Pretty Plastic and Sugary Creations

Lookie!! The goodies I bought off Etsy arrived when I wasn't back yet, and I was just given the package. Haha.

What you see above is a strap for handphones, or whatever you wish to dangle it on. But look!! It's a mini merry-go-round!!! Wow! I placed my order quite a while back, before that post on merry-go-rounds! I sort of forgot what charms were on the strap, so my subconscious must have been sending images of pretty painted wooden horses going up and down and round and round to the fore of my consciousness.

Anyway, I also got this necklace:


The creator describes the range as "Gothic Sweets Jewelery".


I sort of know the creator from LiveJournal, and found the link to her Etsy shop, Chocobanana. Actually, I came to know of Etsy through this shop!

She has some pretty interesting ideas, and some of her creations are really adorable and pretty.

I really like this Natural Layered Bracelet, but didn't get it as I practically never wear bracelets. The Chinese coins are a nice touch.
This Eiffel Tower Crochet Chain and Lace Necklace is pretty too, but I felt I had too much in my shopping cart already.

A really nice touch is her packaging. My goodies came in an adorable Cinnamoroll bag with a Rilakkuma paper note. ^-^ She also threw in two plastic ribbon charms and a cute little black Anna Sui-esque plastic comb (which has lost itself in the clutter of my room and hence is unable to make an appearance v.v ). Thought that goes into packaging is appreciated!!


I've preciously shopped there before, and the highlights of that order are:

This wonderfully pop and shiny pin! With a carousal horse!! Haha. It's in need of some superglue now, though. Eep.


And my absolute favourite!! You've probably seen me wearing it before! A Whipped Cream Mini Barrette! xD I love it muchly!


The goods arrived nicely packaged as well that time, with adorable macaron tape, sweet pink tissue wrapping, as well as a free chocolate bar-shaped mirror! ^^


It has been raining all afternoon, which is lovely, especially since I was out and about in the morning and got home before the skies opened up.
I love rainy days.
And I especially love them when I have nothing to do but stay indoors and listen to the sound of the rain.

I'm also listening to some Dvorak, pilfered from the father's CD collection. I chose this disc because it had a Cello Concerto and a Polonaise, and was surprised to recognise the tunes when I popped it into my redeemed-free-with-petrol-station-points Hi-Fi set.

It's mostly like that with classical music for me - recognising the tunes but not knowing what it is or who the composer is. Haha.


There was tea and cupcake earlier on.


Mmmmmmmmmm.

The cupcake is obviously half-eaten, as I brought it back from brunch when I couldn't eat another bite. Haha.

From The Marmalade Pantry, which has now moved to the swanky new shopping centre, the ION, from the stalwart old tai-tai (rich wives with naught to do but go shopping, have high tea, and play mahjong) hangout that is Palais Renaissance.

The smoothie was a Fail - if I wanted an ice-blended, I would have gone to Coffee Bean or Starbucks, my friend.
The burger was disappointingly unimpressive.

But, the cupcake was really pretty good!


The Geisha. Pandan with coconut and..... other stuff I can't really remember. Haha. No matcha (Japanese green tea) involved, though, so named solely on based on colour.
I love pandan and coconut! Pandan chiffon cakes are an old childhood favourite of mine! Must write down in my notebook to have some before I leave the Spore again!

But yes, the Marmalade group's cupcakes do not disappoint. Which means I should probably just go back to frequenting Toast, their cafe, which has pretty pink tiled walls and floors. Ho-hum!

Perved their cupcakes on my way out.


The one in the middle is the Red Velvet, which I've had before. Coconut and rose chocolate, if my memory serves me right!



This one was the prettiest one, and all the patrons who judge cupcakes by their covers picked it! Tsk! I think the three lurking behind are Limonettas (or some other lemon-based name). That's good too!

My old favourite's got to be the chocolate one, whatever it's called. Mmm. Brings back good memories!

Seems like they've expanded their range of cupcakes. New ones like the Geisha and the pretty strawberry one. Yum yum!

Rainy Day Blogging

I keep meaning to blog, but have been distracted by other corners of the internet whenever I get online. Well, to beging with, being back has rather cut down the number of hours I spend with my digits being glued to the keyboard. I'm still ill and so have not gone into full 'I'm back!!!!!' mode, but there're enough engrossing diversions and delightful distractions to be had within under my roof and within the confines of my room. I rather enjoy conducting what I like to think of as self-archaeological digs - sifting through my drawers and going through the material goods that are now remnants of the years I've spent taking in oxygen and consuming resources on this planet.

But anyway, there's much that I'd love to write about on this blog! I keep blogging in my head, but never actually get down to doing it. Let's draw up a little list and see how much I can get through..... eventually? Haha.

♣ Impressions on China.
-This is something I really want to do, but don't feel quite up to the task just yet. Hmmm.
♣ More on hutongs.
-I have some pictures from a sunny afternoon spent traipsing around the hutongs of Beijing. Would like to put some up. Or I could just dump them in a Facebook photo album. Haha.
♣ Tianjin
-Took a day trip to the city of Tianjin a while back, but never got round to writing about it and putting pictures up.

♥ Two years ago.......
-London, Norway, Paris, Iceland. I miss Europe so!

♠ Uniquely Singapore
Haha! That's our tourist promotion tagline. Right. Haha. But yes, it'd be nice if I could actually get down to posting about places I like in the Spore. I don't think I've ever done that before. Heh. ^^;

♦ NicoNico Video music!!!
Remember when I complained about not having new music to explore? Well, all that has changed now!! Whoo! Haha. Lots of lovely cheesy electronic Vocaloid music, and Utattemita ('I tried singing it') music. Nya~! =^.^= Happily spinning!



Mmm. I think that's about it? For now? Heh.

Anyway, I need to gloat!!


I am now the proud new owner of happy, happy, shiny, colourful hair!!! Whoo~! о(ж＞▽＜)ｙ ☆

Or as the speshu Shu puts it, I have shanny, colourful hair!! xDDD

I was getting so sick of my old hair and one of the first things on my list to do after getting back was heading to the hairdresser's.


Have I mentioned how much I love my hairdresser??? If not, I am now!!!

She did a much more amazing job than I would have hoped for!

It's this old, pokey place in a sleepy neighbourhood with interior designs straight out of the 80's. It's like stepping back in time.
I sat there for four hours with the classical channel on the radio piping into one ear, and a cheesy Chinese period drama on the TV into the other, with the sweet fumes of chemicals drifted through the blocked clogness of my nose as she put aluminum into my hair and we talked about Europe and Monet, Millais, and Munch.


The final result had me grinning like an idiot!
Four colours - red, brown, blue, and purple.
The last two will fade into pink and copper with time. Wow! It's like magical changing hair! Two for the price of one!! xD

And she charged me a really, really reasonable price - no, it's actually really rather cheap!!

I can't stop looking at my own hair. Haha. Apologies for the pic-spam!!


The last time I did anything fun with my hair was over two years ago. Wow. o.o

Good times, good times. ^.^

Anyway, the poor long-suffering Shu had to put up with my silly real life spazzing over my hair (and other various spazz-spasms. Haha.) when we went out for Ramen and sweets.


Was very glad to set eyes on the Singapore River again. This is one of my favourite mainstream Singapore places. Haha.


The Japanese Ramen boom shows no sign of slowing down in Singapore.....? This one's Santouka, which hails from the northern island of Hokkaido.


On to Canele for desert!! Oh, my Passion Fruit and Milk Chocolate Macaron! How I have pined for you!!!
Haha.


The other two I went for were Mandarin Orange and Black Forest. Good stuff! Though they still can't knock Passion Fruit and Milk Chocolate off its throne. Haha.

Evil thing about Canele is that now they "only serve still and sparkling water". No more normal (tap) water provided. Money-grubbing bastards. This would be against EU regulations, right?
Ah well.


In other news, more stations on the new MRT (Mass Rapid Transport - our subway/tube) are now open, and I felt like a mountain tortoise (Chinese/Hokkien expression that sort of means 'hick' or er..... Too lazy to wrack my brains to come up with a good explanation for it. It can be used as a noun or an adjective, if that helps. Lol).
They also started saying 'Please mind the gap' on the TV screens on the train platforms, which is just weird. Haha.

Anyway, it's been a nice, rainy morning so far. A veritable tropical storm which has now mellowed into a patter with distant rumbles of thunder. I'm on to my second pot of tea (LUPICIA peach-scented Darjeeling). The cat is cosily curled up on the chair under the table in the yard, and I haven't the heart to disturb his soporific state with a camera in his nose.


So what I'm going to do is throw you a Vocaloid song instead. Haha. 'Yowamushi Mont Blanc' (Literally - 'Coward Mont Blanc'. Mont Blanc here isn't the mountain, but that cake you see in the video with oodles of spaghetti-looking cream piled on top. It's made of chestnuts. I'm not a fan, as I don't particularly delight in the taste of chestnut confections.)

Composed by DECO*27, featuring the Vocaloid GUMI, who uses the voice of Anisong singing sensation (at least in 2008? haha) Nakajima Megumi.

It's a wonderfully cute song with a cute video too. If you listen to it with good(ish) speakers or earphones, you'll hear that the arrangement is actually pretty good as well! Love the string-instrument-like melody. (Fails at musical description)
I also like how GUMI sounds. I'm not a fan of some of the other Vocaloids as their tone is too shrill or cutesy sometimes. But GUMI sounds good here. A bit husky and not grating on the ear!

Well, after so much typing, here it is!! Enjoy!!!

My song of current loop, both in soundwaves and in my head. Heh. ^-^

The best kind of rainy days are those when you have nothing to do but laze around the house with the sound of raindrops providing background music to all the lazy lazing you do.