Holiday Hauls

One thing that really excites me about travelling international is the duty free shop at the airport. I kid you not. Oh, I'm not talking about tobacco products (it is way way cheaper before tax), liquor or chocolate as well as perfume. 

It is the skin care and make up that make me beaming from ear to ear. Every time I browse skin care and make up at duty free, my logic all gone out the window. It doesn't matter that I still have 2 brand new cleansers, multiple masks/moisturizers/mascaras at home, I still feel the need to purchase more. 

It is like I'm only travel international a few times per year so die die must make use of the duty free. Not that I know how much the price difference but every thing does feel cheaper when you swipe your card. Just be prepare for the heart attack when you're opening your credit card statement that month.

I was away to Bali last week with my sister and we went a tiny bit crazy at the duty free. I was only looking for eye cream because I've ran out of my Estee Lauder Advanced Night Repaired Eye cream. And I came out with basically whole set of skin care to makeup wtf.

My duty free loots

One of my biggest weakness at the duty free shop is travel size items. It is perfect for travelling (duh) and a great opportunity to try new products.

I got this travel size products from Kiehl's featuring the Ultra Facial Creme, Avocado Creamy Eye Treatment, Amino Acid Shampoo, The Original Rich Nourishing Creme, Hand Salve and a Lip Balm #1 (which is in my bag) for only RM299. 

I think this one is a steal considering the Ultra Facial Creme, Hand Salve and Lip Balm are in full size. I also got the Kiehl's Midnight Recovery Eye which I still forgot to use at night now. MAC Studio Fix is an impulse buy for me. I've finish my compact powder and in need of a new one. I was using Loreal True Match (the rectangular one) but I think they discontinue it. So I got Loreal Real Paris Lucent Magique  Tri Powder. I did tried my sister's Studio Fix and really love it. So she dragged me to MAC counter and let the MUA picked my shade. Since it is cheaper than buying outside, I purchased the Studio Fix. 

Long story short, I had very little self control when it comes to skin care and make up shopping. Same thing happened when we're in Sephora in Bali.

My sister made me Googled Sephora Bali and made it a must for us to stop by ='=

And stopped by we did. In the span of one hour waiting for her to tried on all the lipsticks there, I came out with a big bag of stuff and instantly became poorer. Truth is, I do not need anything at all because I have so much excess skin care and make up products at home. 

But I just kept on putting more and more stuff into my basket.

And these are our hauls combined.

I got the Glam Glow set which came with full size Glam Glow Tingling and Exfoliating Mud Mask, mini size of Supermud Mask, Facial Cleanser and duo applicator brush. I already tried the Mud Mask and loves it so much. I will do a separate review post soon. 

Another items which are mine are the Dr Jart BB cream and the Beauty Blender and Beauty Blender cleanser as well as Porefessional Matte Rescue which apparently a better version of the old one. 

I did have something on my must buy list for this trip, which is dry shampoo. Batiste Dry Shampoo is my holy grail product because it really helps my oily hair and extends the day between washes. Sadly, it is very difficult to get. It is sold online but they can't ship to Sarawak except Hermo but the price in Hermo is like almost double the original price.

The only place that I know carries Bariste Dry Shampoo is Jaya Grocer in KLIA2. I even purposely purchased 15kg of luggage allowance to lug back the dry shampoo.

I got 5 bottles of the full size.

My favorite scents which are Cherry and Fresh are not available so I chose whatever is left. I also wiped the mini dry shampoos off the shelf. I go through one bottle of the spray in a month. This product helps me so much in the morning because I can just skip hair wash and sleep for extra 15 minutes. Also it adds volume to my limp hair. 

Random buy from Bali:

Bath and Body Works mini candles. 

They're having Buy 3 get 1 free promotion so my sister and I get two each.

These are my random buy at Bali Airport because I wanted to finish off my Rupiah.

Oh yeah, I did bought something apparel wise and it is something that I have been on the hunt for. I missed the chance to get it while I was in Hong Kong and randomly stumbled upon it at KLIA2. It was on my birthday wishlist.

My black Nike Roshe

I am so happy to finally got this sneaker. It will perfect for travelling and will match any outfit effortlessly. That means two things off my birthday wishlist now. Feeling so grateful and thankful that my wishes are coming true. 

Carousell or Carouhell?

If you do most of your shopping online, I'm sure you have heard of Carousell. Carousell is the app for you to sell or buy anything at a discounted price because it is pre-loved although more and more online stores joining Carousell lately.

Before signing up for Carousell, I have heard so much about it. It's a mix review, some love it and some hate it. I even took it to Twitter and asked for opinion.

Guess who answered me?

After much consideration, I signed up and started to spring cleaning my closet. I have too much clothes that been sitting at the back of my closet for more than a year. It is definitely time for someone else to shower them with love.

I have my listing up and me being me, I scrolled through the app and found some items that I liked. That is how I got from trying to sell my stuff and ended up buying more stuff. ='= 

So far, I have pleasant experience with sellers from Carousell, they are honest and have prompt response. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for my sister. I introduced her to Carousell because I know that she's been looking for a particular style of sandals. What I forgot to tell her was to check on her seller. Carousell has a section for seller or buyer to leave comment about their seller or buyer.

I have zero reviews because I haven't sell anything on my list.

My sister was so excited for her sandals that she transferred her money immediately the next day. After waiting for 3 days without response from the seller, she checked on her account and to her horror, the account was suspended.

Many has reported the account due to fraud and Carousell suspended it. We read through the current comment thread on the account and found out others were being cheated by the seller too. She was devastated. Her dream sandals and money were gone. For her, it's Carouhell. 

I was feeling sorry for her and forgot to remind her to check on the review section. As for me, I have wonderful experience shopping at Carousell. The sellers are honest in stating the fault in their items if there is any and very prompt in replying my message. The interest buyers that inquired about my items are polite too. 

I got the floral kimono from Carousell for less than RM20.

Do check out my list here if you're intrested. For anyone that try Carousell before, do share your experience with me, I love to hear about it. If you have anything that you want to let go, sign up for it, you know what they say, one man thrash is another man treasure.

Day Trip at Kuching

Posting some backdated photos from February because I love it. Hahaha

Good lighting is the secret to healthy glowing skin on camera. 

Lunch at Bak Kut Teh with my family. I used to really love the BKT here but over the years, the taste has changed and the ingredients left are 3 pieces of meats and 3 stalks of veggies.

The one opposite Parkson has better BKT with creamier soup and lots of ingredients, plus it worth the money.

A week prior to Chinese New Year, I went on a daytrip to Kuching just to shopping. The initial plan was to shop for my CNY clothes there but I came back with only one item of clothing which is a pyjama top. #fail. Lucky online shopping came to the rescue.

In flight selfie with the bf. 

I really love how fate works in this universe. It created such a great timing for two people whom had not meet for almost a year or two to cross path at the airport.

Met my long time bestie from uni before he took off on a flight to attend his training for another 9 months. It was a brief 5 minutes but at least I get to talk and wished him luck. Can't wait to see you again, Abang!

I thought I would be the one that will came home with lots of shopping bags but it turned out to be the bf. I'm not that excited to shop in store for clothes as well because H&M and Cotton On carries the same designs/styles and nothing really up my alley. But I did had a splendid time browsing at Sephora, half constraining myself from buying all the makeup and skin care. Nearly lost my self control in there, phew.

Brain freeze with my Mocha from Starbucks.

Now move on to the interesting part, my shopping haul!

All of these are from SaSa. I got all of these on a deal except for the Cyber Color Eyebrow Pencils.

But I ended up selling the perfume because 1) I already had too much perfume 2) my bf has the same perfume. 

Masks are free gifts from SaSa and the Crabtree & Evelyn hand cream is my lucky draw gift from The Springs. The rest are from Sephora. The mini Benefit items except for Porefessional are my birthday gifts from Sephora card. Actually this is the main reason why I insisted on this day trip. I want to claim my birthday gifts. And of course, I miss Kuching life. 

I am so excited now because in about a week time, I will be going to Cambodia. I'm really excited to visit the famous Angkor Wat and having Khmer dishes. It will be a different experience because we will be exploring Phnom Penh and Siam Reap on our own.

Having done lots of research and reading about history and background of those places will not be the same as in exploring it. Now I need to get back to my packing list and itinerary. Bye!

Bangkok Girly Trip Part 1

My Bangkok trip this time is all about shopping and food plus good massages too. It was so impromptu that we booked our flight for this 3 months ago. But as the date for our holiday drew closer, Thailand was in chaos with all the protests and Thai coup curfew. My dad was against my wish to go and we almost cancelled the whole trip.

Lucky we didn't because it was absolutely safe there, or at Bangkok at least. The media really know how to blow up their news and make everything 10 times worse than it is. I have been closely following up on the news about Thailand and everyone who went there during the period said it is completely safe.

Anyway, back to my trip. Behold yourself and don't read if you're hungry because it is all food porn. LOL

For this trip we stayed at Hotel Vista Express which located at Soi 19 Pratunam, The hotel was clean and quiet but the location is too secluded. It is located at an alley which only accessible by foot or vehicles coming from the other side because it is a one way street. But it is still okay for us la since taxis are abundant and cheap in Bangkok.

On our first night, we had our dinner at this stall in Chinatown.

It is very popular apparently and located just by the road side. And it has a very long queue. Lucky us got seats after 20 minutes or so.

Tom yam gong. Yummy-ness in a bowl. But it is smaller that I've expected.

A spicy steam fish but I really hate the parsley(is it) on top of it.

Sorry, half eaten food because we were starving. We had crabmeat, squids in salty egg, tofu, morning glory, fried egg and cockles. Basically everything seafood la but the bills was very cheap. Only 100++ Baht for 6 persons.

All of us! Patchy and Maple are Sara's friends and so friendly and nice.

Told ya it was a long queue. 

One more photo of the food from my phone because it was so delicious.

With Sara, the mastermind of this trip. She did all the research about where to eat and which restaurants we must visit.

After dinner we went to Sixcret (?) for drinks. Can't really remember the name of the place because I was beyond sleepy after dinner. I woke up at 6 in the morning that day because of our early flight.

Sara's photography skill lolololo

My skill hahahahha 

Day 2! Ready to eat and shop.

For lunch we head over to Koreatown to try Doorae  since it is highly rated by everyone. 

The pork is sooooo gooodddd!

All ready to dig in

More and more dishes coming in. 

We really over ordered but the bill quite okay leh. 

Can't finish it all

Here's the address if you guys keen:

Address: 12 Thanon Sukhumvit, แขวง คลองเตย เขต คลองเตย กรุงเทพมหานคร 10110, Thailand

Just google translate if you want to know in English but if not, just show this to your taxi driver, they sure know where it is.

Next is dessert time at Mango Tango.

They have this rule where the minimum order must be 3 so we all just share all the 3 desserts. We had mango sticky rice, mango pudding and something mango sago, I can't recall the name. 

True to its fame, our desserts are all delicious. 

After stuffing ourselves, it's time to hit Siam Paragon. Shopping time but I didn't bought much, I even left Forever 21 empty handed. Don't know is it me growing old or my taste has changed, nothing really caught my eyes this time. However I still got some great haul from Bangkok.

During one of my many fitting room session. Got bored because none of the tops fit me well so I took selfie instead.

Massage after shopping. It felt so good to have people massage your feet after walking whole day. 

Did I warned you that this trip was all about food for me?



So, we went to After You after massage for tea break. As always After You was packed and we waited around half an hour for our seats.

We girls being girls. Everyone wiped out their phone when our food came. Hehehhee I love people whom share the same passion with me.

The real reason we're here, Shibuya Honey Toast. It still taste the same and so good. The toast is so soft in the inside and mix it with honey, one word: perfect!

Sorry yu fen, this is our one and only group photo. See people outside the cafe, those were still waiting for their turn. 

That's all for Part 1 of my Bangkok trip now. Will continue soon.

Sereni & Shentel

I bet this name is familiar to all of you, especially Gossip Girls fans. I have heard about this brand few years back when it started to blooming. Back then, I can only admire it through the screen of my laptop because well, I was just fresh out of university with only meagre earnings. I really couldn't justify the purchase to myself.

Few years after, I thought I'm over it. But man, how wrong was I! I don't know how I ended up on their site today, http://sereniandshentel.com/ . I swear my mouse clicked on it itself. I was just browsing through and read on how they started it. These women are really superwomen, they have their full time job, families and still can make time for their business.

I'm not exactly an accessories kind of girl. I barely put on any accessories on daily basis and realized how boring I am. I decided to stop that, I don't want to be boring. So now I put in some efforts in my accessories department, adding some earrings to pair with my outfit. Baby steps you know.

When I saw these gorgeous headband today, I knew I need to have it. Poppies in Sibu stock their headband and I'm itching to get my hands on these babies but it is raining outside. So I just let the mouse did its job, clicking here and there and soon the babies will be in my hands. Can 't wait!

See, even Blair Waldorf and her muses are donning it. 

 
Images are taken from Sereni & Shentel website