26 September 2018

camel



Flowers and some baking, the madeleines are moderately successful on the first try using David Lebovitz's recipe in My Paris Kitchen. I also referenced Dorie Greenspan's Baking Chez Moi, and applied her tips of preheating a half-sheet pan in the oven and also I chilled the batter overnight in the fridge. I also very generously oiled the entire madeleine pan, which is quite necessary as they do tend to stick. While writing this post, I saw another one of David's blog posts on madeleines in which he suggests to freeze the madeleine pan in the freezer, I suppose for maximum contrast between hot and cold, which I will try next time. Also a lemon glaze.

21 September 2018

tahini


Dinner for the past 2 days

Left has: naan, labneh with za'atar, chickpea salad & eggs with harissa
Right has: broccoli, winter melon tomato meatball soup & masala scrambled eggs

19 September 2018

peach

Some new cosmetic acquisitions:



The most beautiful cushion ever (although my Laneige clover one is still my fav) that came with an incredible amount of free Sulwhasoo skincare samples. I really like most Sulwhasoo product's hanbang scent, and am set on getting the first care serum if I find it on BeautyTap's daily deals.

Aside: two of my friends are into perfume and gave me lots of recommendations. One of which, Terre d'Hermes Eau Intense Vetiver, smells similar to Sulwhasoo's scent. Overall, I learned that I have zero tolerance for sweet scents and really like woody scents. Penhaligon's Lord George is my current fav, someone go through Heathrow and grab one for me ;_;

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Two new lipsticks, although the Mamonde one was bought last year so I'm still good with my 1 lippie a year goal (although my progress on the other resolutions are awful).

Both lipstick's exterior boxes have pretty holographic design...which was a pain to photograph "orz 

Surprisingly, these two look really similar on the lips

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On a more serious note, my stash of beauty products (and tea!) is huge. I have a ton of backups for some products, random products I bought to try, and still a lot of sheet masks left from my haul the previous time I went back to China. That being said...there's also so much (15 on my list to be exact) new products that I want to try. The new things I'm eyeing are mostly actives, which I don't have stashed up, but still feels bad to consider purchasing new things.

But! It's also frustrating, especially for AB products, when you find something that works well only for it to be discontinued (the Mamonde lipstick) or reformulated (my HG LGH tea tree serum). So there is a good reason to stock up.

18 September 2018

bitlong

Good to be back home and drinking tea from my clay pots again :)


17 September 2018

Kew Garden





I'm pretty happy with the pairing of the photos

16 September 2018

London Museums

V&A and the Wallace Collection




14 September 2018

minerva

A short photo set of the Prior Park Landscape Garden to post while I'm probably strolling through Kews.




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Plus a bonus photo of the Roman Baths that is rescued by luminosity masks:


12 September 2018

thornbank

Its appropriate that one of my last meals that I cook in my dorm is chicken tikka masala:


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Farewell Bath

11 September 2018

moon

I interrupt the regular programming for this super extra but also super fabulous bag:

D&G Sicily Tote in their majolica print from AW 2016 (I think...)


It's not a Chinese blue/white porcelain design, but I'm gonna assume this is the closest I'll get to wearing 青花瓷.

09 September 2018

Exmouth

The curation of this photoset is moreso commemorative:







08 September 2018

worth something?

Probably currently chilling by the sea...or seeking shelter from the rain. Here's a song for a filler:



These two lines are great:
Same stories in different skylines
Old city with a brand new sunrise

06 September 2018

tonko

The silence on the blog has been partly due to working on my dissertation, but I must brag a little and say that I stuck to my timeline and had quite a lot of free time in the end when I was just proofing for an hour each day and practicing my presentation for another hour. So the real reason why I haven't been posting is because I was playing ramen sensei 2.

But first, a brief interlude.

What started this whole desire to play a good ol' simulation game is Citybound. I was following this game years ago when the concept was first developed, and recently caught up on the dev updates. Still quite far from the eventual release haha.

So then I went to look for a casual-ish simulation game in the app store since I'll be spending sometime on trains and flights. Ideally I was looking for an offline game, but those pickings are slim. The couple of games I downloaded were...what are the best words to describe them...uninspiring and shallow? Just not fun to play, especially when compared to the values of Citybound.

So then I thought about what my ideal casual-ish simulation game would be like. Generally I prefer the player's decisions to focus on resource management. The perks of having a lot of trouble falling asleep and taking long showers is that both are fertile times for ideation.

Exhibit A

I even half seriously considered making this game myself. If Anselm can do it...I probably can too for a much simpler concept.

Currently this idea is safely parked away in the list of "someday...perhaps in retirement"...mostly because I found ramen sensei and got quite addicted for the last couple of days. Kairosoft makes a whole bunch of sim games, and I'm regretting just picking them up after knowing about this dev for many years.

Good points of ramen sensei:

  • Sufficient depth and control in creating custom ramen: there's ingredients for the components of noodle and soup base, which you then combine and add toppings. There's also not too much english resource online on the ingredients and combo, so I'm forced to experiment and not just google the optimal ramen. 
  • Different gameplay modes: there's operating your own restaurant, arena (pvp-ish...you're against bots) and odyssey (board game). 
One off-putting aspect of the game is that there's too little instruction in the beginning so it took a while to figure out how to do what I wanted to do. Some options are buried in the menu system and takes time to find. There's also 3 (or 4 depending if you count rank points) different currencies in the game used for different things. Overall, too much information to digest for a new player. Maybe all of Kairosoft's games are like this, so its only confusing for a completely new player. 

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The silence will continue a little longer as my mom is here to spend some time in the UK / help me move. Too bad ramen sensei isn't an offline game ;o; 

04 September 2018

mean vote


I can finally add my masters dissertation to the list of things-I'm-glad-to-have-done-but-never-again.