I’m 20, two decades old.

The week before my birthday, has been one of the worst week I could have ever lived through. It was terrible, truly horrifying because whatever I was going through was very much different from anything I’ve ever been through. It was worse than failing my exams because if I failed my papers, I could do-over. But not for this, I cannot reset. I cannot start over. It felt pretty much like I’m stuck at the bottom of the well, with no way to escape. It really wouldn’t been so bad, if only I could figure it out. But I can’t, I don’t have a choice. A friend once said, “You always have a choice.” I do realise I have, but I don’t have the courage to go to such lengths to do it. Sighs. I’ll be stuck till then. But I am better now, much better. We all learn to cope, live with it eventually. I’ll be stronger, that much I know. :)

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I was supposed to blog about my birthday a week after it, but I have been so busy that I kept delaying it. Plus, I was blogging on a LIFO basis; last-in-first-out. Haha. That is actually an accounting term, if you didn’t know. :) So anyway, my birthday this year was made perfect by the very awesome people in my life. :) My family; the parents especially, my beloved college mates, the close friends and of course, everyone who wished me on Facebook as well.

30.07.12, AM

Dad brought me to have my favourite prawns porridge to start my special day. :)

Nothing beats a claypot full of delicious prawns porridge with deep fried twisted dough-stick (yao char kuey) for an awesome breakfast.

30.07.12, Early PM

After the awesome breakfast, I was off with mom and dad to run a little errand. Nothing much, pretty insignificant. Came back home and thought I’ll pamper myself a bit before heading out for dinner with my friends. So, I decided to do a Japanese hair spa for myself, it’ll take up some time and by the time I’m done with it, I could have lunch and start getting ready for my dinner date. And so, I went to get my hair spa items ready. But while I was at it, my mom saw and she told me not to do the spa treatment because she needed my help in something, so I had to opt for the normal hair treatment. Which I luckily did, because about 10 mins after I was done with my shower + hair treatment, I had a surprise waiting for me at my door.

My so-fake-shocked look! :)

My college mates had came all together with a cake to surprise me! I had no idea they were coming, I was dressed so shabbily that when my mom said my friends were here, I just went running to my room to change into something decent. Plus, my hair was so huge! Haha.

This is almost everyone that was there. :D Almost, because Crys was late as she got lost again. Heh.

Thank you (L-R) Amanda, Desmund, Jia Ping, Carmen, Celia, Danny, Eugene, Reuben, Timothy (Reuben’s guitar) and Crys for making my 20th birthday so memorable. I love each and everyone of you and am so thankful to have you all in my life. Also, Reuben and Danny played and sang “Be Your Everything” by Boys Like Girls for me! <3 Of course, it wasn’t as a proclamation of love, but rather because it was my favourite song.

They stayed on for a while after we cut the cake. Oh, the cake was from RT Pastry and I have always always wanted to try their cakes. Glad to finally be able to on my birthday some more. :) How blessed was I. Haha. After that, we had a mini karaoke session where we got Reuben to play the guitar and the rest of us singing along.

30.07.12, Mid PM

After everyone left, Celia and Crys stayed behind and we chatted for a while before they were to head off to avoid the jam. Then, we had this brilliant idea to help me decide what I was to wear for dinner that night! So, we went through my wardrobe, picked a few outfits (6 actually) out and I was to try them on and they would style accordingly. Haha, that session was really fun. Finally decided on one outfit and they, then left. But before they left, they told me that my gift wasn’t ready. And that they’ll pass it to me when it is. :)

30.07.12, Late Mid PM

Immediately after they left, I went to have my lunch and a shower to get ready for dinner. I only had an hour to get ready before my friend picked me up. Which actually isn’t enough for me, it was a bit rushing but I managed, albeit being 10 mins late and my friend had to wait. But I was late because a weird unknown number called me while I was going out, I had actually hesitated in picking the phone call up because I was in obvious rush. Luckily I did because it was my aunt, calling all the way from UK to wish me. How lovely and sweet of her. <3 We chatted for a bit, and it was great to hear her voice again. I miss her.

30.07.12, Late PM

I actually had a choice between Japanese or Western for dinner, but since the initial plan was Western.. I stuck on with it. Had dinner at a lovely place called Porta Romano, I blogged about it here. Do click to read my review. Food was great, dinner was awesome. :) It ended in the most perfect way I could have ever imagined. <3

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Once again, I just want to say how grateful I am for the awesome people in my life who made my birthday such a memorable one. <3 But, guess what, 30th July wasn’t the end to my birthday. I received my gift from the girls; Celia and Crys a few days later.

It was a book filled with photos and it tells a story on every page. It’s really funny and I was so touched when I got it. I love the girls so much, for the time and effort they have put into the doing this. Nothing ever beats something handmade with love. <3

Besides that, I previously told Daddy that I was craving for some crabs and would love to have them for my birthday. But because I didn’t manage to have dinner with the family, so Dad made them especially for me one day!

The uncooked crab, to be steamed. Can you see the yellow bit there? That’s eggs!

And ta-da! It’s done and ready to eat! :) So yummy, my stomach is growling as I type this :P

And now, Daddy just owes me my durian birthday cake and my grilled lamb. :P I ate my celebratory chicken wings at Ah Wah in Jalan Peel. Heh.

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So that is all for my 20th birthday, I could never quite remember my last few ones, hence I decided to put this one into words. I hope my 21st will be even better than this. :)

Out & About: Food Foundry, Section 17

I have heard of Food Foundry from my friends who was tweeting about it; one mentioned that she was craving for their mille crepe cake and another said it was a rather pretty place and the toilet were nice. Haha, I know it was something odd to say about a restaurant but it was those tweets that made me paid Food Foundry a visit. I was actually looking for a place to kill some time before I headed out to another event with a friend and hence, I decided to drop by since it was around PJ.

Vanilla Mille Crepe Cake | RM 9

Since Food Foundry was famed for their mille crepe I decided I should give that a try. I didn’t order anything else since I’ll be having dinner pretty soon. My friend, and I ordered some iced tea to go along with the cake; lemon and peach respectively. So, how did I find the cake? I’ll be completely honest and say that it was a bit disappointing. From what I’ve heard, the crepe cake was really delicious and needless to say I had higher expectations from it. It even looked pretty good, but after tasting it, I just went, “Is that all?”. Took another bite and hands down, Nadeje mille crepe was way better than this. Haha.

This was where we sat, I found the place rather cosy but it isn’t comfortable. The cushion is too thin and feels a bit too weird to sit on. Also, it was rather warm there. There isn’t any air conditioning at where I sat. But it was actually rather windy outside, around 4pm ish. No idea why it was warm inside, probably because there was partitions blocking the wind?

Outfit of the Day :) Will try to do more outfit shots from now on.

This is the partition I meant, and coincidentally the asymmetrical tube dress I wore was almost the similar shade as the partition. Haha, my friend noticed that and told me when this picture was taken. And, below you’ll find more pictures of the place. The restaurant consist of two shop-lots, the picture with the squirrel is the second one and the picture after that is the main one, as you can see, the cakes are on display there.

Meet the awkwardly placed sofa in the second shop-lot.

This is the interior of the first shop-lot. Looks cosy and nice, right?

And me with a camho shot, this is at the mirror outside the toilets.

Oh, btw, I didn’t find the toilets that nice. Haha, but I have to admit it is old school. And no, I didn’t take any picture of the toilet. Heh, felt it’ll be a bit too extreme to do that.

Of the whole restaurant, I love this decoration the most. It’s so pretty, clean and simple. :)

Of course, I couldn’t resist a full body shot here. Haha. I pity my friend though, I was so hard to shoot. This wasn’t posed though, I was probably laughing at my friend’s exasperation in getting that one shot that I’ll be satisfied. And that spontaneous moment was captured lovely in this. Thank you, for you that. :)

What I wore:

Light Green Asymmetrical Hem Tube Dress | Bought online

Chiffon + Pearl Necklace | Kitschen

Laced up Booties | Vincci

Zara Inspired Plaited Shopper | Bought online

Wings Rings | http://deliriousaccessories.blogspot.com

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So anyway, here is the address for the restaurant if you’re planning to visit;

BG-8, Happy Mansion, Jalan 17/13, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

03-7955 3885

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Note: This post is not a food review, simply because I don’t like to think of it as one. But I’d rather like to label it as Out & About, where I’ll talk more about the place itself than the food. :)

Nail Art: Matte Black with Glossy French Tip

You would have probably seen this nail art around, it was been done quite a number of times not only because it was uniquely nice but also because it’s superbly easy to do. All you’ll need for this simple nail art is a good black nail polish, matte top coat and a shiny top coat. :) Read on, I’ll post up the steps to this nail art.

Before I go on, I think this nail art was probably inspired YSL Duo Terriblement Noir black nail polishes. This was from the YSL Holiday Collection back in 2011. I absolutely love the matte black polish from YSL, read more about it here.

Anyway, back to the nail art, in addition to the three items I mention above, you’ll need some cello tape or scotch tape or stickers. For this manicure, I used The Face Shop's BK901 , Seche Vite Top Coat and  Essence's Matt Top Coat. You can click on the links for my reviews. :)

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Step 1: Paint your nails using black nail polish and finish it off with a top coat. Please allow it time to dry completely.

Step 2: Then, stick the cello tape just slightly over the tips of the nails.

Step 3: Paint your nails with the matte top coat. Wait till it is dry before removing the sticker.

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And that’s it! It’s so simple. :) But just a note though, if you’re using Essence's Matt Top Coat, you may see that a thin white line between the matte and the shiny region. Need not worry about that because it is only temporary. If you cannot wait, then you can lightly scrap it off.

I hope you found the short tutorial useful, if you tried the nail art out, I would love to see them :) Thank you for reading this post, and do look out for more nail art. You can check the rest of my manicures here on Facebook or read about them here on my blog.

Swatch: The Face Shop’s BK901

I don’t actually remember when was the last time I got a nail polish from The Face Shop, it could have been that time when I would drop by shops like Etude House, Elianto and of course, The Face Shop too. But after a while it seems like the colour selections were rather stagnant and there wasn’t any new shades. I moved on to Sally Hansen’s range after that, if I’m not mistaken. Click here to read about all the previous nail polishes swatches, whether they were worth getting or for any new shades. :)

But I needed a new black polish after my Etude’s one got so difficult to apply since it was quite some time since I got them. I read on one of my friends blog that The Face Shop black polish was really good, it wasn’t too sheer and that was one of the main criteria I look for in a black polish.

Review: There is really nothing much to a black nail polish, like I said earlier, the only thing I look for is one that is not sheer and gives a pretty good coverage. Seeing that that is my only criteria, I would say that The Face Shop black nail polish had achieved just that. I painted three coats and the result is as above, pretty even and nice. :) It was also smooth to apply and with a fairly big brush. So, if you’re ever considering a black polish to try to get the one from The Face Shop.

Hope you enjoyed the short review and the pictures! :) Thank you so much for reading this post, and do look out for more swatches.

Photo: Monochrome, just.

| imperfect |

“When you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls.” – Ted Grant

 

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You can view the rest of the pictures from this series here. I titled the album imperfect because these shots were actually not my first choices. Only when I went through them again, I realised they were quite good, but not pretty enough in colour to be posted. But when in black and white, I just fell in love. :)

Make Up: Summer Lips [Coral Pink]

After my first attempt on ombré lips (click here to read about it), I wanted to try out some more ombré inspired lips. I went to my mom’s room, ransacked her make-up collection and found a few lipstick which were too pink for her. Since she isn’t using them, I might as well ‘play’ with it. Haha. Anyway, I’m not much of a lipstick person, I like lip gloss more for obvious reason. But I do have one bright red lipstick from Inglot that I totally love, although it is always too dramatic to wear it out.

Anyway, this time around I wanted to create another ombré lips with two different lipstick. The pink lipstick that I found from mom’s collection was a very pink pink one, and I have a coral orange lipstick that I have but would not ever dare to wear it out. But I thought the combination of the two would complement each other pretty well, two bright cheery colour. So, here is how it looks like;

It didn’t turn out as ombré or gradient as I thought it would be, the colours actually complemented each other so well that it blended it together. Hence, the colours look rather similar and you cannot really tell it is two toned unless in picture. I really like how peachy the orange lipstick turned out to be and I think I ought to give it a try on its own. I love this lips make up and immediately, I thought of summer. It’s so bright and funky, no word can describe this lips make up better. So, what is your summer lips?

#Stop114A

If you don’t know what Stop114A, it is actually a campaign to educate all Malaysians who will be affected by the amendment of Section 114A. The new amendment of Section 114A holds someone accountable for any seditious content posted online. Guilty until proven innocence, where as what we are used to hear is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof now lies upon us, the Internet users to prove that we are not guilty. And should we fail to proof that, we are considered as guilty.

Below is a picture which shows how this new amendment will affect each and everyone of us in Malaysia. Source from http://stop114a.wordpress.com.

And here is a comic, a scenario that could be happening to anyone of us.

So, please share with your friends, family and everyone else about this new amendment to Section 114A. There need to be an awareness before anyone innocent becomes a victim. For more information, please visit http://stop114a.wordpress.com/.

Nail Art: Neon Green Tips

Just the other day, I watched this video that blogger, Xia Xue did for ClickNetwork.tv and her nails in the video caught my eye. It was nothing fancy, very simple nail design. Her nails were painted at the tip in mint green colour. Very pretty, chic and simple. As you can see, I haven’t been painting my nails since I’ve been rather caught up with a lot of things. But this was so easy to do, so I decided to do it but in a different green colour. You’ll see it in the pictures below. 

And here is what my version looks like;

Since I did my nails in a jiffy, I didn’t give my nails ample to dry and hence, it smudged a little as you can see. This was despite the fact that I used Seche Vite super fast dry top coat, because the polish I used was a rather old one. Hence. it was thick and very streaky. Also, the colour is a bit more neon than shown in the picture but I think the sun sort of lighten it up.

This is the first nail art I’ve done since like forever, I hope with this I can get my mood back to doing nail arts. :) Before work starts and I’ll be back to only French, nude or bare.

Make Up: Ombre Lips #1 [Extreme Pink]

I just love love the ombré colours that is everywhere these days. I first came across the word ombré when I was browsing for nail art inspirations, which resulted in a failed attempt. Click here to see what turned out from that failed ombré attempt. Anyway, just the other day when I was lying in bed, I wondered it the trend had caught on to make up; lips in particular. I went to Google some pictures up and ta-da…! (It was all over Tumblr too; link.)

I watched a few Youtube videos as well, and realised it was quite easy to do. And so, I gave it a try. Haha, my version look like this;

So, what do you think of my version? It didn’t turn out as ombré as I expected it to be, looks more two toned than a gradient hue than I was hoping to achieve. Well, I’m definitely going to try out with other lipsticks and see how those turns out to be. For this, I used Clinique’s Extreme Pink (17) and a concealer was dabbed on lower lip to give the gradient effect. I really love this, but the problem was I kept smacking my lips together and that would ruin the design. The next time I do this, I must resist smacking my lips!

Till next time, lovelies. xoxo.

Eat: Porta Romano, Mont Kiara.

I’d recently turned two decades old, and I had my birthday dinner at this lovely, cosy restaurant in Mon’t Kiara. It is located right next to fast-food chain, Wendy’s and these two restaurant were the only ones occupying the building. Because of this, it is actually alright to opt for the al-fresco dining. Although, it may feel a bit claustrophobic for some. I don’t know, but I certainly felt that way when I saw the tables outside and I really couldn’t imagining dining outside.

I love the interiors of the restaurant; when we first came in, we were greeted by the a bar. It has that cosy and warm feel to the place. We were actually given a seat downstairs, but I asked if we could get a place upstairs, because I’m pretty sure it’ll be more private upstairs compared to below. And true to that, upstairs was really nice and quiet. It felt as though I was going to have dinner at a friend’s place. They had sofas and a fireplace, although that isn’t a functioning one.

Okay, a little about the restaurant itself. To be honest, I have never heard of the restaurant until blogger, Jason from jasonmumbles.com told me about it. I basically had no clue what to expect from this restaurant, except perhaps some Italian food because of the name of the restaurant.

So, when I saw the restaurant and I was greeted with majority of pasta and pizzas, I had simply assumed it was an Italian restaurant. Until I came home and google-d them out, to discover that it was actually serves Mediterranean cuisine. (See the complete menu here.)

Anyway, I’ve babbled enough so let’s move on to some of the food we had that night. The pictures are not that clear because the lightning had meant to give it a cosy feeling.

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Cream of Mushroom Soup, RM15

I quote Jason, who said the soup was mushroom-y. Well, duh. What he meant to say was that the soup was rich, but not so much in my opinion. It was thick, yes but somehow I felt like the mushrooms were blended. It didn’t have the chunky bits of mushroom that I’ll love to chew on.

 

Sauteed Calamari Rings, RM19

This is goooood. I’m serious. It looks pretty normal (weird even), and you might think what a funky combination to have calamari and olives with tomatoes together. But the taste really blends well, and this is probably because a lot of garlic was used. If you love squids and garlic, you have to try this.

 

Spaghetti Porto Romano, RM 30

When it came to my turn to order, I stared and stared and stared and stared and stared… Okay, you get my point. Too many to pick from, I was really spoilt for choice. Ended up picking the recommended pasta off the menu. After all, you cannot go wrong with a pasta named after the restaurant’s name. Plus, it had seafood (clams, prawns, squids) in them, my favourite! It turns out to be pretty good, unique I must say because the tomato sauce was slightly spicy and had a tangy taste to it. The serving size was a little too much for me, could finish it up. And I would have preferred my clams to be peeled; it came with the shells.

 

Spaghetti with Clam Sauce with (added) Meatballs, RM 32

I’d actually didn’t try this pasta dish but I was told that it was pretty good although it was tad oily. It also had a bit of spicy aftertaste. I know the meatballs were really meaty and nice, I did manage to try one of those. The only other meatballs I ever had was from Ikea, of course you cannot compare it that way. This one taste way better than Ikea’s one. By the way, the meatballs did not come with the pasta. It can be added on to any the pasta of your choice. Kinda regretted not ordering that. Oh, well. There is always next time. Heh.

I didn’t take a picture of my drinks but I had the fresh lime juice, which was very refreshing and tasted really fresh. Like as though they just squeezed out tonnes of lime to make that juice.

Here is the address for the restaurant if you’re planning to visit;

K-1, Mont Kiara Banyan, 28 Jalan Kiara, Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur
Tel: 03-6207 8171
Click HERE for other branches of Porta Romano.

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I think that would be all for my entry this time, I’ll be trying to write more about food. Those posts will be labelled as Eat/Food. Look out for them! :) And oh, I met the ever so lovely Esther there, she was there to celebrate her birthday as well. It was a surprise to bump into a friend, which makes me somehow feel the world is so small. Feels like I live in a movie, haha.

Photo: Je t'aime

| embracing |

Like how men will never understand women, I’ll never understand what love is. But then again, love is to be felt not understood.