Brick by Brick

Hello dears, here I am taking a break between assignments because I'm just that lazy!

Haven't done anything exciting really. Had a few days of pure work and uni just started this past Monday. The only semi exciting thing that's happened would have been last Friday when Freak came over to visit!

Well, actually she went to a dental check up in Onehunga as she purchased a deal for $69 (usual price was $200 some) which included a check up, cleaning and two xrays. Since I live close by, we hung out! Unfortunately for her, she discovered that she's going to need six or so fillings and she's having her wisdom teeth removed (although, I can't be sure if it's 1 or two...). Her last check up was about two years ago and there was no problem. My last check up was way back in intermediate school which was 8 or 9 years ago? I should probably go have a check up too then haha.

To take her mind off the impending doom, I took her to a nearby cafe called Brick by Brick. I really love this cafe FOR REASONS THAT NO ONE NEEDS TO KNOW because of the name. Before it opened, I already decided I liked it because it's got such a cute name and the decoration is also appealing. The first time I went was with Sc. To be completely honest, I don't really remember how the taste was since I was completely absorbed in everything Sc was saying. I did learn though that the cafe is owned and run by Japanese people - probably explains the beautiful presentations and slight culture confusion.

Oh I'm sorry, you'll need an explanation for that. In NZ (if it's the same overseas, inform my uneducated soul), cafe food is really expensive and you could almost categorize the food as rabbit food. It is usually served as a small portion on a big plate.

I was determined to go to Brick by Brick again, so my second time was with Freak.

Our order number! Boring, like every cafe in NZ.

This time, I was going to eat there and remember the food! No Sc to fascinate me. We ordered drinks and food - we both hadn't eaten breakfast and it was already past noon. So excuse us for wanting to stuff ourselves with food.

My iced mocha. The chocolate sauce tasted a bit weird - it was delicious but I think there was a hint of caramel flavour?

Freak ordered a latte

We waited a while for our food, Freak told me about her family and how she got a Longchamp bag. I've never really been into this brand as it never caught my eye. But when she showed me, the zip of the bag instantly caught my attention. So much so, I am considering getting one just for the zip.

It's gorgeous! Well, at least I like it. I don't know why either.

I've recently been looking at the tag whatsinmybag on Instagram. I'm a really nosy person so seeing pictures of what everyone lugs around in their bag really fascinates me. I want a bag that I can throw most things in and not worry about it breaking. My current bag makes me worry a bit, and it's pretty shinny. I currently use a black bag by Agnes B. To be completely honest with you, I only bought the bag because of the adorable charm it came with. I'll do a post on that bag one day. I bought that bag while I was in Japan. If I had passed any Samantha Thavasa stores, I would probably have gone crazy with that brand. Thank god I didn't know about it till later and didn't look at their products till recently.

So recently, I've been looking for a bag that doesn't stand out as much as these brands (so yes, that means no big brands like LV or bags that have really well known brands). Something cheap that I won't be afraid to destroy. Longchamp doesn't fit these criteria, so I'll put off getting that bag for a while. =) I went to Yesstyle and looked through their catalogue and I was instantly reminded of Chinatown in Botany. Chinatown is a miserable excuse for a mall and it's probably nearly all closed down or are closing down. I'll have to go check if they have any cheap sales before work tomorrow. Otherwise, I'm going to just use a plastic bag. JOKING.

I think this is option E on the menu at Brick by Brick...

Right, back to the topic. That meal was huge. Two pieces of toast, two gigantic pieces of hashbrowns, scrambled egg, mushrooms, tomato (you can't see it), bacon and sausages. Ok so technically that was one sausage split down the middle. For the toast, we had a choice between garlic, vogel and white. I chose garlic and Freak chose vogel. I had vogel last time with Sc, and I think I prefer that one. We both had trouble finishing that meal! The hashbrowns were probably too crispy, but I LIKE IT CRISPY! The sausage is the one with cheese in it. Omfggggggggggggg I almost died and went to heaven. /fatnis.

After lunch, Freak had one filling done and then we went to the outlet mall. Everything sucks there. But I did have a picture taken!

These were heart shaped shades for $5.

Of course, I didn't buy them! Deep down I may have wanted to have them, but when I put them on, I noticed that it didn't actually shade anything... I was disappointed and thirsty so I left and bought a bottle of water (I know, shocking) and Freak bought a pair of gym shorts before we headed back home. I gave her her presents (some of the stuff I got from The Body Shop post a while back) and then we decided to go to Momo Tea for dinner. (OK, many hours already passed! After lunch, we spent nearly two hours at the dentist, and then another two at the mall and then over an hour at home!) Still, we were not particularly hungry. We picked up Ace (who lives in the middle of no where in South Auckland) and headed over to Momo Tea for drinks and snacks. Spent so much money that day...

And here's the final photo of this post:

OMG GUAVA!!!

Firstly, I've never seen guava that small. Secondly, it's my first time seeing guava in New Zealand. I ate heaps of guava when I was in HK but they were all bigger than apples! But in NZ they are really expensive - around $10 per kilo. =( 

Right, back to doing my assignments.

Birthday dindin at Haru no Yume and a bit of D3 speak

In my last post, I mentioned that I bought the game and installed it. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I didn't manage to play it right away but I have managed to get a few hours into it. ("I'll just do this one quest..." *three hours later...* FML).

Actually, give me a sec. I'll just create a Tui inspired ad about that.

Yeah well I don't care what kind of gamer you are: pro, semi-pro, "serious" gamer, gamer's gf significant other who occasionally likes to game... but let's face it. It's NEVER just one quest. Now I don't remember whether I mentioned it before, and I can't be bothered checking my post... but the laptop I am using doesn't even reach the minimum requirements that's written in small font on the box. What I've learnt so far? THAT ONE SECOND LAG IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH. FML. I've never died so fast and so often while playing Diablo. Well ok, so it's D3 and considering there's like a decade gap between D2 and D3, harder gameplay should be expected. But seriously, I DIED AT LEVEL 8. God, I'm getting old. It's so embarrassing, I can't even carry on blogging about this.

So I'm moving on. To the dinner I went to last night! I aimed to get this post up when I returned home, but that didn't happen. Excuse my lazy.

It's Freak's birthday soon but since it's really difficult getting people together to celebrate we just decided to do something small, just the (important) girls and have dinner (and to top it off, it's just her 22nd birthday so it's not like a gigantic milestone. Ok I'm sorry, EVERY BIRTHDAY IS A GIGANTIC MILESTONE, congratulations, you're one year closer to death.) We went to a Japanese restaurant situated in the heart of Mt Eden Village. 

Haru no Yume

To be honest with you, I think the food is average and overpriced. If they're charging me $12 for a plate of deep fried chicken, it better be a freaking huge plate of chicken. The thing you're paying for is really the location. Of course, if you're rich and like dining in the heart of Mt Eden, go for it. The food is nice, and so is the setting (if you like dark restaurants - which I don't, but if I think it's acceptable then it should be ok right?)

Due to how dark it was, I didn't feel like putting in so much effort to take and edit pictures. Sorry for the crap photos. I ordered a green salad (which came with some sort of sesame dressing), a plate of spicy chicken karaage (deep fried pieces of chicken) and a bowl of miso soup.

Cup of dressing! It's actually a tiny cup!

That's how tiny it was! It was so cute!

At first, I didn't realise how bad I am at taking pictures. After I took it, I realised oh gee, no one's gonna know how small it is so I made Ace pick it up and pose with it. Then her order of yakisoba (stir fried noodles) came and it came in a gigantic bowl/plate/thing. It was so gigantic, we were silent for about 30 seconds before voicing a reaction.

At this point, I thought to myself "stop being so lazy and get out your camera". I should have listened to myself.

While waiting for food, we took a few pictures. They didn't turn out that well, some were taken with my iPhone, and others were taken by Freak's tablet.

Birthday girl Freak and I.

Top: Jenjen's sashimi set meal ($36). Bottom left: tamago yaki (egg) and bottom right: seaweed salad.

The last two pics were taken and edited by Freak. Following our dinner, the four of us went to have dessert across the road at Casa del Gelato. I've only been there once, but it's delicious! The first time I went, I think I bought Rocher (Ferrero Rocher taste) and some coffee flavour. This time, I picked Rocher and Crunchie. The crunchie didn't really taste like anything so I was mildly disappointed. I gobbled it up so I could start enjoying the Rocher.

DELICIOUS!!!

Wow! It was really delicious. Only Freak and I bought some and the other two just sat and watched us eat. After we finished, they decided to get some. Freak and I wanted some more (which is why you must always takeaway or leave as soon as you finish!!!) and for the second round, I bought Rocher for both the scoops and swore that I'd only ever pay for Rocher. That's how good it is.

Ace's attempt to get a picture of Jenjen... she made us move and stand there.

Overall, a pretty good night. Probably ate and spent way too much for my liking! That's ok though, I didn't spend any money today and don't plan on spending any tomorrow. But what I should have done and what I should do is do some study and finish some of my assignments which I haven't even looked at.

D3

SOooooooooooooo I bought D3 (that's Diablo III for those of you who don't game) yesterday before I went to work. JB hi-fi were having a sale - 20% off all games and like usual, I went on the very last day to get a copy. =_=

I didn't get to play it instantly because you know... work and all. Sunday nights are usually meh but yesterday was Father's Day (in NZ, Father's Day usually falls on the first Sunday of September) and IT WAS MEGA BUSY! We went over $5000 for the day which is our benchmark for a celebration. I didn't stay though because I was too lazy.

I figured I'd install the game but I ended up just mucking around before going to sleep. Then today (Monday) I didn't wake up till around noon and I spent the afternoon sorting through my iPhone pictures - will be uploading the ones from Japan and Hong Kong in a future blog post. Yes, I know... late by 9 months. When I got bored of sorting, I installed the game.

Here's the box in all it's glory. I suppose a hastily taken iPhone pic is not actually that glorious.

Just as I was trying to decide on my character, I received a text from Shu asking if I was free because it appears that her car got towed. Now, I haven't done anything all day, I had just woken up about four hours ago, rolled out of bed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, had breakfast... so I sighed and shut down D3 even before entering in a name for the character! Chucked on some minimally publicly acceptable clothing (would have been a total poster girl for Nike if my entire outfit wasn't completely black - Nike hoodie, track pants and shoes. Hideous mess I tell you.) and drove over to the shore to sort her out. Driving there now requires you to go through a tunnel, one that I've never been through before. I wasn't really paying attention and so when it suddenly went dark I was like "OMFGWTFBBQ?" Sorry if I panicked ok, tunnels are like a near extinct species in NZ. That was the most exciting thing that happened to me today. Drove through a tunnel.

When I got to Shu, it turns out that yes her car did get towed away but they just towed it onto a side street and left it safe and sound there. She didn't even have to pay the usual $200 to get her car back. Someone just had it moved. Weird. Afterwards, we left and went to Botany to try KiwiYo which had just opened at the mall recently - like in the last couple of days.

Mah yoghurt with some fruit and lollies

Ok the concept is this, there's this shop and it's all self serviced. There are a range of yoghurt that is dispensed from a few machines. There are like 8-10 or so different flavours and then you can put toppings on it. Lollies, fruit, chocolate, fudge, nuts, cereal and various syrups/sauces. When you're done creating your yoghurt, you head off to the register and it gets weighed - you pay by weight. The combinations are up to you, you can have one flavour, two flavours or all flavours with no toppings or as many as you like. It's just a matter of money.

I got Irish toffee flavoured yoghurt (it just tastes like coffee to tell you the truth) and on top of that I had a combination of blueberry tart and banana strawberry. The banana strawberry was weird. My toppings were pineapple, lychee and sour lollies. That cost something like $5.15!!! My god. Expensive. At the moment, I prefer Yoghurt Story over this mainly because the yoghurt from Yoghurt Story actually tastes like yoghurt... I'm going to have to give KiwiYo a few more tries before I can truly say which is best.

Following that, we went to have a feast at Yos Mite. Yeah, not a good idea. I probably gained 20pounds form that meal. Ugh. Too much meat, too many flavours. 

This post is going to end here now. Must get the pictures sorted soon so I can upload and blog about them. Long awaited.

Family dinner at MAKODO

It's been a while since I went out with my parents. Today I went with my mother to a few open homes. The first one we saw was a complete trash. Seriously, you can't trust photos... they can make a dump look like heaven and that's not taking photoshop into consideration even.

Our last house viewing was to take place after my father finished work so we decided to wait. While waiting for my father, I was trying to be Asian. I haven't camwhored in forever and so I'm so very rusty. I'm going to have to up my game and polish my image way better!!

That and I'm going to have to clean that mirror!

The houses we viewed today were in Papatoetoe, South Auckland. That suburb is on the rise... the last house we viewed today was a tidy brick and tile house with a large backyard which was clear that the landlord had long given up on using a lawn mower. My father wandered through the forest grass and muttered to himself "who needs a lawn mower, just have a couple of cows and she'll be right".

My only disappointment about that house is that it's the third house behind two large ones. It does have its own driveway, although straight as it is... that driveway is probably over 25 metres long.

After leaving the place, we decided to go have dinner at a small restaurant that goes by the name of MAKODO in Botany/Howick area. It is run by a chef that used to work in the restaurant I work at. He's by ethnicity a Chinese man, but he learnt and trained in Japan and by Japanese chefs. Apparently the kanji he used for the restaurant name is meant to be pronounced "makoto" but I'm going to stand on his side and assume he chose to use "makodo" to protect his ass since there will probably be haters who will riot "that restaurant isn't even authentic" then the owner can easily say "I'm not claiming to be authentic!"

EXTREMELY hot miso soup!

My parents are vegetarian and since this chef is strictly vegetarian on certain days of the month for religious reasons, his vegetarian cooking is very strict as well (he does cook meat food since he's not vegetarian all the time). He has two deep fryers - which considering the size of his restaurant, two is one more than enough. One of the fryers is strictly for vegetarians and the other has meat products go through it.

Deep fried tofu pieces with sweet miso paste. Garnished with coriander and sesame seeds.

Some of his dishes are very obviously "inspired" from the restaurant I work at. It's cheaper as well but there's no obvious competition. We also ordered a bowl of udon soup. It came with tofu, mushroom, seaweed, cucumber and was once again garnished with coriander. Udon is a thick type of noodles.

MAKODO's vegetarian udon soup.

Vegetarian box set - served with rice and miso soup.

This is surprisingly cheap! Set at NZD$12 for all that! That box contains spinach dipped in a thick, sweet miso paste, salad dressed with delicious Japanese sesame dressing, vegetarian sushi (avocado, carrots and pickles) and three slices of "vegetarian fish" (soy based). I love the sesame dressing! I once bought a small bottle and it was practically all we ate until the bottle ran out.

Vegetable tempura

This was a dish of kumara, eggplant, okra and pumpkin slices deep fried in a tempura style! Taking into account that the fryer has extra clean oil (has only ever deep fried these vegetables), these came out really good. The tempura taste was very distinct and although the oil could have been drained better (I've had tempura made by the same chef so I know he could have drained the oil a bit better), you could taste that the oil was very clean (not mixed with meat, cleaned often etc).

That dish was made so well that my mother ordered another serving for takeaway! It's obvious this chef puts a lot of effort into his dishes even though he runs a small restaurant and there aren't many customers. Wish him luck and hope he'll gain lots of customers or enough money to move to a better location!

Mission101: Attempt 2

Introduction

I don't know how many of you have heard of or even participated in the Mission101 Challenge/Day Zero Project. I attempted once before but failed dramatically - only completing about a third of my goals. Now I've once again decided to give it a second attempt and Shuyiin might do it with me! Many of the goals are actually pretty simple but I've had them on my to do list for many years! Probably just have to kick that procrastination bucket and get on with it.

What is this challenge? Basically, you set yourself 101 goals and you have 1001 days to complete them all. According to the Day Zero Project website, this was created by some New Zealander called Michael Green. If you want to join in, you could easily find inspiration from the site or create your own. You don't even need to join up! But if you want to take a look at their Top 101 then you're going to have to create an account and sign in.

The Mission: 

Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria: 

Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days? 

Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as New Year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organising and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Dates:

Start date: Saturday 1st of September, 2012
End date: Saturday 30th of May, 2015

New post coming soon!

Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd I'm back.

Been a while, but nothing exciting has happened since the last time I posted. If you MUST know, I was sick for 2-3 weeks this month and I didn't go to work for 3 weeks. I'm going to be particularly poor next month. Sadly.

I'm now on mid semester break! We had tests last week - one of which was a multichoice test. Although it was really easy, I'm highly scared of these MCQ's so here's hoping, I didn't fail it.

Since I've been sick, I haven't left the house very often other than going to uni. I've spent a lot of time streaming dramas though! I've started and finished watching Game of Thrones and Suits. When I say finished, I mean I'm up to speed and waiting for season 3. Now I'm searching for something else to watch! Elementary is coming out soon, will give that a try when it comes out. Hope it's as good as the commercials make it out to be.

I've gone back and gone through my first (failed) attempt at Mission101. It wasn't bad though, I've done a quite a few of the things on the list. I've gone and deleted a lot of stuff and adding some. I'm going to refine it and then make a post on that. Just trying to figure out how to present it.

Every time I complain my life is getting dull...

It gets interesting!


Woke up this morning and was greeted with this message:

Auckland to Osaka or Tokyo from $549!!!

That is some crazy deal! Sadly I didn't take advantage of it since I have uni. =(

Speaking of which, I'm currently taking this geo paper and the lecturer bores me to death. I can't hang onto any of his words after three sentences. I've only experienced another lecturer like this, and I thought it was the subject. Turns out, nah.

But today, this geo lecturer kept saying the phrase "shades of grey". As in "how many shades of grey can you see?", "1, 2, 3, 4 shades of grey!", "and in this picture, 256 shades of grey!". And that's about all I got out of that lecture - 256 shades of grey = 8bit. Will have to look at the slides again to determine the meaning.

On an unrelated note, day three of being healthy and...

I took one look at the above screenshot and...

 Decided life is too short and had ice cream.

I am not a fan of this brand, but they put out flavours that sound like it will be delicious! I think the taste is bland, there's only a hint of what it's supposed to taste like and it doesn't taste like the ice cream I'm used to. I.e., it tastes like healthy ice cream, but it probably isn't, who knows.

After uni (by which I mean this evening, I was invited to a Japanese movie screening at the Civic in central Auckland. This was my first time at the Civic and now I understand why everyone throws a fit every time someone dares to suggest we tear the building down. I couldn't take pictures inside the building - I only had my iPhone and that definitely wouldn't do it justice, I was too busy admiring the view and also, I didn't want to block people. However, I did do a quick Google Image search for it so you can click here and look at something beautiful.

Ticketek needs to get better looking tickets, or at least the ones for the Civic needs to match the beauty of the building.

The movie was called Kiseki (English name: I Wish) and according to IMDb it is directed by Hirokazu Koreeda. It's a really sweet movie about two brothers who are separated from each other due to their parent's splitting up. The two brothers and their friends all have a wish and they believe a miracle will happen when the first shinkansen (bullet trains) pass each other, so they travel to the point where the trains will pass each other to make their wish.

It's one of those movies that leaves you feeling hopeful even though you know that nothing extremely magical will happen. It's simplicity creates a happy and fulfilled ending but at the same time, a little sad and you're left trying to hold onto that one grain of hope and you wonder what happens to the characters next?

I want to watch more work by this director. Perhaps I'll like kids more afterwards.

NZ IS EVOLVING!

So I'm guilty of saying my life is boring at the moment and I need to do something to create some excitement.

This morning, I took the train into the CBD (like I usually do when I go to uni) and when I got there I almost walked into one of these:

Upon seeing them, I almost squealed in excitement.

I'm sure you (and the rest of the world) know what they are and will probably look at them in disdain but this system is new to Auckland, New Zealand. These will act as the gate barrier in and out of the train platforms at Britomart (Auckland's transport hub in the CBD - although when I say transport hub, the building is more of a train station than anything else).

NOTE: now don't be fooled by the beauty. That picture has been through two filters. Follow me on Instagram: "essenity"!

Currently, when you take the train in Auckland, you buy the ticket before you get on the train. Once on, there is a man that goes around to everybody. You will present your ticket to him and he will use a hole puncher to punch a hole on the ticket. If you did not buy a ticket prior to boarding the train, you can buy one off the ticket person - cash only. However, there have been instances during rush hour when the ticket person fails to get around to every person before the train reaches the next station. I suspect many people will not pay if they only ride one station. This ticket person is also responsible for opening the train doors when the train reaches the next station... he gets off the train and lets people out and in. So very often, he gets back on and fails to remember every person he's already taken a ticket from etc. I've seen a ticket man miss over ten passengers due to the number of people that get on after the first station.

If this system was used anywhere else in the world, I'm pretty sure many many people would take advantage of this and not pay. But many times in NZ, I've seen people lining up after getting off the train and waiting patiently (during rush hour, no less) for the ticket guy to punch a hole before leaving. Now, there's no reason for them to do this because once they are off the train, it's free for all. There are no barriers that keep you stuck in the station, you can walk off just like that. There are no dates on these tickets, if they don't get a hole punched through it, you can use it the next time.

Anyway, with such gates being set up, it will become really hard for anyone to jump this system since they won't actually be able to get out of the station! Taken us way too long to implement this system! But then again, this is NZ we are talking about. Better late then never. However, just because the gates are now up, doesn't mean it's up and running yet. I asked the lady standing there (to this day, I have no idea what they do. They just seem to stand on the platform all day...) who told me it should be up and ready for use by the end of October. Friking long way away! But I await its implementation eagerly!

Day two of my "healthy diet":

Fought the urge to get roast duck on rice and settled for chicken sandwich for lunch, skipped the mango passion smoothie though. Exercise? Walked from uni, up Symonds Street to Upper Queen Street then all the way down it to Britomart (in heels). On the way down, the strong desire for something deliciously deep fried developed but I managed to fight it into submission and skipped getting a McDonald's meal. After dinner, my choice of dessert was Symbio's passion fruit yoghurt with a mandarin. According to them, the benefits of Symbio include: 

• Aids digestive balance

• Good source of fibre

• 5 billion live DR10™ ("can reduce digestive discomfort including gurgling, flatulence, constipation and irregular bowel movements.")

• 99% fat free

To be honest with you, I choose to consume this New Zealand product because it tastes delicious.

On an unrelated note, I've recently discovered Birdy and fell in love with her voice. Her songs are really soothing to me! Here's a link to her Skinny Love video:

Please check out her other songs!

Aftermath of watching Olympians strut their stuff

Third week of uni!

Remember how yesterday I blogged about how I'd endeavor to blog more often? Well, I'm sitting in my Compsci111 lab doing Lab 2 and I come to question 16 that asks us to create a blog and make a post then take a screenshot of it. I'm not going to create another blog so here's another post on the day after I just made a massive post!

Since I am required to upload at least one image, let me tell you a bit about it. As you should be aware, the Olympics started over the weekend and after watching many hours of stunningly gorgeous athletes with perfect skin, hair, and bodies, I've taken to feel pathetic about mine. Here's to the start of a new goal: go down the path of "healthy" in which I will attempt to eat healthier and exercise more. Hopefully I'll come out at the end of it with half as hot ad the athletes in London.

 

Lunch today? A mango passion yoghurt smoothie accompanied with a chicken sandwich from NZ Natural.

And my attempt at exercise will be done after this lab. I shall walk all the way down to Britomart to catch the train home, despite the horrendous torrents of rain.

Uni, birthday and Batman

NOTE: I'm on Instagram! Follow me? Username is essenity. Duh.




It's been a month since I've come back from Melbourne. A few things have happened since then.

• Destroyed a friendship (possibly, or at least we're both not talking to each other. But whatever, I've done my bit, he needs to step up if he wants to be a part of my life otherwise, I'll hold the door open and help him walk out of it).
• FINALLY sent in my application for the 360 Abroad. My three choices are HKU, CUHK and Melbourne University. Except as soon as I hit send, I felt like my choices weren't "exotic" enough. I had briefly toyed with the idea of Sweden.
• Went out with dinner.
• Got a credit card and then spent too much money.
• Had dinner with a few friends.
• My birthday!
• Worked too much.
• Got sick.
• Started semester 2 of uni! Which has so far been AWESOME.
• Also, watched two seasons of Vampire Diaries and developed a celebrity crush on Damon. *drools*

I'm not going to talk about every point... but where should I start? Dinner with friends perhaps! I went to dinner at my favourite Japanese restaurant in town with three of my friends. More of a dinner than a catch up, I felt. It was a pretty good feast. I would have taken pictures if the environment wasn't so dark and we weren't so starved. We had a lot of sashimi, a plate of beef tataki and the rest, I can't remember!

We did take a few pictures though so here they are!

I sat next to Yumi so here's a pic of us! The flash was so bright! I had to fight to keep my tiny eyes open.

First group shot after dinner!

My chosen dessert! I think they had about three flavours. This one is green tea. It was delicious, but not as delicious as the passion fruit panna cotta in Botany.

 

Didn't quite know what to do after dinner so kinda lounged around outside the restaurant, took another self group shot then left.

We drove down to Aotea Square where they put up the winter ice rink so we could have a look. Prices are ridiculous, I imagined it to be a much bigger rink but there was a lot of space that wasn't utilised. Didn't stop us from taking pictures though. =)

Suki and I

From left to right, Yumi, me and Suki. It turns out Aotea Square at night is a pretty place to take pictures... should have tried harder!

We wandered around and saw a carousel. We got a little bit excited and took pictures. Except, we were too into ourselves to realise that we pretty much cut out the whole carousel.

Here's me in front of the ponies, having my picture taken with the ultimate flash.

Left to right, Yumi, me and Shu in front of the carousel. You can hardly tell it's a carousel.

Then, being the fatties that we are, we went to Yoghurt Story for round two of dessert! I used to be an ice cream girl, but now, I've developed a love for yoghurt! It's pretty expensive though. =S

Watermelon flavoured yoghurt with fruit loops, mango and pineapple pieces!

I feel like that was the highlight of the night though. I love the yoghurt from that shop. There's also a lot of hype going around another yoghurt shop that also recently opened, called Easy Yo or something. I have never been there since it's so far away from me and such a pain to go to (all the way in Mission Bay) but I heard there's a branch opening soon in Botany so here's hoping it's good because then I don't always have to go to the city for Yoghurt. Excuse my fatness, I'll endeavour to lose a ton of weight.

I recently got a credit card again and went shopping a few times. In New Zealand, when you join a rewards programme, many shops send you a gift voucher during your birthday month. Since I joined Platinum (Nike), they sent me a $30 voucher which I used to buy some track pants. I wouldn't have bought it without the $30 voucher so guess free money does draw in customers.

But my biggest spend was at the Body Shop. To be honest with you, I haven't actually used my gift (which is 20% off total bill) but they did give free gift packs with my purchases.

Entire Body Shop haul It's so pretty... *_*

First up, here's some body lotion. From left to right, Shea Whip, Coconut Milk, Mango Whip and Strawberry Puree.

I'm currently using the Mango Whip. It smells delicious! The only other one I've used before is the Strawberry Puree. I can't remember how nice it is, so I can't say which I prefer.

Here is a collection of body care. From left to right, Coconut Shower Cream, Peppermint Cooling Foot Lotion, White Musk Shower Gel, Cocoa Butter hand and body lotion, and Love Etc Body Wash.

Those bottles came for free on the condition that you bought a something from the vanilla line, make up line or the sunshine line (ok, not sure about the sunshine part, I forgot if that's what it's called). I bought the vanilla body mist so I was given them. 

Vanilla Body Mist and the Peach Body Lotion

As I was looking around the store, I saw the Peach Body Lotion sitting on the discounted corner. New Zealand hardly ever has this in store! It smells slightly like the peach hand cream from Canmake's Make me Happy series and since I love that smell, I snapped this up right away.

Vitamin E Illuminating Moisture Cream

The reason I bought this was due to how it made me smile. I was in the store one weekend and I tried the tester. When you apply this, the cream turns a pretty shade of pink. It disappears as you rub it into our skin. I haven't used it a lot but when I used the tester, I felt like the it didn't give a greasy finish so I allowed myself to buy it because this product made me smile so much.

Here was my pathetic attempt at showing you how it changes colour, but it's not very clear on camera. Maybe I should have photoshopped to make it more obvious...

It's been two weeks since uni has started and so far 2012 semester 2 is my favourite semester! There's this geography paper I'm taking that's about disasters and how it impacts on society. There's no exam for this paper and the assignments are whack! One major assignment is an Amazing Race themed treasure hunt around Auckland!!! During the introductory lecture, I was so excited about it all, the girl next to me kept shooting me side way glances.

We got into groups and selected our topic - age and gender. We're supposed to think about how disasters affect society, especially those who fall in vulnerable groups within age and gender. So far, we've only passed one clue... the second clue proved to be much harder - we figured it out, but we have to do an interview and the dude hasn't given us a time yet! Other teams have nearly finished. =(

Thankfully, the marks aren't given based on how fast we figure out the clues.

Another one of my exciting papers is a stage one computer science paper. These two papers have PRETTY GOOD LOOKING LECTURERS! My goodness. I can't usually pay attention for more than twenty minutes on a good day, but I find that I hang on to every word my comp sci lecturer says. Don't know if it's his good looks or because the topic actually interests me.

I have another geography paper about GIS that I'm taking. I know it's not the subject, the lecturer bores me to death. But during labs, I am pretty into the topic.

Last Sunday, I went to the movies with Shu to watch Batman. WHY ON EARTH IS HOYTS SO EXPENSIVE?!!!!! Popcorn and coke is crazily overpriced. We've stopped buying food from the cinemas. We went to Pak n Save to buy snacks to bring into the cinema. We bought Mammoth Yoghurt lemon passion flavour because we thought it was pretty funny (it's advertised as a manly yoghurt). During the movie, we started eating it and instantly regretted it. My god. It had gigantic chunks of GOD KNOWS WHAT. Shu reckons there were lemon rinds in it, I thought there were some sort of seeds as well. The yoghurt itself didn't taste bad. Not very sweet but the stuff inside the yoghurt really put us off. It was also really thick. I think we would have enjoyed it more if we weren't eating it in the dark. I'm not in a hurry to give this so called manly yoghurt another try, I'll stick to the girly yoghurt for now.

Excuse me, Batman was awesome. I had tears in my eyes at the end of the movie. I actually hope there will be another one. And can anyone tell me why Google doesn't recognise "movie" or "movies" as a word?

It was my birthday on Friday. Since Shu was working Friday night, we had dinner at our favourite Japanese restaurant in Botany on Thursday. She bought me cake, which we shared with staff. Before I met Shu, I hung out with my other friend, Yun (we've been good friends for ten years!). We went to Cafe Melba in Ellerslie... I usually hate cafe food, but after this experience, it's growing on me. It was pretty good food, and at a cheap price too. Perhaps it's due to location?

Chocolates and letter were from Yun and the cake was Shu. She bought Gold Caramel from the Cheesecake Shop. I thought it would be very sweet, but surprisingly, there was no strong, overly sweet aftertaste.

Spending my birthday with Rachel! Strawberry earrings, sponge cake and tiramisu cake.

On my actual birthday, I had classes for everything! I thought it would be draining but it was actually quite enjoyable. Rachel bought me strawberry earrings from Pascoes and they are honestly the most bling things I own right now. She gave them to me during class and I opened them during class. I wasn't expecting them to be so pretty so I gasped pretty loudly. Pretty fly. =) After my classes, I met up with her again and we went to have cake! I think her one was white chocolate cake or something. It had oranges inside. =/ My one was the Tiramisu.

Since this post is probably as long or even longer than my last post, I'm going to try to blog a bit more frequently. My posts are way too long. Excuse me while I go check over my lab exercises that's due tomorrow. =O should have handed it in last week but cbb.