When the Colours Unite

My sister loves to buy nail polish. She has this compulsive obsession with buying them every now and then. Beats me.

Just this afternoon, her nails felt bare once more…

Sis: Hey, should we go OPI to buy new colours?
Me: What about those colours that we have at home?
Sis: They are old!
Me: Do you know HOW MANY colours we have at home?
Sis: We have time, let’s just go anyway.

For the record, my dear sister, I wasn’t kidding when I said we have many colours at home.

Yeap, that is part of the collection. We have 40 bottles in total.

The blue, purple, and blood red.

The hot red and dusty pink.

The baby pink and white.

The designer series.

We can use one colour each day and still have reserve…

Judging that one bottle costs approximately SGD$20 (some even more), GASP that’s at least SGD$800 on all the bottles!!!

Art Singapore 2009

2 weeks back, my sister, gwyneth and I attended an art exhibition. We were dressed for the occasion, with gwyneth looking the prettiest.

A couple of art pieces caught my eyes. With so much creativity to spare!

But of course, gwyneth was acting all grown up about the event.

My grandpa says he’ll buy me this rabbit

After a lovely dinner at Sushi Tei, I popped by Antipodean to check out their new items.

My niece fell in love with this rabbit. She sat on it and refused to leave it.

So when we got home, we asked her to show the photo to her grandpa and asked if he’ll buy it for her.

He agreed without knowing how much it cost.

*Chuckles*

Lele is going to have a rabbit that costs $279 for Christmas.

Love Letters

I was feeling a little nostalgic, and on a whim decided to unpack all my “love letters” from folks that have crossed my path - from seniors, to juniors, to church friends, to best buddies, to ex-bfs, to guys I fancied, to acquaintances - it was high time, to clean out my closet, and to move on to another phase in life.

And how tickled I was at seeing all the old letters - on nicknames I gave myself and nicknames that my friends gave me. From piglet, to zavita, to being people’s grand niece, grand daughter, to being people’s wife. I was really laughing and rolling on the floor. What fond memories I have of writing endless letters and sending it to everyone.

As I read note after note, I realise I was really blessed as a teenager. I had friends who cared about me, writing to cheer me on in my exams; I had seniors who were concern about my teenage-hood and often wrote kind things to encourage me.

The good ol’ days.

These love letters came in all sort of shape and size, but they all were sent with a purpose - out of love.

I thank God for all the people he has placed in my life, for helping me along to become where I am today.

I hope that as I continue into adulthood, I will some how bump into all these old friends, and have a good chat up.

Friends come and go; good friends stay a little longer, but some too choose to go. But at the end of the day, these friends whether they are close or not, they do change your life in one way or another.

On the lighter note, I have instructed all my close friends to send me a postcard whenever they are on holiday. No sweets or cookies for me - unless you want to get me a Chanel ;). Just a simple postcard, written and stamped in the country that they are travelling in, and sent through the local post. Now that makes an awesome souvenir.

St Paul, Minnesota

One of the most important spelling word in US’s context, is Mississippi. For some reason the many “S’s” and “P’s” make this a popular question posed to preschoolers. People will often think that Mississippi river originates from Mississippi, but they are wrong! The river actually starts near St Paul’s, Minnesota.

Being a twerp, I actually screamed at my friend to slow down as we were crossing this bridge where the river ran underneath it. It was a historical moment for me. A pity I didn’t manage to snap a good photo of it.

As we didn’t really have time exploring St Paul’s we just buzzed around the State Capitol and Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. I even had the honour of popping into a chapel for a good 15 minutes.

So here are some photograph of my friends and I fooling around in the park and beyond.

Poonam and I taking a snap shot of the State Capitol, at the road divider.

The Chapel which we hopped in for a 15 minutes service.

Inside the Chapel

And one of my favourite shots. Except for the cut off Chapel.

And we went amok in the sculpture park…

Apparently this is quite a famous sculpture - Spoonbridge and Cherry.

Framed.

I’m swinging…

Glass Fish housed inside the sculpture building.

Ahh.. Fall, one of the loveliest time of the year…

Ahh.. The good life of an exchange student

Minneapolis - Mall of America

About two years ago, I took a 6 hours drive down with my friends to Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Because I was travelling so much, 6 hours was really easy-peasy.

Our first stop, was to have breakfast at a pancake house (can’t remember where it was). We headed to our motel much later (after our shopping trip). It was quite a hilarious sight squeezing 6 people into a tiny room. The girls had the beds, and the boys had to sleep on the floor or any available space in the room.

Thereafter, it was a FULL day of shopping at the biggest mall in America, “The Mall of America”. It is suppose to be huge, but to a shoppaholic, I had secretly hoped it was bigger. We had about 6 plus hours to conquer the entire mall. We left the mall at about 1900? I can’t remember why, even though the closing time for the mall is slated to be at 2130.

In the Mall of America, there are 4 departmental stores - Nordstorm, Macy’s, Sears and Bloomingdale’s. There is also Barnes and Nobles.  I still remember that we parked near Bloomindale’s. The stalls were all so alluring, I bought quite a lot of stuff - even though I was a broke student.

I bought this pair of slippers for US$2 from Charlotte Russe - wore it to death as my dorm slippers. And I bought the forever 21 top from the flagship store for US$29 (I think).

I also bought a pair of pretty flats for US$19.90 (sale!) from famous footwear, which I also wore to death throughout my adventures in Canada, US and even in Singapore - I only had 2 pairs of sports shoes and 1 slipper when I went on exchange - how dumb ehz?

I didn’t buy any knickers from Victoria Secrets. but I remember spending a good amount of time in Abercrombie and Fitch - I was so tempted to buy this US$80 hooded jacket. Sigh, I was such a poor student, that I didn’t visit the Club Monaco store in MOA - wait, I think I didn’t know of its existence till 1 month later. J Crew didn’t leave an impression on me, so my friend and I didn’t go into the store. I didn’t remember seeing a H&M store then, if not I would have bought lots of stuff. We did stop by Auntie Annie’s to grab a pretzel. And I so should have gone into True Religion! The jeans would have been such great buys at such cheap prices, given that it was the sale season. Darn.

I was also a Chanel-idiot then - can you imagine, I actually gasp at my sister for buying the Chanel classic pearls necklace - If not, I would have spend most of my time getting my hands on one of the 2.55. When it was WAY much cheaper. Who cares about lugging 3 luggage bags, 4 paper bags, and one laptop bag? A 2.55 would have been puuurfect.

Other sights worth mentioning is that there is this a Nickelodeon Universe right smack in the middle of the mall. There is a roller-coaster, a mini-pet farm and a mini underwater world.

Nickelodeon land in the day

Nickelodeon land at night

Oh there is Lego shop too! And did I mention, level 4 is a theatre wonderland. Plus a hooters.

Food-wise, there are plenty to choose from. My friends and I ate at this cutesie place called Kokomo’s Island Cafe (level 3). We ordered a big palette of seafood and pork ribs. What joy.

Notice the braid in my hair? I did it Disneyland in LA. I would do anything to have it done again.

Coming up sometime this week, a continuation of my adventure in Minnesota - to the lovely St Pauls.

Restore thy Peace.

For those who are tired and discouraged, “Peace be Still”.

No matter where you go, no matter how much you have to drag your feet along to go about your daily life, God promises to provide you the peace you need if you call upon him.

This peace that He gives you, is supernatural, and it surpasses all understanding. It gives you the tranquility of the heart, and restores your strength and will.

It has been approximately 3 months since I headed back to school, and it has been one heck of a busy schedule. With some lectures ending at 930 pm, and occasions where I had to hand in up to 4 assignments within a week, I was pretty discouraged in what I was pursuing.

“Can’t see the light”, I’ll say.

But, good Lord, I know that this is the path you have planned for me, for now.

So I will persevere till the end.

With my head held high, and a soul rested.

It’ll all be well…

Chanel Reissue Tragedy

My sister alerted me to a disturbing news. It seems that the House of Chanel is up to their tricks again.

It is apparent that they want to focus on producing the CC Classic Flaps handbags and will not produce as many Reissues. Being a true Reissue fan, I’m utterly distraught.

Since the reissue was re-released in 2005 to mark Chanel’s 50th anniversary, it has won the hearts of many. With its dainty Mademoiselle lock, user-friendly chained-straps and distressed look, it wasn’t difficult to see why the Reissue struck a firm friendship with its fans out there.

I had originally planned to acquire a Jumbo Reissue in a light colour sometime in the next two years. That will add depth to my current collection of Sisters Matt Black 2.55 and Black East-West. It does not only allow me to carry more stuff during the day’s activities, it also colours up my outfit.

Alas, my dream may never materialise - with the craze of sudden purchases from all its fans out there! I heard that Matt Black 2.55 is hard to get in quite a lot of places. (Thankfully I purchased mine already, before the price increase and before this crazy hunt)

What a sad piece of news for the day.

Can you imagine the resale price of the Reissues? But, no way am I parting with mon bebe.

What tragedy.

The Message - 風聲

I’ve never really tuned into a Mainland China movie. But this is really good.

The message stars Zhou Xun and Li Bing Bing - these ladies deserve all praise for their endearing and convincing act in the show.

In a nutshell, the shows revolves around 5 high ranking officials who are brought in for questioning - amongst them was a suspected traitor. Slowly as the show progressed, one official was tortured to death and the other shot himself. Leaving behind 3 officials.

The torture was slow, but the show wasn’t slow. For those officials who were not willing to speak, they were tortured by Mister Six, a man who used acupuncture as a form of torture. One of the female officials was also tortured - for ways that I shall not comment about.

The story is really well woven and well shot. I sat there wanting to know more, and wanting to know who was the traitor and how was the person trying to get the message out.

And how the Japanese man got killed in the end - that was really a wow moment.

BS: Foot Scrub

One of the best joys in life, is to have your aching feet scrubbed, polish, and pampered.

Six months of regular scrub sessions using Body Shop’s pumice foot scrub has left my feet happy!

Slather the foot scrub mix onto wet feet. Using the grey side of the foot file, gently scrub at the patches of dead skin on the sole of the feet. Thereafter, use the pink side of the foot file and target at the smaller patch of dead skin, this is to allow a smoother finishing at the sole of your feet.

This is probably one of the most economical foot care that I found, that really works.

Another product from Body Shop that works well with the foot file is the Lemongrass foot polishing.

Do remember that the product works well only on moist or wet feet.