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20 for 35

I am flying off to Thailand, for 35 days! And got this plan in my head—-pack very little and see how many outfits I could mix and match out of them. So 20 items is what I’ve limited myself including knickers and shoes.

1 x silver havanaina flip flops

1 x bronze converse

1 x oversized white shirt

1 x black long tube skirt

1 x black long leggings

1 x black racer back vest

1 x tribal print swing vest

1 x navy white chunky stripe long vest

1 x safari dark sand shorts

Above are my basics and there’re a few more. Pictures will be posted later on.

….20 items for 35 days….game on!!

Miss My Babe SLR…

It’s been a bit unfortunate for me recently as I’ve carelessly misplaced my camera on a London Black Cab which leaves me going to Thailand without a huge monster in bag. I have to see how well I could form the balance of pictures with my little Nikon coolpix.

What I want to express the most is my disappointment of Amazon. After hearing nothing from the seller (and this is after I made the payment) I decided to contact Amazon. They do have this rather handy function which is you type in your number and they call you back straight away, literally the second you click the button YES Please Call Me. But they told me they can not do anything. They can not cancel the transaction until it’s over the shipping period which is till 13th of Jan. Then you need to wait for another 7 days on top of that before allowing to file a final complain to get your money back.

Amazon’s seller profile is definitely not as accurate as eBay. You should not have 100% profile if you’ve sold nothing. The star system at eBay is definitely better. But I’m not saying eBay is all perfect like a Saint either. Can these on-line shopping sites just listen some true advice from customers please…one day???

Tags: Amazon, Canon SLR, eBay

A Story Behind Lanvin X H&M

It has been over a week over the buzz of Lanvin for H&M event and I’ve only just got time to tell what has happened during the event. As I walked into the H&M on Oxford Street in the morning, I collected my time-queue wrist band which allows me to enter the security guarded area at 11:25am. I had another hour and half to kill and plus by realizing the mens Lanvin X H&M collection was actually downstairs in a separate section, I walked down escalator in a search of the mens tuxedo jacket in cream white.

Shop assistant told me they have only ordered the Navy version of the tux. After trying on both 36 and 38, I decided to choose the bigger version to achieve the boxy look which was demonstrated by Anna Dello Russo during previous Fashion Week time.

After the easy success of grab of the navy tux I realized that I still had another 1 hour to kill. So I turned to my Twitter account to get some news on the updates by other fellow fanshionistas. Suddenly one of my favourite bloggers 00o00 tweeted his frustration of getting onto mens site of H&M website. 00o00 has always got this magic ability by explaining some financial complex side of fashion in a super easy way. By readying his blog in the past time has lend me a natural trust on this person who I’ve never met. He had an operation on knee/leg recently and had to stay at home under doctor’s advice. I totally could understand the situation. So I  thought it would be easy for me to grab something for him since I’ve been admiring his blog for this long.

A few tweets and communication with radio waves (I mean mobile phone) later…I’ve got everything off his shopping list. I am quite proud of myself for helping out on this case. As I said before, shopping is like a fate, when it means to be yours, it will become yours. The end of this story was I met 00o00 later and handed over the goods. It’s really great to see how much joy you could bring to people. It turns out that 00o00 also speaks Chinese and we chatted away about our fashion views and even some iconic Chinese singers. To my surprise, he brought a little gift to say thank you. It is an expensive fragrant candle by Cire Trvdon which is now happily burning and that festivale scent is now floating around my house. Happy Christmas everyone!

…and PS, 1 hour later that day, I got what I wanted off my shopping list without any hassle

Tags: Cire Trvdon, lanvin

Alexander Wang at NYC Fashion Night Out

Dear core Wang Fans,

If you happen to be in NYC tomorrow Friday 10th of September, please feel free to attend Fashion Night Out with Alexander Wang just before NY Fashion Week. With Wang’s endless energy it would just be brilliant, I can imagine it!

Tags: Alexander Wang

Restaurant Review – Gu Yi古意

Second day in Shanghai I couldn’t resist to ask my friend to bring me to my favourite restaurant in SH. It’s called ‘Gu Yi’, actually quite hard to translate directly into English with its meaning kind of like ‘antient taste’ or antient story’ or antient influence’ etc… It serves a modern style of  Xiang Cuisine and Xiang is shortened in Chinese as province Hu Nan, from where Chairman Mao is from. HuNan (Xiang) Cuisine is also famous with its spiciness. However, different from SiChuang Cuisine, HuNan Cuisine is more colourful with its pickled birdseye chillies on your eye sight and minus the tickleness of SiChuang black pepper on your taste bud. Anyway, it’s a double winner cuisine at the moment for me and it’s getting quite popular even in London.

There’re 2 Gu Yi restaurants in Shanghai and the one I’ve been to is on FuMin road.

Our appetizer dish – sliced rice noodle with sour & chilli sauce. Sour and spice are 2 key elements for HuNan Cuisine as the main flavouring chilli is normally pickled in salt and garlic with a hint of sourness after.

another simple appetizer, crispy deep-fried peanuts with lake salt.

It’s a very popular restaurant not only for local chinese, but lots of foreigners too. We were sitting at back of restaurant next to their mirror wall. With chandeliers hanging off the ceiling the place looks rather homey and cosy like a boudior.

Unlike other big Chinese restaurant, this one has only one floor, however, their out-door area makes up a lot.

Steamed frog legs in bamboo tube…it was highly recommend dish of the restaurant…the sauce was amazing when mixed with rice!

They have 2 pages of list of ‘Hot Pot’ selections. Not same like the northern Chinese’s ‘Hot Pot’ dish with boiling water, Hot Pot in HuNan Cuisine is with a small iron wok with lit fired underneath serving directly on the table. The food is kept sizzling and soaking in the sauce with longer time and more flavour while eating. Sound effect is also exciting simultaneously.

It doesn’t mark out the level of spiciness on the menu with numbers of chillie, but I think it’s definitely the way to try out your ability and the originality of HuNan Cuisine. Full address is Ground Floor, JuFu Building, No87 Fumin Road, +86 (0)21 – 6247 0758

Come As You Are

Back in May I was thinking what to do with my birthday. It would be really nice to have a sit-down meal however not too formal. It would need to be a joyful atmosphere with no other group of parties interfering. And on top of all it got to be fun and special. All of those sounds quite like a mission to organize but with 2 months in advance I thought it would be  manageable. The only question is where?

Then back from very beginning of 2010 I came across with this blog called Fernandez & Leluu and was instantly drawn to the brilliant idea of home cook and private dinning. I have been willing to attend the event long enough and suddenly I clapped my hands – why not ask them to host my birthday dinner party?!

The result was brilliant! It was a hot July Saturday. With guest slowing filling up the living room,  which the couple turned into a little restaurant, the layout  looked so cosy and welcome. Music was playing on Spotify with my birthday play list I made a week ago. After weeks of emails back and forth with Uyen on discussing the menu, we had finalized with a massive 7 course dinner plan called ‘Upside Down & Inside Out’… love it!

read full post after this jump » Read the full post

Wapping Project & Moonshine Cinema

Last Saturday we went to The Wapping Project, a gallery/restaurant/bar=cool hang out place at Wapping Hydraulic Power Station on Wapping Wall. The place is hosting a BBQ with outdoor black & white movie cinema for their 10th Anniversary.

As you seen, the place is beautifully re-done. It was originally the local hydraulic power station and bought by this couple who was high in british theatre industry. They have kept the most features and made the place somehow not just a cool place but feeling warm, welcome and homy although you will be sitting surrounded by big machines.

With the soft early evening sunlight, the place looks so cinematic…

Candles were lit everywhere to soften the aged machines… …

…they have thought about every single little details… the rolling bar stools…

…the still water jugs seem to have their own lives… …

…and jars of cookies probably know most of stories about here?

love the coordination of rusty iron…sea green…soft grey and black table…

when you walk downstairs, even toilette area is a must-photograph zone… battered concrete wall with glass doors…

BBQ area is located outside, you have 4 different salads.

1. feta cheese – tomato – black olives – basil – salad

2. runner beans – beatroot – salad

3. big couscous – peas – celery – salad

4. cucumber – crunchy seaweed – radish – salad

Their extremely-crunchy-home-made bread is deliiiiicious!

For BBQ meat dish, you could have either Lamb / Prawns / Sardines / Sausages plus 2 types of salads from above.

If you are a vegetarian, you will have 4 salads. Total BBQ per portion per head was £12 which is very reasonable.

So here is the lamb…

…with Sardines…

…and giant tiger prawns… …yum yum!!

And the cinema showed a black & white classic called ‘Of Human Bondage’…I have to agree that all old movies are kind of confusing. Some of the plots and scenes are not so connected in our modern logic mind, but hey…the atmosphere was amazing. They have deck chairs and lots of cushions. My best advice? Take a blanket and lots of snacks!!

BBQ is £12 starts from 7pm and ‘Moonshine Cinema’ is £7 starts at 9pm.

All movie schedules until 28th August is as below:

Friday 6th Agugust – Timecode (15) 2000, Mike Figgis (97mins)

Saturday 7th August – Dark Victory (PG) 1939, Edmund Goulding (104mins)

Friday 13th August – Samson & Delilah (15), 2009, Warwick Thornton (97mins)

Saturday 14th August – Now, Voyager (PG), 1942, Irving Rapper (117mins)

Friday 20th August – The Unloved (5), 2009, Samantha Morton (103mins)

Saturday 21st August – All About Eve (U), 1950, Joseph L.Mankiewicz (138mins)

Friday 27th August – Sweet Sixteen (18), 2002, Ken Loach (106mins)

Saturday 28th August – What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (12), 1962, Robert Aldrich (134mins)

EXPO!! Shanghai! – part 2 – Lost in Batik

Following the previous post, I need to finish this entry about my 1 day visit at Shanghai Expo. It is a short time to be able to cover so many pavilions. So I was trying to avoid any pavilions with a queue, i.e. Japan pavilion is apparently filled with amazing new techs such as a robot can play violin?!

I found myself having great fun with countries from middle Asia—Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan; Pacific Island Countries such as Samoa, Fiji, Solomon Islands; as well as all south Asian countries, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia. These countries are focused on showing their beautiful landscape and amazing handcrafts. I was particularly intrigued by Indonesian batik print and here I’ve taken a string of blur photos, though blur, still could feel the extraordinaire.

Tags: Expo2010

Magic Mint

I’ve heard so many people talking about ‘the lovely church street’ around Stoke Newington and now finally I’m living in the neighborhood. A girlfriend and I was looking for a late lunch place and then we landed in this magical mint colour tea house. It’s a mother-and-daughter’s business and simply named as ‘Tea House’.

Beautiful displays…

They have recently expanded their business to next door, so here’s a view of the other room. A group of girls were having afternoon tea and as well as fun with their knitting club…how cute?!

…and this is our side. Where we were sitting was right next to the window on a round table.

…we do need the space of 4 although we were 2, because we were ordering lots of things…Robois tea, Cappuccino, Quiche with Salad, home-made creamy pea soup and bread scone, Cheese Macaroni with Salad… …loose leaf Robois tea tastes so much better than the tea-bag version, highly recommend.

For your information of ‘the Tea Room’, please click here.

I’m really in love with this fresh mint colour, and later of the day, I saw this Balenciaga little number to be carefully cherished inside a glass box in Selfridges. I hope you’re loving it too?

Tags: balenciaga

EXPO!! Shanghai! – part 1 !

As I mentioned in previous post that I have visited the World Expo in Shanghai. Many people in London asked me what the Expo is before I went…well…the Expo is like a country/culture/science/technology/society…etc exhibition. Every country in the world attends it. The famous afterwards-burnt-down Crystal Palace london held the very first Expo in 1851.

—-’The World Expo is a large-scale, global, non-commercial Expo. The hosting of the World Expo must be applied for by a country and approved by the international World Expo committee. Expo aims to promote the exchange of ideas and development of the world economy, culture, science and technology, to allow exhibitors to publicise and display their achievements and improve international relationships. Accordingly, the World Expo with its 150-year history is regarded as the Olympic Games of the economy, science and technology.’

This time in Shanghai, the Expo centre is located both sides of the HuangPu river. I’ve chosen to enter the east side of the Expo first, which appeared to be a wise choice later as the main crowds are entering from west side’s main gate.

The red building is the China Pavilion, however, it requires advance booking which is already scheduled to end of June. (I was there at beginning of May, so it’s 2 months waiting list.)

South Korean Pavilion, the building is like a jigsaw of Korean Kanjis. There’s a queue roughly around 2 hours waiting. So I only watched the performance at their main hall. The performance was amazing.

Cleaners were very cool, you gotta be skilled on skating shoes to be quick and steady!

Vietnam Pavilion—-a cathedral made of bamboos

Saudi Arabia’s Pavilion—–4 hours queue—–the only thing inside is MONEY!!—–no…I’m joking—–the only thing inside is like money—–a 360 degree of IMAX, apparently world largest——from head to toe, from front to back, you are surrounded by the screens.

Then I went to the Pacific Islands Pavilion—–it’s a bit like a giant traveling commercial centre——but it’s definitely good to know some of the Island countries such as Samoa, Samentra etc.

Strange enough to see real hand-made willie sock on a commercial mannequin at Pacific Island countries.

I couldn’t agree more with the 2010 topic ‘better city, better life’. There’s nothing wrong in this phrase in English, however, when it’s translated into Chinese, it somehow changed to, ‘city, makes our life better’??!!! That’s a very scary propaganda example here as we all know the  Chinese government is here trying to pursue more country labour migrates to the city. How can a city be better without its country side? Take London for example, London wouldn’t be as nice if there weren’t those green parks and green surrounding country side.

Ok…I have to go to sleep now…tune in for the part 2 folks!!