairs, didn't expect it to be a well known brand. Fuckin cheap but satisfying quality!! Dolly Wink itself are pretty expensive in Japan. You can buy 1 box of 10 pairs of lashes on the same price of only 2 pairs of lashes from Dolly Wink.

I put the lower lashes not exactly on my lower line of eye to make the droopy effect and make my eye bigger.

And this is my outfit. Not a very stylish one. Jakarta makes me concern of the comfort-ness rather than the stylish-ness. Hot weather, poor public transportation, unsafe environment. Looking stylish? Prepare to be picked up inside public transportion, harassed etc. So, white loose shirt and jeans for me!

This is it for today. No more pictures just one for the closing. Ciao! Will be writing again (for myself) soon!

NB: Somehow in another blog, I see that people support each other by saying "nice post, keep blogging!" and similar type of comments. Now I just know that this kind of comments really giving the blogger extra boost up motivation to keep their blog maintained in spite of their busy routines everyday. Blogging, is not as easy as it looks, after all. Need commitment and passion in other way :)

What Sakura Looks Like?

Coming home from Japan last week, didn't have any mood at all to blog. Until today, I finally blog about it. Kinda tired recently because of a new routine to do now, WORKING. Yeah, I am a fresh graduate and a new employed staff on one of the biggest motorcycle company in Indonesia. Somewhat happy, but yet still bored by its everyday routine of going to work.

Anyhow, I didn't go to much places as much as my previous visit to Japan last December. Really. At the first time I though that to sight-see Tokyo itself needs about 2 weeks but I think 1 week is enough. Somehow get bored. Even I visit Shibuya TWICE. Getting bored quickly.

Luckily I met my Japanese friend again, Hiroki and he took me and one of my friend who are with me then to Sumo Museum. Super random, But it was quite fun! He's like talking all things about sumo and somewhat it really is exciting!

And later he introduced me to the most awesome sumo wrestler ever, Taiho. He is the best wrestler Japan ever had because he broke a record of 32 consecutive winning of sumo wrestling championship, and there isn't any sumo wrestler after him that broke his record even after he passed away.

His 32 trophy replica. The real one is like 30x bigger than this.

Later after he retired as a wrestler, he teaches newcomer wrestler. This is him in his old days (and somewhat became so much skinnier after the retirement)

A "Claw of Bear" Ornament in the other building (but still in the region of Sumo's city, consists of Sumo Museum, Sumo House, etc)

After went after buildings, suddenly found this!!!!!! SAKURA!!! It's near spring, not much Sakura trees has bloomed but this one faster than the other. It's like, I've wanted to see this flower for real since forever and now look at it!!!!

This is what real Sakura flower looks like!!!!

I'm a little bit hyperbolic alright but who cares lah. I have my own excitement.

After satisfying self with Sumo's city, we visited Meiji Jingu Shrine. The biggest shrine in Tokyo, or in Japan? I forgot. Here, the view is very calming and peaceful. The walk is a bit long but enjoyable. Hiroki said the shrine will be so fucking crowded during New Year cause everyone comes here to pray, and it can takes about 3 hours of queuing from front gate to the main shrine. Really.

The first gate. Hiroki said that we have to bow down under the gate before we go through it, to respect the Gods. And so we did.

Ornaments of Sake and Wine Barrels along the road to the main shrine. You know which one which alright.

The second gate. Still, have to bow before go through.

Before entering the main shrine, we have to wash our hands and mouth with this water, maybe to purify our soul? Some kind of that.

And this! is the main shrine! Not so much photos cause in some areas taking photos are prohibited. Not so much people eh? Since there's no special occasion whatsoever, the shrine visitor is not much. We can't take photos on the inside of the shrine.

Located beside the main shrine, are a space for writing your wishes and hangs it on the board available on site. Wood card can be purchased for 500 yen each!

And there's a store that sells talismans too!! Lots of talismans from love talismans, health, job interview, road safety etc are sold there with lots of different patterns and colors. I myself bought this: 2 left for health, the blue one for easiness in study, and the red one for increase luck! Not really believeing it actually, just bought it because its beautiful color and pattern of the cloth. Really manga-ish. hahaha. Anyway sorry forgot to take photos of the store because too amazed by its talismans..

After that, we didn't went anywhere again because there are some business me and Hensley have to be done with. I'll talk about it later. Later on, we only managed to go to Shibuya (again) and I met Emiri (my friend from last December of AJE) and she helps me to pick some falsies. I've already targeted this since I was in Jakarta, knowing that Japanese falsies quality and cuteness are above average! I managed to buy this:

A Stock enough for maybe 1 year ahead. Ahahah! Satisfied have bought this. I'll try it on and post it on my blog, definitely. Actually, at first I've brought all of this to one of my friend who ask me to buy them when I am in Japan. I only planned to buy the left right one for myself, the rest is for her. But unfortunately she already had all the same models (maybe not 100% the same but looks alike) so finally she gave it to me, all of them. Well, thanks for stacking my own stock though. Luckily I bought them based on my preferences, so I don't hesitate at all to use it.

So, will be posting with lots. lots of falsies on next post, I think??

-xx

Face of My Graduation Day

This is my makeup from my graduation ceremony. To be clear, actually, I have 2, no, 3 graduation ceremonies. The faculty one, rehearsal for all faculty (whole university) and the real graduation ceremony. In the last post, I posted the final graduation one (which was a failure graduation, I think) and this is my makeup from the rehearsal, which was SO MUCH BETTER.

 Haven't posted about this yet. Certainly, this is a lucky shot! My face looks so oval I fall in love with myself LOL

Face:

• The Face Shop BB Cream Power Perfection Light Beige
• Pigeon Compact Powder UV Protection Beige
• Etude Compact Concealer
• Blush : unbranded, my mom's and its brand already faded away -____-

Eyes:

• Purple eyeshadow from Shiseido, old series, my mom's
• The Body Shop Eyebrow Makeup
• Etude Oh m'Eye Line Black
• Upper lashes unbranded, lower lash: DollyWink Natural Cute no. 14

Lips

• Revlon Colorbust Lip Butter Creme Brulee
• The Body Shop Clear Lipgloss

Stay beautiful! :)

Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter Review

Hello guys! This is actually my first beauty product review so I'm gonna do my best. Try to be simple as possible, less word but more descriptive :)

The main item that I want to review this time is the Revlon Colorbust Lip Butter Series. Yes, the series with the infamous Emma Stone in most of the posters.

The exact series I bought was the Creme Brulee (nude) and Cupcake (pale pink):

The color on my hand:

It's not glittery, the shine comes from the moisturizer of the lip butter, and I MEAN IT. LIP BUTTER. Here is the picture with the lipstick applied.

For overall, I like the color! especially the Creme Brulee one. It's sooooo pretty nude that really blends in with my face tone and refreshing the natural color of my lips. I'am using but kind of not using lipstick at all! It's just so fabulous. For the pink, actually I'm searching for a much paler one than this (such as Nicki Minaj's pale pink from MAC) but since MAC is so goddamn expensive for me so this one should be enough. For now :)

My pros opinion:

• All of this time I usually avoid lipsticks cause my lip is kinda sensitive and dry, and it will get much rougher after i'm using lipstick. So usually I prefer lipgloss or lipcream instead of lipstick. However, this product is different I'm so fell in love with it! This lipstick really moisturize the lips, the so-it-say lip butter really makes this lipstick suitable for people with dry lips like me! No wonder they named it LIP BUTTER, not lipstick.
• The scent is so candy-like, so sweet and not too strong. Having hard time resisting to not lick my lips all the time WTF.
• Cute and simple design of the packaging.
• Really affordable price. I bought it for 75.000IDR its so fuckin' cheap for a really great product!
• Soft shades, even the strong-colored one, suitable for people who tried to wear lipstick for learning /  too afraid to use strong color.
• Very cute if it's coated with clear lip gloss! Sorry, in the picture the difference is not quite much but you can see that with the clear gloss, the color will be even more softer and smooth.
• Easy to be cleaned, even without cleaner. The color not tinted your lips after you cleaned it up.

My cons opinion:

• Somehow the shade is very faint. To achieve color like in the picture, I have to swipe it for about 2-3 times. If you prefer strong and thick colored lipstick, don't choose this. Will be fed up with how much you have to swipe to achieve the strong color.
• Not water proof, means very easy to be removed.
• Not suitable for people who prefer lipstick, since it is kind of too moist I think.

Repurchase? For me, definitely. Just compare the pros and cons lah.

Ok! That is my first review! I will do another one this is so exciting!! See you again on the next review!!

- xx

Bandung: Holiday!

Actually, its not purely a holiday. There's this one students organization in campus that I've been participating for whole of my university year. And this is like the closing holiday for the whole 2012-2013 management generation. The whole management will be officially transferred to a new generation once this holiday is over.

We managed to go to Bandung only for 2 days 1 night, but it was fun! Although we can't go to as much places as we wanted to (we only went to Tangkuban Perahu, Ciater Hot Spring, a museum which I forgot the name, Kartika Sari which is famous Bandung snack shopping) but the whole point of this holiday was togetherness and we glad we made it.

Preparations on campus, waiting for friends to come and took pictures on campus' statement pond before taking off. Taking photos on bus too.

After about 5 hours on the road, we arrived on Tangkuban Perahu. A mountain in Indonesia famous for its active mountains that's emitting sulphur gas (but it is safe).

Satisfied with all mountains view and the freshness, no, sulphurite air, we continued to Sari Ater Hot Spring where people went there to take a bath from the hot spring. The hot spring contains some sulphur material (again, it is safe for people) that believed have a lot of benefit for the health: to smoothen the skin, relieve rheumatic, avoid skin aging, and so on.

The water really are hot! But soon I'm getting used for its temperature. At first, I didn't want to try bathing on the water, but my friends forced me and I'm glad I tried! It was so soothing, and fun!

Look at the photo. I'm so wet wtf. haha!

From Sari Ater, we finally went to our villa and took some rest. At night, we have a sharing session about the organization (yes, it was a very sad moment, where everyone said their own feelings during the whole year work) and finally have a closing toast! Cola Kanpai for all the hardwork all this time! BRAVO!

At the next morning, some of us went to Kartikasari to buy some famous Bandung snacks to be brought home, some of them went to a museum which name I forgot, and some of us went to church because it was Sunday (and I went to church that day, so I didn't have any photos of other activities on museum or Kartikasari.) and finally we had our last lunch. Me and one of my friend treated them as a graduation present from us to all of them.

Finish with our lunch, we took one final photos in front of the restaurant. Although not all of the management managed to attend this event, we represent them also.

That's all of my, no, our lightspeed holiday in Bandung. I will miss them so much since I will start working already on March. I even don't really know when will I meet them again. I'll make some time then. :)

However, thank you friends for this great 2 days, and (for me) 3 years worth of work. You're the best!!

Chanel Makeups: 2013 Pre-Fall Paris-Edimbourg Metiers d'Art Show

Important notes:

• this is purely a work of an amateur. every judgement / way of work does't associate with the original work itself.
• on a makeup experiment like this, I won't state what makeup brand I am using. Its up to you guys to follow and experiment with your own makeup color and brand. (however if you want to know the details, feel free to ask me by commenting.

In this post I tried to imitate the makeups used for One of Chanel Art Fashion Show.

The example picture is the courtesy of Sandra's Closet. The illustration is MINE :

Key points:

• flawless pale face color, 
• barely-there grey/dark brown eye shadow (you can see on the example even you cant tell the models wearing eye shadows or not), 
• eyeliner precision (white and black), 
• sheer pink blush, 
• pink to nude matte lip color and heavy lip gloss (without glitters).

My result are this (only edited the brightness, photos taken with an ordinary digital camera so please tolerate the imperfect light, ok?):

My mistake:
Everything looks strangely faint (eye shadows, blush, eyeliner, and lip color).

Actually, firstly I put thicker color than all this but I'm quite afraid to put on much color on my face since I looked at it, it was kinda over-colored compared to the example. I wiped it more or less until reaching the same shade in the example, however when I photoed it, the color looks incredibly faint! Now I see that makeups need to be thicker in reality cause when it was captured, the color will more or less become fainter in result.

in spite of all the flaws, I'm really looking forward to try another runway makeup look. I hope I'll get better and better with more practice!

See ya!

- xx