trench coat lost

I lost my trench coat a month ago. I left it somewhere in Sydney CBD during a shopping trip with a soon to be married friend. I had that coat for about 4 years and we had some fun times together. It is only a $50 trench coat from TEMT, but it fits me perfectly, holds out very well & I love it dearly. I never really regard a trench coat as a staple and only just realised that after my trench is no more. Mostly because I have started embracing sweaters, and Sydney winter is not cold enough to wear a full on coat on top of my sweater. A trench will be perfect on top of my chunky knits. I guess it's time for me to buy a new one, but this time I'd like to splurge. My first choice will be this simple APC one; would like to have a Burberry coat but then I'll have to sell a kidney to fund for it. I think it's on sale in Incu.. will try to do a quick dash off work to see this tomorrow :)







These days I have been too lazy to dress up & always end up wearing some kind of tee with some denim. Casual workplace is the bomb yo. I love it 11/10 but sometimes I think that I am committing a fashion crime because I dress like such a slob. Well at least in my mind I look like these super chic but simply dressed girls.

This weekend was pretty uninteresting. Like my winter weekends in general. Therefore the slobby unoriginal picture posts. But whatever. Anyway, all I did was I went to my uncle's birthday BBQ, ate some shiz loads of food, and on Sunday I went to purchase some furnitures for the house. Those things ain't cheap huh! but furniture shopping made me feel like I'm such an adult. There were heaps of cute cushions on sale, and I was seriously tempted to practice the FF doctrine of 'never unknowingly under cushion'. but then I remember that I'm 23, rather untidy and basically can't handle the responsibility of arranging many fluffy cushions into perfect positions everyday. I came home cushionless, but I did get some pretty good deals on quilt covers which I shall show off once my home is looking nice & photo worthy.

enjoy your week peeps x

TOKYO part 1: Asakusa and Shibuya

So as I mentioned in my last post, I went away to Tokyo for a week. We stayed in Asakusa area for the whole week. Our hostel (Khaosan Tokyo Original) is super tiny but it is clean and located very conveniently close to the two train stations in Asakusa. The manager, Kenta was great and very helpful as well. We spent only about 350,000 yen for our stay for the whole week, which I think was fantastic value. I rate the place 10/10, but if I had to go back I'll probably choose the other Khaosan that's closer to Tawaramachi station, because it looks newer.




The Tokyo Skytree is quite close, but not really from our hostel. They have a really big shopping mall underneath the tower, and the whole complex lights up at night. Beautiful. I wish I had gone up to the top.






Went to check out Nakamise Dori early at 9 am is and most of the stores are still close. I note that they start a bit late in Japan (around 10am).





Good Fortune!! hurrah

Mr got a bad luck thing so this is tied down to this fence thing. I read only recently that you're only meant to tie down your bad luck paper but I tied down mine (good luck) too fml


I wish I could stay in Shibuya but hotels there are super expensive!! Well probably just on par with Sydney's hotel but since I'll only be using them for sleeping then what's the point. Luckily Shibuya is an easy train ride from Asakusa, via the Ginza line, and it only takes about 30 minutes or so. Shibuya just looks like the regular old shopping district on steroids in the morning

But it comes alive at night. the Shibuya crossing is surprisingly not as big as what I thought it would be. It's probably only 1.5x the big Town hall intersection in Sydney.



Had lunch in Genki sushi (its a sushi chain!!) in Shibuya. They are good value & taste great too. The food came on this robotic thing

Wall of eyelashes in Don Quixote Shibuya. I LOVE DON QUIXOTE

Shibuya is definitely my favourite district in Tokyo.. so much shops. I went to Shibuya 109 and they live up to my expectations - the clothes are pretty out there and the girls who works there are outstandingly pretty. I didn't shop there because they were EXPENSIVEEEEE (yes it's so expensive it deserves to be written in caps) and also they're just too frilly for me. Got my H&M fix in Shibuya though. Why can't we have H&M in Sydney??! WHY?!

Next stop: Shinjuku & Harajuku :)

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

domesticated

So I spent the last 2 weeks moving in to my new crib. Moving houses is such a pain. Before my current place I lived in a spare room at my cousin's apartment in the eastern burb and boy do I have a lot of crap. 

That's only half of my stuff. I did some major cull prior to my move and I still have lots of stuff. I shall do cull #2 sometime in the next couple of weeks. Watch this space. I've finished unpacking everything now but I still have bits and bops here and there, but that is because I don't have anywhere to put them as yet. 

Here's a story about my move. I had to get a fridge and washing machine because well, they are essential. Mr Liz is a cheap ass though so he insist to buy second hand. We did manage to snag a second hand fridge for $200 from an apartment a couple blocks away from my apartment. We didn't bother to hire a ute/removalist for this because we thought that a hand trolley should be sufficient. That trolley was quite helpful and we managed to get the fridge up to my apartment on level 3, but not before giving me the biggest bruise I've ever had in my life.

A friend of my cousin kindly gave me his old washing machine for free. I happily accept this because hey it is free stuff. This guy also live about 500 m from my apartment. Unfortunately the hand trolley I used to carry my fridge up to my apartment is available-no-more (long story) so I had to recruit 2 of my man-friend to help Mr Liz and my cousin's friend (a dude..) carry this up. The washing machine was really heavy even when there's 4 dudes carrying it and it took a lot of effort to get it up to my apartment. They did a good job so I paid them with beer. All this moving reminds me of the scene in Friends where Ross was trying to carry a couch up the stairs with Chandler and Joey. "PIVOT!!!" 

Lesson learnt: Removalist are expensive for a reason........

 Bought this vacuum during Myer mid season sale. It's pretty good but I should probably get a bigger "real" vacuum cleaner. It sucks well & really flexible. Loving not having to fuss on cords when I'm vacuuming.  

My living room looks like this now. The curtain came with the apartment. It's so ugly. I'm thinking of getting a cheap IKEA one to replace this. The sofa is $100 sofa bed that Mr Liz got from Gumtree. It's still in a good condition and love the leather-ette. I thoroughly vacuumed & obsessively wiped this sofa with ajax spray and white to disinfect and basically un-gross it. 

I have a dining room!!!!! Can you believe I haven't had a meal in a dining table for over 4 years (the odd dinners at my aunt's excepted) My cousin don't have a dining table in his apartment and the place I lived before that was a boarding house and their dining table was totally gross. 

I love IKEA, for once I went to IKEA and actually bought furniture. I'm not finished with decorating as yet so I'll visit again soon....

I bought fresh flowers & put them on my dining table. I used to think that fresh flowers are waste of money, so I never bought it, until my friend told me that fresh flowers makes her happy and less lonely (both of us live alone) so I gave flowers a shot. They do make the house look fresher & less depressing..

I'm trying to incorporate seafood to my diet so tried Swordfish for the first time ever yesterday. It was quite good. and how good is Woolies' olive sourdough ??? love them. especially when they are on sale for $3.. and still warm!

Ordered this bling-tastic iphone cover for my work phone. They're only $13 or something including postage from eBay. Run don't walk. These babies are usually $30 in shops. rip off I say

If you follow my instagram, you'll know that I bought 2 pairs of new shoes from Wittner. Love them, so comfy.

Ok I probably should start doing something productive. 1.5 hrs to go till the weekend. Enjoy peeps. xx

i'm moving!!!

back to North shore!!!! BOOYAH

I'm getting the keys & moving out Saturday. SO EXCITED!!!!!!!

Why is it still Wednesday?!

xxxxxxxx

all hail Saturdays!!!!!!

Having a lazy Saturday today. Actually not really. I started the day doing house inspections near my good old uni because I need to move out soon (bro coming to town for uni so need bigger space). Then lunch at nearby mall.. had some good old takeaway Chinese that I used to eat a lot when I was at uni and living around the area. Brings back memories. Stopped by Lush, got free face massage and picked up couple of stuff:



Picture source: good old Google

I tried their blueberry (Catastrophe something) mask in store but end up buying the Cosmetic Warrior mask because it contains ingredients that I've used and proven to work on my skin (eggs, honey, tree tea oil). I also picked up the Rub Rub Rub scrub because it's blue and pretty (totally solid reason to purchase stuff..)
I quite like the Rub Rub Rub but I don't think it's much better than my current regular scrub from Sukin. The mask is quite good too, I notice that it reduces redness on my skin just after I use it. The one negative thing is that.. it smells FOUL. I read a couple of reviews online and people are complaining about the garlic smell, but for me it is the egg smell that is just BLEURRGHHH YUCK. Good thing that it dries quick so I only have to put up with the smell for 10 minutes. The Rub Rub Rub also have this weird smell.. it sort of smells like cleaning products. I quite like cleaning product smell though.... because it smells um... clean.

Anyone a fan of Lush? any recommendations for things to buy? They have so many stuff. I was pretty overwhelmed.

I stopped by Rozelle markets on the way. It was already a bit late so people are packing up. Saw the cutest Dachshund pin but it was expensive so I didn't buy. Then I went back home and ummm went shopping again for these...

Dorothy Perkins sent me an email saying that they are having 30% off selected items, so I went for a browse and found that they have a further 10% off sale items. Sweet. The further 10% only applies for the polkadot top though. I then went to look for another code and found a further 15% code that works for the dresses. Epic. I paid $60 for these three goodies. I have been after a good stripe dress and a nice plain maxi dress. I think all of these will look nice in the upcoming autumn/winter. I've had great experience with Dorothy Perkins so I'm hoping that these will be in decent quality and fits well.

There's always this argument in Vogue forums about buying a good quality item for a high price once or buying a lot of cheapie clothes (you know what I mean right???) I'll let this kiddo explain my opinion on this:

Honestly I don't need to have a super-quality basic or some other clothes to last for 5 years. It is more likely that I'll get sick of it in a year or so. So I just don't get the point of getting $100 T-Wang plain shirt whilst I can buy a nice one for $10ish from Dotti. Different story with bags and shoes though. I'm not a bag lady so I usually wear one bag everyday for a long long time. For this reason I like my bag to be reasonably good quality. Bags from Strandbags or Collette just don't cut it for me. I also insist on leather shoes. Sorry vegans, but synthetic heels really, really hurts my feet. I'm fine with synthetic flat sandals though. Which side are you on?

Sitting on the couch watching Die Hard 4 with a bottle of mango cider now. Yum. Enjoy your weekend peeps 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