Hello 2015!

A bit of a late hello, but finally a greeting to the new year at long last!

I got back from my trip to Japan a couple days ago, and am still feeling the faint withdrawal of not being able to get yummy drinks at vending machines and walking everywhere.

I honestly wish I could walk everywhere because I have been getting so. much. fatter. since I got back. It's unbelievable how fast I'm gaining this weight ;;;


Anywho, I thought it would be appropriate to do a bit of a new years resolution post, so here goes!

In 2015:

• I want to travel more! Not sure if I will be going America at the moment, but it's still a possibility at this point~

• I want to succeed in my graduate programme. I know it's not a competition, and I don't want to face it like a task or something but I want to do well and be rewarded. Graduating is a big change in lifestyle and I want to start off healthy!
  
• I want to maintain all my friendships. This is a difficult one, because there was so much more time in university. Even if people's schedules were different, they were still fairly flexible. Now that most of my friends have graduated it's going to be a lot harder to get together. At least most of us are still in the same city!
  
• I want to stop buying from taobao. It just aint healthy how much stuff I have and how little of it I can actually use. I think I still have some accessories and stuff at my shipping proxy hmm...should probably get those shipped over soon....
  
• I want to maintain nice nails all the time! It's a lifestyle, not just an accessory! I do make a resolution like this every year (keeping myself tidy/makeup done), but so far I've slacked off every year. I found out in Japan that it wasn't actually that much of a hassle to just put aside a little extra time to do my hair and makeup every morning, so hopefully this will actually keep up this year!
  
• I want to be able to do full sculpt long nails, and improve my nail art skills! This is purely out of interest :3
  
• I want to stay fit. So I can actually fit the clothes I bought in Japan and look good in them. >>;

^yeh gonna need some luck with that last one aye hahaha......

7 is a good number, so I will stop there :3

I'm halfway through washing all the clothes I bought from Japan, and one/multiple haul videos will be up on my youtube sometime. I took a look at all the stuff I bought and it just wasn't feasible to do photo haul post lol. I've literally stocked up enough clothes for the entire year if not for next year too x'D



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Cheero Power Plus Danboard Mini Unboxing!

Hiya!

Sorry I haven't gotten around to uploading my lens reviews for which I've been putting some photos up on IG for you guys to preview. OK I only uploaded them cause I was feeling vain. (; > 3 >) I really miss the days when I was blonde haha. Now it takes so much effort to put on all the hair pieces!

Anyway, those reviews will be coming out in the next few weeks before I leave for holiday woot! *v*



Onto Danboard!

So I didn't actually know much about danboard to begin with. Mommy (not actual mommy) VY went through a period when she was pretty obsessed with it, I think, some time before she became obsessed with Nameko .-.

Danboard is so cute right ~

Nameko fanart by babi00xd (DA)

In the end I had to consult good old KnowYourMeme to find out how Danboard (actually named Danbo) came to be. Now I have a new manga to read tonight - Yotsuba&!

I actually got this mini battery pack because my friend just up and went to Japan for a quick vacation this month. I didn't have anything I wanted him to bring back for me specifically, until he posted a photo of an actual revoltech Danbo pack, and the mini charger pack that he bought. It's so. freakin. cute.!!!!!

So cute right!?

As you can see on the packaging, Danbo's eyes light up. This actually happens for the charger pack too, and different color eyes with/out flashing tell how much battery is left. I haven't used mine yet, so I will show pictures of that when I do start using it.

Below is a photo spam of the package. Not much to say about it, other than the fact that the quality is pretty darn good :3

Package back? (i think this is the cuter side tbh)

Package left

Package front - I don't know how much power packs cost, so I'm not going to comment on it. Just leaving the tag here in case you're interested :)

The price here doesn't include tax, though sometimes it may. For the store this particular product was bought, tax (8%) is excluded if the purchase total is over 10,000yen. However there is also a 10% passport discount, so I think my friend got 10% off of the tax inclusive price of the product. Does that make sense? I don't know if I make sense. I don't know if I know what I'm saying.

Let's just move on.

Package right

Package base

Package top

The items inside are in 2 layers, take off the top layer (carry pouch and charger cord) to reveal the power pack

Front of power pack, cord, pouch, and manual

 FYI the charger cord is the same as one for newer Samsung Galaxy phones I think. (I had an S3, pretty sure it's the same kind)

Back of power pack, carry pouch, and manual

Top of power pack

Left side

Bottom

Right side

AND FINALLY THE CUTE FACE ❤

 The front face of the mini pack is about the size of a credit card. The thickness is a little more than I expected, but I guess it follows the chara design. It weighs 140g which is pretty fair considering it should last at least 3 full charges for my iPhone.

Recently my phone has been running out of battery super fast, even though I bought it less than two months ago. Because I'm worried that my phone won't last an entire day of casual snaps and video captures when I'm travelling, a portable battery pack became quite a necessity QAQ


If you want to order one yourself or read the full specs, check it out on Amazon here! I was going to spend all night trawling slowly through the manual (my Japanese is terrible to say the least), but Amazon has pretty much covered all the basic functions for me lol.

Isn't the pouch damn cute too?

BC (friend who up and left to wander around Japan) also managed to snag me a copy of the last issue of egg (July 2014). I totally didn't think about getting magazines till a couple of hours before his flight was leaving, so I'm really thankful that he managed to grab this copy!! I was totally hysterical over it because girls in the galcomm were saying how it goes on shelves the next day, but somehow he managed to get it anyway? Lol I don't really care how it happened (now that it's the past), just super happy it happened at all!! Unfortunately the bookstore didn't have the last issue of Ageha, but that's alright. If I ever start collecting gyaru magazines obsessively, I'll definitely find it somehow :P

Thank you so much BC, for bringing me this Danbo and the last issue of egg and showing me all the kawaii videos and photos of your hosts' dappled daschund!! ^o^


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Wasabi Icecream, Chocolate creations, and brief update

Hiya! Just a quick post because I haven't put up anything today, and it just feels like ages since I posted. Even though my DIA fukubukuro reveal was just yesterday morning wtf .-.

So yesterday I went to the beach for a picnic and to catch up with some friends from uni~

I stayed under the beach umbrella almost the entire time between 12 and 4pm, but I still ended up with pretty clear tanlines ==
Should have just gone in a bikini and tanned properly. :/

Group photo at the Long Bay scenic photo frame ^-^

Selfie with the chocolates I've recently been addicted to making

So yeah, because my nails don't require maintenance that often (every two/three weeks?) I've been a little short on things to do. Because my new supplies haven't arrived from China yet, I can't start deco-ing so I've been making desserts!

More choccies~ so much fun making them! ^-^ (photo from my mom's wechat, very blurry sorry)

Meringue cups with wasabi vanilla icecream and dark chocolate.

Surprisingly the meringue dessert turned out better than I expected. Though, in saying that... perhaps wasabi icecream on soy waffles, or caramel pieces in wasabi icecream could work better? So many possible ways to use wasabi icecream!

As you can see I'm quite insistent on eating wasabi icecream right now. I have 3 more icecream flavours, and an iceblock flavour at home but I still went out to buy vanilla icecream for making wasabi vanilla icecream wtf.

Update

I will be picking up Tenshi-neechan on Saturday, so even if I don't post about Japan Day tomorrow (I am hoping I will!!), clothes from China and gifts from Japan will be arriving! I will have soooo much to review omg. Excited!!!

But yes, upcoming posts are Japan Day, Farmers A/W launch (when their promo vid comes out), Meta fukubukuro unboxing, haul review :)

So happy there's all this content prepared for the start of the uni semester! Hoping I can be consistent with the blogging for the entire year!

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Auckland Chinese Lantern Festival and presents from Malaysia! [Confetti]

Hiya!

It’s been a while since I posted, sorry for the brief hiatus!

I’ve taken so many photos these two weeks, but being the instagram addict that I am, every photo has to be filtered yadi-yadah. Long story short, I simply didn’t have time to prepare all the photos for posting recently ><

Is it better to have few, but good quality, photos…or to have many, but average quality photos???
I swear that is a blogger’s biggest dilemma :’( #firstworldproblems

Anyway, last weekend we had the annual Auckland Chinese Lantern Festival! As usual, the festivities spanned from Friday till Sunday – with fireworks on Sunday evening.

I originally planned to go on Sunday so that I could stay and watch the fireworks, but I had to leave early. AND THIS YEAR THE FIREWORKS FLEW OFF THE SKY TOWER TOO!! So unfortunate T_T

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Girls' Night @ Skycity last Friday

I ended up spending the entire weekend being sleep deprived and hazy during the day, and legit sleeping, but somehow still not resting enough through the night!? am I anemic???

Anyway, L happened to have a free pass to stay at Skycity's hotel for a night this month, so she invited all of us girls in the high school gang to stay over and catch up >w<

It's super sweet of her to invite us!! Even though we have met up many times through this summer, we rarely met in the past few years since HS ;w;

Sometimes I feel like I have no idea what's even happening with some people anymore, and don't know how to even begin asking,,, *sigh*

Anyway, it really irks me how people in our group never check facebook notifications. Like, I'm pretty sure people get notified every time someone posts in a group (unless they turned it off) right!? It's not like anyone spams in there, why turn it off ==

And then some people are like - oh yeah I'm keen! and then when details are confirmed and everything, you don't hear from them. Just, wtf??? I know you've been online cause you PMed me about other stuff!!

Rant aside, the night ended up just being L and I, which was perfectly fine since it's been a long time since we had a date between the two of us. L was the only person I ever gossiped about the guys we knew back in HS I think? hahaha I'm not much of a gossiper...

As usual, I was late... BUT this time I had a legit reason. I seriously did leave the house on time, but the gigantic winds in Greenlane + umbrella in 1 hand and luggage in the other was not something I was prepared for. Seriously, what is with the winds in Greenlane!?

So we dropped everything off at the hotel, and in the lobby there was a performance for CNY! I didn't take any photos though, I was too busy staring at this girl who had really really nice legs.... (in the most non-creeper way ever.)

For dinner we went to Sushi Factory, a restaurant L frequents and which I went to once. That one time I went there with my ex two years ago omg. Most gluttonous dinner ever. <writing it down, in the unlikely case that I forget it one day lol.

L had a tempura udon and a variety sushi plate, and I had the chicken katsudon set~

Collaged everything together for instagram *lazy*

Next time we agreed to go for one of the party platters. the 55$ one looks really yummy ~~

It was actually pretty good value IMO, I think I spent around 15~20$? Many items on their menu is overpriced af, but the sets are alright, and one or two of the party platters are alright.

Now I wanna eat ramen.... buttercorn ramen~~~~ ;w;

Anyway, after dinner, we decided to go to Milse for some dessert. The original plan was to go to a bar, but the weather was shitty all afternoon/evening so we settled for dessert.

Milse was busy, as usual. The wait list for a table was at about 40 minutes. Pretty sure we spent about 20 minutes picking what we wanted anyway, but in the end we didn't stay in the restaurant to enjoy our dessert. The outside courtyard was covered though, and it's a really nice place to eat in the evening~ (you can see pics of the area in my Milse review, together with a good range of their desserts).

L had the Valrhona caramelia, coffee, and hazelnut gateaux (you can see what it looks like, and its review here), and I had a matcha green tea and strawberry gelato stick. The gelato stick was a bit of a let down... It was extremely difficult to eat and melted all over the place, plus the green tea wasn't strong and had quite an indistinct taste that wasn't matcha-y at all :(

After dessert we bought some dessert wine (dessert #2!) and chippies to munch on while we discussed life, future, pregnancy (LOL no pregnancy for those that love sashimi!!), and other serious af topics while watching cartoon network. The line between childhood and adulthood blurs more every day xD

Hardly any gossip went down that night, but the little that did...eurgh I'd rather clear from my mind kthx ;;;;

Gotta have those selfies. :D

The next morning, we decided the walk to viaduct would not be worth it for an overpriced breakfast, when there isn't even a pretty sunrise to watch, so we headed to The Shelf. It was my first time there, and I wish I had brought my DSLR because the interior deco was super nice!

We both had egg benedict, mushroom for L, and bacon (fatty fatty) for myself. I also tried The Shelf's specialty Iced Coffee which was pretty awesome cause they use coffee to make the ice cubes! Plus, the amount of chocolate in the form of both hard chocolate, and chocolate sauce was like mmmmmmmn

Not sure how I felt about an iced coffee priced at $7 though .-. those are few and far in between, in nz....

We had a little time left after that, so we dropped by smith and caugheys to get L a new concealer. MAC's concealer is actually really good for heavy coverage! I didn't end up buying anything though, still on the hunt for a nice NATURAL hime-style lipstick... (every time I buy a lipstick from Chanel, it ends up looking different to what I actually wanted fml. Probably will end up buying from Chanel again though, their lipsticks are still the nicest ;w;)

We both love staying in hotels, so it was extra nice that we got to spend the night at SkyCity ^^

And that concludes our girls' night!

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I had a photoshoot yesterday!

edit: the post for this shoot is now on Confetti! Read it here!

The day before yesterday I decided that in honor of the new year, I must have a photoshoot to change out my profile photos!

But come yesterday, I had no motivation after crawling out of bed at midday, and proceeded to spend the next 5 hours online looking for blog posts, images, videos, ANYTHING of people's lucky bags this year.

I really want to know all the prints that were available in this year's meta bag!! and I want to know what's in my D.I.A fukubukuro, but I must be patient for that ><


Anyway, so I finally started preparing for my shoot just before dinner, and a kind friend came by and lent me his tripod. My tripod is super noob, the head can't rotate so if I use it for my camera it's suuuper inconvenient. Plus I only have one tripod so it's like- how do I share it between my ring light and my camera? lol. The life of a blogger eh ^^;
Thanks to the second tripod, I had a pretty good setup last night:

cruddy phone meitu camera quality *sigh*

I've now started looking through the images from the shoot (yay!) so here is a preview for the meantime:

filterfilterfilterfilterfilterfilter >:3

Sorry about mini photo, need it resized and online for something ~.~


I looked for inspiration on pinterest two nights ago, but on the day I just didn't feel like going with any of them, so i sorta just started doing my makeup... then found this old dress from year 13 (senior) ball... and then chose my wig, and everything else followed from there xD

It was a lot of fun playing around with my makeup as I hadn't really touched them since...since my last photoshoot with Ken Bufton? That was back in early December! I really wanted to use the ready made bling stickers because it would save me so much trouble, but I have no idea where I've put them...
Hopefully I didn't lose them? lol that would be awkward.

Looking at the photos now, it seems a bit Luka (vocaloid) inspired? I sent one of the photos to Tenshi-nee as preview, and she said it reminds her of Just Be Friends haha. It would be fun to cos Luka someday!

Personally, for Luka I like the PV for Answer most~ Plus the "singing" is much better mixed and sounds more natural.

Okok, back to editing and stalking LPs!!

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Fukubukuro, and presents from Japan!

I'll start with the presents-

So for my birthday which was on Dec 5, my wifey and Tenshi-neechan decided to buy me presents from Japan. They understand me so well! :')

So I don't know the details of my presents yet, but I do know there is a Metamorphose Lucky Pack (either light or dark. They wouldn't tell me)!

This is what is released on Meta's site

My wifey has hinted that my set is very matching, which is a big phew, but I'm really curious what the skirt print is!? I really hope its the rose one on top! Love roses so much >w<
However she has also hinted that the prints are very different from the images....so it's very likely my  print is not on the website @_@ I'm happy that it will be a new print, but also anxious since I have no idea what it's like!! ><

But really, when it's Metamorphose, I bet all of them look great ❤


In preparation, I am ordering some lolita shoes (finally) from taobao. They're gonna be a horror to ship but I cannot taint a Meta outfit with non-lolita shoes! ><

Also, wifey has said that Tenshi-nee will come with the first half of my presents so I guess I get other stuff too!? I feel so spoilt!!! eep!!

Today, being the 2nd of Jan is the big fukubukuro grab!

I am super super thankful that セーラ (link to her instagram) of my gyarusa (Hana Emi Dolls) happens to be going for the notoriously difficult to obtain D.I.A fukubag this year and is grabbing me one too!

Success! I screamed when I saw this photo ><!!

This is the ad on d.i.a spec's facebook page

I kid you not, I spent the whole morning blogging, but actually I was stalking fb to see if セーラ succeeded ><;

I owe her big time! Esp since she had to drag herself out of bed at 3am for the fukubukuros! ><

Japanese gyarus are so crazy lol, I don't think NZ people would do stuff like that if we had fukubukuro.

Though granted, Black Friday in the states is pretty insane too...

Anyway, I will know if she manages to snag Ma*rs items and the D.I.A belt I wanted tonight, but she's still shopping right now. I was just too excited and had to post this first hahaha

This will be the year. I will stock up my wardrobe with brand gyaru and lolita, and next year I will travel to Japan and return all the favors!

SO DAMN EXCITED!!!

2014 New Year’s Resolution! [Confetti]

I usually make 3 resolutions, so that if I break one then at least I haven’t broken everything for the whole year lol.

But through the past year, I’ve come to realise that you don’t get nearly as much out of the experience, if you don’t put as much on the line.

So this year, I will just have one new year’s resolution:

be more thoughtful, and speak my mind



Sometimes, I think it’s easier to leave things unsaid. But oftentimes, because of the things unsaid, myself, or someone else is misunderstood. I want to try giving the choice to other people to decide what they want to do with the knowledge of something, rather than withholding it from them, and essentially deciding for them.

And yes i cheated by putting two resolutions into one lol.




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Late night shopping- as usual

If you saw your blog views go up dramatically today thanks to some small dot in the ocean/sea below Australia, that was me.

Tenshi-nee and Ice-nee are going to Japan soon, and they offered to help me hunt down stuff~~
*feeling super loved*

So yeah, in anticipation of their shopping trips, I am hunting down the items I would like them to keep an eye out for.


However, I'm finding it REALLY HARD to track down all the old prints and ma*rs items!
Like, I know someone in the gyaru comm has them, but it's a mission and a half to find who, and then to find a picture of high enough quality to send to Tenshi and Ice T_T

If only there's an archive? Like I think there's an archive online of all the items that AP has come out with. Or maybe it was BTSSB. Regardless, lolitas are very organised...

I guess I'll have to accept that there are prints I may never get my hands on....*sigh*

Anywho, today I've gone through JD, Ma*rs and D.I.A (only belts lol, gonna be cheap and buy clothes on taobao since they look just as good anyway le).
I think tomorrow I will add some babydoll type lolita OPs too. Some can work super casual or with gyaru too ~

12.30am- time to sleep

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