Unexpectedly detailed review of the (Michael) Michael Kors Selma (Large) Bag

This is a really late post (and I know I still have the rest of New Zealand to do – I haven’t forgotten) but I am crossing off those home renovation resolutions like a bawsss. Pretty much last year I bludged through my “home renovation” and pretty much passed off replacing two broken bathroom/ laundry items that needed to be replaced and they were done by a plumber, not myself. If not, it was buying the odd curtain or dinner placemat. I’ve just worked through painting all the main living areas and bedrooms and painted them all a fresh peach colour – bathroom, toilet and laundry to go, but that will be easy peasy. I’m a bit caught up because I’m simultaneously replacing furniture and buying things to decorate the home – I should do it a bit at a time,  but I like to multitask.

Painting for newbies is a bitchhhh. Your deltoids and other muscles you never knew existed ache and you get frustrated because you’re using way too much paint on a wall and can’t tell if the coating is even or not or if you’ve painted a spot because half the wall is dry, the other half wet. I will write more about this later in a separate post. Onwards!

The Selma Bag features:

• Two short top handles for arm/ hand carry
• Long adjustable strap for crossbody or shoulder carry
• Two “flaps” to look like a trapeze which can be tucked in for a square look, or pushed out… to look like a Celine trapeze
• Top zipper closure (with the two “flaps” uncovered)
• 1x Inner zipped compartment
• 1x Mobile phone compartment
• 3x Smaller open stitched compartments
• 1x Leather strap with lobster claw for key/ small item lanyard thing that is fixed to the inside of the bag
• MK Monogrammed fabric interior lining (by the way I hate the monogram soooo much I’m only glad it’s on the inside and you cannot see it from the outside)
• Saffiano calf leather exterior and all straps
• 4x Metal base studs on underside of the bag
• Front logo plaque
• MICHAEL KORS stamped hardware
• White rather soft and slippery dust bag with silver leafed logo (which is actually impressive for a dust bag)

Purchased the 30T4MLMS7T in Raspberry/ White/ Black colour block. Raspberry is more like a fuschia or a hot pink colour depending on your interpretation and under certain lighting. The colours are way too vibrant for what I am used to sporting, but a little change won’t hurt.

So my floor and wall backdrop is back after I decided the photography tent was way too whitewashed and eBay-like. Can you guys tell the colour of the wall is lighter than before? Yes, that was me painting the walls.

What Misa thinks of the Selma bag: first impressions

So I’ve pushed this post first since my last post kind of promised this would be next. I’m not really a Michael Kors person – to be honest I don’t know much about the brand, don’t really care for it, and don’t particularly like it either. The only thing I like though, is the Selma bag, because it’s one of the designs that I think actually look quite modern, nice, and can work as a bag you take to work without it costing near $2000. It was almost by chance that I came across this particular colour block Selma on sale which I managed to get (including shipping) for under $300AUD. This is a bargain considering they retail at like $490AUD+ or whatever it is here. It was the perfect combination of colours, especially since the straps were black and not white like most stupid colour blocks (why would you have light coloured handles if you could avoid it?? Yes, aesthetic purposes, but functionally lacking in terms of maintaining the thing).

I know I said I wouldn’t buy a bag (so I still kept with the twice a year thing… except I made it to 3 in 2014 because of the Selma), but when I bought the Selma it was on sale, Christmas, and it was reasonably priced. Later another $50 was hacked off the price (*shakes fist at further reductions* and probably it would have been better spending $250AUD on it (who doesn’t like saving money?)… because IMO it’s okay value for money, but RRP here is just not worth it at all.

Yes, there are articles trying to ride on the Kors bandwagon by writing articles like these to say how the brand is going downhill, is uncool, etc – yeah I get all that. Like I wrote a paragraph ago, I don’t actually like the brand at all. I just liked the design and price wise, it was worth a shot because I wanted to see what it was like for the lulz. Do I have anything to say in response to the article? Well, I do – there’s nothing wrong with a mass produced bag – it makes a brand affordable and in all honesty, undermining the “higher end” brand of the same brand doesn’t really matter because fundamentally the money is going to the same company. I’m well aware everyone is wearing one, but then again, what about Longchamp? Just saying. A bag is just a bag – you use it to carry things and you wear it because you like it or not.

I’m going to be honest – the Selma is a bag that I’m not very comfortable with in terms of its details and design elements when I take apart the bag. It’s like the Saffiano leather and buckle design from Prada, a leather strap with buckle for your keys from Chanel, a shape that really resembles that of Celine’s trapeze or luggage, interior compartments that are like Louis Vuitton and Coach combined, and a monogram interior lining (though uncommon in most handbags) – probably resembling some brand but I just can’t really figure out what at the moment. Yes. It is uncomfortable because it is a mishmash of borrowed (?) elements smacked into one. But if you just look at it on the whole, it seems like a good design – I guess they did combine the “best” of everything into one. Or so that’s what you expect anyway.

This is so the Prada lobster clasp, downsized with a different “link” shape buckle.

Made in Vietnam.

There’s nothing wrong with it being made in Vietnam (probably better than made in China but I wouldn’t have a clue), but it took me ages to find where it was made. It was printed on a tiny bit of white coated fabric somewhere on the inside in small letters – so wee and tiny. It’s not very nice to have it in such an obscure spot – like, it’s nothing to hide right? I can’t expect a bag to be made in Europe if it’s a couple of a hundred dollars.

So. Stiff.

I was expecting the bag to be stiff but not as stiff as it is now. It’s physically hard to stuff into my work drawer (which is actually a cube), it’s in the way when I take public transport, I can’t slide my wardrobe door close because I can’t tuck the two sides in (need to rearrange my contents first to do that) and just a whole bunch of inconveniences.

In fact, it is stiff to the point that I would call it hard/ cardboard. The long strap is almost useless because it actually hurts my shoulder when I wear the bag long. My bag isn’t like terribly heavy, but it is of considerable weight: a phone, wallet, keys, glasses case, bus tickets, a small bag of toiletries and the odd almost weightless cardigan. The handles are also so hard I wonder if there is cardboard inside to retain the shape and hardness… or whatever. There probably isn’t, but it’s just a thought. You cannot wear this bag on the long strap with the handles down because it will bang against your thigh and it hurts. And the long strap hurts. And you carry it on your hand/ arm and the handles still hurt. It’s better now but you don’t exactly expect a bag to be something you “break into”. This is the first time I’ve encountered this problem.

Well, I’m sure you are all like “but this will get better after a bit of wear and tear” – it’s been about a week and while the finish of the bag is sagging (by this I mean the front and the bag are slowly caving in where the bag is empty), it’s pretty tough. And there’s a good reason for it.

Sagging/ losing its original shape.

Saffiano leather is a method of pressing calf leather into a crosshatch pattern. This makes it scratch resistant (to an extent) and the treatment makes it durable and sort of water resistant. It reminds me of the Louis Vuitton Epi leather (same concept, just different pattern). I have compared the grain/ size of the pattern of the saffiano treatment in Prada and Kors leathers and I have noticed that the Prada grain is somewhat larger. The Kors is pressed smaller and hence is a bit “scratchier” – this is most likely due to the fact that they are using leather that is not as good in quality – and that’s why there is a need to scale the saffiano crosshatch smaller to hide these imperfections. The Kors leather also doesn’t have as much definition – so perhaps the leather was also stretched when they did the crosshatch? I don’t know, just making speculations.

Left: Prada Saffiano leather (more definition and larger grains). Right: Kors Selma. Oh, and while we’re here, maybe you may want to compare the quality of stitching – so yeahhhhhhhh.

In other words, if you are a leather connoisseur or someone who really scrutinises quality, definitely choose Prada since they are the originators and probably do it best.

Oh and just in case you missed it – I still think the bag is cardboard. It has softened since I have first typed this draft though.

Details leave much to be desired.

The sealing of the leather seems to be alright and smooth if I run my finger over the edges, but if I look closely the edges of the actual leather aren’t smooth and there are lumps under the seal. I’m not saying that high end brands will not have this problem – I’ve seen my fair share of the slip of the artisan’s hand during the sealing process (which by the way is sort of like painting, waiting for it to cure and possibly doing this process several times – my hand slips even painting a wall let alone something so delicate) so I don’t expect it to be perfect. If I had to rate the sealing I’d probably say it’s about 8/10 for smoothness but 6/10 for shoddiness of craftsmanship because I can see the imperfections under the sealing – no matter how much you rely on the sealing to hide this, I still don’t believe it’s a good idea to leave traces of ruggedness in something that is supposed to be clean cut. I tried really hard to take a photo but I couldn’t as I don’t have the capability to do detailed macro shots.

I’m not sure if it’s my imagination either, but when I compare the symmetry of the bag it seems off – not everything is quite uniform and the same size throughout. This is reallllllly minor, but maybe something to take note of if you’re crazy like me.

Stitching

When I received my bag I was not happy with the long strap because the string/ stitching along the sides of the long strap were already sort of fraying or fuzzing out. This is probably due to the bad quality of the string and just overall finish – especially if they decided to wax the string. My only guess is that this will only get worse over time.

Fuzzy string on long strap: this was as how I received the item, brand new (I knew it was new because the zipper and everything was factory sealed with the swing tag).

Once again with details, if you look at the stitching, the lines sort of look straight, but the actual punched holes in the leather forming that stitched line aren’t exactly straight or aligned. If the higher end brands are given an A+ or above, I would give this workmanship maybe a B-. Yes, there is a difference, and you can tell.

Lean back and have a look at the lines in general – not straight, spacing is not as equal as they could be and stitching “holes” not lining up.

Branding

Considering this is a Michael “Michael Kors” it just sounds as tacky as it probably is. I hate the name of the brand and well, that’s about it.

Proportions

This is the large version of the Selma and proportions are alright. It is a bit bulky, but that’s due to the nature of how stiff the bag is.
The large number of internal pockets is rare to see in bags these days and is a nice touch – but it doesn’t make organisation that much easier or finding your stuff faster if you’re someone who just throws things in and then organises later.

The only negative (apart from the horrible monogram lining) thing I have to say about the internal pockets is that the zipped compartment is not big enough to put in a long wallet. So my wallet is still floating around.

If it’s any consolation a short wallet will fit (duh). But I’m not going to change/ swap my wallet just because of this.

Long wallets do not fit into the zipped compartment.

Overall conclusion

Yeah, alright, so I own a Selma now. I’m probably just going to use it for a while, try to sell it, and then forget I even had it. Or, I would use it, get bored of it, and throw it into the dust bag and up into my closet to sleep with my other maybe 15 or so bags. One’s enough and that’s it – I don’t see the need or whatever to have a second because I think even owning one in the first place was a move that is unlike-Misa. From wearing my casually comfortable Louis Vuitton Totally MM (which I crumple into a ball somewhere in my closet) to this mess of a cardboard slab, it was like a culture shock far too great for me to handle.

There are so many great bags that are under $1000 that perhaps aren’t leather but are structurally well made and would be something I’d be happy to wear every day. Although I wear the Selma to work 5 days a week, I kind of don’t hate it,  but I don’t love it either. I feel kind of lost wearing the bag, because it feels like the bag’s insecurities of its own identity has rubbed off me. It’s still too mishmashed to be an icon (maybe an icon of mass production), and it’s not anywhere near the top of my list in terms of my bag rankings.

If you were hoping the Selma to be the answer to the new saffiano tote, forget it – a classic will always be a classic, and the quality is just too far off to even consider comparing the two!

If you prefer something bulky, heavy, stiff but with a bit more comfort yet bump into people and things when you’re travelling or shopping, consider the Chanel Grand Shopping Tote instead. Although I don’t really love my GST that much, it’s definitely much better than the Selma, but of course there’s the price factor.

I don’t mean to offend anyone who loves their Selma – I mean I like it too – enough for me to actually buy and use it. But seriously, when you compare the quality – and especially when you can afford better quality – I don’t see why I should settle for less. Please note that I didn’t see the bag in person before I actually got the bag, so if you do purchase, go see it in person first!

Overall for a bag this size and this quality, $300AUD is actually a pretty good price. I’m being too strict on the quality – what can I possibly expect? For an internationally recognised brand, decent design and it is leather, I must say it was still a good buy. My only qualm about it is why did I even need to own the Selma or spend the money in the first place. *shrugs*

In a summary – which does not include every single possibility:

Great for: students, people who want a work bag to throw around and not care about yet look modern and organised (go for the classic all black Selma – can’t go wrong), people who do not care for their bags well, people on a budget, people searching for their first designer bag, a pack of friends who want matching bags that are in season/ in fashion, giving away to a friend/ family or as a gift in general – alone or pooled with other people.

Bad for: people with soft bodies (unless you want a free massage with the bag bashing against you as you walk – massage available for 2 weeks of initial use), bag collectors who do it as an investment (no point here), people who are obsessive compulsive, people who nitpick details, people who are against the use of leather, people who do not like Michael/ Michael Michael/ Michael MK Kors.

Plans for the next bag? Considering May is only a few months away it’s time for me to contemplate on what I should get. I have zero plans at this stage, and I am most likely going to push my money towards home renovations/ furniture. I’ve had my desk for about 7 years – it’s still structurally stable and does the job, but it’s ugly and the veneer has always looked awful as it peeled from the very first week I ever used it. I’ve found a desk I quite like, but do I need it? The “trust me, I’m an architect” side of me is telling me yes. I’ve always had this strong idea to pursue the perfect work space. I was somewhat close to it, but not quite. I will get there eventually since I have finally got the chair I’ve wanted since maybe about 9-10 years ago.

I’ve also discovered Pinterest and it has been a great source of renovation ideas. I’ve finally hung a decent looking frame in my room to cover the bare hook I have (see my Instagram feed) and my room feels new again. Now if I get that desk and decent storage I can get all my crap off my desk and off the floor – it’s always nice to have a sexy sleek plane as your desk with minimal clutter.

Hope everyone enjoyed Valentines – mine sucked. I spent about 3 hours just waiting/ traveling to and from work, ignored a couple being way too touchy feely in public while waiting for public transport, had to put up with two girls much younger than me gawking at those two hand wanderers and make comments about it. Anyway, I will be back at some stage – not sure what the next post will be, but I really want to get all my renovations underway and complete soon. We have a lot of furniture that is old – like 10, 20 years+ and needs upgrading. Until next time, stay cool (unless you’re in the northern hemisphere), and enjoy!

2014 in retrospect and 2015 resolutions

This took me longer than expected… but first off, happy new year! I hope everyone has been enjoying the holidays. My 2015 started and ended with smooth public transport (people on holidays meaning less commuters and less traffic – seriously, why can’t every day be a holiday?), unexpected Christmas presents and some extra dollars to pay bills/ go shopping with.

2014 was really a year of “I don’t give a shit about anything as long as I am happy” and it sort of worked. It made me a bit conceited though (to some people anyway), but whatever. We all deserve to be conceited about something once in a while.

Here are the main highlights of 2014;

Found a new job
READ ABOUT IT HERE. This took the most courage, but I did it in the end. I know you’re all sick of me talking about it, but for me it was something big. While I enjoyed my first permanent job immensely for the people I worked with, I just couldn’t win myself over and justify staying.

Went to my first ever concert
READ ABOUT IT HERE. It was something that I have been meaning to do, and I finally did it. JJ Lin is amazing live.

Ticked off things from 2013’s 30 Day Challenge wish list
ORIGINAL 30 DAYS POST… AND TICKING OFF THE LIST HERE. My 2014 in terms of adding to my small handbag collection stands at a somewhat modest count of 2 items from Louis Vuitton and Stella McCartney. Although I held back, I don’t think I ended up spending any less than previous years. But that’s okay.

Attending my first ever wedding. Alone.
Okay, so going alone sucked, but it was one of the first formal events I had to attend.

Visiting New Zealand!
The people there are seriously all so terribly nice and the pace of life over there is perfect. If I had lots of money I would seriously consider packing up everything and moving there to retire – I would climb all of those trails and travel the whole country by car.

Here is an image I have not yet posted (since I’ve been postponing part 2 for like forever). This was one of my favourite places ever.

More of my graphic material being printed in large scale format
My 20 page catalogue for work was printed about a month ago for public distribution – 500 copies were printed! My large scale banners are also hanging up in store and also outside my workplace which can be seen by thousands of commuters each day.

Discovering Forever21.
I didn’t write about it at all, but I ended up buying from Forever21 like… twice? Thrice? This was before I even knew they were going to open in the Macquarie Centre or wherever that is (far far away from where I am anyway). I’ll most likely go check it out one day but I heard it wasn’t that great. Well, I will go for a mini excursion to see exactly how their pricing is and what the range is like.

Other ridiculous things that happened that I didn’t mention:

• My favourite, most comfy and best fitting Westwood Melissa shoes broke. Because of the shape of the shoe itself (how the top part is “cut out”) it makes it super easy and prone to cracking when you bend/ flex the shoe. This is assuming of course, there is a crack or a rip to begin with – and this could be due to a variety of reasons such as a manufacturing defect that is not readily visible, or just not knowing and wearing the shoe wrong. The most annoying? Only one shoe has this problem – the other is perfectly fine, but it means a perfectly good shoe goes to waste as it is no longer a pair and irreparable.
  In remembrance of this awesome shoe, here they are in their full glory when I first unboxed them. Makes me think twice about getting jelly/ rubber shoes though – maybe not a great idea. I only wore the shoes for like 4 months and they broke.
  
• Basically condemned online dating. So pretty much this explains itself but I don’t want to put other people down because meeting people online is the easiest way. Best thing is most likely it is free. Unfortunately for me, I have pretty much closed myself off from others and have a pretty low confidence level in trusting other people. I get paranoid because I don’t know who the other person is until I actually see them. Well, I must say if you are sensible, it doesn’t hurt one way or another.
  I didn’t mention about it because I wasn’t sure if it was right to write about it since it is kind of embarrassing (I KID IT IS SUPER EMBARRASSING TO THE POINT YOU WANT TO CURL UP AND ROLL AWAY) and went down really really badly. It was funny in retrospect, but deep inside I knew I should have just not turned up since I had this gut feeling I didn’t want to wait in cold, rainy weather, in a place I didn’t want to be, sick, tired from getting off work for some douchebag who couldn’t be assed turning up on time. I should have just left and went home, but no, I stayed, wasted my time, and met a new type of species which proves that immaturity really has no limits. I can’t believe I had to sit there and listen to someone drone on about reading non-fiction for enlightment (ewww @ non-fiction) and wondering why people read fiction (ie. me). I’m not saying non-fiction is boring, you need non-fiction to gain knowledge, but seriously, can you prove that non-fiction is really and truly non-fiction? I think the only book that proves true to being non-fiction is a dictionary, because it’s the only literature that can actually be proven to be completely factual, objective and correct in its entirety (assuming there are no errors).
  Thanks to this experience I have remembered why I hate people (certain types people of course – or rather, certain characteristics of people) and need to earn more money to move to some remote area and retire.
  If I go into the details it’s pretty hilarious, but for now I will leave it. If I get enough requests to actually blog about it, I may.
• And there is more, but not very significant to talk about.

These were my resolutions that I ticked off from last year’s resolution list:

1. Save up at least half my pay, buy only one expensive item.
   I think I did a good job with this. I could have done better but shiny things – we all want them.
2. DONE – Go interstate OR overseas.
   Yes, this happened. I went over for a short stay in New Zealand.
3. DONE- Finding a new job.
4. Reconciling with friends.
   Errrr this was a hard one. I forgive pretty easily, but I’m not very good with forgetting. More often than not each time I forgive I almost immediately regret when the other person either takes forever to reply, doesn’t turn up on time etc – all these are factors leading to me to believe that (1) you do not value me as a true friend (2) you do not bear basic respect for me. You can say I did tick this one off because I did try, only I regretted soon afterwards. Rinse and repeat cycle – I think though, if it is the same person who does this to you, you’re better off without them.
5. Blog at least once every 2-3 weeks.
   It worked for about half a year until I just got crazy busy with work. I was doing pretty well for the first few months… but oh no.
6. Be healthy, stress level to zero. No migraines.
   My migraines stopped coming, but I have crazy lightheaded dizziness. Not sure which one I would prefer (preferably none to be honest). Guess it is time to add more exercise into daily life as it is lacking.
7. Take up a new hobby.
   Someone… make me do something. I would usually be open to attending classes, workshops or whatever, but I don’t want to do things alone! About 60% of my friends are residing overseas and the other 30% are married or have children.
8. DONE- Do one home renovation.
   Though technically I didn’t do it myself – but it happened. I promise in 2015 I will finally paint the walls >_>
9. Cook more.
   I was forced to do so… but it worked.
10. PROGRESS- Take better care of my skin.
    

I don’t have many resolutions for 2015 as such as I know that even if I set them they are useless unless I actually try to make an effort, but here they are anyway:

Resolutions for 2015:

1. Keep fit/ do more exercise.

2. Receive a big fat pay rise or find a job that will give me one
I know I have just only started my job (it’s been like 10 months now!), but I need to consider where I want to go and what I want to achieve or do. I enjoy working with the people I do, but maybe it’s some sort of curse – just because I work hard and can complete a lot of work, I always am working in places that are understaffed. Employers always seem to think that if they have one employee who can finish the work there is no need to hire more. I understand this from an economic point of view, after all a business is run to make money. However it just feels unfair, you know?

I have time to consider my options. Most likely I will probably stay on for another year, but that will depend on the situation at hand.

3. Travel at least once during the year
Depending on the Australian Dollar, I will consider where I want to go. At the moment South Korea, USA and Japan are quite top of my list. I’m still a bit creeped out since there may be radiation in Japan, but it’s just somewhere I have always really wanted to go.

4. Start/ complete renovations, if not consider moving.
We’ve lived in our apartment for 14.5 years now. I like this place – it’s bright, sunny, close to everything and I can watch fireworks from my balcony or window. There are shitty things about it too, being sloppy strata management, being forever a black hole on google maps (y u no deliver to me?), being old and requiring more maintenance (as is the case with all apartments more than 10 years old), and not particularly liking the neighbours (I have a crazy woman downstairs who wakes up at 5am to rearrange her outdoor furniture on her balcony – and yes she drags the table along the tiles, rude neighbours demanding you let them in via the intercom without saying “please” or “thank you” [FYI we didn’t let them in – no key? Your problem + we don’t even know who you are], and mysterious chain smokers somewhere but I do not know where).

Thanks once again for reading until the end. Sorry if this year has been boring. I hope you all enjoyed 2014 and have a great 2015 – I know I will try my best to make the most out of this year. Until next time!

Next post: Michael Kors Selma

Louis Vuitton Capucines BB

Hope everyone has enjoyed the festive season – my 4 days break from work (since were closed) was too short and is coming to an end. I am still feeling dizzy as ever… so I am pretty much typing this with my eyes closed. In any case, here is just a short review on this bag.

I don’t think I will be buying something for quite a while now.. this has officially blown a big hole in my savings. I originally met my ever so hard to reach target of saving after more than 3 years of working… only to spend more haha. Well, it is time to save again and surpass the original target now.

I wanted to originally purchase a Chanel Boy but got turned off by the terrible nonexistent service in the Chanel boutiques. Not only are we paying 1.5 times more than other countries for that bag, I think the amount of money we need to pay and the quality of service is just not up to scratch at all. I was then tossing between the Lady Dior or something else, but I know from people’s stories that the Lady Dior isn’t really great quality in terms of its zipper and stitching. I wasn’t really prepared to spend that much money on a patent leather bag (which cannot be repaired… patent leather, that is), and I don’t want lambskin as it is far too soft and will lose shape.

I was having dinner with the girls from my old workplace a few months back when we were talking about handbags and then I decided to do some research… to my surprise this handbag is filed away under a category called “special”, so it was no wonder that I did not know about it previously. I saw the handbag once in person (a customer was wearing the medium size) and there was some information in fashion magazine… but it wasn’t until then that I was genuinely interested because I knew that it was pricey.

Thankfully, it comes in a smaller size which is what I like/ prefer, and they had a few new colours out – one of which I thought was one that I really really needed.

I purchased the Capucines in BB size on a busy Sunday afternoon. The handbag is located and available for purchase on Level 2 of the George Street flagship store. I didn’t realise that it was that exclusive to be located on a separate level, but the best thing about that is that you beat the masses and crowd on the ground floor level, which is no different to a marketplace on a busy weekend. On level 2 you get to sit on a sofa, and have the freedom to do whatever you want really, and you don’t need to really wait more than 5 minutes for someone to ask you if you need help.

My friend who was with me accidentally picked up a handbag to have a look and to her surprise there were things inside and actually belonged to a customer! It was in a beautiful indigo colour which was very borderline royal purple. They didn’t have that colour in stock, but that colour is definitely my #2 choice.

There were three new colours, the other two apart from the one I have pictured above being a baby blue and a very pale baby pink. To be honest the baby blue looked probably nicer than the one I decided to buy (which is in a colour named cobalt since it is a dark grey), but I liked the fuschia edge as it is so classic, yet a new interpretation of the classic edge treatment without going boring old red edge.

My only concern with this bag is that I have another very similar one which Louis Vuitton doesn’t currently have in their catalogue (though they have a habit of bringing back styles after a few years) called the Sevigne, also in a BB size.

The Capucines is made of a taurillon leather, which is considered one of the best leathers out there. It is quite thick and seems quite sturdy. it is apparently meant to soften over time – fingers crossed it will still look as good as it does now – I hate unstructured leather cough YSL cough!

The handbag is split into two compartments and can be closed with a hook in the centre. There is also a zipped compartment at the back for you to zip up any valuables, such as a passport for instance. The width of the bag is just right for a long wallet. The Sevigne BB on the other hand, cannot fit a long wallet and can only contain a short wallet.

The Capucines also has two hooks for you to hang a long strap (included) for cross body or shoulder carry. The interior is lined in a fuschia calf leather.

There are also metal studs on the base of the bag.

Apart from the choice of leather and colours, what drew me in the most was the reinterpretation classic elements. I believe it is probably one of the first (if not the first) bag with the monogram flower as part of the hardware design. You have a choice to tuck the flap in behind the cut out LV logo, or on top (though it doesn’t sit flat as there is no magnetic closure). I like this design because it can be discreet if you cover the LV sign as the monogram flower is a bit more subtle.

There are also other elements like the rings on the side which are elements you usually see in their jewellery collection rather than in their handbag range.

Other items I did not picture was the box (I actually have the same box from purchasing the Sevigne so nothing new – but it is a hard box, not one of those large floppy ones you get when you purchase a regular handbag) and dustbag, which is a different type of dustbag to your normal sand coloured one. The one that comes with the Capucines is a double layered, super soft type of microfiber or cotton fabric which has an outer brown fabric and the inner fabric being the usual sand colour. There is also an information booklet included which is relatively thick (maybe 3-4mm thick) on just general information on leather and care… though it appears to be a universal booklet and not exclusive to the Capucines (probably given with bags made of special leather).

I think the most surprising thing to me is that this bag is actually far more common than I had originally expected, since I see it quite often on the streets of Sydney. That is a good thing because it means I made the right decision in believing that this is pretty much the new icon or classic in their handbag range.

As per usual I checked the bag over for the quality and the stitching appears to be well done, but as for the sealing of the edge – I can’t really say it is perfect for its price tag. It could be done better, but having said that there were only 2 Capucines BB in the colour cobalt available in stock – one being the display and the other being the one I purchased.

This bag is alright to go traveling (beware if you go somewhere where it will rain because this leather is okay for rain, but like, not 100% like all leathers) but is probably better suited to going out or dinner. Overall I would call this a city bag and the best thing is that it is clean and simple so it doesn’t look too much even with a pair of jeans.

There are two other sizes available in the MM ($6500AUD) and GM ($7000AUD) size, both are only hand/ shoulder carry and do not come with the long strap.

The Louis Vuitton Capucines BB retails at $5100 AUD and is available exclusively at Louis Vuitton boutiques. Check the website or call Louis Vuitton for up to date pricing. As per usual I recommend you all buy duty free or quote pricing to see which country/ city has better pricing.

PS: I will try to get back on track with the New Zealand posts… wish this dizziness would just go away though. And finally when I get back to work I get to work with people who are actually helpful! Cannot wait.

Short filler post

Hi everyone – I will have some time (finally) during the Christmas break to get my drafts back on track and to keep posting. This past month I have been struggling with poverty… Internet data poverty. I have 50GB of peak time data and somehow I used up more than half in a week all thanks to owning an Apple TV and Youtube-ing the crap out of it (if you buy it you should use it, right??). I also uploaded a heap of photos from my trip (reasonably large since uploads are included in the download data limit) so I skimped out on my Internet and disappeared for a while.

Those posts I promised will come… eventually. Sorry!

On other matters I have been really busy with work. The boss decided it was time to have that Grand Opening party (although we moved in like 3 months ago trololol) and I was like an in-house graphic designer for the past week or two. I rushed all sorts of deadlines (set by myself really) and finished a 20 page A5 catalogue (or more like revised it) – redesigning the front cover, made 4 invitations for different types of media, about 8-10 web banners (yes, design is required), 11 hanging banners (big ass banners 1m x 2.5m to hang from the ceiling – all different in nature) – adding onto the 10 banners I designed a few months ago, at least 1 A4 poster advertising something, put up maybe 20 product listings as we have new products coming in, packed probably 100 parcels/ orders, whilst taking orders, replying emails, making sales on the floor and answering the phone. Yes, I am exhausted and I am amazed at how much work I do and wish I was paid much more.

I’m sure I did more work than what I mentioned because suddenly the girl who usually helps clear the orders and packing suddenly disappeared and didn’t turn up for work recently. We also had over 100 boxes of stock come in and I probably cleared about 10 boxes of those within 2 hours… but still this is not enough as the back part of the store (where the event will be) is still under construction and we need to clear those boxes… this party by the way is in 4 days’ time… well, less now. 72 hours non-stop is probably not even enough and we will be cutting it close.

I was also going to rant about idiots on the bus but I will refrain from doing so because I’m going to get a lot of slack for it. I finally get another day of rest and I am looking forward to it. We have a new “helper” at work, but um, they don’t really help or get much work done. Kids these days are amazing – for example if you tell them “here are some flyers and envelopes… we need to mail them out – stick on the address label and stamp” they will only do the things you tell them and won’t bother sealing the envelope. They will also ask you where to place the stamp and put the return address in the most prominent part of the envelope in place of the recipient’s address. It will also take them 1 minute to do 1 envelope. I’m serious; I wish I were kidding though.

I’m not really sure what the whole deal with “work experience” is. It’s just a fancy word for “please hire me, I can be free if you want, but if you like you can also give me some money, but I won’t put my heart into work because finding real work is way too hard and I don’t want to commit”. When I was in uni, I didn’t have a job – in fact, I never had one. Not once in my head did the idea of doing work experience ever cross my mind – the only thought I had was actually finding a job. Why should I get work experience somewhere totally unrelated to my interests and not get paid properly for it? Is it because people feel insecure and just want to do something with their time? Is it because they do not want to face the disappointment of not being hired?

I really do not understand why people do work experience in something they don’t really care for and not even try to be proactive about it. Well, all I can say is that some people will learn failure the super hard way. But then again, they are so conceited that they will forever be in denial and treat anything as a success, just because.

If I could rewind a few years back, I would work just as hard as I do now and do exactly the same. I would learn everything I could in the shortest time possible and collect all the skills I can and become an invaluable member – or active contributor – of the team. Time is precious, I don’t understand why people waste it. Even if you waste time, do it in a way that you don’t regret it. Seriously if you don’t give a shit, go waste your time somewhere else and play a video game instead. Just don’t do that at work. Man up (or woman up) and just be honest “I’m not cut for this” and everyone will just say “you poor baby, go have an early mark and enjoy your holiday instead”.

Rant over.

Anyway, the party was over and to my slight disappointment it was just work that whole day to be honest… I had less fun than those last minute casual workers (who ate more than I did, and didn’t do what they were supposed to do – this is why you should not know about logistics if you are anal about logistics not going to plan and obsessive compulsive about order). I’ve had a busy month. To summarise:

• Kitchen drain got blocked and had to be unblocked with some form of crazy acid
• Doing all the housework non stop (I’m seriously, my hands were not dry at all for half a day) – maybe I really do not want to be a house hermit for this reason
• That work party which sucked out most of my soul
• Intercom upgrade – looks cheap and horrible but at least it makes more sense now
• Visiting a new dentist who is tons better than that asshole who made me trek half the city to get an x-ray when there was one just a few streets down (WHY??)
• Getting my dizziness back – flashback to final year uni of 4 days of continuous sleep. I never really rested after New Zealand and then got sick… staring at a computer screen for about 6 hours+ per day really kills me especially since I do a lot of scrolling and graphic work it really messes up my eye brain coordination. It’s getting better now though.
• Had to live alone for about 4-5 days for a reason I won’t publicise.

Other news:

What is this honey butter chip, what does it taste like and where can I buy it? I love potato chips (sad reality) even though I don’t really eat junk food – I am so going to look for these to have a try!

Watched the first 2 live action adaptations of Rurouni Kenshin, and was really addicted I had to rewatch both. I’m satisfied with the adaptation (though the characters and story were all meshed together and shuffled around), but I am glad with the casting of Kenshin since he is no doubt the hardest character to portray well. I am also very impressed with the holding power of Gatsby wax (you will understand if you watch any Japanese drama or movie). After that I decided to rewatch the anime… I have been marathoning for the past few days and everything is slowly coming back to me. Good times – it has been years since I watched it. In our household Kenshin has a special place because it’s one of the few animes we watched together as a family and own on official VCD (note that is not a typo, yes I am that old). I wish that my dad was able to watch the live action adaptation… he probably would have enjoyed it.

One of my favourite songs which I think they should really use as an end theme forever for Kenshin… I even own this OST on CD (3rd OST for the Kyoto part). TM Revolution is amazing. You can Youtube for other versions of the song, but although this is long I kind of dig that guitar solo at the end.

Song starts at about 1 minute in

I will be back with a post in the new few days as I will have a 4 day break. Until then, merry Christmas and hope you all have a bunch of awesome presents under the tree or in your stockings! I only have one under the tree… “tree”. Well, I’m pretty sure it’s a box of chocolates lol. I’ll be waiting for the 25th to open it!

Lazy Review of Stella McCartney Falabella Shaggy Deer Fold-Over Tote Bag

This is a long overdue post that I was meant to do all the way back in July. I have some other things I want to post during Christmas time, but I guess I will leave it for next month. I have been meaning to write about this bag, but I needed to use it a bit more to give it a fair evaluation.

All images were screenshot from the official Stella McCartney website, and for more product information you can visit here.

• DESCRIPTION
  Falabella shaggy deer fold over tote in bluebird tone featuring a ruthenium chain trim, handles and shoulder strap with a Stella McCartney logo disc.
  Fully lined with Stella McCartney logo print recycled polyester, inside pocket and top snap closure.
  This tote can be worn two ways, folded over as a shoulder bag or as a handheld tote.
• DETAILS
  100% Polyester

  This bag is made from non-leather, cruelty-free materials using highly skilled manufacturing techniques.
  The lining has been created from recycled plastic bottles.
  This is part of our ongoing commitment to animal and eco friendly fashion.
  Spot clean with a soft damp cloth and a small amount of neutral soap.
  Avoid scrubbing in order not to damage the textured surface of the bag.

  FIT

  Width: 37cm/14.6”
  Height: 36cm/14.2”
  Depth: 8 cm/3.1″

  – details from Stella McCartney website as above

Earlier this year I wanted a bag that could allow me the flexibility to carry stuff to work without it being an oversized bag. The Falabella came into mind because to me it kind of just looks like a stylish bag without the brand slapped all over it. At first I couldn’t understand why people would spend so much money on a bag that was made of synthetic leather, but eventually I grew to understand that it was the workmanship and the idea of promoting recycled and sustainable materials. When I first knew about the Falabella I was told by someone that the price was for the name/ label/ brand – I’m sorry but now I think that statement was just ignorant. I think you really need to know the reasoning behind the brand to completely appreciate and understand why the price is as is.

Digression aside, the bag allows you to carry it as a full sized tote by the short handles (first image), folded over as a shoulder bag (2nd and 3rd images – imagine it on the shoulder), and as a clutch (2nd image as carried by the model). That way I could easily expand or contract the bag depending on how much stuff I had. I carry two bags to work and I transfer buses – not exactly a very convenient way to travel with a bit of baggage, so if I can have something compact (especially if I am standing on the bus) it means that I don’t need to carry something super heavy for about 30 minutes or more.

The reason why I called this a lazy review is because I meant to take photos, but decided against it. It’s a pretty difficult bag to photograph as it has a slouchy structure. The third image down where you can see the bag folded over (back view) looks nothing like the actual thing because it is not hard/ stiff enough to fold into a perfect rectangle with straight edges. My favourite way of wearing the bag is actually as shown by the model, as a hand held clutch – I just really love folding over the bag for several reasons – your stuff doesn’t fall out of the bag for sure (since there is no zipper, so you fold it to secure items inside), the bag looks really nice with the short handles falling over it like an extra piece of decoration, and you support the bag without the use of the chain (will elaborate later).

The bag itself comes in a 100% organic cotton dust bag with minimal cards etc. Inside the bag somewhere there is a stamp/ label mentioning which year and season the bag was manufactured for (in my case, S/S 2014 or something like that – the bag is in my closet and it’s too far away…). All their bags are manufactured in Italy and the whipstitch attaching the bag to the chain is all done by hand -as are the holes punched in for the whipstitch. The material is specially engineered and I like how the lining is made from recycled plastic bottles.

I didn’t really know what to expect for the bag, and ended up purchasing it in the shaggy deer, which is like a suede texture. All I can say is that I was so surprised I really couldn’t believe it wasn’t leather – it looks like leather and it felt like it. If I didn’t mention it to people, people would have really believed it was real leather, which was surprising.

All synthetic leathers are the same – or are they?

Synthetic leathers/ PU seem the same, but in my opinion they are different and depend on how they are manufactured. One reason why I am hesitant about synthetic leather is because they crack or peel over time, and that’s the end of it. There are so many brands using vegan leather (which is actually same same) with really high prices – and I think it largely has to do with how thin, lightweight the material is, and how well integrated the plastic is with the fabric for it to be “one”, as opposed to a layer on top of another layer (which is the worst thing ever).

There is another type of finish available which feels more like a textured lambskin (remarkably thin texture and seems coated/ water resistant), but I personally prefer the shaggy deer (slightly thicker texture), as I don’t think there is much room for cracking to occur (because plastic cracks… eventually). On the downside it is not waterproof, but this bag has been through downpour rain with me and it dries easily with no problems at all.

There is an internal zipper for smaller yet important items (I put my keys in there) and there is a snap button closure which a decent level of magnetism and strength. It is hard to pop it open accidentally, and it is one of the best snap magnetic closures I have come across. Size wise due to the flexibility and it being a medium size, it so far has been a good size for work or going out.

I’m not saying that the bag overall is perfect though – there are some downsides, such as the bag being reasonably heavy due to the chains, and also the chains opening at the joints. I used the bag (reasonably heavy load) for about 7 months and I can see the chain links being opened/ distorted due to the weight of the chain. This is why sometimes when I can, I try to carry it as a clutch so that the chains won’t pop open. Doesn’t mean that they opened to the extent that the chain will detach and I will need to reattach it, but I probably need to get some pliers and close them back up. Still, I really like the curb chain because it looks so different to any other chain out there.

The chains get scratched somewhat easily, but problem is easily solved as the bag is supposed to look more vintage as time goes by – in fact I probably prefer the bag to be a little more scratched as the chain is really super shiny – it is gorgeous in the sunlight and all, but I purchased the bag in mind that it looked low key… but in fact it was much more flashy than I had anticipated. Another thing you may or may not like is how slouchy the bag is – it is not stiff at all so it will just slouch according to whatever is inside. The bag will not distort, but it may look disorganised though it will allow you to pack lots of stuff inside. I’m a structured bag kind of person and really like my lines straight and clean cut. This is the reason why I don’t like Balenciaga because I can’t stand how slouchy a long bag can get – but with the Falabella, I think it is alright because it’s not as decorated or fancy as the Balenciagas – all the Falabella has are a few chains, and a circular logo plaque and that’s it. I like the simplicity and even though it can be slouchy, I think it’s great for a casual look.

Another thing about the Falabella – like all chain bags – is that they don’t really go down on bare skin. You will probably need to wear something that covers your shoulder or whatever for the chain to rest on, or it will probably be a bit uncomfortable to wear. Otherwise, hand carry and your problems are non existent.

 

I think if I were to suggest an improvement, I wish the curb chains were made of recycled plastic to keep the weight of the bag down and further emphasise reducing environmental impact. What I have in mind is reminiscent of those resin chains that Prada have which can look really nice, though resin can be quite heavy as well. And the curb chain itself should be soldered/ closed, not open links so they won’t pop open from the weight of load.

I was really happy buying this bag because I felt that it was for a good cause. I’m not a vegetarian but it was nice thinking that my bag was made of recycled stuff, and given the workmanship and effort put into making the bag I think it was a worthwhile purchase. I originally wanted to just forget about other bags and only buy different coloured Falabellas from this point on since they seemed so flexible and just about everything I needed, but when I noticed the links popping open, I had second thoughts.

This bag retails for $1,195USD as per the official Stella McCartney website. Australians may purchase the fold-over Falabella from David Jones for approximately $1,500 AUD. Please check your local stockist for up to date pricing.

My next bag review will be end of November/ early December. I will be reviewing the Louis Vuitton Capucines BB. So far I am loving it. I have had my eye on it ever since its release in 2013 (well, the Capucines in MM size anyway – I didn’t know they had a BB size) and couldn’t justify purchasing it due to the rather unprecedented price tag (in comparison to everything else they had), but I was pissed off at Chanel (my now least favourite place to shop) for their non existent customer service. On a side note about structure – my Chanel wallet has gone all sorts of funny and is slightly distorted from the leather softening. I have done a good job keeping it in good condition, but for its price and everything, soooooo so average quality.

New Zealand 2014 Part 1

Wow – this is going to be long! I haven’t updated in such a long time, and I don’t even know where to start.

I mentioned in my previous post about my November travels and here I am, back from my short trip to New Zealand – Wellington to be exact – for 5 days and 4 nights. All I can say is wow!

I took a lot of photos, and I also did a few videos to capture bits and pieces as mementos. This is my second trip “alone”, but like Hong Kong, I was really fortunate for having at least someone take me around places, show me things and direct me so that I am not lost. I must really thank J and his brother for kindly driving me to places I would have otherwise not have visited! I would not have been able to do so much in a day if it weren’t for you – at the same time I need to also thank you for putting up with my constant paranoia, nagging (?) and for feeding me throughout the trip. Only thing is I wish Australian Customs would let me bring some Arisun spicy fried chicken with cheese on board to NZ

Preparations: Currency

Like I mentioned, I did get some help and this trip was made easy since I have friends who have visited New Zealand before, and I have someone I know over there to look out for me. The first thing that we all think of is currency exchange – and there are many easy solutions.

Go 100% credit card
I didn’t realise this until the last day, but when you select credit you have the option of choosing between New Zealand dollars and Australian dollars if you are using an Australian credit card. This is really handy because the screen will show you the exchange rate and you will know exactly how much you need to pay. In other words, you could probably go completely cashless to New Zealand because pretty much everywhere I have been has an EFTPOS/ card terminal machine which should accept credit cards. Note that New Zealand’s EFTPOS is not the same as Australia’s EFTPOS, so your savings card will not work over there.

I took a 28 degrees Mastercard with me since there are 0 overseas transaction fees – and I must say the rate is pretty damn good. Takes out the stress knowing that I can pay in Australian dollars as well.

Exchange some cash, because cash is always good
Cash is great because you know how much you will spend by limiting yourself to how much cash you have on hand. Only downside to cash is that it is something extra to carry and well, you may exchange more than you actually need.

A friend of mine who visited New Zealand a while back actually told me at the time that ANZ had cash packs that are available for purchase – these cash packs are $600 and have notes inside of different values to make it easy for you. Please note that if you do not have an ANZ account you will need to pay $5 as a service fee, so be sure to get a friend or someone who has an account to waive the $5 fee. The downside of these cash packs is that if $600NZD is not enough you cannot exchange for more… you will just need to purchase another cash pack (potentially an extra $5 fee, which I think sucks bollocks and is a complete rip unless you have an account or your friend has an account etc). In this case maybe going to just any ol’ regular money exchange place may do it better for you.

The cash pack exchange rate isn’t any much better than your standard 3% credit card charge and ANZ’s exchange rates are pretty bad. But rating in terms of convenience, I can’t be bothered let’s just do this – then the cash pack is not a bad option. They are available at all branches (or so they say all branches, but you should ask if they have it in case they don’t).

I was told that for about 5 days, $600 would be a reasonable amount of money to bring along and use. I ended up bringing back home about $100NZD (I had at least 1x $50, 1x $20, 1x $10, 1x $5, 1x $2, 1x $1, 1x 50c 1x 20c, 1x 10c as memorabilia and to use next time I go) so I actually only spent $400NZD – I paid $100NZD towards my hotel bill since it was spare cash on me that I had no use for and could go towards that. I tried my best to empty out as much as I could in duty free on the way back but I didn’t have much left to spare and ended up buying something for $15.50. You all might think it’s silly bringing back $100 in a foreign currency back home, but I did that last time on my Hong Kong trip, because you never ever know what can go wrong and having some extra cash is handy.

Note that I didn’t really come on a shopping trip (I made my purchases beforehand or duty free so I spent a lot of money in that respect) and the concept was really walking and sightseeing nature. Transportation cost pretty much less than $15 for the whole trip (more if I had to hire a car, but I was lucky I didn’t need to) and meals on average were probably $15 or less. If you wanted to come for a luxury trip with lots of shopping and eating at fine dining restaurants, then I suggest you go for that extra cash pack. I’m not saying New Zealand is terribly expensive (because my cheapest meal was like $7.60 or something), but if you’re out to buy a heap of stuff then you will need it.

Souvenirs on average are about $15 each – almost $20-30 if you are going to purchase soft toys or other things that seem nicer. I cheated and bought back souvenirs from a supermarket and are edible *cough* chocolate *cough* which made my trip a really cheap one. There are hand made chocolates (similar to Koko Black) in Wellington, but when I think of a chocolate block going for $15 and compare it to something from a supermarket less than $5 but also made in New Zealand, it kind of doesn’t really matter in the end. I probably would care in the past, but I don’t think I care much now as it’s just the thought that counts. I lugged over 2kg of chocolate in my luggage which makes it the most expensive considering how much $$/ kg luggage – but I think chocolate will make everyone happy regardless of where it is from.

These days it is super easy to know the prices of menus and souvenirs simply by googling and finding places of interest and their official websites on the Internet. For Wellington, the tourism website is an excellent breakdown of what there is to do, visit, see or eat in Wellington: http://www.wellingtonnz.com/australia

Planning the trip, day by day

I was completely lost until a few days prior my departure date since I wasn’t sure of where I wanted to go and how to go about it. For me, opening Google maps and zooming right in really helps because it helped me plan how to walk to travel to places.

Basically for my first day I left it blank since I will be in Wellington in the afternoon at about 3pm. One day I planned to do the western half of the city, and next day the eastern half. I still had a day to either go to Wellington Zoo or Zealandia – or both – but I never fixed myself to go to any particular place depending on weather.

I was extremely lucky that the weather forecast went from 4/5 days being rainy days (rendering my whole trip useless for photos) to 4/5 days being clear or cloudy (huge improvement).

Draw a map, write down how you plan to travel (eg. A to B then to C) so that you don’t waste time wandering the streets figuring out what you need to do next or where to go.

Internet, SIM cards, technology

Again, luckily for me the Vodafone kiosk at Wellington airport was actually extremely helpful and had the answer to everything. They have a SIM card especially for travelers and the girl was really nice and set up everything for me and loaded on my credit so all I needed to do was just wait 3 minutes and then walk away with my phone ready to go. It was super easy and great.

You can choose from $19 (500MB, 100 minutes) or $29 (1GB, 200 minutes) – there must be a price for the SIM itself because I paid $35 (chose the $29 prepaid thing), but for convenience knowing you can be connected online to use your maps or receive messages or call home, I think it is worthwhile.

There were many places with free wifi spots and even my hotel was super kind to give me free wifi for the duration of my stay, which is amazing since it was a bonus and cost $20 a day for the service (I secretly thought to myself, had I known I would have gone for the $19 prepaid SIM- not that it really matters much since I abused the 200 minutes by calling home like 40 minutes each night).

Just make sure your phone is unlocked and everything.

Bring your phone charger, battery charger, hair straightener – whatever. New Zealand and Australia have the same type of power plugs so no problems there. Everything is so easy – problem solved.

Air tickets, accommodation and time differences

New Zealand is 2 hours ahead of Sydney so you will lose out on 2 hours (or so it feels like it – but not for long). I flew via Air New Zealand. The plane was a bit squishy and pretty packed (in my opinion anyway), but overall it was a good airline with reasonable prices. I did look into Emirates but it was like double the price and for a 3 ish hour flight, I don’t think there is much need to pay extra. I went for The Works which included a meal, drinks and access to their movies and the option for 1x 23kg checked in piece of luggage. I only checked in on the way back home, but I still needed to go for The Works because of the meal.

The meal on the way to New Zealand was so so as they didn’t have the option I wanted, and the baked potato that was part of it actually seemed raw. I wasn’t going to risk it so I largely left my meal untouched – so I was pretty hungry by the time I got to my destination. The meal on the way back was actually pretty good, though the chicken was still not as hot as it should be (I am paranoid if things are not heated enough) but I still finished it anyway. They also skipped me for drinks with my meal on the way back and luggage took forever to come out of the carousel. Overall Air New Zealand is not bad, but still not perfect – I guess you get what you pay for? It’s still a nice airline though.

Day 1

After landing in Wellington in the afternoon, the first thing was catching a Valley Flyer bus to the city ($9NZD) and checking into the hotel.

As I mentioned earlier, I was kindly given free wifi access for the duration of my stay. I usually pick hotels that are 4 star or above because I once read this horrible review of a hotel bathroom giving their guest athlete’s foot (OMG YUCK NO). This time round I picked this hotel (a modest 3.5 stars) because it seemed alright and it was pretty cheap – $105NZD/ night which is a bargain considering that I will not be spending much time in my room. I mean if you think about it, you spend more money on a room because of a view… that you can see from somewhere else. You can’t take the view with you anyway, and you’re not going to stay in your room staring at the view.

Overall the hotel was pretty clean and cosy. The walls were a bit thin and the hotel a tad old (it has an 80s, 90s New York boutique hotel feel) – if my neighbours slammed their door the mirror on my wall would rattle and shake. The heater was also a bit old and thermostat would make clicking noises every 10 minutes (yes, this does disturb my sleep). Otherwise, I did sleep quite well and it was in a quiet spot that was well situated in the city. Everything was pretty much maximum 15 minutes away from me, so that was pretty good.

After throwing down my stuff we proceeded to do a speed tour of the city and managed to pretty much cover everything within the city by foot in less than 2 hours. Even so it was pretty exhausting since I was wearing heavy boots and all. The first meal was a bagel from Wholly Bagel and Pizzas, which is a somewhat popular place for bagels in Wellington. The bagel itself was a bit dense because it probably needed reheating, but it wasn’t bad.

Somewhere in between I needed to grab water from the supermarket down the street, and I found to my surprise that there was a Korean supermarket just around the corner from my hotel. I ended up buying some banana milk (actually, its literal translation is banana flavoured milk) which actually was not as yummy as I thought.

We visited a friend’s place for a bit, visited a bar called The Tap Haus and then had dinner at The Oaks which is sort of like an all-Asian cuisine eatery. After that we were planning to watch a movie and ended up watching a bit of “Into the Storm” but didn’t finish the movie and called it a night.

Day 2

My first breakfast was at a place called Pandoro which had a nicely decorated interior with a black sign. I must say the meal was pretty good.

Toasted sandwich with salmon and avocado and a mocha

Day 2 was the first installment of my crazy self composed walking tours where I ambitiously wanted to cover one entire half of the city by foot. The first stop was to the Botanic Gardens of Wellington. There are a few ways to get there, including walking, but to save the trouble we took the cable car ($4NZD one way) and decided to walk down from there.

Basically the tour was like this: Botanic Gardens > Beehive > Museum of City and Sea > Waterfront > Te Papa National Museum.

We ended up skipping the Museum of City and Sea, and we only did the first two levels of Te Papa in greater detail due to dying legs.

Here are some of my favourite shots of the Botanic Gardens. I took over 650 photographs on this trip and I noticed that out of that, only about 150 photos were processed. I can’t post everything, but here are a few:

I am so thankful for the clear weather because I wouldn’t be able to do anything if it rained! The Botanic Gardens were amazing (or at least I think they were) because it was just the right mix of different plants, a trail-type walk, mountains, ponds and gardens.

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This was the view from the top of the cable car. The view was actually really nice – too bad I could not capture it well on camera. My photographs improved over the next day or so because it has been ages since I took photos in general. I eventually mastered the pano feature on the iPhone – it is a really handy tool and I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to just capture the entire view in one go. I think of work (since I work with camera equipment now) and I think it’s cute that some photographers buy equipment to do panoramic shots manually. I must say, it’s a pretty difficult and tricky task – but I am not so concerned about technique or whatever. Just an old iPhone and a pano shot in medium resolution will do it for me.

The bees there are actually really cute, and really big! This is the size of my top pinky joint! I took so many photos with bees and found it so hard to capture that right moment. Birds too – I really respect those who take insect or bird shots because these things are ninjas and are so hard to get on camera! I’m lucky to have a clear shot.

This was en route the city exit – rose garden/ pavillion. This is one of my favourite spots because I love roses.

No filters or photoshop used (well I had a UV filter over my lens but that is it). The roses were so large, like 15cm in diameter and they were all so beautiful! Smelled wonderful as well.

We passed the Beehive on the way (Parliament building) but I won’t post photos of it. Google if it you wish!

This is the waterfront on the way to Te Papa National Museum.

There are a few diving platforms and I was waiting for this guy to jump in. Luckily I managed to get him hitting the water as I was walking away…

This is actually the Wellington mayor diving into to promote a diving platform – she was in the newspaper the next day or so! I’m glad I managed to witness the dive as it is a part of “history” haha – and please do not get too confused with the photo, I just photoshopped her twice into the same photo to halve the work I needed to do (instead of posting 2 photos).

After 4 floors of Te Papa Museum (which is a really nice and informative museum – it’s kind of like Questicon but without as many puzzles and not about science) we had some rest at a cafe called Cha which sells your typical tea/ bubble tea/ smoothie. I ordered a hot pot of chrysanthemum tea… bland. I suggest going for something else.

Dinner was at a Korean BBQ Buffet called TK something or other which was just a block away from my hotel. Could have ate more, but didn’t. I think I already had quite a bit to eat – the choices and selections are limited compared to what we have in Sydney (about half of what we have here – namely because they had no seafood on offer at all) and it was a small restaurant. Cost was $30 per head – I must say, Shinara is much better value for money with many many more choices available.

That concludes the first two days of my stay in Wellington. I will leave you all with just another 3 photos from the Botanic Gardens (in no particular order) and I will be back sometime (probably soon) about the next two days or so (depending on how long the post it I may split it). This is a super long post already @_@ Hope everyone is jolly (because I am and Christmas is coming soooooon)!

Being a wedding guest: Internet and eyelashes are full of lies + November travelling

Slight digression: current affairs

Can I mention how crazy our Sydney weather has been? I was at work on Monday and suddenly it just started pissing  rain. One of the guys at work was like “big storm coming up” and I thought to myself, “but the rain has just stopped?”. Everything was going well until I got off my bus – unexpectedly half an hour earlier than usual to find that it was literally flooded and the raindrops so freaking huge that half a second in the rain was enough to saturate you. I’m serious – I could literally count the number of raindrops on my jeans, but they were super damp from just 10 drops or so.

I was going to go home from there (about a 5 minute walk if I’m fast) but as soon as I stepped into a seemingly harmless puddle, I could feel the top of my sneakers being damp. That was when I thought to myself HOW ABOUT NO. I had to SOS it and get my mum to pick me up. I saw countless pairs of shoes ruined in the 10 minutes I waited for her, and most people were like “f this” and went barefoot.

The thunderstorms got worse the next night and there are all these crazy photos of flooded train stations and snow in October up north west. Are you serious? It doesn’t snow in Sydney and it’s snowing in Spring. That just does not make sense.

Anyway, luckily for me I just only ride buses and things have been alright so far. I hope that all Sydneysiders take care because this weather has been so unpredictable. I will be wearing boots or rainboots to work. A high top sneaker just doesn’t cut it.

***

So last week two and a half weeks ago I went to my friend’s wedding. This goes to show how old this draft is Dx I was meant to post earlier but somehow I just got lazy. Better late than never, right? How is everyone? I have been having a few busy weeks at work and pretty much that’s about it – trying to take things easy.

Wedding guest shopping: 3 days prior to wedding

I had so much torment over what gift to give since I wanted to make it special. I know most people will just give gift cards or money, but I would very much rather give something a little more expensive but has a bit of memorabilia value to it so that she may look at it and go “I received this from so and so for my wedding day” and look back on it in a positive light, rather than just spend the money and forget who even gave you the money in the first place – or for those crazy people who remember everything “I got a gift card from say, Billy and they only loaded $50 onto it which went into a bathroom mat”. Maybe I’m one of those crazy people – but anyway, the search was on and it was hard being on a budget since I know gifts just go and are rarely spoken about.

I decided to go to Louis Vuitton – I didn’t really have much of a choice but still I thought it was a pleasant one and a reasonable one, though they didn’t have the colour/ style I wanted. Either way the sales was really nice and helpful and helped me package everything well as I told her it was a wedding present. I was surprised at how large the box was as I wasn’t expecting it to be that large, but it certainly looked impressive and I was a happy camper.

FYI it was a silk scarf – more like a tie, but I like it. You can wear it in your hair, around your wrist, as a belt, on your bag or around your neck – whatever floats your boat. I also chose it in a lavender colour which is related to spring.

Gift cards (as in the type of card you write in to congratulate someone/ write a message) can be expensive but I managed to wing it by not even needing to purchase an extra card somewhere else. I would like to think that it would be a nice card to keep since you can’t buy it. I was also thinking about the card for a very long time because I didn’t want to buy the same card as other people – I’m not sure how many people actually wrote/ gave cards, but with the little selection available, I think I hit the jackpot for being unique.

I was also given a gift receipt (nice touch) which I included into the gift box, and I repackaged it a little to make everything “fit”. The card was too wide for the bag, so I had to improvise with their trademark leather string (is it leather string? I don’t know exactly what it is) and I added some roses (since that was their wedding theme – I think) for a personal touch. Only thing I regret was not drafting my message so I think I made a spelling error (which I had to cross out/ disguise without using liquid paper) and repeated the same word twice in a sentence (burrrrrn). So yes, draft your cards >_< I was  too fixated on having really swirly handwriting and making it look nice.

Also hint – if you are going to attach your card the way I did below, make sure you punch the hole first before you start writing the card… I punched it halfway and so the card is now hanging upside down. Well, you learn.

Actual wedding day

I was fooled by our usual watch battery man who misinformed my mum that it was going to be daylight savings, so I woke up at like 7:15am on a Sunday morning thinking it was actually 8:15am. Well, after about an hour later finishing my breakfast I was wondering why my computer clock hadn’t changed, just to find that daylight savings is the week after (ie. like, about the time this post is published).

Basically (in my head anyway) I felt that I woke up earlier than the bride herself. On a wedding day that was not my wedding day. Hmm.

I thought that there were going to be a lot of preparations for me because I was going to (daringly) use a new liquid eyeliner for stronger staying power, but because it is quite watery and can take a while to dry I thought that it was going to take me many attempts before I could get it right. Crazily enough I got it right in one go, and also adding false eyelashes was so much easier and took me about 10 minutes when I thought it would take me half an hour. In all honesty though, I cheated because I did not apply eyelashes to my entire eye – only on the ends.

It doesn’t look like much in photographs (sorry for the low res) but it does make a whole lot of difference in person. Attaching a bit of eyelash onto the end of the eye means that you can reduce the amount of mascara (usually without false eyelashes and if I really want to go for the super long lash look I will definitely use at least 3 coats) which also means less smudging. I experienced probably zero smudging and this was after about 12 hours of wear.

Another trick is to glue the eyelash on the bottom of your lashes rather than on top, because nobody will look near your waterline unless they are strange. That way your false eyelashes are tucked well, look natural and don’t look too overboard.

I originally also braided a section of my hair loosely so that hair wouldn’t cover my face. This was pointless because when I arrived at the wedding ceremony location, it was so windy that literally my eyelashes felt like they were falling off.

Result with all makeup complete and hair curled, minus lip colour – and I did not wear that outer cardigan… I wore a blazer.

With my makeup done in less than half an hour, I had about 2 hours to spare before I had to do my hair and catch a bus. It took forever to wait for that time to pass so I highly suggest watching something (which thankfully I found something interesting enough to entertain me) before curling my hair crazy curly to stop it from uncurling later in the day. You will need hairspray, gel or wax to hold it unless you have hair that holds really well. Don’t skip blush because you will need it. I always skip blush but these days I do it in the mornings and I look a lot livelier during the day.

A few days prior I sorted out my dress by ironing it for a good 30 minutes so that my dress was wrinkle free for the day. No dramas and no hassles with my outfit for the whole 8 hours I was out reduced a whole lot of stress.

I got there early and sat in this super cold pavilion thing in the shade. I liked the view though since I could see the Harbour Bridge from where I was. This the the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens, by the way. It was still really windy despite wearing sunglasses and I actually had to check if my eyelashes were really falling off -but they weren’t. Basically I was the odd ball in the entire place because I knew not a single soul (well okay a few but not well enough to sit down with them and act friendly) until I saw someone from uni. We briefly talked for like 3 minutes max and then he went somewhere. He was supposed to turn up at the banquet/ wedding reception later that night because his name was on the plate next to my seat. He didn’t turn up

The wedding ceremony was a garden setting and I made myself come a bit early as it said 1:30pm on the invitation. These are all lies since I turned up at about 1:15pm, as the ceremony took place at about 2:30pm.

Like I said, it was pretty windy, but it was sunny and warm so I was thankful I was wearing sunglasses. Overall it was pleasant weather. The rose garden on the side (not the arch but the garden itself) wasn’t actually in bloom which was a bit of a pity, but still it was nice.

The ceremony ended with a few photos at the end (super rushed of course) within about 45 minutes and I was wondering what I was going to do until the 6pm wedding reception dinner.

It was only then when I was thinking “what can I do with 2 hours?” that the answer “go watch a movie” somehow amazingly popped into my head – and that’s what I did. Dressed like I was some business woman, I went to the cinemas myself and bought a ticket to watch Guardians of the Galaxy.

I don’t want to make myself sound so insensitive but those two hours+ were no doubt the best two and a half hours of the whole day in terms of comfort since I wasn’t paranoid at who was around me, and I got to sit down and rest my feet. It took me forever from the Botanic Gardens to Events Cinemas (about 40 minutes) since there are no direct buses. My shoes still needed breaking in and since I haven’t worn heels in about 6 months, my legs were not holding up well to the mere 4cm heel. I was just not used to it.

And can I take the chance to whinge about how expensive movie tickets are? I was in a normal cinema – not Vmax, no 3D and it cost $20 just because it was a Sunday. Remember those days when tickets were about $12? What happened?

The wedding reception dinner was actually at 6pm (which you can see from the ticket the movie ended about there). I was a bit “late”  but it was still early since I anticipated the food to actually roll out at 7pm.

I didn’t write much about the present, but I actually carried it around in that terrible wind to the park, then to the cinema so it looked more like I went shopping than attended a wedding. I was so glad to put the present down at the reception – it wasn’t large or heavy, but I was carrying it like a baby so that it wouldn’t get wrinkled throughout the day and looked pretty strange.

I was put on a table with a mix of people, mostly one half being the typical seniors who you don’t really want to talk to (and they won’t talk to you). Thankfully I was seated with some really nice people so the night was not hard to bear. There were conversations going on and I was sometimes involved so it meant my meal was a pleasant one. I noticed that with these banquet style dinners nobody really pays attention to the speeches or what’s going on because they keep pumping out food so people only eat and ignore the actual function. If I ever have a wedding it will most likely be a three to four course and not the traditional Chinese 10 course + 3 desserts madness as I think people are more inclined to focus on you since it’s your big day rather than on the food.

Where I was sitting I had this bigass column in front of me so I couldn’t see the stage or whatever presentation/ video/ slideshow they had on the screen at the front. Out of courtesy though I “paid attention” to whatever was being shown, but I was actually staring blankly at a structure 😦

The night ended at 10pm, so it was a really long day. I sort of understand why people only go to the receptions now because it is a very long time. Without the movie I think I would have been in trouble.

I waited all night to take a photo with the wedding couple, and it was taken by their “professional” photographer – and yes, the photo was blurry 😦 And this was taken by a professional.

I’m the one on the far right. It’s a pretty blurry photo and no amount of any special effects can fix it! The bride’s dress was really nice though, I am really digging this outfit/ dress she has on, though in real life it looked more navy than primary blue.

Outfit consists of: Tan chiffon dress with front tulip pleats (conveniently covered) from Forever21. The underskirt frill was just some random skirt I purchased from some Korean website to give my dress some extra length and make it less see through. Black blazer with a semi-shiny tuxedo collar by Karl Lagerfeld. Black Patent leather cluth – Yves Saint Laurent. Black patent open toe heels by Prada. Silver bangle watch by Gucci, plus some other small accessories you can’t see in the photo.

Though you cannot see it, my nail colour was O.P.I Tutti Fruitti Tonga – slightly peachy yet pink with a hint of sparkle. My eyeliner was by Majolica Marjorca automatic liquid eye liner pen (has glitter in it but minimal glitter) in black; mascara was also by Majolica Majorca. Great staying power, seriously, best brand ever for eye makeup.

So what lies?

1. Internet search exactly when daylight savings is to prevent loss of sleep for no reason at all except silliness

2. Never doubt your own makeup skill and luck prior to a big event if you generally have 0% mishap in the past

3. Do not go earlier than the time marked on the invitation, in fact forget courtesy – it is okay to turn up a bit late but not like 1 hour late, more like 15- 30 minutes late.

4. Weddings do not provide food more than once – expect light refreshments for the “not main” meal celebration.

5. Just because you tug at your false eyelashes and think you glued them well, bring your eyelash glue with you in case if your lashes get loose from crazy wind blowing at them. This is a pretty good idea because I remembered to bring a compact to touch up (didn’t need to in the end), so why not eyelash glue?

6. Just because you invited someone to your wedding (or whatever it is) and they say they will be there, there is a high possibility they won’t – for whatever reason.

7. Whatever the Internet tells you about fashion/ clothing etiquette can be all lies. I saw so many people dressed in black, red, bodycon skin tight barely covering ass dresses, people casually wearing their beach dress plus sandals, white especially white lace – forget clothing “rules”. Just wear whatever you want to wear, because you will be stressed. It turns out that nobody really gives a damn how you look, or what you are wearing – so you might as well just turn up in comfy clothing. Luckily I was still comfortable (minus my shoes because I haven’t worn heels in a lifetime and a half) so no real problems there. I just felt terribly overdressed, that’s all – but in a good way.

8. You will not get many photos with the special couple on the day because they are too busy to talk or take a photo.

9. Professional photographers take perfect photographs. THIS IS A LIE. The only photo I got with the bride and groom was BLURRY. BLURRY!

10. Don’t stress over the wedding gift. It’s been almost 3 weeks and I haven’t heard a word. So just don’t worry about it – give whatever you want to give and that’s about it.

It was overall a long day – it was my first time attending a whole day wedding (that I can actually remember) but next time I’m sure I will have ways of making it less stressful and tiring!

November Travels

I’m going overseas!

It was a bit of a quick decision since I didn’t plan it all too well, but I decided to go overseas for a few nights and just change my mood and everything for a bit and see the world with new eyes. I’ve had many thoughts lately and wondered why I was saving up so much when I didn’t have anything in particular I was going to buy – I mean yes, a deposit for an investment property is a good reason, but seeing that even if I had the money I probably wouldn’t buy considering it would be too hard to pay off the mortgage on my own. Or at least that’s how I feel anyway.

This is the first time I will be going somewhere that is not China/ Hong Kong/ Macau (though China and Macau were really day trips! And China was more like the border of Hong Kong) so it’s kind of exciting. I’ll be heading to New Zealand since English is no problem and close to home. I think I possibly like planning the trip more than when I actually go on the trip, so I have been diligently doing research for the past day or so and booked my tickets and accommodation. And I will see a friend – yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

I’ll leave the post here since it has been far too long. I will be busy the next few weeks planning as I will be leaving first week of November – and you probably know me by now, I need to know exactly what my itinerary is before I go or else I will be anxious.

I will have a filler post (hopefully) before I leave – otherwise my next post will be about New Zealand. Take care until then!

Friend’s Wedding D-7: Time to panic

Once again it has been a while!

This past month has been crazy (including the whole getting sick thing and ticking off “meet new people” which I actually am cringing and regretting lots).

So I got my wisdom tooth removed! I think I will write about that in detail in a separate post because it can be quite a big deal for some people. I thought it was going to be a tough one for me because the tooth was not straight and actually pokes outwards and made a hole in my cheek (it’s actually still the gum considering it’s quite low, but you can imagine the part where your gum kind of turns into the inside of your cheek gets a bit iffy). The tooth was also at close proximity with my IDN (some nerve that you don’t want to damage). It took about 40 minutes and I was sedated and didn’t know a single thing until I woke up. Pretty much pain free, but I was very swollen for about 4 days. Will write more about it separately as this was not the point of this post.

So, I was invited to my friend’s wedding which the title suggests, will be in a week’s time. She handed me this handmade invitation which was a really nice touch since she didn’t just go out and buy pre made ones (I don’t know what I would personally do, but it seems like an easy, stress-free solution in a way).

 

This isn’t the first time I’m going to a wedding. The first one I went to was a kid, and as an adult it was maybe 2-3 years ago for an ex-work colleague.

I know I shouldn’t make it a huge deal since it’s not my wedding, but I’ve known my friend since day one of university, before the first lecture even started, so it was kind of special since we just stuck together just like that and made it through the course together. It sounds like a serious case of “omg it was meant to be” in terms of friendships and it certainly feels like that at times.

I’m not going to lie – I have had a horrible time trying to figure out what to wear on the day. The last time was relatively easy because it was cold-ish weather (can’t remember when it was though) and I wasn’t going to take off my jacket so I could wing a sleeveless dress that I just bought online. It also wasn’t particularly formal (in fact I felt overdressed) so it didn’t really matter all that much. This time though, there are going to be like a zillion people attending (large wedding) and half of it will be traditional big Asian/ Chinese family style since the dinner is at a Chinese restaurant. This complicates things a lot because I’ve also been doing my research online and it tells you a million things that are common sense, but also restricts your wardrobe choices.

Basically do not wear:

Black to a Chinese wedding.

Please don’t. Unless you are a male and you are wearing a suit – even so, only the blazer pants and shoes (and belt if you want to be really detailed – okay and watch) can be black, but don’t do all black.

In fact, black is probably only acceptable for accessories such as bags, shoes and blazers/ jackets or cardigans/ shawls. When I say do not wear black I don’t mean avoid black completely, but rather, do not show up in a black dress or completely in black as it is not very nice. Chinese people tend to associate black with unfortunate events, so avoid it.

White to a Western wedding.

Considering half of the wedding itself will be in an outdoor rose garden setting, the bride will be wearing her wedding gown which is white. You don’t want to wear white or else it looks like you are the one getting married (or so this is what the Internet is telling me). I was about 70% close to rocking up in a cream coloured lace one piece dress with a camel tan blazer on top. Don’t judge me please, it just looked good and went with the rose garden theme really well – not only that, I actually have this dress ready to wear and haven’t worn it out to any occasion before.

Anything too tight or revealing.

You will regret it. Because it will most likely be uncomfortable to wear for more than 6 hours, and the one I am going to starts from about 1pm till 9. That’s a crazy 8 hours and the last thing I want to worry about is my hem length or if my stomach juts out or my upper arms are fat. Thank you, but no thank you.

Anything too bright that makes you look like a traffic cone.

Like red, or neon.

Something too formal, or something too casual for the occasion.

Again it’s one of those things you just want to get right or else you will look back on it and think to yourself “what was I smoking to wear that?”. Just because you flick through someone else’s wedding photos and look at what their guests wear (which is what I did) and think “oh hey, she’s wearing that so it should be okay!” but also noticing “she stands out though…” you just don’t want to be in the same position as that same person. Not saying they felt uncomfortable or looked bad, or was particularly out of place – but I’m just super picky. I don’t want to wear something I will regret, feel uncomfortable in (for any reason whatsoever), or stand out from the crowd. We’re not talking fashion runway or whatever here – I just want to go there, look like a guest, act like one, and be treated as one.

Generally the wedding invitation will tell you the dress code, but this didn’t say anything. I merely had to judge what the code was from the invitation, but I still wasn’t sure. I decided semi-formal for benefit of doubt.

I had a hectic time choosing my outfit – definitely plan in advance:

Attempt 1: The online dress which looks absolutely perfect… but not.

I purchased a cream lace dress online (I didn’t think that cream was a big deal, and it was an impulse buy because it’s so hard to find dresses with sleeves and a collar these days – no, really, seriously) thinking it would do.

It was far too short. And showed too many bulges 😦

One of my biggest problems with dresses is either them not fitting me properly, or they are too short or too long. I don’t really look all that good in long dresses so I have long avoided them. A lot of dresses fall short on me, especially ones made by Asian brands/ companies because they generally cater for girls probably 5cm shorter than me. To me, those 5cm mean a lot and can basically turn a dress into a long top. So I wear shorts under to compensate. Once I wore a dress to work (free clothing day, no need to wear work attire) and my manager told me “I wish I told you not to wear shorts to work”, but my (at the time) colleague was like, “…that is definitely a dress”. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way.

Anyway, I’m glad the dress was too short or too stretchy and uncomfortable because if it fit perfectly I would have worn it, and I would have looked so stupid since it is too similar to the concept of a wedding gown.

Attempt 2: Let’s go online, again.

Feeling at a loss since I was disappointed with how that dress failed pretty miserably I decided to go online. I finally found something suitable which was good for the occasion and pretty much fail proof. I put my payment in… and the order didn’t go through. Thinking there was a genuine technical difficulty, I submitted my payment again… and guess what? Funds are temporarily taken out, no order was put through. It has been a whole week for me trying to chase up this “reputable” website to just cancel my payments but their customer service is just so bad it is driving me insane.

I shouldn’t say this as a generalisation, but where possible, do not rely on buying a dress for any important occasion online, even two weeks in advance. Something similar happened to me – I purchased a dress to wear to an anime convention two weeks in advance… and the seller never sent it out. I got my money back, but I didn’t go to my convention. Now I think I am too old to go, so I blame it on some stupid eBay seller who basically shattered my cosplaying dreams. Thank you, but no thank you.

So now? Two transactions that are pending and need to be cancelled, and no dress. 0-2.

Attempt 3: Online shopping is unreliable, let’s go see the physical product.

In forever, I decided to hit the shops and actually see and try clothing that I actually liked because it’s just fail proof.

How wrong I was!

I’ve completely forgotten the reason why I hate clothes shopping so much in Sydney, and now I am reminded why. Everything is just seasonal – similar/ same patterns, textures, fabrics, cuts – I mentioned this earlier in this post, but this is not fashion runway – I just needed something appropriate and there was nothing! I hate that stretchy polyester/  nylon and elastane blended fabric that is trending at the moment. It makes you feel too warm since your skin cannot breathe under it, and it’s so tight – we’re not going swimming, we’re just going out to an event!

If I saw something appropriate it was either I deemed it too casual (to me, a dress only one colour without any special cutting, layering or different textures is boring – as is a dress with just one pattern all the way through, like polka dots) or the colour was wrong. Call me conservative, but a lot of clothing I saw that was well, alright, but not the right colour. I avoided navy as it is too dark and I was afraid it would be mistaken for black.

2 hours of wandering around like a lost and helpless child, I returned home at a loss.

Attempt 4: Resorting to “I can wear this – it’s not the best solution, but it’s acceptable” outfit.

Who says you need to wear a dress? I’m sure that if you wear an appropriate top with pants or a skirt it should be fine, and I have clothing to accommodate for that!

It was extremely comfortable, fun to accessorise (I could add a fashion/ add-on collar to the top) and looked nice.

Too bad it looks like I’m just going out to high tea with some girl friends though. But I was getting desperate and this was the worst case scenario – being that underdressed person.

Attempt 5: I give up. Maybe I should try the first option again. Wait, what is this dress? Why do I have 2?

I went through our storeroom (which is where I chuck all my new clothes into before I start wearing them and generally forget their existence) and got  really confused why I had two cream lace dresses in the same bag. It was a dress I purchased maybe a year ago and threw aside because it was a bit too large.

Ecstatic that it fit so much better than the dress in attempt #1, I was almost going to just declare it a winner. It was the right length, and what I had in mind.

Too bad I then went onto the Internet and with a zillion links telling me NOT to wear ivory, white, cream, off-white whatever, I was back to square one, or perhaps, square minus three.

Attempt 6: Keep on searching. Deny reality. Something must exist!

It was only at this moment that I found a dress that I had purchased 2 years ago intending to wear out shopping/ bar hopping when I was overseas in Hong Kong. I had avoided the dress because it was a camel colour which from afar I was worried looked like I was wearing nothing, but I bought it anyway because the cutting and layering was nice. It’s also in my favourite fabric – a type of chiffon which is flowy, non-stretchy and long lasting. There were a few problems with it, like it being see-through – but I easily solved that by wearing a slip and an underskirt.

Attempt 6 and FINALLY, although not what I had in mind, it was the best option I had and I have no other choice. All I can say is that finally I am stress-free and that’s all.

Plan your outfit with accessories in advance:

I had in mind that I would be wearing gold accessories as I was going to bring my Valentino Va Va Voom with me since it was the most elegant clutch I own, but as you can see from the photograph, the wedding invitation is not letter sized. I ended up having to swap clutches, and change my jewellery colour from gold to silver and tried on a few options to see which seemed the most suitable.

If you’re like me and like to get details ironed out, don’t leave this to the day because you will simply feel stressed and think that you have made a bad choice. I know if I make a bad choice I will dwell on it and start kicking myself in my sleep for not thinking enough.

Take care of yourself:

I have three major concerns – (1) wisdom tooth removal (2) the odd zit that comes up (3) the bruises on my legs.

Thankfully, my face is no longer swollen (my gum is still a bit though). My skin troubles are real and here (though I can still manage) – it’s the bruises that I am worried about.

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Basically I dropped a roll of plastic wrap (this wrap is like huge, think of a roll about half a meter long and maybe 6kg with a thick paper core) onto the top of my left foot paper core down. It hurt so much and my foot was swollen on impact – there is a huge bruise there. Luckily most of it has faded but I will be wearing heels that will show the top of my feet (stockings/ whatever are not an option as my heels are open toe). The main concern is that bigass bruise on my right knee, which I got from lifting my knee to a 10kg box in an attempt to not drop it – all I got was a 10kg box slide down my knee, and that’s how this terrible bruise came about. There is also another one near it which is maybe 25% as nasty, but still nasty nonetheless.

I’m sure the bruises will heal by next week, but for now, they are still pretty big and noticeable. Now that I’m getting older, I find it longer to recover from things like colds, acne scars and bruises.

So is a wedding invitation a scary thing?

Yes. Because it took me no less than 24 hours to actually decide what I will be wearing. It took me maybe 10 hours to decide what present to give (I still need to buy it – worst case scenario you get a gift card/ contribute to the wishing well), and the fun part – I still haven’t decided my hair and makeup for the day.

Sometimes it’s a good thing to not be so paranoid. I think I’m fairly obsessive compulsive when it comes to events and I wish I cared just a little less about something as superficial as how I look. Easier said than done.

It will also be an awkward wedding since I don’t really know anyone all that personally at the wedding with the exception of the bride, since none of our mutual friends (as in close friends) will be attending/ have been invited. She didn’t exclude them by the way, they are most likely overseas somewhere. And I get to see my one week bosses again… and maybe, just maybe they will drill me about thinking about a career in architecture again. I sincerely hope that I hit it off with some random stranger (guy or girl doesn’t matter) so I can avoid these types of confrontations. Hopefully they won’t happen – it’s Sunday and it’s a celebratory atmosphere, surely you can let me off this once, pretty please?

This has been a long post. Sorry for the rambling and lack of pictures. I will be back soon hopefully with a more colourful post with pictures, if not actually helpful information. Good night!

Head cold, exhaustion, question marks

Today’s not a Friday, but it is the last day of August. (!!!)

So I have gone MIA once again. Work has been absolutely crazy since we are going to move to a larger store and everyone has been going nuts since we have restocked some of our best selling items. Every day has been so busy doing this or that, and I haven’t had much of a chance to catch a break. Basically if you watch those Hollywood movies and there’s always one girl who does all the errands, that’s pretty much me. But my errands are within the store and stretch as far as the nearest post office. At times I was part graphic designer, part technical support, part sales, part *cough* social *cough* butterfly, part labourer. Have you tried lifting 2-3 kg boxes one at a time (note that I have really tiny hands, I can’t grab large boxes two at a time – ie. one per hand – so I need to do it one by one) with a runny nose without a tissue in sight? Well surprisingly it felt really horrible like this uncomfortable workout, but after that I felt better. So have you got the cold or flu? Try being a labourer for a few hours. Your immune system will welcome it.

On other things about hands – for those didn’t know, a standard brick is designed to fit into your hand so ideally you have your cement spreader in one hand, brick in the other. No surprises – I can’t do it. The brick sadly was not designed for me. Maybe I just need to build with lego or something instead.

Anyway, I am still happy though. One afternoon I returned to my desk and my boss left me a copy of a promotional magazine/ booklet with two of the advertisements I put together for him inside. Everything looks so much better on glossy paper. Too bad I don’t have a photo at the moment – it’s on my desk and I haven’t managed to do anything with it.

My business cards also have arrived, and look much better than I had expected them to be (even though I was the one who drew it). I’ve finally been to the new store and it looks so much more amazing than the place we had before was. I can’t wait until everything is organised and complete because it seems like a great place. Only thing I dislike is the location, it is further away from me.

—

1912

The weather in Sydney has also been crazy wet with rain pissing down from the skies consecutively (for the whole month of August to be honest) – and as a result of being tired (haven’t been sleeping well lately and I’ve been a bit overworked) and being battered by rain, my immune system crumbled and gave in to a cold. Luckily it’s only a cold and not the flu. I was about to praise myself and give myself a pat on the back for being one of those few people who have managed to stay healthy during this winter, but I suppose not. Seriously, if you feel the symptoms, just sleep. Sleep does absolute wonders.

In regards to the flu though, be careful because the virus is crazy this year. It’s just so terrible with so many sick people around – even my cold is pretty bad since I was experiencing body aches, fever, chills – my throat still hurts after a week because the weather is so dry. It’s raining… but the air is dry. Seriously Sydney? I think this is the difference between Sydney and Hong Kong – when I was in Hong Kong and got rained on nothing happened because it was still warm (hot) and humid. I get sick here because it’s cold and dry. WHY THANK YOU.

Before I got sick though, my friend and I went to 1912 which had a really nice atmosphere. It was so different to any other place I’ve been though the lighting reminded me of that bar in Hong Kong on the 7th floor of some hotel I forgot the name of. The food was generally high quality fusion style, though the pork belly (main on left) was a bit salty. It was really soft and well cooked though. I’m missing photos of the baby potatoes and edamame (not like you’d miss out on much).

I was the one who chose the wasabi mayo cuttlefish – and it was really light and nice. I’m glad to see that it is actually white and not brown because it means they are using new/ clean oil. If you wonder why fried food comes out looking burnt it’s either they over fried them or more likely, used oil that has been used quite a bit (yes, you can reuse oil when it comes to deep frying). This is a general rule why I rarely eat deep fried foods, but this was nice. The salad was also good – I have a feeling the only saltiness you can taste is actually the vinegar, though I don’t know for sure. The salad has really thinly sliced salmon sashimi on top with a mysterious red finely chopped something. I suggested it was possibly saffron, but at that volume I don’t think so.

I’ve already commented on the pork belly. It looks small but it’s really enough food. I had like half a piece of pork belly and literally two bits of the beef (medium rare). I was full from the entrées to be honest!

I didn’t think I’d get so happy over frozen yoghurt, but ever since Azuma disappeared (I need to google where they are or if they still exist) I don’t know the meaning of life without frozen yoghurt. This hands down wins. This is frozen yoghurt with nuts and some strawberries on top – the nuts surprisingly give the yoghurt a really good flavour and the strawberries tasted as good as they looked. I skipped the cream though.

Overall it was a good night after a super long day at work and with rainy weather. I would definitely like to visit again.

I would like to give a shout out to the friend I went with to 1912. He’s leaving the country and may not be back (like every other person I know, seriously, why people? Am I seriously that terrible you all need to LEAVE the country?? I kid I kid.). If you’re reading this, come back! If not for good, for vacation or whatever! Stay in touch, and if I go to Hong Kong I will visit.

I wasn’t able to see him off at the farewell dinner since I was sick – sigh.

Either way I hope you come back. Whoever needs to step in/ replace has some big shoes to fill…

Bye also to this little cutie as he is taking her with him overseas. No more crazy barking, random vomiting on the ground and scolding her for being silly. This little dog has changed my perspective on a lot of things. I will no longer complain about how you stink, look grey instead of white from rolling around on the grey carpet, or accuse you of having fleas because you like to scratch and bite/ tug your butt a lot. No more little hand to hold either Don’t lose any more teeth! Take care.

Wisdom teeth

I am also planning to get my wisdom tooth removed soon.

I’ve been bothered by this wisdom tooth for about 2 years. My previous dentist was waiting for it to come out more so that he could remove it for me… but it’s giving me way too much trouble I don’t think I can continue living with it. As far as I’m concerned, about half of that tooth is lodged in my cheek and not in my gums.

The day of truth will be in the second week of September. I will trust the surgeon that it takes about a week to recover, because I need to attend my friend’s wedding at the end of the month. DNW to turn up swollen and beaten. Fingers crossed!

Random did you know – did you know that a wisdom tooth can kill you? If you didn’t, now you know.

And the winner is Winner

In any case, August has been all about Winner! I watched Who is Next and Winner TV and just waited. It’s been like a year since they were promised to debut “immediately”! Well, I’m glad and happy since I haven’t been into music for quite a while.

Other random comments

I need to lodge my tax. Next post will be an epic essay (maybe) if I choose to publish it. I really need a holiday/ break – if someone wants to go away in November to like Fiji or somewhere similar, LET ME KNOW I WILL PACK MY BAGS AND GO WITH YOU.

Busy July

I know, it’s August, but I completely missed the timing because I kept forgetting it was a Friday. I only remembered probably at 10pm on Friday night when I realised the next day was Saturday, so I apologise for the lack of updates. At the same time I’m not sorry because my life has been so terribly boring that I cannot possibly bear to put you all through yet another wtf post on meaningless nothings.

I previously wrote that I wouldn’t let work get to me, but as of late since we have been so busy, all I’ve been wanting to do on my days off is just sleep in and catch up on all the shows I’ve missed throughout the week. I’ve been fairly exhausted staring at a computer screen for 9 hours a day (and more since I do so when I am at home), and occasionally doing some moving around and carrying things that can be up to 10kg. The other day we were pasting on large scale posters I designed onto the shop front, which left my delts super sore since I was holding a (wet) broom [wet brooms are heavy] trying to remove/ scrub off some nasty posters people stuck on the glass before we were able to stick the posters on. And here I was dreaming of painting my entire apartment by myself… lol… my poor delts… maybe next year.

I just realised there’s graffiti. I don’t really ever understand why people do it… waste of paint/ money, bad for the environment… all those CFCs and all.

Although it is not the first time my graphic work has been published before, it was the first time it has been printed in such a large format for commercial use (ie. someone is actually willing to print stuff I have made, and not me printing my own A0 boards). My boss came up with the idea, but I did the graphics (I didn’t draw those from scratch of course, but someone’s got to edit and put things together). Previously I was doing the architectural drawings, which was something I didn’t think I’d ever need to touch again. It was good though, because I still had it. I’VE STILL GOT IT.

Now excuse me while I go disappear a bit more… next week I need to make 2.5m squared banners… 10 of them 20 of them! It’s going to be a busy week. Or two. I may possibly weep. Just a lil’.

I’m starting to feel the stress from work, so I need a bit of time to remove myself from it mentally. There really is no need to let anything apart from what is the most important to yourself (ie. yourself and family – includes friends) get to you.

The most relaxing highlights of July included having a hearty meal which I briefly mentioned last time with a friend who is due to get married in less than 2 months’ time. I’m going to exercise hard until then O_O I also went and had my once a quarter frequency haircut, but since I am trying to grow it out I only asked for a trim. Thank goodness though, it’s now not tangled unlike before, so hopefully I will be able to style it well on the wedding day. I’ve been trying to look up wedding (guest) outfits and I bought a dress for it. Unfortunately it makes me look fat and is too short to be appropriate for the day. I tried to wear it as a top but the back has a zipper that keeps sticking out and it looks terribly funny. Sigh. I may possibly be back at square one… I am still trying to figure out what to wear, but at the same time, I really don’t want to buy clothes just for the occasion, because I know that I won’t wear it all that often in the near future. It also means I have just wasted my money buying that dress, which seemed like a good idea at first… maybe if I dropped like 10kg though. Not possible, considering the most I can do is about 8kg, and that’s only from being super depressed.

I’m losing weight naturally but in places I wish I could keep. My jeans used to fit nicely, but now they feel loose and saggy. Is it possible to lose butt fat/ water that much?? I thought that since my pants were loose I purchased a pair one size down… and couldn’t zip at all. My legs felt like they were going to explode in them (or rather the jeans were probably going to explode off my legs). Makes me wonder how some people are so thin. I mean of course it’s possible and all, but for me I simply cannot imagine.

Photograph post-haircut; usually it does not look this light, but lighting ftw! I was probably wearing really thickly drawn eyeliner and had maybe 5 coats of mascara on that day. All useless when you use a low resolution camera and have fat eyelids like I do – and inner eyelids at that; at least with single eyelids you can see the eyeliner… I actually need to blink for it to make any difference. On a side note, my hair has grown so much considering it was pretty short before.

I’ve been a bit obsessed with this primary blue colour lately, but it’s a great change from my all black outfits which are not only boring, but occupy over half of my wardrobe space. Black is just such a safe “colour”, but I’ve been forcing myself to wear something bright since it can also put you into a better mood – or at least, I think so!

I’ve still got a bunch of posts on my mind to write, but I just haven’t really figured how to go about it.

I’ve been watching a fair few dramas lately, but the one I’m addicted to is Marriage not Dating, simply because all the characters are so quirky. Fated to Love You was also alright since it was all funny and couldn’t be taken seriously, but now that it’s hit like episode 10 everything goes whack – which goes for Trot Lovers as well. Apart from that there’s not much I’m really watching though Gunman in Joseon seems pretty good. I can’t handle too much action and suspense though, I like to watch things that are simple (unless I have nothing else on my mind). Looking forward to TVN’s Mermaid though.

I’ve already given in and joined the Jo In Sung is swoon-worthy bandwagon. Despite his facial hair growing super fast even under all that corrective makeup he looks so good on screen. How can some people be so photogenic? Please give me some of whatever that is.

Also, 1 Night 2 Days season 3 is going places I really like. I’m glad I picked it up again and from now on I promise myself not to watch variety shows in Chinese subtitles because the translations are so awful and don’t make sense it actually impedes on the viewing experience. I may also give up Running Man… it’s going in a direction that is not progressing.

I also watch  the occasional J-drama if I am interested enough, and decided to go with Platonic since Domoto Tsuyoshi is a fairly good actor and I had a good impression of him since Summer Snow. His performance didn’t disappoint… the drama was so twisted and the whole thing was just so sad. Nakayama Miho’s eyes are still so freaking huge and she has aged (nicely) since Love Letter. If you like to watch tragedies, then this is for you. His portrayal of his character was spot on… and to think that even at the end of the drama, nobody ever called his name or even mentioned what his name was. Absolute tearjerker.

That pretty much marks my crappy July. Oh, and we have new neighbours on this floor, and they don’t seem so nice because they are leaving all their cardboard boxes in the garbage chute room. Take down your own cardboard boxes and rubbish! If the rubbish doesn’t fit down the chute, you must take it down yourself! Such laziness really is astounding. Then again I know of people who are even lazier than that – I think that laziness is alright in regards to some things, but when it’s associated with common sense, righteousness or what you are assigned to do, then no excuses!

Until next post 🙂