October has been....

I have quite a lot of stuff to do but I just don't feel like doing any of it right now. Maybe because I know I have an unfinished blog post that I just need to get over with or else I won't be able to focus on anything else....

I'm always saying how I feel like time just flies by so fast. However, this month seems to have went by slower than usual. Looking back at these photos, I feel like it was more than a month ago when I met with Hueyying! Weird... I thought that when I get busy, time will pass a lot faster. Anyway, I still can't believe it's going to be November soon. Just two months away from 2015! How crazy is that?!

A lot happened this month. Firstly, on the 3rd of October, Hy came down to London! And I decided that we could go to Camden and Primrose Hill since the weather was super nice on that day~ If the weather were to be bad, I wouldn't know what we could do.... probably go to the museum or something LOL. Lucky for us, we had the sun shining for us that day and we manage to spend a few hours enjoying the good weather and the cool vibes of Camden!

I've never been to Camden or Primrose Hill before that day. Nia kept saying how we need to go tgt but we just never got around to it but we'll probably go there one of these days to see the night lights of London~ But we're just so busy that I don't see that happening any time soon.
So I met Hy at King's Cross station that noon and after she got her Oyster sorted, we headed North to Camden! It's a more of a hipster area with loads of tourists. I actually didn't expect that many tourists but I guess it was busy because it was a Friday. Markets are always busy over the weekend. And although I complain about the amount of tourist around, I myself am a tourist as well! XD Anywho... managed to take a few photos around the markets~

 It's always nice to see a more artistic side of London!

 The infamous sign of Camden Lock market~

I'll probably instagram this one day. LOL

 Cobbled streets are always appreciated.

And that building on the right that reflects the sky is so nice~

And as you can see, there's lots of stalls selling overpriced goods....
These beautiful sights makes me want a better camera.... I should really start saving up for one.
All these photos went through quite a bit of editing before being able to look like this LOL

 You'll probably see this photo on my instagram feed one of these days as well.

I have no idea why I haven't already posted it.

I just love this photo; probably because of the geometry of everything.

The canal, the bridge and the willow trees.... It just looks very peaceful doesn't it? 

It was nice being away from the hustle and bustle of (central) London. Although I don't stay in Central, the area I live in is still quite busy... there's rarely any peaceful moments to enjoy.

 Literally drooling right now.... So hungryyyy

We shared this big serving of Polish cuisine, Kielbasa, and it was delish!

The mustard added some spiciness to it~ I really enjoyed it.

While enjoying our meal, Hy filled me in on all the info about people/friends back home kekeke It's nice to know that everyone is doing well~

We then walked along the canal to find our way towards Primrose Hill.

 Look at how nice the weather was~~~ I miss it. Especially since it's getting darker earlier and earlier and colder and colder as well. Although the weather is not as cold as it should be.

 Blue sky; white clouds.

It was tiring to walk up that hill (I am so unfit) but it was worth it! This isn't even the top yet!

Any familiar buildings you can spy from here?

 We then found a spot to sit down and relax a bit after that workout.

And look what Hy got me from South Korea???? kekekek This photo/image of Dongwoon is from Beast's Bad Girl era LOL so cute~~~

This photo is a bit out of place but I was too excited when Hy gave this to me that I forgot to take a photo of it LOL. I asked Hy to help me buy this BB cushion from Etude House because everyone's talking about them and I just wanted to try it out! 

However.... it didn't really meet the high expectations I had for it... There is so much hype around how amazing these cushions are but unfortunately this shade is too light for my skin tone... and this is the darkest shade in their range. Korean brands should really start coming out with darker shades for people like me!!! Another sad thing about this is that, it makes me break out. Well, at least I think it does. I cant be totally sure about this, I might need to use it another time to confirm this fact. But the day after I used this, actually on that night itself, a few pimples (around 5!) popped out on my face. Although I have acne-prone skin but normally not that many pimples pop out within one night for me (at least not after Roccutane). So I'm assuming this product is the culprit!

There are still some positive things I would like to mention about this Any Cushion. It's cushion is really good; it's probably something like the infamous Beauty Blender. I feel like using it to apply my other foundation. It just makes the application so much easier and quicker. Other than that, this foundation has SPF50+!!! (which probably contributes to fairness of the foundation). One more thing, it has a nice dewy finish and quite a high coverage. I have not tried anything with a dewy finish before mainly because I have oily skin so I prefer everything to be matte but I guess I do see why people would like the slightly shiny finish. I still prefer a matte finish though.

So... right now, I don't know what to do with this cushion foundation... If I ever get really fair then I'll come back to it LOL

 Enough with the rambling about that unfortunate event.... back to the amazing view of London!

Can you spot the Shard in the middle of the photo?

I just can't get over how beautiful the sky looked that day~

Thanks to Hy for this cute photo~

:)))))

After enjoying the amazing view of London, we walked back to the underground station to catch a Tube to Oxford Street!

As usual, it was super duper busy. I have that love-hate relationship with Oxford Street.

Because I love shopping (or just window shopping), so Oxford Street is like the perfect place for that because all the retailers have their biggest stores there (which means more stock!!!) but the amount of people there on a daily basis just throws you off. 

We walked around for a bit before Hy's friend Vivien came along and then we went for dinner tgt~

I really wanted to try Bone Daddies because so so so many people have been raving about it. A friend of mine said it's probably one of the best ramen places she's been to in London.

It's definitely a very popular place coz by the time we left, there was a queue outside the restaurant. Thankfully we went there early. 

I must say, because of all the hype around it, I had high expectations for their ramen but it didn't really meet my expectations I had for it. But I still enjoyed it. It wasn't bad or anything; it was good. I especially liked that they added bamboo into the ramen, I love bambooooo. Not a big fan of bean sprouts but I've grown to not hate it. Might ask them to leave that out if I ever go there again. 

I saw someone from another table having the Tonkotsu Ramen and it looked really nice.

After dinner, we decided to part ways :( 

It was really really nice seeing a close friend from back home in London~ I don't really have any friends from Msia in London, except for Ben i guess. I should probably travel up to Sheffield next time~ I having a plan of traveling around the UK but I just don't know when that's ever going to happen. I really want to go to Scotland to visit places like Edinburgh and all the Isles. Especially the Isle of Skye, I've seen amazing photos of its beautiful scenery .

Anyway, after dinner, I didn't head back home straight away, I went shopping! and spend quite a lot of money..... *eeeeek*

But they were all clothes that I needed for work so... kekeke

I got a little bit carried away in H&M since they had a 20% sale (for Unidays) on everything!

I wanted to head over to Primark as well but it was too late by the time I got out of H&M. 

I am really starting to love a lot of H&M's stuff. Although I wish I could afford other brands like & Other Stories and COS.

Oh, before we had dinner, we passed by Ben's Cookies on Oxford Street so we decided to buy some of these yummy cookies~ Probably one of the best cookies ever! I love these soft cookies. To me, cookies are supposed to be soft. Crunchy cookies are just biscuits!

I'm sure all their flavours are delicious but because of their prices, I probably won't have it again anytime soon LOL

And here's a belated bday gift from Sue~

I'm in love with this. As you can see from the packaging, it's Holika Holika's Gradation lip tint!

The colour is really nice and the clear gloss keeps the tint in place all day long. Plus, it's super moisturising. I want more of these~~~~ I haven't checked out their prices yet though.

I just wanted to take a photo with the flowers in the background LOL

I didn't have a big enough vase/glass for all of them so splitting them up just made them look very messy. Up until today, only the purple flowers remain alive. I had to throw the pink ones out because they looked miserable. 

On a side note, ytd I went to uni (for an exam) without straightening my hair and only had foundation and concealer on, and a friend of mine said I looked miserable. =___= It might have been that I just looked miserable because I was stressed but I believe if I had put in the effort to look presentable, she wouldn't have said that. *never leaving my room without make up again!* LOL jk

It happened again this morning again though. Because I woke up late and I was only going into uni for one hour so I just couldn't bother with putting on any make up and when Nia saw me, her first reaction was, "Oh my god, you dont have any make up on." zzzzzzzz

The main point of these events is that -- make up has a huge impact on your image.... (for mine, at least)

I wanted to take a photo to show the gradation lip look but these photos doesn't do it any justice!!!

It's a lot brighter irl and a lot glossier. And I didnt really do the whole gradation look where you have to apply concealer before applying the tint because I just preferred not to. It just didnt look very natural/normal.....

And these £1 goodness! I have been buying these for a few weeks now and I should probably stop before it becomes a habit. But I just really want to try out all the different flavours they have in stores. I tried this Cookies & Cream one last week and it was a bit too sweet. Before that I also tried the dark chocolate KitKats and the chocolate & mint KitKats (which is always good!). And of course, I had to try the chocolate orange flavour one as well. I bought it this week but Jaffa Cakes are still the best when it comes to the chocolate and orange fusion.

Other than KitKats, I also bought these chocolates for the Msian Society Potluck two weeks ago. 

I had to go for it after work so I couldn't cook anything fancy. I went into M&S the day before the event and saw these on offer (2 for £7! The original price was £6 per box!) so I bought two boxes. In the end, only one box was opened at the event so I enjoyed the other box all by myself kekeke

A group photo of the Msian Society~ Can you spot me?

The event was on a Friday and it started at 6.30pm but I was only to join them at 8.30pm. I was starving by the time I arrived but most of the good food were finished :( I still managed to have a nice dinner though. And a lot of desserts after XD. 

There's a guy who I think is really cute in this photo, I won't tell you who it is but you can guess. :P

This photo is quite shitty though. LOL probably because of the bad lighting.

Anyway, I stayed around and talked to a few people. I actually wanted to meet some freshers, just to get to see some new faces around but by the time I got there, a lot of them were about the leave.

I hung around there until around 10.45pm but before walking back to my place, Ben and I stood outside his accommodation and talked until midnight LOL

It was really nice catching up with him. We actually said we'll contact each other to have dinner one night last week but I was just so busy and tired that I didn't contact him LOL I'll probably be very busy up until mid-December when term ends... 

this book~~~ I actually reserved it around 2 months ago and only got to collect it around a week ago but I haven't even got the chance to start reading it yet! Can't wait to read it~~~ It's supposed to be really awesome. 

Just a random shot.

I work 4 days a week so I'm back to taking the tube all the time. 

Finally~~~ I went to The Breakfast Club!!! It's probably something that everyone does when they come to London and I can't believe ytd was my first time there after being in London for more than a year. 

As mentioned above, I had a Econs test ytd. Before the test, my friend, Keziah, asked me if I wanted to go have lunch after the exam and I was quite hesitant. But after the exam, I was totally in the mood to go have lunch! We wanted to go somewhere near to uni but there aren't many nice places worth going near uni so Keziah suggested we go to Liverpool Street for The Breakfast Club! Both Keziah and I love Shoreditch and I really want to explore more of it with her if we have the time~ Which is another reason I should get a better camera because Shoreditch had lots of artsy/photo worthy stuff around! 

When I was thinking of where to bring Ben to for dinner, the first place that popped into my head was Shoreditch and when a guy in the Msian Society asked me which is my favourite place in London, I also said Shoreditch~ I haven't really explored much of it yet but I love the vibes of that place. 

So back to ytd, we took a bus to Liverpool Street station and walked over to the restaurant and they were all decorated for Halloween so it was nice and quirky.

It was quite busy when we went (during lunch time), but we managed to get a nice table by the window under this huge clock.

There was also a few cool neon signs around as well which I should have taken photos of...

We both went for flat whites. 

I normally rarely order drinks because to me, they are always overpriced. After working in restaurants, you'll know that the prices of drinks are hiked up a lot!

But in this occasion, it felt right to have a nice cup of coffee.

We both love our strong coffees as well.

I had a really hard time deciding what to order. I was telling Keziah that I probably will need to go back at least 3 times in order to try everything I want to try on the menu!

In the end, I went for a favourite, banana french toast topped with bacon! yum yum yum

To some, this might be a weird concoction but I loveeee it.

Keziah went for pancakes with a veggie sausage which was also delicious. I tried some of her pancakes and it was really good. Everyone loves a bit of pancake right?

So we just ended up chatting about everything. And I finally found a friend to go for musicals with me~~~ I really want to see Mamma Mia. But Keziah said we should really go for Matilda. Can't wait till we get over with all these assignments so that we can go!!!

After lunch, we wanted to check out Spitafields Market but Keziah had to get back for a seminar. We'll probably go there another time~ 

Okay, that's all for tonight. It's almost 3am... This bad habit is here to stay. Thankfully I don't have my usual morning seminar tmr but I'll probably need to force myself out of bed to do stuff.

I want to mention some stuff about work and how it's been going but this post is long enough alr so I'll keep that till next time!

Good night!

Sweet dreams~

x

Entering My Twenties!

If you are not aware that my birthday is on the 30th of September.... then you are not my friend. kekeke
But it's still not too late to become my friend! LOL
So.... I celebrated my birthday this past Tuesday! Although not everything went the way I wanted it to (which I would go through in a sec), it was still a very happy day~
Last year, I didn't really get to celebrate my birthday... I had a very yummy crepe cake before I left JB, but on my exact birthday itself, it wasn't very fun.
I rmb specially dressing up a bit for uni and putting some extra effort in doing my make up... oh and I bought myself some Jaffa Cakes! Other than that, not much happened. My aunt gave me a present..... which I didn't really like.... which is actually still at her place.... LOL She also gave me two sweaters which are not really my taste but they're not too bad.

Anyways... I wanted to sleep in on my bday but I woke up before my alarm at 9am multiple times and I just couldnt go back to sleep. Plus, the weather is still warm these days so I actually felt like I was sweating under my duvet.
As I mentioned in my last post, I had to make 2 important calls that morning but failed to because one of them didn't pick up (it was my aunt's friend who I had to thank for a bday card and Jaffa Cakes she gave me) and the other call I had to make was to John Lewis but I was worried they weren't open yet so I didn't call. Then I spent a long time getting ready... as always...

 My foundation is finally the correct shade for my skin~~~

 I always take selfies next to my window so it washes out the colour of my skin so I always look really fair....kekeke I honestly am not THIS fair. I'm not born with fair skin! 

 I went a bit overboard with my eyeliner that day eeek but because I wear glasses, it doesn't show as too much.

I wanted to go to Sainsbury's to buy chicken and potatoes for the curry but because I had to carry the champagne (which was very heavy) over to Sue's place, I decided that I won't be able to carry so much stuff over so I walked straight to her place to store the champagne in her fridge.
We then went for our Econs lecture tgt which was slightly boring.... After that, Nia and I walked over to Phuong's place to blend some of the ingredients for the paste of the devil curry!
When we reached her place, she wasn't in! So we had to wait outside her place for her to come home. We didn't have to wait long. After around 15 minutes, we got to start prepping everything.
Nia had to leave early because she had a seminar to get back to.
And when Phuong took out her blender and attempted to start blending, the blender didn't really do a good job..... which was a problem because for devil curry, the curry paste needs to be like a puree....
So after trying to get it to work for 30 minutes, we decided that we had to find another way to do it because we didn't have much time left before we had to head over to Sue's place.
So... we decided to go over to my place and ask my flatmate to borrow us their blender which ended up being a really really embarrassing experience. Long story.....

The important thing is, we got our paste to be near-to-perfect and then we rushed back to uni because Phuong had some admin stuff to do. However, we got to the office too late and everyone there had gone home... So we headed to the lecture hall where Nia and Sue were having their Business Law lecture to get Sue's key to her place.

Before going to Sue's place, we had to go to the Sainsbury's opposite uni to get chicken and potatoes and some beer (I got a red berry cider which was wayyyy too sweet)~ because we were so thirsty from all that walking and hard work. We then managed to start a bit of cooking before Sue and Nia came back from their lecture~

 While waiting for the curry to cook, it was time to open the champagne!

 Here is a photo of me "trying" to open the bottle when I actually alr popped the cork! 

LOL after i opened it, Sue said, "Why did you open it so quick? I need to take a photo!" So that's the story behind this photo. kekeke

 And as you can see, I changed my clothes! I wore my black top at first but then when Nia and I dropped by my room before going to Phuong's that afternoon, she asked me to wear something colourful and just not black. But I like wearing black! I still changed anyway LOL

 Mmmmmm~ the curry was finally done after almost an hour on the stove!

Phuong and Nia were so hungry that they kept tasting and trying the curry when it was still on the stove and they kept saying it was too spicy, even though they only took small bites of it! So i was really worried.... I didnt dare to try it because I was scared it really was too spicy and that I ruined it for everyone. But I followed the recipe correctly and I rmb my mum putting around the same amount of dry chilli as well. My mum normally puts in extra chilli boh as well. 

When I tried it, it wasn't really THAT spicy. But we knew that Sue can't stand spiciness so the three of us were really worried...... The important thing is that it was yummy!

A nostalgic taste of home~

Seriously, the first bite I took of the curry just brought back memories of the warmth of home~ ;')

My mum always makes the best devil curry because she makes it extra extra spicy.

While Phuong and Nia were eating it, their faces turned red and Phuong's nose becoming runny hahahaha I told them that the level of spiciness my mum cooks is to the extent that you would immediately start  to tear up and sweat like a cow. kekekeke

I think it's just because Vietnamese food are normally not that spicy so they aren't used to it. When I told them my mum never eats a meal without chili padi, they were so shocked. 

My mum has the highest tolerance when it comes to spicy food.

 Nia was so sweet to buy me flowers~ And she bought me more Jaffa Cakes as well kekeke

She also bought me Nutella & Go. She knows what makes me happy.

 Sadly, Nia had to go home early because she had important stuff to deal with. We did ask her to come back after she finish dealing with it but by the time she was done with it, it was too late alr.

So Phuong, Sue and I just sat and enjoyed our curry and talked for a bit before we started cleaning up and getting ready to head home.

We didn't even get to take a decent group photo of the four of us :( I dont even have a single photo of Nia from that day boohoo

After that, we left Sue's place at around 9.30pm and by the time I got back to my room, I was exhausted and just couldn't bother to do much. Thankfully our lecture at 9am on Wednesday was cancelled. That was the only reason we got to celebrate my bday on Tuesday.

A photo of my chocolates is a must. I actually don't like Nutella & Go so much, not because it doesn't taste good (it's Nutella!), it's just not worth the price. I rather get a huge jar of it. And I recently found a cheaper substitute for Nutella! It's Sainsbury's own brand of hazelnut chocolate, it tastes exactly the same! Trust me, I'm very picky when it comes to chocolates. If you have a big outlet of Sainsbury's near you, be sure to see if you can find it!  

 And I would like to give a special shoutout to my favourite nail colour~

I just had to have it on for my bday!

 More of the flowers bloomed the next day~

It's a nice combination of colours~ it's just that I should probably learn how to arrange flowers LOL

And time for the presents that Auntie Veronica got me~~~~

 OMG~ I still can't believe she bought them for me~~~ 

I have been struggling with drugstore foundations for a few months now and I now finally have a nice foundation to use (that matches my skin tone!) I can never choose the right shade myself! I blame the lighting in drugstores!

But yeah... rmb the story about the Msian make-up artist from a blog post some time ago? He wrote down the products he used on my face that time and on Sunday, I brought that list with me to John Lewis and chose them out~ Because Auntie Veronica has staff discount, it was a quarter cheaper than retail price. 

I have been using them these past few days and I have been loving them! But I must say that Estee Lauder's original Double Wear foundation would have been a better choice for me because it has a higher coverage compared to this 'Light' version which has a sheer to medium coverage which obviously doesn't cover up my pimples and scars.

But it's so light weighted that I really don't feel it on my face most of the time! 

Hopefully next time, I'll be able to get myself the higher coverage foundation.

And along with this purchase, I got some free samples, like a really really nice plum coloured gloss and one of their mascaras. And the very nice sales assistant gave me another tube of lip gloss as well! I, like everyone else, love free stuff so I was such a happy girl that day.

And I never really used any lip glosses before, I only used those Soap and Glory gloss sticks. I thought I would not enjoy them coz they're sticky but I am loving them now. Can't wait to get more~

And because it was my birthday, I had a gift voucher from The Body Shop, so I went it to get this oil cleanser. I don't know if it's good coz I haven't started using it yet, but my Biore one is about to run out so this is my back up!

and OMGGG THISSSS

My mum asked me if I wanted my godma's grandson, Ben, to bring me anything over to London coz he has just started his first year in Queen Mary and the first thing I thought of was THIS. And I ended up asking for some curry paste as well LOL.

But about this, I actually didn't check the price of it before I asked my mum to buy it. I only know that you can only get it in particular beauty salons in a few Asian countries. So when I met with Ben the other day and got this from him, I was surprised by the size of this. I thought it would be at least 100ml but it's only 50ml. So I regretted not asking my mum to buy two of it. But then I went online to check their website and I think this is the only size available and it's USD40..... So I asked my mum how much she bought it for and she said it was RM120...... I honestly didn't rmb it being that expensive the last time I bought it.... Hopefully it'll show better results than the last time I used it. Because my skin was so bad last time, it only managed to help a bit, which is counted as effective for me because normally nothing works on my skin.

I'm about to finish using my current facial cleanser (which is a Biore one which is not good!) so I can't wait to start using this!!!! I opened the bottle to smell it and the scent brought back so many memories. I loveeeee the scent of this btw, it's smells heavenly.

And just to briefly mention that it was really nice seeing Ben here in London. I actually haven't seen him for years! And I actually am not sure how we are related (or if we even are related!). But I know he's part of the family so it was really nice getting to see a familiar face and nice to chat with him as well. I thought it was going to be awkward meeting up with him but it was really nice~

And I gave him some left over devil curry too~ kekekeke Hope he enjoys it~

Oh and one more thing, I got a new offer for a job at John Lewis!
It's another long story.... but in short, the first offer was somehow a mistake. They gave me 32 hours to work per week when I can only work 20 hours. And most of the times on the working rota were not suitable for me! So I had to call them up, which I spent almost an hour trying to do but the people at the call centres kept sending me back and forth between two call centres, making me so confused! I was so worried about the whole thing and especially since the first offer was just a Christmas temp job, which meant I would be unemployed again if I didnt find another job for the new year.
But some how, maybe God heard my prayers of angels were looking after me, whatever good karma I have, I received a call from John Lewis that afternoon saying that they so coincidentally have another role available for me at the branch which is a permanent role to work in the children's department! You cannot imagine the happiness I felt at that moment, it was like all the worries from that whole day just got lifted up my shoulders! And the contracted hours and the working rota fits perfectly with my current academic schedule so everything worked out in the end!
Can't wait to start working and earning again!!!!


September has been a crazzzy month.

Okay, my job here is done.

Tmr (technically, today) I'll be meeting up with HY~~~~~~

eeeeeek I'm so excited and can't wait!!!!! We'll have so much to talk about!

I should probably get some sleep now.... but i probably would still stay on my laptop for a while... or an hour..... kekekeke

Good night and sweet dreams.

x