26 Monday Jul 2010
Posted in Travel
From a beautiful little place called Interlaken.
This is the view of the Jungfrau, reputedly the highest point in Europe. My camera doesn’t do the view justice, but it’s the white mountain in the distant between the two green ones.
22 Thursday Jul 2010
I know I’m usually remise in my blog posts anyway. But in case you’re wondering, it is because I’m out of the country until the end of next week, with only a super slow mini laptop as my only mode of communication with the rest of the world. It’s been a painful adjustment.
Paris so far has been fun. I must say, it is actually a lot more fun coming as a tourist vs a student. I love a good hotel breakfast. Lafayette is a tourist zoo, I much prefer Le Bon Marche. It is also a good idea to get in through the SIDE entrance at the Louvre when the line to the main entrance is a mile long. Oh and the Lido show was a bit disappointing. Do NOT go for the full meal, because the food sucks. The show itself was a bit like Cirque de Soleil, except with more scimpily clad performers. There was water, ice skating, a real horse, juggling and lots of synchronized dancing. Ironically though this is the FOURTH time in my life there and I’m only in my early twenties.
Going to visit the temple of Balenciaga tomorrow. Can’t wait!
21 Monday Jun 2010
Naturally, I went shopping in Tokyo.
On my last visit, my friend took me to Shibuya 109. For a teenager, that was 7 floors of heaven and I spent almost a whole day there. If you look up once you get out of the Shibuya JR station, you’ll see it. This time, I took my cousin K there and she was in heaven. She adores the cutesy Japanese fashion there. Floral prints, light denim, big bows, polka dots, lace, frills, long dresses and more floral prints. It’s not usually my style, but even I was tempted to get a super cutesy Japanese floral dress for Halloween. In the end, I gave in and got an adorable straw boat hat with a blue/white striped ribbon. I figured there was a bit of Chanel in it.
After seeing all the beautiful clothes Sea of Shoes got at Laforet on her trip to Tokyo, I simply HAD to stop by. While I found that Furfur and Hotel 55 was a little beyond my budget, I did find some lovely stuff there that was more to my style than Shibuya. It is a bit more sophisticated, with cute flowy cream and lacy dresses and shirts. At first I was doubtful whether I’d wear this style in Hong Kong, because they are a slightly bohemian, and bohemian is so last decade. But in the end, I couldn’t resist the many super kawaii Japanese girls around me anymore, and bought the whole outfit at EarthMusic&Ecology and immediately changed into it. I felt super feminine and cute- almost like a local!
Ironically, even though my hotel was right in Shinjuku, I didn’t really get a chance to check out all the fashion in the department stores. The last time I was here, the fashion wasn’t my age. But now I get the impression that I should’ve spent more time here. Instead we spent a lot of time getting lost in the subway trying to find our way out. We later figured out that we should make sure we get out the correct exit off the train- the south gate.
I did get a chance to check out the food halls though in our search for souvenirs. We stocked up on Yoku Moku cookies, but later regretted it when we found them cheaper at the airport. We should’ve waited! But they do taste really rich and buttery and make wonderful presents.
Now to some of my goodies. The top left is the outfit I got at Laforet, complete with the straw hat I got at Shibuya 109. I rationed that this would make a nice breezy outfit for a summer trip! On the right, is a sailor blazer I got at Shibuya 109. Don’t you love the navy blue trimmings? I was waiting for my cousin to try on a dress when I spotted a girl walking pass in this jacket. When K commented that she saw it in a store we’d just been to, I knew I had to have it. The cutting is not that great, but it’s fun and it’s on sale. What’s not to love? At the bottom, is an over sized white t shirt with silver stitching that I spotted at EarthMusic&Ecology. It’s a bit more edgy than the rest of the store, but it was very me. It is currently my favourite item in my wardrobe. It looks super cool paired with shorts or skinny jeans! I also got a lacey breezy cream top from EarthMusic&Ecology (Yes, I did a lot of damage at EarthMusic&Ecology) and a plain white shiny tee shirt from Yecca Vecca. I figured they’d be excellent tops to mix and match with.
Next time I really need to spend more time at Shinjuku and the Omotesando, make my way to Ginza to check out the delicious patisserie places and book to see the Ghibli Museum. Maybe the Tsukiji market. I really need a few more days in Tokyo!
Thanks to Girl on the Ave for sharing her special places with me 🙂
18 Friday Jun 2010
Posted in Travel
This was by no means my first time in Tokyo. I’ve been to some of these places below at least three times. But it was my cousin’s first time, and so we felt the need to pay the customary visit. I must say, it still feels different seeing everything again now than it did from the perspective of a teenager.
To make it a more fun and local experience, we decided to skip the boring tour bus and explore the city on our own via the subway system. After a lot of pointing and simple English phrases, I’m proud to say that I’ve finally figured out how it works! It’s confusing when they have 3 different train systems and tickets according to prices (instead of a flat fee or according to stations). But let me warn you, there’s a lot of walking involved! Oh and you can’t use your cell in the train, except for texting.
I personally don’t eat raw food, so my scope for food is limited. But do get a bowl of ramen and treat yourself to some of their lovely marbled steak. They literally melt in your mouth. It was heavenly.
13 Sunday Jun 2010
Posted in Travel
Deciding to hit two birds with one stone, we headed to Hakone for a day trip, so we can see Mt Fuji and enjoy the hot springs there. But alas, after many hours of travel, we only saw the sides of Mt Fuji because of the fog. The hot springs however were open and totally made the hours and hours of travel worth it. After the initial embarrassment of nudity, it was purely heaven. I especially enjoyed the feeling of enclosing warmth getting in again once I’ve cooled off in the breezy air. I totally recommend finding an outdoors hot spring with a good view. We went to the Hotel Green Plaza Hakone, which has hot springs with a view of Mt Fuji on a good day and includes poolside sake.
Obviously, photography is not my strong suit. I’m much better with the details. So here is a brief itinerary. The easiest way to get to Hakone is the Odakyu train at Shinjuku station, which will take you directly there in 1.5 hours with no transfers. The bullet train is also available but transfers are needed. Be sure to buy the Hakone pass. It costs 5000 yen, but is totally worth it because you will use it very frequently. Once you arrive at the Hakone station, you can take a 45 minute bus ride to Moto Hakone, where you can grab lunch and buy some souvenirs. Remember to check out their secret wooden boxes there. It doesn’t look like a very elegant home decoration at first glance, but it is a traditional Japanese craft exclusive to Hakone and the intricate woodwork is fascinating. Oh and show the restaurant your Hakone pass. You might get 10% off!
Next you can take the pirate ship to cruise Lake Ashi. There’s a temple along the way, and there’s a red gate in the middle of the lake to indicate it, which you should take note of. On a nice day, you can also see Mt Fuji. As to why there’s a pirate ship in the middle of the lake, it is beyond me. But maybe you can ask the guy in the pirate costume walking around taking pictures with people if you go.
Once you reach the other side, you can take the rope way uphill again. For me, that was the most enjoyable part of my trip after the hot springs. The Hotel Green Plaza is located at the first stop of the Ropeway. After that brief detour, we continued our way up the hill on the rope way, passing Owakudani. You can stop for a tour if you want and eat a black egg which supposedly extends your life by 7 years, but for us a picture was enough. Next came the cable car ride downhill to Gora. They claim it’s scenic with flowers, but I really didn’t see much but shrubs. From Gora, we took the local train back to the Hakone station back to the city. That was a very long and painfully slow 45 minute ride. If you still have the energy by then, the open air museum is one stop away. But alas, we were pooped and slept on the ride along with the Japanese school girls sitting opposite us.
If you have the time, I highly recommend staying a night. Because all those rides in one day really is quite grueling!
07 Monday Jun 2010
I’m off to Tokyo. Be back in a few days!
21 Tuesday Jul 2009
I’m back and I’m happy to report that Peter Luger didn’t catch on fire this time and I finally tried Pink Berry and Carnegie Deli’s! The steak was crispy (not burnt at all) and deliciously juicy, but the yoghurt was not that wow. I failed to see the difference between Pink Berry and Berry Chill (which has cooler bowls and spoons). The cornbeef sandwich was not bad, but it was ridiculously huge. The primary purpose of this trip was to actually do touristy/culture stuff and just to have girly bonding time since HG and I haven’t seen each other in forever.
On the touristy/culture stuff, we went to the Met and to watch Lion King the musical. Finally, after blogging about it for so many years, we made it to a costume institute exhibit. This year it is the Model as Muse. I really enjoyed it. Instead of just costumes on mannequins, they showed the photos when the costumes were originally shot, which really puts them into context. They organized everything by periods. It started with the 20’s (I think) and as you walked along you slowly moved through the decades. The room decor and background music were also designed to reflect the mood of each period. Magazine covers/photoshoots were lined up on display, showing works of various supermodels with mini bios etc. It was all incredibly interesting and educational. If I lived in NYC, I’d definitely go again and spend another hour or two there absorbing everything and reading every small script! If you haven’t checked it out yet, it’s not too late. The exhibit is on until August 9th.
The Lion King was also quite amazing. I am still super impressed by the stage costumes and set design. They looked so real, that if you exercised your imagination just a smidge (or squinted your eyes a bit), they’d actually look like real animals on stage singing and dancing around! Though it did take HG and I 4/5 of the show to realize that a certain character is actually a baboon.
Of course we still managed to squeeze in some shopping in our primarily “touristy/culture stuff” trip. After all, what is a trip to NYC if one doesn’t visit the only shoe department with it’s own zip code? With that in mind, we pulled ourselves out of bed early on Saturday morning and made our way to Saks at 10.30am to beat the crowd so then we can tour around with ease. We weren’t really expecting to buy anything, since it is almost the end of the sale season and all the good stuff are gone, but it’s still always fun to sit and try on shoes. So we randomly picked out a few pairs and tried them on- one of which are the Prada sports nude pumps above. I tried them on, peeked at the price tag and knew I had to have them! Perfectly pointedly rounded, at just the right height in a nude shade with the signature Prada rubber soles, they are the epitome of summer classic pumps. They are also so comfortable that I can jump in them with joy(and in fact I did, right there at 10022-SHOE!). It also helped that HG was there to give me immediate feedback, thus eliminating one of my regular shopping steps of going home, showing and analyzing them with her before making the decision. Did I mention that they were originally ~$400 and are now less than $180?? I happily carried it around midtown/upper east side for the next 7 hours of sightseeing 🙂
17 Friday Jul 2009
I’m off to NYC again. I know, I should really move there with the rate I’m flying there (or find some other place to visit). But what can you do when everything’s there? This time I’m going with HG (girls time!) and we plan to hit Peter Lugers (surely it will not catch on fire again?), Salon de Ning, Spice Market, Lion King, Chelsea, the Met (I know, I should really go see it), Balthazar and hopefully Ruby et Violette!
Oh and I just found out that one can make personalized maps on Google Map (google never ceases to amaze me by their foresight on my needs i.e. the task list). Check out the one I created today on NYC! It’s not comprehensive yet, but I will add and annotate as I go along. Now if only I can print this out and actually be able to tell what each of the icons actually mean. Maybe they should have numbered icons…
08 Wednesday Jul 2009
Tags
Finally, time to catch my breath. Tthe past month has been a blur. I just came back from San Diego for the long weekend. This is my second time there, but I definitely feel like I saw/did much more this time around.
To begin with, I went kayaking. For the record, my form of exercise includes walking to work everyday and holding shopping bags. So clearly I was out of my element in the wild shores of La Jolla. To top it off, the day wasn’t even nice. It was overcast and COLD. Freezing cold. I couldn’t understand how people were walking around in their bikini’s! I still remember the first cold splash of wave crashing into me just when I got on the kayak. The actual kayaking is much more difficult than it looks in the videos and not half as cool. It is hard to navigate, tiring and naseating. I was seasick within 15 minutes. Our guide was also an environmentalist who made us help her pick up trash from the ocean and leave our shades by the beach (in case we drop it and add more to the pollution). I’m all for saving the environment, but that is not quite my idea of a holiday. The 7 caves themselves (the reason why we had to wear extremely uncool helmuts) were not that impressive. Their definition of a “tour” of it is apparently making a small semi circle into the cave circling the entrance- not quite how I imagined a tour of the cave to be. In the end I was so bad at it that our guide offered to pull us back to shore (I’m guessing she has better things to do than wait for me to struggle my way back). All in all though, it wasn’t a completely bad experience. At least I tried right?
As luck would have it, La Jolla was enclosed underneath this gloomy cloud all weekend (I hypothesized that it’s some erie haunted cloud). My perfectly planned out beach outfit was completely wasted! Though it did have the grace to go away briefly when we went to George’s by the Cove for a July 4th dinner. It was an annual private event on their terrace, where they had a set menu and an excellent view of the fireworks. We somehow stumbled upon it during our research, and I’m glad we did. Because while the food was not superb, the view certainly was. I’ve seen a LOT of fireworks in my life, some much grander than this one, but this one was one of the best experiences. I’ve never seen it so up close before! It was like right above us, like sparks raining down. It was also one of my most memorable 4th of July’s (it may also be because it’s my first in the US). I’ve never experienced so much patriotism than when the table next to me (dressed all in red, white and blue) started bursting out the american anthem.
Most people say that La Jolla is one of the most beautiful places in San Diego. But I beg to differ. I much prefer Coronado, more specifically the hotel del Coronado. We went there for dinner, but even though the sky was overcast that day and there were lots of teenagers and children running around making it feel like a camp ground, I still loved it. The view and the sand was beautiful. The villas lining the beach were heavenly. And the hotel was like a little village in itself, complete with shops, multiple restaurants, spa facilities and even their own ice cream shop! Obviously I’ve never been to an actual resort before! I imagine myself sitting there at the beach under an umbrella, reading a chick lit, while drinking a strawberry smoothie.
But alas, I had to give up that fantasy to go to the San Diego zoo, since I still haven’t been (I forgoed it last time I was here in favor of Six Flags LA). It was quite organized and impressive for a zoo, but I wasn’t too impressed since I didn’t actually see that many animals in action. They were all hiding from the heat. I did however adopted a polar bear from the store, which made the trip all worth it. It’s called Buffy- after Warren Buffet, not the vampire slayer.
Ps. For those of you who are thinking of visiting, besides hotel del Coronado, other worthy hotels in the area include: Grant Hyatt, the Ivy and the Omnihotel.
PPs. I do have a lot of fashion related concerns pent up in me. I just haven’t had time yet to get it out. This week should be a quiet week though, so stay tune!
02 Thursday Jul 2009
Posted in Random Musings, Travel
….except I didn’t recognize her. She walked right past me and all I saw was that she was really made up, had gorgeous hair and a really hot body. But her body guards/assistants, the heavy filming equipment and the myriad fans outside made me think that that I should really know who this is. Finally I asked the hotel staff and they clued me in that it was Mariah Carey, filming her latest mv- Obsession. The crazy fans and the extravagant set finally made sense after that.
Personally I’ve never been a big fan of her’s (I would’ve been more excited spotting the filming of Gossip Girl), but it was a good NYC experience nevertheless. On this trip I also tried Craft Steak and Megu. Craft Steak not that great. The steak were overly seasoned/salty, and the steak itself was very dry. I guess this is what happens when all the cow gets to eat is grass. I loved Megu though. It was just my kind of cooked Japanese food place. If you don’t have anywhere to go to last minute, I recommend Megu Midtown. Located at the Trump Tower next to the UN, there was almost nobody there. Yet the food and the service were both excellent. Love love love.
Other random thoughts……. when my friend told me last Thursday that “MJ is dead” I immediately thought of Marc Jacobs and immediately felt really devastated! But then I realized that my friend cannot possibly know who Marc Jacobs is (or if he did, he wouldn’t call him MJ), I googled it up to find that it was actually Michael Jackson. I feel bad to admit it, but I think I actually felt a little relieved it was Michael and not Marc. Marc still has a long way to go to reach his full potential!
Yay, everyone is leaving early today! I’m off to catch my flight to SD. Happy 4th of July everyone!
Tea with BG 
