My 22nd Birthday ~

I thought this year's birthday would be quite toned down, as last year's 21st is supposed to be the big shebang as per western tradition and all.

But no, this year my mom decided I was finally starting to look adulty! Lol

My actual birthday (5th Dec) was pretty chill. We had a Christmas lunch at work, courtesy of manager (thank you JP!) where everyone talked about Christmas traditions and children and I realised I had neither *sob*

But that aside, I really do love the people I work with, so it was really nice that the Christmas lunch happened on my birthday!

For dinner, mom said we could go anywhere I wanted. I have been wanting to try places around Britomart for the longest time, but could not justify the hefty prices of those restaurants just for the lols. Birthdays are a great reason from that aspect, to try out places I usually wouldn't go!

We had dinner at Ebisu, ordering a platter for four (lol) and umeshu.

The sashimi was amazing - my mom was so happy with the fact that her very delicate stomach did not reject the raw seafood haha. Quality Assurance test: pass!

The pink umeshu is fruity and very very sweet, while the 'standard' one was pretty nice. I do like some umeshu once in a while :3

The platter was just the perfect amount that we didn't need to order anything else! So afterwards, we went to Milse for dessert. I have always been meaning to try out their evening menu items, so my birthday was the perfect reason for indulging in all the fatty goodness!

We ordered the tasting menu set above, but they also included an extra appetizer - the passionfruit cream stick thing. No idea what it was called, but it was yummy (and fatty cough cough)

My favourite is the pumpkin (top right image) , with the valrhona kalingo (bottom right) coming close second. Would have liked a little more spice in the pumpkin, and a little less sweet in the valrhona kalingo, but anywho we got bar-type seats so it was very entertaining watching the everyone working in the kitchen. My mom was so amazed by the fact that they put away every little container even if they bring it out only half a minute later for a different dish! X'D

We went home after finishing dinner and a brief tour of downtown for my mom. She doesn't come into the CBD too often, so it was a nice chance to do some exploring. Sometimes you miss a lot of details when you see things every day!

I found my gift waiting on my desk when we got home -

The box is the OBAKU watch I reviewed in my previous post, and set with the most fragrant and cute bouquet of roses! I usually don't like to spam money on flowers cause they're hella expensive in Nz but these were sooo cute and it was a present so I can't complain right haha

My mom also decided that this year, I should have a party. I really did not have the brain power to plan something during the semester, so it was really nice that my mom went about and arranged everything! The party was a fairly closed affair - some family friends from out east and central came over, had a feast and caught up on life. Most importantly, had a nice drinking session LOL

My mom ordered me a super yummy coffee cake. One can never escape from coffee after the love of coffee has set in right!? XD

And I received some more gifts - the new OPI gwen stefani 18k gold speckled top coat and a Estee Lauder lip gloss set (with travel bag)

I might review these later, but anyway I've had a try with the red lip gloss (photos on my twitter @snowrii) and I love it! I usually never wear lip gloss because they are 99.9% too sticky and impractical for NZ winds, but these felt pretty good. Giving them a true outdoor run on Monday (tomorrow) though.

The gold top coat is pretty nice for subtle designs, and should only be applied in one coat or else the gold glitter overwhelms the gold pieces. I always love getting new nail polish though *v*

So thank you DJ (& fam) for your presents!! Super loving them ~

Also ty for your present MC! ;)

And so... That's pretty much what happened for my birthday! It was very pleasant and lively, mostly thanks to my mom for taking care of everything! So many thankful feelsssssss~ thank you mom!

=^.^=

Europe: Vienna

Hiya!

I'm so totally exhausted from uni work at the moment, and definitely still suffering from post-travel syndrome even though it's been oh, two months since I got back to NZ!? A (little less than a) month long summer holiday in the northern hemisphere has been unbearable at times as I was wholly unaccustomed to the heat, but much welcomed on the whole! The blue skies on most days were a great help with capturing stunning photos, and gave me some pretty awesome on-the-train shots travelling between cities hehe~

Anyway, this post will be a highlight of my time in Vienna and some things to note if you're visiting Vienna! Because I typed most of this on some train while I was travelling, much of the text in this post is rather old so if some sentences sound a bit odd, it's because I've had to edit this post about 5 times ^^;

Vienna was my first stop on this trip. I arrived in Vienna on Austrian airlines which was definitely one of the least comfortable long haul flights I have ever sat. The economy seats are narrow, very cramped, and there were few movies to watch. The media player didn't have a fast forward/backward button so if you wanted to rewind the movie you're likely to have to rewatch a good few minutes again lol. First world problems I know, but this player is definitely the worst I've seen (out of the flights that did offer movies).

I spotted someone sitting pretty comfortably (or arguably uncomfortably?) on my first long haul with Thai .-.

There's always that one experimentalist with their feet straight up in the air...

The Austrian airlines service helpdesk attendants were very nice and cancelled some unwanted flights for me, which my flight agent previously claimed is impossible to do. Though the aunty that served us was very serious, she was really fast and careful with her work, and generally provided really good service!

Vienna was very easy to navigate - everything was in German which is fairly close to English (close enough to guess the commonly seen words). We bought a two-day public transport pass which worked for everything within the city, though an extra single pass was needed for taking the metro from the airport to city centre. Tbh I'm not too sure how that works, but I got through OK so all good haha.

In terms of food, our favourite bakery of all time was De Mann - the first bakery chain store we saw upon emerging from the subway for the first time. Their tarts look gorgeous, but unfortunately we only got to try a small selection of deliciousness. If you follow me on instagram (@snowrii), the cakes I uploaded on my Vienna preview are from De Mann! For a chain bakery, their products are actually really yummy and quite affordable! You can buy 3 or so cakes/small breads/rolls for about 8 Euro.

One thing to be aware of is that water is hard to come by in Vienna. Not only are public water fountains non-existent, but convenience stores selling bottled water are near impossible to find around tourist locations (such as the castle)! Pretty much the only way to get water is to pop into a museum cafe, buy a cup of coffee and proceed to ask for 272927179 refills on your glass of water.

These are some of my favourite photos from Vienna - I may caption them with locations later, but for now I really have to just get them up here. Feel free to ask for info on anything you see here, I can dig it up if anyone is interested :)

I MISSED YOU EUROPEEEEEEE QAQ

Beautiful graffiti. ;w;

Quaint much!? Cobblestones and ivy ❤

The architecture is sooo different to NZ *v*

more quaint little courtyards and greenery ❤

Finally a legit tourist photo lol.

The details. Freaking amazing. Too bad I couldn't get the color right.... #TooNoobForMyCamera

So beautifullll~~~ *o*

LOOK AT THAT DETAIL. HOW DID THEY EVEN CARVE THAT!?

More touristy photos

Selfie!

Derp. At the Vienna Opera House!

Intricacies

Albertina museum with the fluffiest bunny sketch I have ever seen in my life. It was so perfect omg.

The best sausages I had on the entire trip.

And that's it for now! Next is Budapest!


=^.^=

UNDERGROUND and revisit to Meet Fresh

Hiya~

Since Fashion week is on this week, I thought I should post quickly so as not to have a huge build-up of posts that are way out of date *cough Europe cough Japan cough cough cough*

Day before yesterday, I went to the UNDERGROUND exhibition which showcases new work from a mix of established, emerging, and new designers.

Silly me not only forgot to bring my DSLR but also my phone wtf. Once in a blue moon occurrence, but it was the worst day to forget my phone :(((

crowd. people. everywhere.

Thankfully, JY was free and came with me to the exhibition so she let me use her iPhone for photos! Maybe next time I will remember to bring my camera eh ><;

Blue Blank

Meadowlark

Meadowlark was the brand I wanted to see the most *v*
Did not disappoint, though I was too shy to take closeups without my camera camera QAQ

Thprks (pronounce: the parks)

I don't understand this. It's lovely to look at but supposedly it's not a brand or company but just an installation......

Jason Lingard

The water feature is pretty cool, is it visible in the photos?? QAQ

Jimmy D

Not really my thing aye...

Jojo Ross. The photographer on the right is not part of the installation.

 My favourite installation! Ok I'm getting pretty sick of the whole black hand thing (can anyone tell I'm not like a massive fan of Lorde?) but i liked the white cala lilies painted black.

And this model is so gorgeous. And has awesome eyes. Her contacts omg.

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

In the evening my mom suddenly decided that she wanted to go out. I told her a new place had opened up (Meet Fresh) and she just had to try it. Right. Now. Sometimes I feel like she's younger than I am, what with all that energy and spontaneity. hahaha

We stopped by Gloria Jeans first.

Not like we had coffee before or anything. One can never have too many mugs of coffee in a day.

Taro Ball #3

We finally got to Meet Fresh at almost 9pm, and I feared it would be closing. Their international website doesn't have a mobile friendly version, and the desktop version is just hellish to use on a mobile device because things don't scrolls correctly and scale out of the page and so on and so forth. Long story short, they need to put up their hours on some NZ foodie sites!!!

Thankfully the store wasn't closed, and in fact the line almost reached the door! It wasn't actually too bad for us since we got there at a 'light' time. By the time we sat down to wait for our orders, the line had reached the door. Yep. Business looks just as good in week 2.

I ordered another taro ball because they're really addictive. This one has peanuts too! My mom ordered their specialty herbal jelly, hot.

Said herbal jelly. It's a right mess....

Ok truth be told, this herbal jelly was actually quite nice. It's has a much lighter herbal jelly taste than the cold version, but it just looks so unappealing LOL.

Try it though, it's good. If you don't remember the name, it is the last item on the 'recommended items' list on the counter. :)

=^.^=

Street Eats / Miss Clawdy / Meet Fresh / The MF Gatecrashers

Hiya!

I haven't posted much since semester started... It's been a lot more work than I expected ^^; guess I should have been more proactive in the last week of my holidays haha~

Anyway, part of the reason I haven't been posting is because my weekends have been spent going out but with people who don't take photos of everything hahaha so then I don't have photos for my blog... I still feel a little awkward being "that one person" who takes a million photos of everything everywhere I go ><

Yesterday was the annual Street Eats event down at Queen's Wharf. I try my best to attend all the food and other public events around, mostly just to see the crowd haha

Street Eats managed to attract a lot of people yay! But it was rather disappointing (imho) for a number of reasons:

1. Not enough vendors

2. Lines were ridiculously long (because of 1)

3. Products weren't really 'street food'

4. Prices certainly were not 'street food' appropriate

5. Prices were wayyy too high for what you'd get.

Even though the covered area was huge, it felt like there were no more than 12 vendors? And outside there were 3 or 4. Out of the entire event only the $5 burgers from the Food Truck seemed alright and they sold out (pretty early I would think).

Mexico had the coolest stall *v* the line for Orleans (the stall right of Mexico) goes wayy beyond the pole on the right side of this photo. It stretches across the entire hall.

The long skewers of stuff at the bottom left look awesome, but at $10 you can only get 4 prawns. Not the entire long skewer. Just 4.

I actually went with TTY and VYL who both agreed that everything was way overpriced, so we ended up going around Wynyard Quarter and eating at Miss Clawdy.

I don't eat out often, so pretty much every time I do, it's at some place I've never been before haha.

Miss Clawdy is really cute. The interior is nicely decorated and cosy, reminds me of The Depot a bit but cuter. They serve cinnamon popcorn while you wait for your order which I thought was a nice touch. Those popcorns are addictive.

I had cajun hushpuppies with spicy tomato relish, andouille sausage & gouda which is a side dish but imo has enough carbs to serve as a main. First time ordering hushpuppies ever, thank goodness it wasn't too oily ><

I also ordered a key lime pie with torched meringue. Everything apart from the meringue was great. I was expecting actual meringue but no...it's that fake cream stuff they use in Taiwanese cake stores :( which also means that the torched part was very soft and disappointing :((

Afterwards we went and visited the newly opened Meet Fresh dessert shop!

VYL said that the line would take half an hour and I wouldn't believe her. Our wait in line & waiting for our orders really did take half an hour ==;

VYL's house specialty herbal jelly (cold)

I'm quite impartial to the taste of herbal jelly but this was strongggggg

My taro ball #1 order

All their items are numbered. And the stuff inside each order is printed sooo tiny that it's incredibly hard to read the chinese characters. Thankfully everything is written in English too.

Close-up of my order. It's actually really nice as a snack. Just has heaps and heaps of carbs and sugar...

I actually wanted to get their bowl in the photo because it looks so much better than the takeaway cup and we were eating there anyway, but they accidentally put my order in a takeaway cup :/

At least everything is recyclable!

It's a little on the sweet side, but honestly quite good! Definitely going there again ASAP ~

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆

In the evening I met up with Arietta (Knot Just A Scarf) to attend the Marr Factory MF Gatecrashers show. We decided to go there at 4, because doors open at 5 and Arietta said it would be super packed so we should go early. Turns out the show is actually due to start at 6, and the show ACTUALLY started at about 6:20. The fashion scene really is something huh...>>;

Well, waiting wasn't too bad, we had fun discussing NZ fashion, the outfits of the people attending (lol) and life ^^

One thing I really can't can't can't stand is the amount of chain smoking that goes on. I usually don't see many smokers at all, and then all of a sudden in this place every second person is smoking.

Photo of all the smoke, courtesy of KJAS

Actually, no, every 3/4 people were smoking. Non-stop. By the time the show started, we were choking / having coughing fits. Even now (more than 12 hours since the show) I still feel like my nose is a bit dead and fresh air doesn't smell fresh anymore wtf. I did always think that I would want to get into the NZ fashion scene and blog about it but if I have to inhale all this secondhand smoke, I'm re-evaluating whether it's something worth stepping into...

Selfie after the show! They had nice lighting for the models before they entered hahaha we weren't the only ones making good use of the lighting equipment post-show! Arietta looks so young...what a babyface! *^^*

Oh yes I dyed my hair this week with Freshlight Champagne Pink! It's obviously a tone lighter than it used to be, which I'm quite happy with, but unfortunately the pink tinge is fading at the speed of light... Guess I will be touching up a color in September rather than October as I had originally planned...

Some photos from Knot Just A Scarf of the looks I liked. In no particular order because the models didn't come out by designer and I cbb searching through the designers' collections to find out which look was whose.

The models are so pretty wtf ;w;

Meanwhile I stood out like a sore thumb with my casual gal look... Perhaps it would have been more appropriate to show up in cult party kei? hehe

My outfit for the day. 100% not winter friendly.

=^.^=