Lots of food

I would like to declare my love to eating food. 

From $10 Chicken Schnitzel in a local pub

To home made 'bento' lunch. None are as pretty as bentos in instagram, but still..

Pic 1: Rice with chicken mince, rolled omelette, stir fry veggies

Pic 2: Fried salmon, rice with furikake, rolled omelette, steamed veg

Pic 3: leftover spicy beef, karaage chicken, rice with furikake, umeboshi and some japanese pickled cucumber

Went back to Lorrainne's pattiserie for the famed cheesecake. at $9 it's a pretty expensive cheesecake, but it is worth it. It's lemony and very light and fluffy, you won't realise that you have eaten the whole cake yourself. 

On Thursday I had dinner with the parents at Menya ramen. Good as always

Took the parents to Blue Mountains on Saturday. My mom have been here 100x but my dad have never been, so going to see the three sisters is obligatory. We had brunch at Fresh Espresso & it was great. I didn't take pic because I was really hungry & have demolished my meal before I thought of taking a picture. I & my dad had the Fresh Breakfast which is excellent, Mom had their King Prawn risotto & the Mr got the slow cooked pork sandwich. They acknowledged the Mr's dairy intolerance & made coleslaw from scratch which is awesome.. Excellent service I tell you. 

Rolling hills on the way to Jenolan Caves. I can stare at them the whole day

We went to the Imperial Cave on our trip. It's so hard to capture the beauty of the caves! You gotta come and see it yourself to actually appreciate the prettiness. There is an underground river thing in this cave which is lovely.

We ended the day by getting El Jannah roasted chicken of course. With the whole lot. My parents loved it & joined in the El Jannah fan club

The Mr ran the City to Surf yesterday & finished just under 1.5 hr mark. Not the fastest but awesome on him (he's not the super fit gym type & only trained 3 weeks prior). The beach was packed to the rafters but it doesn't stop us from having a great day out. Can't wait until it's properly warm so I can come to the beach more often.

Hope you all had a great week! Christmas (!!!!) is coming soonn

wanderlust

It's been really cold in Sydney in the past 2 days and looking at these pictures made me feel a bit warmer already.





















My friends have been planning on an epic Europe trip lately, but I have a strong feeling that it is not going to happen (lack of organisation, my visa issue etc). It came to my mind yesterday that I should go explore South East Asia, my home region, instead of Europe next year. It's cheap and I won't need to apply for visas to visit, being ASEAN and all. In my list are Bali (in style), Lombok, and Batam in Indonesia, then Ho Chi Min, Hanoi and Halong Bay in Vietnam, and then Cambodia for Angkor Wat.  At the moment I'm looking to go for 4 weeks... depending on the amount of leave I would accumulate from work I guess.

Have anyone been to Vietnam & Cambodia and have any tips to share? x

TOKYO Part 2: Ginza, Tsukiji and Imperial Palace

We depend on trains to get us around Tokyo when we were there. Our hostel is really close to the Ginza line station in Asakusa, so we catch this train almost everyday to attractions like Shibuya and Ginza. Tokyo rail network is really confusing because it is operated by a couple of companies instead of just one. We find it cheaper to buy the daily metro rail pass, which is 1000 yen, as this gives us unlimited use of the Ginza line and most of the subway lines in Tokyo. We can't use this to go on the JR line though, but this is not a problem because the Tokyo Metro usually operates another train line that is close to wherever JR line station you want to go to (for example, you can go to Akihabara station if you have the JR pass, but if you only have the Tokyo Metro Pass you can stop at Suehirocho, which is basically just 500m away from Akihabahara station). 

Only in Japan does train/railway attendant look so neat and fancy (and always happy to help!)

Ginza line takes us to Ginza (of course). We went there a couple of times during our stay in Tokyo. It's basically just one street full of high end fashion stores. Nothing too interesting here so did not take much pictures. 

 Tsukiji fish market is close to Ginza, but you do need to change trains to get here. 

 We came to Tsukiji at around 8am - did not bother to go to Tuna auction as it is impossible for us to wake up at 5am. When we got to Tsukiji we were not allowed to get in, as it is only open to public after 9am. So we decided to go eat breakfast at a sushi restaurant in the complex...

We looked up Sushi Dai first, but it was full of people and there's so much people queuing up outside to get in. I did some further googling and we went to Ryu sushi, which in a different block but not too far away. No lines here! 

The sashimi are nothing short of fabulous.  We ordered the seasonal special menu & they are all so fresh and tasty. They are pretty expensive though, I think we spent about 6000 yen for both of us. I think it is worth it though.

 I almost got hit by this mini car/trolley thing a couple of times when I was there.. what a hectic place!

 Not sure if they are mussels or what. So fricking huge!

We went to the Imperial palace (Tokyo station stop) after Tsukiji. Lots of office buildings, parks and fountains. We can see a bit of the palace but was not allowed to get in. We did get into some parts of the park though.....

Next stop: Odaiba and giant Gundam (I think..) x

in which I had gone away

Pretty literally, because I did went away to Tokyo for a week. It was a very welcome change of pace as I have been having a hectic time managing work & studying for my CPA exams, as well as trying to keep having a social life between the two thing. Oh and also, trying to manage to furnish & decor my house. My mom and my brother is staying in my house now, so that's a bit of help, but there's still a lot to do.

It did feel like another world. Concrete jungles and unfamiliar scripts. Thankfully there's English directions on every train station so we only managed to get lost twice. Photos coming soon!

We stayed in a hostel in Asakusa for about 7 days. Fantastic place. A bit far from the action (Shinjuku and Shibuya) but they are only 30 minutes train ride away via Ginza line, so all good. I'll just write up my experience in dot points, because I'm a crap writer like that:

• Favourite place in Tokyo is surprisingly Akihabara. I'm not a geek but I feel that Akihabara is where the Tokyo I dream about is at - bright lights, anime figurines, cat cafes. bizarre but surprisingly normal! I went to the notorious cat cafe and maid cafe - to one of Maiddreaming cafe to be exact - and oh my those are really some 'Only in Japan' experience. I'm fascinated with the AKB48 fandom, they are literally everywhere. The Mr thought that they are some soft core porn actress which is hilarious (they are not, they're kind of like Japanese Spice Girls on steroids)
• Trains are so much more advanced compared to Sydney.
• Tokyo station are ridiculously massive. Shibuya station is really big as well. To give you guys an idea, it's kind of like Central station, but 10x bigger
• People said that Tokyo is shopping heaven, but it's all a bit over the top for me. I didn't shop a lot, because most of the clothes there, although they are super cute and pretty, I know I won't be wearing them when I land in Sydney.
• Uniqlo make really good basics!
• Food. Oh my God the Food. This deserve a post on its own. I'm craving for some onigiri now.
• People are amazingly super nice and helpful. They make Sydney people look like the rudest people ever.
• They said that when you travel, you discover yourself a little bit. Well, I discover that I do understand a bit of Japanese & can sort of communicate.. because I spend so much of my childhood watching Doraemon... 
•  Tokyo is really flat. I know this because there was a day when me and the mr hired a bicycle and rode from Asakusa to Ginza. It was a lot of fun! 

more soon xx

m.i.a

.. because of summer of course. I was had too much fun and too much drama this summer, especially on December, my oh my.







See. Fun times. Bit devastated that winter is coming (read that in Ned Stark's voice, please) but I'm trying to make the best of the remaining nice weather.

Busy summer means I'm making a lot of progress in umm, life, in which I have:
- moved on to a new job
- finished DFP
- started CPA
- started my & Christine's project - AMPMstyle
Whoa. Now that I think of it I've had a spectacularly productive summer!
So the story about my 9-5 job... I got headhunted. the role is different, more client engagement, and in a different industry. I was getting so, so bored at my last job, so thought that this will be a great opportunity for me to polish off my soft skills. Don't get me wrong, I still find my last job interesting, it's just that I feel like I'm not learning in a fast pace anymore (=challenge) and I don't know if that's what I want to do in the long term. gettit? and money is nice so yeah.
I also finally finished my DFP and enrolled to CPA. I just realised that this means that I have been a student for about 16 years or so now. Whoa whoa.

and the most exciting update... AMPMStyle! Both of me and Christine have been thinking of having a fashion business for years and years but never really executed it. I didn't start because although I do love fashion, I don't have enough passion/energy to constantly look for new hot things, and Christine.. well I think she just haven't got a partner to do the business side of thing yet. There was just a day that we were having a post work drink and I had an eureka moment - let's do this now. I'm good with money and she have more passion for fashion than anyone I know so I think we'll be a great team.
That's the story. We started the website, took the pics etc etc.. some long hard process there.. who would have thought!! its all live now and we're open for business so I'm looking forward to see how this goes.

Speaking of which.. outfits of late!!!!


Wearing AMPMStyle pants (luffffffffffff it) , APC shirt, Michael Kors watch

Bardot asymmetric dress.. didn't come out as nice as it is in real life :( belt is Alannah hill

Dress from AMPMStyle petite range, not out yet, but it will :P

gonna try to keep up with blogging this time, promise x

come away with me

Bejeeesuss, blogging regularly is hard. I do have a reason why I'm off for a while from my blog though. Its because...

I was off to the Gold Coast!! Australia's biggest playground! Australia's Jersey Shore!! That's me and a friend being the typical AZN tourist there. 

This was 2 weeks ago. I went with the Mr and also with the bestie and also her Mr. We planned this trip 1-2 months earlier and almost didn't make it due to you know, the general risk related to trip-ping with another couple. But everything turns out ok except the weather. It was gloomy and sprinkling for all the 3 days we were there *tears :'(

See how gloomy it is. Excuse the thunder thighs. 

Went to visit this little guy in Sea World, they are amazing. Looks exactly like how they look in Happy Feet!

*Insert Jaws theme song here*

We also went to Movie World but I didn't take much picture there - too busy riding on stomach-churning rides. My favourite was the Arkham Asylum (at the back). I missed out on the Superman ride; I heard its really good but the line was frigging 90 minutes!! so screw that. 

Other than that I don't do much given that we're only there for 3 days 2 nights. Ate some pretty weird rice burgers which is basically just like eating rice and chicken teriyaki.. 

Moving on... so the big news in the past month is that.. I got a new job! horray. I wasn't really looking but got lucky. An agent that I've been talking to the past 3 months or so called me out of nowhere about a job and wants me to see the manager in (future employer here).. at 730am!! 7.30AM!!! So I went to say hey, without hoping much, but they end up hiring me by lunch time. So it was tres awesome. 

Leaving my current work place will be sad. I love the people here so so much, but the travel is just painful (1.5hrs one way). My new place will be only 20 minutes away by bus, so it will be epic. Also, the role will be a bit different, so I thought that it will be good for me to try on something different and see if I like it. 

Anyway, here comes the 'outfit post':

  

I bought this mirror/jewellery holder in Target a month ago or so- they are epic.  

This dress was $16 in Chica booti LOL. I was so happy when I found it.

What I wore on my trek to Daiso Chatswood on the weekend. more on that later.

I can't believe that I have never tried Ben and Jerry's ice cream until last Saturday. Those things are epic. My favourite so far is the chocolate brownie flavour. YUMMMMMMM. 

I received these yesterday from iHerb- Microdermabrasion (damn isn't that hard to spell!)scrub by Derna e and also travel essentials kit from Real Techniques. Review coming up sometime soon...

Well there you go!! I made a post!! woohoo!

Now back to actually eating my lunch. Have a great day everyone!! xxxx