Sunday 23 March 2014

Mind Over Matter?

I've decided to try this 7 days detox programme out. Have always wanted to go on one so hopefully I can make it out of this alive and sane.

Saw this recipe online from this website:

This is by far the most "diet" anything I've ever done so far. I gained a lot of weight in Uni - almost 15kgs and I have yet to lose all of them up till today. I didn't go on a diet then but I did some exercise and better portioned my food and cut down on snacks. I believe that to lose weight, #diet will never work. Especially if you don't pair it with efficient exercise. I know it will definitely not work on me. I will mindf@rk myself into giving up. Better to give yourself what you want but not give in totally to it - Have some chips, but not a whole bag of it. And what they say about growing older is really true - you get fatter and fatter unless you do something about it. I used to have junk for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner whenever I want but if I do that now, I will blow up into a Michelin before I can even blink. 

Why do I decide to do this crazy programme? Well, I've always wanted to go on a #detox programme on my own. I keep telling myself that I need to cleanse my body from the inside. Live healthy. Start somewhere simple and easy. I haven't found anything that really suits me so far but this one fits all of my criteria. I'm really lazy so things that require me to go out and spend a long time looking for (healthy exotic stuff like flax seed, chia seeds, quinoa, acai berries) - I won't even bother. And I'm also very picky - there are aplenty of stuff that I don't like or can't eat - things like asparagus, cilantro #bigyuck, leeks, lentils, etc etc etc, so I need a programme where I can eat all or most things specified in it. This programme is perfect. Watermelon #love. Bananas #love. Milk #love. Now I just gotta survive the first day hahaha

To summarize the programme, these are the things I will eat for the 7 days. I don't want to follow too closely or be too anal about the things I can or cannot do or the amount. I think just as long as I don't stray from the ingredients given I'm fine.

Day One: Eat #fruits only. Drink normally which is 8glasses of water. Especially those with high water content - so these will be watermelon & strawberry amongst many other. Second tier (lower water content) will be apples, grapes, etc etc. I will just stick to watermelon and apples since I have zero problem with them. You can research and find the fruits you like that still fit into this category. Avoid banana - I think it's because it has the lowest water content. Anyway, you get to indulge in bananas later on in the programme.
Day Two: Eat raw or boiled  #vegetables only. Drink normally like what I mentioned. Do not use oil in your cooking. Not sure how am I going to do this since I normally stirfy my vegetables. No potatoes - great, I don't like cooking potatoes anyway, long prep time.
Day Three: Eat vegetables & fruits. One thing that confuses me is that they will split the instructions into morning afternoon evening and night. Don't we just do 3 meals a day? Is night time supper? I'm a little confused about that part but it's fine, we'll just go on with gut feel.
Day Four: 6-8 #bananas & 3 glasses of #milk. This should be fine since banana is very filling. But 8 bananas sound a little bit too little.
Day Five: 7 tomatoes and cup of rice. Drink 12 glasses of water. Instructions say to eat a cup of rice for lunch but I think that might be too much - however, by day 5 I might be too ravenous to even think of this.
Day Six: Vegetables and cup of rice. Yay! More variation finally.
Day Seven: Vegetables and fruits and cup of rice. Awesomeness.

Please get the original instructions from the link I listed. These are my own adjustments So don't blame me if you follow these and it does nothing for you. I'm trying to be a little kinder to my stomach. I still feel that any kind of "diet" is not good for you. 

Day Zero 
I went to get half a watermelon. Was feeling really ambitious and wanted to get a whole watermelon, there are 2-3 days for full fruits consumption I think. Anyway, I was thinking that I should get a fresher one nearer to the day so I only got half.  Came home and chopped them to bite size to prepare for tomorrow. Had my watermelon and apples ready for tomorrow - I'm so set! #fighting!


Day One
ALL FRUITS DAY
Woke up at around 9am. Had a glass of water. Weighed myself - 55. 50kg. I was 53kg 2 months ago. #wtf happened I don't even know hahah 





Excuse the peeling feet. I'm using this peeling foot mask and I've been shedding all over the place. Will probably do a review on that next time if the pictures are not too gross hahah.

Had some apples after I woke up and a glass of water. 
It's 11am and all I can think of is my Kimchi Ramyun with my cheese slices in it....... Salty.. Flavourful.. Oh wait let me add a poached egg too... I don't know what's going on with me. Usually I'm not obsessed about food - well most of the time I'm not. Maybe it's my brain trying to mess with me and throw me off the programme. #screwyoubrain.

Had some watermelon before 12pm. Whenever I open that fridge that pack of chips keep staring of me. (Yes I keep my chips in the fridge. It stays crunchy much longer, just tape it up and throw it in the fridge #lifehack). So a little tip here, stash it somewhere you won't see the moment you open the fridge.

1pm and just had some apples and watermelon. Have gulped down another glass of water since then. Hunger pangs are really banging on my door now but the fruits helped. I wish I have a more supportive brain that doesn't #selfsabotage.

3pm & 5pm had another round of the fruits. Kept thinking about flavourful food. I'm a very unbland person when it comes to food - eg. chips, i'll pick the most spicy, most flavoured ones, never go for the classic flavours #MSGiloveyou. I kept thinking about those right about now.

6pm and.... The programme ended. I ran out to get my dose of thaifood. 

#kthxbai. 


Friday 21 March 2014

Happy Tunes


Below are this quarter's #playlist on my iPhone. I'm the kind of person who has very little songs on my playlists. I listen to roughly around 10-20 sounds on a single playlist and then move on to a new playlist when I no longer like the songs. This is very consuming for me I feel. I get bored easily but then these songs will be embedded in my head for few weeks to months and sometimes disrupt my sleep - you know how when you are trying to fall asleep suddenly a #tune creeps up into your head and you start singing along in your head and can't stop no matter what! #mental. Well that's me. Hahahah.. With Kindle and Podcasts I don't really have time for songs these day - those 3 activities are how I spend my waiting time, well those and not counting time I spend playing with my phone. 

OK so here they are, not all are new songs but I don't really care and mostly are Koreans and I still even have one Christmas song on my list! Bwahaha.. 

Rain - 30 Sexy (starting to get over this one)

IU - See You on Friday

Donghae & Eunhyuk - Still You

Topp Dogg - Cigarette

Rain - Marilyn Monroe

K.Will - You Don't Know Love

Clara C - Rye 

Daniela Andrade - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (love this version)

San E - Story of Someone I Know (music video is cute! Ending is totally unexpected)

So You & Junggi Go - Some (Top FAVE now! love this sort of music, listen out for the whatsapp notification sounds, I got fooled many times while listening to this song)

Pharrell Williams - Happy (Can't believe I only heard this song in the Oscars! So catchy!)

Geeks - Officially Missing You (Love the Jayeslee version but this one sounds unique too)

Justin Bieber - All That Matters (I know, an old one, but there's something about this song)





















Tuesday 18 March 2014

A little hint of gold


Feeling a little goldenish today. We went to this #Sephora workshop sometime back and they gave us a light gold eyeshadow and a super golden #luminizer. Havent had a chance to use it yet so far especially the luminizer - its very #gold!  

Started with a minimal (very subjective I know hahah) #makeup after yoga. After the usual skincare routine I used these:

Nature Republic eyebrow pencil in Black
Benefit Cha Cha Tint 
Etude House Magic Tint Balm 
Heroine Make Long&Curl Mascara
Bobbi Brown Concealer 



Afterwards I went to watch House of Bernada so I piled these on:
Sephora gold eyeshadow
Sephora gold luminizer (as liner)
Innisfree eye liner in brown
Etude House brow liner & gel in brown 
Etude House Baby Choux Base
Etude House Precious Mineral BB Cream 
Too Cool For School Highline Eye Pencil

Sounds like there are so many of them! But I only use a little of each. So there.. Hahah 



I got the Baby Choux Base from the samples #Etude gives out. They are so awesome. My face feels fairer and the bb cream gives off a better finish. Will get a full size tube in April. I would say it's the best base I've tried so far. The other bases or primer I've tried so far feels waxy or satiny in general. Very good in covering pores I guess but they make the bb cream or foundation feels flaky afterwards. Either that or I still need to learn how to apply powder better. Well if it's a #dewy finish you are after, don't apply too much powder which I'm still trying to get used to because it's always sticky when you don't apply powder on your entire face. For baby choux, the texture feels like bb cream. I guess you can even use it on its own without any bb cream afterwards. It should give a brightening look but of course with very minimal coverage. #loveit

Sunday 2 March 2014

Hong Kong & Macau Day Three & Four



Today's itinerary is #Macau.We had breakfast at this mall opposite our hotel - #Windsor. Most of the restaurants werent open yet by the time we got there but this dimsum place on the 5th (?) floor was already opened. Thank goodness. Food was alright. We spent 200++HKD there. 



After lunch we went over to the ferry terminal. We got there around before mid day but the earliest ferry we could board was almost 2pm. So we heard this guy shouting, selling tickets to the same #Turbojet ferry we were trying to get tickets for and the next ferry timing was right about then! So we got tickets from him. The guy said we can come back anytime before the time stated on the return ticket which was 9pm ish. We compared the prices stated on the tickets he got us and the original #Turbojet tickets and there was a difference alright but it wasn't what you would expect when people tout sell tickets to you. It was definitely worth the not having to wait for 2 more hours before we could board the ferry. Ferry ride was smooth. Seats were allocated - not free seating that I expected. Seats were comfy and spacious. Journey was smooth sailing, not nauseating at all. We reached Macau after around an hours ride. Slept for most of it so I didn't pay attention to the time at all. 

After we cleared immigration, Jan and Amy were approached by their homies offering us day tour for 100HKD each. I went over to the tourist information counter which is right near the exit of the building and took some maps and found out that there are buses that could take us to the places we wanted to go. 

So we opted for the buses in the end. We took bus to nearby #SenadoSquare and it cost 3.20HKD each. You pay with exact change which you slot into the fare box. No tickets issued. Turns out, Macau is very small! The bus ride took no time at all. One thing is, the names are all in Portuguese (?) so it took some time to get used to match the road names. Just peel your eyes to look for road signs or see what's stated on the bus led display - though i think it doesn't really match the map, either that or I'm really really bad at all this scout business. We managed to get off nearby the Square. Had to ask for direction and after a short walk we were there. It was crowded - probably because it was Sunday. We took some pictures at the square and walked over to the Ruins of St. Pauls. There were small alleys leading to the ruins. And in those alleys it's crowded till you gotta walk inches by inches and rub your bodies against strangers. But.. it's a short walk also. There were signages everywhere. That's what good about Macau. It's small and filled with directions - till you gotta take the bus then you're on your own then. 




Many people at #StPaulsRuins but there were some nice spots left on the staircases if you were the kind who would sit down, enjoy the scenery and observe silly tourists like us. We were whooping out the monopod again. Got some stares and a group of Chinese uncles with DSLRs who came up and asked about the stick, how do you keep it (shorten?) and how do you take pictures with it - showed them my #shutterball, it's visible on almost all the pictures. Me holding this tiny green ball, that's the remote hahah. We're so well equipped. If only I had this earlier for Korea. Oh well... April, cherry blossoms, here I come! So we spent quite some time taking pictures from all angles. Saw a lot of stalls selling dried meat. Few selling egg tarts - think I just saw 1 or 2 of those. And loads selling meat bun and dried peanut cookies? There are samples everywhere. Some are even freshly baked. We just swooped in and grab from this big plate they display the samples from - warm and fresh. Too dry for my liking. We had to squeeze our way through the crowd to get back to the square. Turns out the bus stop was really nearby. We went the wrong way so it felt further away than it actually was. 



Ticket to the Venetian costs 6ish HKD. Exact cash again. You can relax for the whole ride till you cross this long bridge to #Taipa district. That's where the #Venetian is. So once you cross over, few more stops and you will see the Venetian. There are 1 or 2 bus stop for you to alight from, it's right across the Venetian, not exactly nearby but you just have to cross over, there's a long overhead bridge that direct you to Venetian. Picture taken some distance from the bus stop, near the overhead bridge. My orange sweater is from Artbox Korea. #loveit. Can't wait to go back to get more. 




It was kinda crowded in Venetian. There was a small stage where singers would perform. Saw few of my indo homies using the monopod too. I swear they mouthed #tongsis when they saw me holding it. Hahahah The place is beautiful. Kinda like MBS but more crowded and better settings, not just shops on both lanes, it has a square too. 



Lots of people were busy taking pictures. We happen to be by this lamp pillar and start taking pictures, I dont know why but this lady decided to come nearby and lean against the pillar I have my arms around that I can feel her body squashing my hand. Oh hello, there are many other lamps around. Why do you need to use the one I'm hogging? You is kidding me right? #somepeoplearejust ...

We had lunch at the food court and the food there were so expensive. Around 100HKD per person. I know it's around the same amount of what we've paid so far for our meals but it's in a foodcourt so I expected it to be much less. HKD and Macau Dollar is 1 to 1. If they need to break your cash, they will give you change in Macau Dollar. 

After the meal and photoshoot, we went back out to take our free shuttle to the ferry terminal. The awesome thing about this bus is there is free wifi hahaha.. Forgot to post something on my Instagram. I wanted to stamp in on the location to fill my maps. #obsessed It was only a short ride to the ferry terminal. Maybe 15 minutes. I didn't even notice it. The bus driver counted the passangers so everyone would have a seat. 

So we reached the ferry terminal. Have no clue what the sign says because of the different vessels and gates and I asked this ticket guy, he said our ship is at 9pm so we can't board this one. We reached around 6pm ish. That freaking ticket seller didn't tell us! we thought it as an open return ticket. Good thing is we could line up as standby passengers meaning if the current ferry has spots left, people queuing up there could get a seat and leave earlier than their ticket timing. When we got there, the queue was already very long, maybe there were around 30 people in front of us. But... we managed to board that ferry! Best thing is, we were given priority seats near the exits hahaha.. #awesomeness

The immigration line back into Hongkong was so unbelievably crowded. Our line's immigration officer was really doing a very thorough job checking everybody's documents. I think for every 5 people next to our line who pass through, he only cleared one from our line #comeondude. I think we waited around 30-40mins to reach our turn even though there were probably less than 15 people in front of us.

We went to ladies market after we got back to Hongkong. Did a quick walk, didn't buy anything there. They didn't have my phone casing too. So disappointed. 





For our last day, we checked in for our flight at Hong Kong station and walked around IFC. After a while, all shopping centers feel the same to me. We bought some junk food from the supermarket and while Jan met up with her friend Amy and I went around getting macarons from these two cafes. First time having a cheese flavoured macaron - I'm still sold. Hahah 




We took the airport express to Airport. Oh yeah! There's a free shuttle bus from Park Lane hotel to Hong Kong station and viceversa. But beware.. the traffic in front of park lane is bad. There are also cars parked by the road side and because of that it becomes a one lane road only. I had to ran out and flag the bus once I saw it. We had to wait 20 more minutes if we had missed it. No help with the luggages so please  bring what you yourself  can carry and none of that "oh my luggage is so heavy i can't carry it" princess syndrome. Super convenient. This is how we reached the hotel when we arrived. Airport express to Hongkong station, get the 3 days MTR pass (300HKD each - not cheap but includes 2 way airport express so it was alright I guess) and took the free shuttle to our hotel. 

I don't know what we did at the airport but we ended up in this restaurant, ordered and turned out the timing was very near to our boarding time. So we had to change our orders to take away - waiters weren't happy at all but i guess we might not be the first customers to do that to them and rushed to the immigration. We had the food in the plane. I think the people behind us were like #wth when they saw us passing food back and fro. I watched Dallas Buyers Club in the plane and was busy doing the photo collages for this trip. Good trip HK, luckily it wasnt hot. See you next time. 




Saturday 1 March 2014

Hong Kong & Macau - Day Two


Hong Kong & Macau - Day Two!

We had breakfast at Excelsior Hotel nearby our hotel. They also had egg tarts from Lord Stow's Bakery. Apparently that's one of the famous egg tarts bakeries, in Macau? I've seen someone recommended it before online. The verdict was, very sweet. I have a sweet tooth but this is a little too sweet for me. I had another one the next day for breakfast and it didn't taste as sweet. Maybe I was hungry then. I ordered hot chocolate and macademia banana muffin which tasted... horrrible. Amy and Jan ordered croissants. Probably it was the hot chocolate and muffin combo that didn't prepare me enough for the egg tart. Didn't see many stalls selling #eggtarts in #Macau so if you see this, just get it and try. Each is around 10HKD. Prices range between 7-10HKD for the different brands. I've only tried this.  





Picture taken opposite the Excelsior Hotel, I think it's the World Trace Centre mall. They have uniqlo in side. We wanted to go in since Jan wants to get a jacket but they were still closed then. It's safe to go after 1130. I think we were there around 1100 and none were open but some of the shops were already getting ready to open up. We used the #monopod in this picture too. 


After lunch we went our separate ways. I had to attend a friend's wedding at Four Seasons Hotel while them both went ahead to The Peak and Disneyland. We later met up for Ngong Ping 360. Picture taken inside the cable car. We had our own private car! It's because we went late, around 1630 I think. They said the last cable car ride was at 1830. So we took the car up to where the Buddha is and rushed up to take pictures. It wasn't crowded when we got there but the queue for the cable car to go down was insane! So we rushed up, took some pictures and came down to queue for the cable car. If we have missed it Jan said we needed to take bus to go down. I don't wanna know that is like.It's so high up in the mountains. What if we had missed the bus. #die. We saw some people on the pathway below the cable car. No idea how they got there but probably if there was a path I would have tried it if we went there early.  



I think this was the Monastery below the giant buddha. We didn't have time to walk over. 



Finally the #giantbuddha. This guy asked where we got the monopod and I told him the night market. Lucky him. If he had asked me yesterday I wouldn't be able to tell him. Wonder if he went to get it that night because when I told him it's at the Temple Street Night Market he looked pretty clueless where that was. Well, good luck to him. We queued for the cable car for maybe half an hour before it was our turn. It was already 1830 when we almost reached our turn but the queue was still very long. Maybe they stopped the queue up front when it's time but still let people who are already in the queue board the cable car. The sun was already setting when we were halfway down the hill. 



We had dinner back at Causeway Bay near the hotel. Initially we wanted to try this Wing Kee Noodles @ Sugar Street where you can custom request your noodles - I saw the menu but not sure how exactly it works, but the queue was very long and it was already so late so we ended up next door at this porridge cafe. Food was not too bad. The portion is very generous I felt like no matter how many scoops I've taken the porridge level still remains the same. Don't order anything with fish. I had to keep spitting out the tiny bones #whatachore.