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!

=^.^=

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.

=^.^=

First outings this semester!

Uni started this week, but I am sooo totally not ready to get down to business!

It's like, every holiday needs to have at least a week of doing absolutely zilch, and I just haven't had that yet haha

So this week, I've been meeting up with friends here and there and just catching up with everyone and eating way too much QAQ

Warning: much of this post is just food photos! X'D

On Monday, LL and I revisited Sushi Factory on Vulcan Lane (Auckland CBD). They had pink umeshu!!

Ok we didn't buy it because we went at lunch time and we both had to get back to uni in the afternoon. But the bottles are really pretty, no??? Hopefully we can try it another night, but we've planned for a Sake night which will (fingers crossed) go ahead next week. I need hot sake in my life <3

Sushi Factory also had some dodgy as sushi on the conveyor belt when we first got there... Honestly conveyor belt sushi is not that great in NZ. There just aren't enough customers for the sushi to continually be fresh! Not to mention the prices are like, what.

Sketchy as heck black medium-rare beef.

I ordered some kind of fried crumbed chicken katsudon thing which made me miss Japan cause it was (as typically) hella expensive lol

Oh hey it looks good in the photo! XD

We were actually supposed to go to Mamak (a Malaysian restaurant at Chancery) but we got there and it turns out the place is closed on Mondays wtf.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

I ended up going there (Mamak) on Tuesday with Tenshi instead, and it's a really nice place!! Super small but absolutely lovely in every way~

The laksa I ordered is really photogenic right? \(//∇//)\

Portion sizes are actually very decent. This bowl was over 1/3 the width of our 1 person wide table so it's really massive and the contents appear small. I could barely finish it, that's how big the bowl was!

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

Finally found a chance to catch up with VYL this (friday) morning after what feels like forever. We checked out Federal Delicatessen which is possibly the only American Diner-esque eatery in Auckland or New Zealand for that matter. I was really excited for their poutine as it's the first time I have seen poutine in NZ, but unfortunately it failed on many levels. In particular, the chips weren't even done as well as a regular fish and chip shop, and that gravy was just SAD.

The Toasted Reuben that VYL ordered was pretty good, but it's a tad expensive and honestly I don't think it's possible to screw up on a pastrami and swiss sandwich in rye bread with sauerkraut (which I'm pretty sure is canned). 

Surprisingly the place was really packed when we left at noon too! It's probably because the diner is right opposite the sky tower. What a convenient location...

Interiors are pretty cool. The waitresses wear cute little dresses too! And it's nice and clean.

Oh yeah, an uncle sitting at an outside table waved me and asked if I had a good meal .-.

I don't get waved down often, so it was a bit odd. I'm convinced that man is the boss in disguise, but VYL thinks he's just a random hobo. What hobo would be allowed to occupy a table (for hours and hours just to smoke) at a diner that sets such high prices though?? He's definitely the boss! >:|

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･'(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)'･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

Also today, Hana Emi Doll members planned for a meetup in the evening, but Pat and AP couldn't make it in the end so it was just me and Roxy ;-;

We went corset shopping as planned, and actually ended up buying corsets! I originally wanted to look and try first, but somehow I got swept away and ordered one lol *no self control*

Roxy's corset was already made, but they didn't have one to the right length for me so I ordered one. It's going to take about 2 months for it to be ready!! 2 long painstaking months to wait </3

I can't wait to start waist training eep!!! >w<

Anyway we were planning to go ktv afterwards, but since it was just the two of us, we decided to go shopping (for lashes at Ippondo), pool (at KISS which is surprisingly in pretty good condition compared to the other pool places around), and dinner at Nol Bu Ne!

Speaking of shopping, on the way to Ippondo we walked past this weird art display on the walkway! When I was in Zurich there was a super awkward and view obstructing crane as an art display in the middle of the city. I was telling Roxy about it when BAM out appears a random art display in NZ wtf

It's a couple of kiwis or ducks under a danbo looking box @-@

I have no idea what it's about, but the entire thing is rock solid. You can find it on Queen St just up the road from the White House, in front of Myers Park.

Ok back to dinner! I ordered fish roe soup thingy which is supposed to be spicy but I think I've developed an immunity to chemical chilli </3 

Perhaps BT chicken (super super spicy BBQ chicken wings) killed my tastebuds last semester after all lol

Their potato is just as sweet and perfect as ever. I usually visit the place just for the purpose of having their sweet potato lol. It's the first side dish on the left and doesn't look great, but tastes delicioussssss!

After dinner, we made a quick trip to daiso for my cheap but really good to use daiso eyelashes haha. I buy the really sparse long lashes with a thick band from Daiso as a base, to get my lashes to face up (and create a round eye shape). It saves me having to curl my lashes hehe. Although the effect isn't quite the same, but at 8am on the way to uni with very little sleep I honestly don't care~

We thought really really hard about what we could do after that, but apart from drinking and/or clubbing there was nothing else to do. The weather today was also ridiculously typical of NZ with sun showers, sudden downpours and random gusts of massive winds so we couldn't even venture out on to the viaduct. I can't wait till shops start opening to 9pm as a regular thing. We need it in NZ. Need it bad.

I haven't done much uni work this week, so I'll be really busy next week putting my life back together. Hopefully I can start releasing my travel posts soon though! They're going to be hella long with wayy too many photos~

Don't worry, not many photos will have my face xD

=^.^=

Chocolate Boutique review & Velvety Vanilla Almond Lindt Creation

Last night I finally got to meet up with some friends I haven't seen in forever! I think it's become a cycle of just meeting up every couple months or so when we all miraculously have one evening free together lol QAQ

Even this time, all of us almost forgot we set the date ==;

I remembered about 3hrs before we were supposed to meet because I set a reminder on my phone calendar. I make up for my cruddy memory by being prepared, yeah~✌️ (Can iPhone emoji show up in blogger posts? We shall see when I publish this...)

Anyway, since I finally got to go to the Chocolate Boutique that I swear every single girl in Auckland that's not legit broke has probably been to, I thought it'd be good to share my first impression of the store.

Unfortunately I was there with not only my friends but also a few of their friends and I didn't want to be the weird girl that takes photos of absolutely everything, so no photos of the store :(

The shop is quite cosy, most of the tables are for around 4 people, our table could fit about 8 (we took the largest table out the back on the porch). If you stay in the store for ages, it feels a little cramped. There's a million and one items on display and it's super adorable, like a Christmas candy store, but I wonder how they keep inventory and make sure every item is within expiry date. Every flat surface is actually packed high like a treasure trove O.O;;

The store is in Parnell, so it kept with the cosy Parnell "cobblestones, wooden bridges, and pretty vines" theme from the outside. The shop is a cottage painted white (cute!) with a red standalone public telephone hut thing right out the front! Watch out for that telephone booth when you drive by and you definitely won't miss the shop like I did ><

The drink I ordered was a butterscotch hot chocolate. Silly me was overwhelmed by the variety of drinks they had and just randomly picked one in the end. orz

Butterscotch in hot chocolate is just wayyy too sweet, I couldn't even taste the tiramisu after. Yeah. Like, waaaat.

The hot chocolate itself is pretty average too. I'd recommend getting their melted chocolate drinks, at least that's difficult to find elsewhere (forgot what they're called).

At least it looks really nice with the cream on top!

Between myself, EW, and S_, we also ordered a chocolate fondue and a (slice of) tiramisu. For chocolate fondue, you can choose between melted white, milk, dark, or bitter chocolate. Bitter chocolate is probably 80% cocoa. We went with dark chocolate and it was pretty sweet ><

Even though it was freakin cold outside, our fondue didn't freeze up at all! How do they do it!?!?

For dipping, we got pretzels, banana, marshmallows (my fave of the lot), dried kiwifruit, apricots, the kind of cherries you would see on a cake, lady fingers, and wafers. The irony here is that we got lady fingers for our fondue but not in our tiramisu .-.

The tiramisu was nothing like any other tiramisu I've tried. The texture of the cheesy layers was much like that of a cheesecake, and the thin thin layers between were probably chocolate sponge, soaked in perhaps a little coffee. No mascarpone flavour at all, and the texture was quite thick. It was an interesting experience...
 

All in all, my split of the bill was about $11 which is alright for what we got I think? I'm not thaaaat keen to revisit though.

Also i saw people on the tables close to us look at us multiple times cause we were 1. Being stereotypical loud asians 2. There was much dissing. In English. Sometimes fail English. 3. WL accidentally called out to a customer on TWO separate occasions thinking they were staff. Can I just never go to Parnell again plz? (Jks WL, I just wanted to note this on my blog forever so I can bring this up at your wedding kay)

All in all, I think the Chocolate Boutique is worth visiting if you haven't been before. There are few establishments around Auckland that have such a nice ambience, but don't go expecting high tea quality desserts.

Now tonight *drumroll* I finally discovered a pack of Lindt's new Creations flavour on my coffee table!!! LOVE YOU MOM! *Q*

It's probably been out and advertised for over a month now, but they weren't stocked at Pak'n Save (Albany) so I never got my hands on it till now. I am SO excited over this because it is EVERY BIT as delicious as I imagined.

My thigh is so unflattering I'm sorry. But who can resist this delicious Creation! ( am I punny yet?)

Crisp almond pieces in vanilla flavoured truffle, a layer of caramel, all encased in Lindt milk chocolate. DOES IT NOT SOUND ABSOLUTELY TANTALIZING!?

I managed to stop myself at 1/5 of the block, but I will definitely finish it by the end of the week. It's so flippin good, I'm not even exaggerating.

Go and try it if you can. It's worth every cent! <3

=^.^=

First impressions of Depot Eatery

Today I'm spending my entire day at a training and examination event for LabVIEW (it's free!) which unfortunately starts at a grossly inhumane 8am.

Seriously, why are these out-of-uni events always so damn early!?

I hope I don't fall asleep -0-;;

Since I got here half an hour early, I decided to grab a coffee near the skycity convention centre where the training is held. *THANK YOU NZ BUSSES FOR BEING INCONSISTENTLY UNRELIABLE* (#｀A´)

There's a really awesomely deco-ed 'murican style diner next door to the Depot, but I wondered if they had good coffee since everyone inside appears to be eating. Plus, good coffee in a diner? Hmmm idk...never had good coffee in North America...

So I ended up at the Depot!

I made an absolute fool of myself ordering coffee lmao. They don't provide a coffee menu or anything! And the cashier is where you order, but the cashier is facing the barista area, on the right when you enter so I totally didn't notice wtf. The barista lady must think I'm dense since I tried to order from her. Especially as most people here are in suits, and I'm in my fluffy pink poncho, leopard chiffon skirt, LizLisa bag, pastel bookcase, and pastel phone .-. Not out of place at all.

The Depot actually looks pretty awesome. The rustic setting with open kitchens is really nice, definitely something homey, chill, and all-round different from the corporate offices all in the CBD!

Cool rack of wine bottles and various artifacts like fish skeletons, old tins, and random old stuff I don't recognise, to complete the look.

The one thing I find a bit strange is tap wine.

Yes. Tap WINE. Haven't heard of that before have you?

Behold. I wonder if the taste of wine in the pipe is compromised...

My coffee turns out to be quite good, surprisingly. I have no idea how much it costs (upwards of $4 for sure), but it's definitely better than the coffee at any of the uni cafes~

I told the barista I wanted to have it here, but she still stuck it in a takeaway cup. I see how it is. >>

All in all, I've heard good things about the food here so I'll definitely visit again in the evening sometime. Unfortunately this place is too far out of the way to drop by before my 9am starts at uni.

=^.^=

Revisiting Milse - disappointed! :(

Last Sunday, LY organised a meetup to celebrate her birthday (even though she didn't want us to sing happy birthday we ended up cornering her against a locked door and singing it in the train station hahahaha)

I didn't get many photos unfortunately, but I managed to snap some of the food since other people were taking food pics too ^^

This is just copied from my instagram post (@snowrii).

We had dinner at The Conservatory in Wynyard Quarter. It's my first time eating over there, and my second time in Wynyard Quarter since it opened in...2012 or 2013!? LOL I am so behind ~.~

The restaurants there all seem pretty nice, at least the view and ambience is great! The only downside is that the restaurants don't show their name very obviously, so I walked into a random restaurant before finding The Conservatory. Awkward.

Just a quick review of our dinner - the lamb (18"?) pizza was delicious! They cut it in huge slices and I felt so hungus, but omg it was so yum. Chips seasoned with rosemary is also quite nice! They didn't prepare it very crispy unfortunately (same goes for the calamari), but the idea of rosemary and chips is new to me and I love it! The garden platter was pretty average, the cabbage wasn't fresh enough and the artichoke heart was average. I wonder if their chef took a day off yesterday?

Now on to Milse! For those of you that follow Confetti, you will know that I had posted about the store several times (first review, second documented visit), mostly favorably. TL;DR on the links - when we first started the blog, Cora and I had a little celebration reviewing the store and it was truly lovely! Then, the verrines became much smaller than they used to be. This time, it was even worse!

Macarons of all different shapes and sizes, messily displayed.

Beautiful shot capturing the ONE giant macaron sandwich and the sloppy presentation of the green tea gateaux, courtesy of JY.

Let me just number them to make it easy for reading:

1. The presentation is inconsistent and sloppy - macarons were all different sizes, placed inctheir rows messily, and some were almost half a size bigger than others! If you think I'm being picky here, please visit my first review of Milse and you can understand why I have my expectations.

2. The cabinet was unkempt, even though it was a Sunday and they were really only moderately busy. Considering all the tarts sit directly in the cabinet, I would think that cleanness should be of high priority?

3. Macarons (the only thing I bought this time) varied in quality. The salted caramel JY bought was just as good as I remembered, but the other 3 that we shared (including the 2 in my photo collage at the top of this post) were very crumbly, hollow, and hard. Inconsistent, yet again.

Unfortunately I didn't try verrines or tarts or a gateaux this time, so I can't comment on those, but at least the presentation of the gateaux was pretty bad just like the macarons.

It has only been just over a year since they opened. I am honestly quite disappointed, and probably will not visit Milse quite as often as I used to.

Just FYI.

=^.^=

Hotpot is the best in a cold autumn ~

Recently my newsfeeds have been flooded with super gorgeous photoshoots in sakura, summer outfit hauls and OOTDs, kawaii little girls in yukata (thank you Humans of New York （≧∇≦）) and gorgeous girls in bikinis. Thinspiration much? Haha~

While the northern hemisphere has settled in to the swing of carefree summers of bbqs, beaches, massive-cosplay-making-plans etc., NZ is officially in autumn. Only, Autumn this year is weirdly bipolar. If you heard about NZ, chances are you will have heard about out wickedly unique weather; most days we get all 4 seasons, and occasionally multiple seasons at once. It's not uncommon to see a beautiful blue sky with the sun shining brightly at 20 degrees celsius, but rain is absolutely pouring down.

This week marks the start of the second term of first semester. I'm super excited that my travel plans are drawing closer (have I mentioned that I will be in Europe June 26-July13 and Tokyo July14-15?)! But at the same time, the sudden drop in temperature has been quite the shock.

Last Sunday, the night before uni, I finally got to visit a hotpot buffet for the first time in YEARS. Some people call it steamboat but directly translated from mandarin, 火锅 is actually 'fire pot' so I call it hotpot.

Photo from Google. We were way messier than this LOL

I got to catch up with some uni friends whom I never seem to meet up with anymore even though we go to the same uni lolwtf. Chinese hotpot restaurants in NZ are usually buffet style, so we completely pigged out and ate wayyyyy too much!

Our buffet area looks something like this stock image, but there was a loooot more meat. And actually just a much larger food variety than this image.

I gained 2.something kg from dinner. Yes, I weighed myself before and after >> << >>

This restaurant was extra awesome because it's the first hotpot I've been to where they serve scampi!

This is scampi. And scampi is delicious.

Unfortunately we were too far from the buffet area to catch the big ones, but the smaller ones were nice too ~ next time I will sit my arse right next to the buffet area for those scampis!! >:|

Is anyone else in the Southern hemisphere btw?@@ it feels really awkward uploading thick winter OOTDs when most of the people I follow are in summer right now QAQ

=^.^=

My newfound dessert obsession

I've always been pretty obsessed with desserts. I love everything, like actually EVERYTHING. Even licorice (at times).

Recently though, this year, I've started making desserts!

I think it's because I don't have as much time to do my nails anymore, and I swear the UV is making my hands extra wrinkly / ageing, so I have to put all that creative energy into something else? The wait time (48hours) for my craft glue to dry on my crafts is also a downer :(

So in January of February, I started making wasabi icecream, chocolates ~ (see some on my post here), and today I have officially stepped foot into desserts that require heat!

Yes - all of the desserts I have made so far require no heat. Even just melting the chocolate I managed to burn it the first time ==

No jokes, I am a serious fire hazard in the kitchen.

Today after dinner I decided that sitting at home for the evening is just too fattening. I definitely gained some weight recently, largely due to my lack of self-control. Last night I ate 2 waffles. With icecream, blueberries, and plum jam. :(

Hopefully I will get over this craving soon, cause I had 4 chocolates today too. It's not looking too good right now...

Anyway, the pan was on sale so I had to get it! Half price down from $40, and it's scratch-resist ceramic coated on the top! I am so excited to try it~

from my instagram (@snowrii)

The entire time I was in the supermarket with my mom to look for the cupcake mix, my mom was trying to convince me to buy some cheese instead of choc chips for the cupcakes == (too lazy to make the batter myself for now. Perhaps if I really get into it...)

It got really irritating, and in the end I snapped and said I will not make savory cupcakes and if she wants them she can do it herself.

Even thinking about it now makes me irritated. I want my sweet cupcakes dammit. ==;

Anywho, now I need to find cute mini cupcake cups, and also a piping/syringe thing to decorate cupcakes with. Oh yeah and buttercream/icing, and food colouring .-.

Gosh the list just keeps growing...

This year though, I will definitely have a tea party with Tenshi and wifey!! GOAL FOR THE YEAR! And I WILL make something that was baked and is edible and pretty and yummy!!!

Ok it's 1.25am. Goodnight!

=^.^=

Side story from JL's B'day

So this is something that happened on my friend JL's birthday (main post here), but wifey said this story is so epic that it deserves its own post. So yup, hope you enjoy this story of me and my wife's silly times :')

When we went to Movenpick in the evening for dessert, my wifey and I decided it would be very romantic if we shared desserts.

Thus, being the dessert crazed people we are, we cheerfully barged into the store arm in arm whilst totally disregarding the queue waiting to be served. We pasted our faces pretty much literally in front of the cakes cabinet - where three of the desserts called out to our hearts. We painfully narrowed our selection to the Chocolate Espresso Cake and the Mocha Tart.

Then we directed our attention to the ice cream cabinet and simultaneously agreed to get 3 scoops of ice cream as well.

However, as dinner was really filling (curry does that aye ;w;) we could only pick one cake.. 

Wifey had been in love with Mocha tarts since the start of our uni days, but the Chocolate espresso cake looked too good to pass up too, and so we decided to paper scissors rock for it. The conversation that occurred next went something like:

Wifey: "Lets paper scissors rock for it"

"PAPER SCISSORS -

Wifey: "- wait! Are you espresso cake or mocha tart?"

Me: "I'll be espresso cake and you be mocha?"

W: "Sounds good, so..."

"PAPER SCI-

W: "-waaaaait! Best out of three? Or first to three?"

M: "First to three, and winner gets their cake"

Then the epic PSR battle occured with scores as follows:

Wifey:me 

- 1:0

- 1:1

- 2:1

- 2:2

- 3:2

So wifey won, and I was fully prepared to get the Mocha tart since I like both anyway, but then:

W: "...but I kinda actually want the espresso cake..."

==; WHY DID WE PSR THEN!?!?!?!? ./fliptable

And, of course, after that statement, we couldn't help giggling like crazy as we relayed this entire conversation to our friends who were waiting in the queue like all the other normal people. >>;

At this point, I should probably reiterate that this whole thing occurred in full view of not only the store staff, but also every single other customer inside.

This day, wifey maintains that the PSR was so she could know which cake she truly wanted (just like the whole "you'll know what you truly want when you flip a coin and it's in the air" philosophy).

Thinking back, if we hadn't been so indecisive about our choice in desserts, would the guy serving us have given us such massive portions of icecream? hmmmm..... #awks

didn't take a photo of our icecream though. It was in a really basic Movenpick cup :/

Thank god we unanimously agreed on the icecream flavours without having to battle at the counter....


=^.^=

JL's Birthday (last Sunday) and upcoming posts

I've come to realise that several of my friends' first name begin with J so it's going to become terribly confusing down the line.
I'm too lazy to go back and fix my earlier posts, so fingers crossed I never forget anyone's name (heh hehe), and from now on I will reference by first and last name, except for wifey and Tenshi because those aren't their actual names anyway .-.

So first of all, I should say that I'm really not supposed to be blogging right now, but it feels like I haven't posted anything in a loooong time. Is it really only week 2 of uni!? Somehow time flies too fast, and the mountain of work is being continuously pushed off to the side and replaced with mindless scrolling through facebook and watching all of eatyourkimchi's FAPFAP videos. ;-;

Upcoming posts

• Metamorphose fukubukuro 2014 reveal / Presents from wifey and Tenshi from Japan
• D.I.A belt review
• Nivea deodorant review

So many reviews wtf. Goes to show I haven't been out much ==

Anyway, the Nivea deodorant is from KnotJustAScarf who received several of them from BeautyReview - if you're reading this Arietta, thanks!

JL's B'day

JL is a friend I made in like, second year of uni through infosys, which he majors in and I take many courses in. His birthday was actually yesterday, but we celebrated it on Sunday. Unfortunately it happened to be iceskating in the afternoon, and I have pretty bad memories associated with iceskating and zero good ones, so I had to skip that ><

Later, I met up with them for a bit of pool, and dinner~

wifey took this photo...I look so noob wtf ;-;

I didn't expect many photos that day, so I went ahead with my half-assed uni-level-effort makeup... Actually jokes, I can't even be bothered with blush or eyeshadow anymore. So yeah, be prepared for nubface & mean eyes :<

We had dinner at a Thai restaurant in Albany. This was probably the first time I've had Thai in the last 5 or 10 years...

It was very strange having such runny and sweet curry, as I've recently been frequenting to an Indian restaurant in Browns Bay with my mom. Their $10 mains for dinner are just such a bargain, it's hard to say no after a long day.

Nevertheless, dinner was really enjoyable, and I met/caught up with some people I rarely see these days~

Photo for wifey's instagram

Duck curry! really nice *w*

Our flaming chicken which stopped flaming as soon as it got to our table :'(

group photo!

The last photo was taken after some people left, but that's ok since it's pretty much everyone from this group that I hang out with anyway ~

We also went to Movenpick for dessert, where wifey and I binged on 3 massive scoops of icecream (the guy working at the counter was so nice!!!) and this chocolate espresso cake.

I think I've already posted it on instagram, but I really need to reinforce that this was taken with hardcore lighting. 2 lights from different phones. lol.

/can'tgetoverit

so beautiful, delicious, and fattening.

I definitely ate too much that day. My stomach hurt all night ==;

Wifey and I also gave JL a tie, and a moustache car magnet.

Which he (amazingly) managed to put on his car upside down wtf.

I hope it's correctable, since I don't know if it's actually just magnetic or if there's glue involved...

What it looks like. Photo taken off google images

While looking for the above image, I stumbled across this.
This would have been pretty epic for JL's car too. heheheheheeee

Anyway, that was last week's little adventure. I now have the larger part of my 50 page infosys paper on Tweets during Social Crises to read and summarize, fun timez!

=^.^=