Photography

Sunday is always time for tea with the girls. One of the Sundays previously, when Regina came back from Sydney, we met up for tea with Yitian and her brother at TCC, Isetan Orchard.

Their tea set is not bad but I really miss scones from Seah Deli. In fact, I’ll probably head down there today to get me some! I’ll try to write more soon. This weekend is quite tight for me with a couple of events, report deadlines and more!

Here’s what I wore on that day.

Jolene and I always have impromptu meet ups. Either that or we plan to meet up then end up doing impromptu stuffs! And this time our meetup took us unexpectedly to have simple dinner at a Hong Kong Cafe followed by a movie.

It was also the first time that Jolene fetched me around I haven’t seen her for quite awhile and I have so much to catch up with her on!!!

When I brought my mum to Kuala Lumpur, I just had to take her to Restoran Ahwa to try the best black hokkien noodles I know in KL, Malaysia. Despite the name, it’s really more of a coffeeshop rather than a restaurant.  And some of the best local food in KL are found in hawkers and coffeeshops like these.

The place serves not only the yummy hokkien noodles but also a variety of hawker food like BBQ sting ray, satay, stir fried seafood dishes, etc. And so we ordered a whole bunch of other stuff together with huge plates of hokkien noodles. Everything here is really pretty good. The BBQ sting ray here is so meaty and such value for money!

It was also on this particular trip that we discovered another awesome food in this same place. And that’s the Little Lim Penang chinese pancake. You can choose all sorts of fillings that will be cooked fresh into a super crispy pancake. My favorite so far is the ham, cheese and egg pancake. It’s really very good and this has become one of the top items in my “To Eat List” whenever I visit KL. After this occasion, I’ve been back many times and brought many friends here and was love at first bite for most people! In fact, my mum kept wanting to go back to this place while we were in KL.

I know the main question for most of you is where is this place so here’s the address for those of you who are heading north for some food exploration.

Restoran Ahwa

66, Jalan 14/48
Petaling Jaya
Selangor, Malaysia
In the area of Jalan 222

Before I left for my Europe holiday, I heard from the grapevine that CLIO was going to launch their Gelpresso Waterproof Pencil Gel Liner in Singapore at Watsons and I was super excited! I wanted to head down to Watsons Ngee Ann City outlet where they did their launch to grab some to try out during my trip! Unfortunately, I was insanely busy during the week I was supposed to leave I never got to it. So busy that I didn’t even manage to sleep for 48 hours before my flight and I only packed 2 hours before heading to the airport.

But luck must be still shining on me because when I got back from my trip, 2 Gelpresso Waterproof Pencil Gel Liner landed on my lap! I picked black and beige shine. Black eyeliners are my absolute daily staple and the beige shine was just too pretty to pass up. Actually I liked all the colors! Purple and silver would have been my next two picks.

As the very long name suggests, this korean product is the very 1st in the world to allow you to use gel base texture in a fuss free pencil format. Multitudes of beauty experts and close friends have always told me that gel base eyeliners are the best cause they last longer and have the best texture. Even then I’ve pretty much stuck to pencil liners because gel usually comes in pots and requires a brush to apply on which I find a tad troublesome.

CLIO managed to come up with this awesome product that basically gave me the quality of a gel texture without all the fuss! No need for brushes (which means no need to clean and store extra brush), just use it like a pencil liner and twist the top to release a longer gel stick when you need to. It even comes with a mini built in sharpener that you can detach from the top to sharpen your gel tip in case you want more precise sharp lines when you draw.

Awesomeness! I’m definitely going to  be using this for awhile. I’ve been using it for 10 days now and am still using it. Grab it at your nearest Watsons or if you are lucky, you can win one. It’s crazily simple. Just got to CLIO Singapore Facebook page and try out their simple Tag and Win Contest. Tag your name to the color of gel liner you want to win and stand a chance to win it! Simple right? Go enter before the contest ends!

Here’s another sneak preview of my Europe trip in Spring. Paris is such a beautiful city and I’m in love with the culture, the food and the shopping there. It’s no wonder that I’ve been visiting France almost every single year.

Spring has such unpredictable weather. Some days the sun is out and other days it could possibly even snow! On one of the sunnier and cozier spring days I wore this gorgeous little hanging shoulder sequin waist dress from Flirtydolly. I paired it with my own little jacket to guard against any sudden chilly breeze and when I was indoors, I’ll take it off to reveal my electric blue dress. Gorgeous cutting, with unique details. This is one dress that you can dress up or down depending on the occasion.

I wore this dress to some of the finest Michelin star restaurants in Paris and would have loved to dress this piece up with my super high heel to give it a more sophisticated edge. But that was a little tough as I was living out of a suitcase and had limited shoes and accessories. Besides I needed friendly heels that I would walk an entire day in while I shop and sightsee. But even without any jazzing up, the dress on it’s own captivated attention from onlookers. My favorite detail is the cut off shoulders which I wore it low in the photos but can also be worn higher on the shoulders itself to give a different look.

Flirtydolly has a wonderful range of apparel that is quite suited for the working crowd. The outfits they carry are well cut and looks as good as those bought in the physical stores even though it’s super affordable. I was their customer from a long time back before they stopped their business for a period of time. But now they are back and they are getting even better!

Here are some outfits from Flirtydolly’s new collection that I’m tempted to get for myself!

Nice right! Well, there are lots more so go visit them at http://flirtydolly.livejournal.com to see for yourself. Their service is thumbs up as well!

Just early this month, Dominios introduced they new ultimate Hawiian pizza and I headed down together with a couple of other bloggers to give it a go!

It’s basically the same Hawaiian Pizza we all love except it has more than double the amount of chicken, toasted turkey ham, pineapples and mushrooms. Basically better! The more impressive thing for me is not the new pizza (which is awesome) but the incredibly technologically advance online ordering system they have established.

Call me a mountain tortoise but it’s not often that I order fast food online. However, with Dominos, I just might do it a little more often. Their website is super user friendly with auto saving of locations, 7 days advance booking and GPS ( Great Pizza Service) tracking. Yes! You can literally track your pizza from the moment it is born as a dough ball till the point it lands in your hands. Og course knowing that they have a 30 minutes delivery guarantee and 15 minutes takeout guarantee means it’s a good place to look for food when you are really hungry.  Their last order is at 11pm so great for night birds like me!

It was a fun little pizza party evening with some entertainment from fellow bloggers and their hula hoops, great learnings gleaned from the Domino’s team and tons of pizzas, chickens, onion rings and my favorite lava chocolate cake! I’m actually really in love with the side dishes from Domino! The lava cake is only $3.80 when you order online and it’s super sinful. Oh, and all their pricing is nett pricing so no gst to calculate!

Dominos has several choices of crust and my personal fave is the thin crust. I generally hate fast food pizzas because they have so much dough and too little ingredients but with the ultimate hawaiian pizza and thin crust, I’m going to have to change my opinion soon.

If you are feeling hungry reading about my experience with Dominos or feeling peckish at night, call them at 6222-6333 or log on to their website www.dominos.com.sg now. As of March 2012, there are 13 Domino’s Pizza stores in Singapore so they should cover most areas, if your area is not cover yet, fret not! Domino’s are still expanding their stores island wide!

I think the title is as about straight to the point as it can get. And if you have been following me on twitter (@renzze) or instagram or Facebook then this is probably not very new news to you but I thought I ought to blog about it in case you couldn’t recognize me and say hi if you bumped into me on the streets. ( Seriously, that has happened to me a lot lately and people have to look twice to make sure it’s me!)

Well, I cut my hair short. I woke up one morning on Labour Day and decided on a whim that I needed a new look, marched myself to the salon and asked my stylist to chop it all off. No one knew I wanted to cut my hair short, I didn’t even know it myself! In fact, just 2 days before my sudden impulsion, I just bought a new hair clip to bun up my long hair while shopping with Regina!

A girl’s hair is her crowning glory and it’s always been said that a drastic change like this must have been brought about by an immense push, be it a change of lifestyle, a bad breakup, a new move, death in the family and so on. Honestly, I don’t know exactly what compelled me to chop my hair off. Just last year the thought of cutting off my hair totally scared me and  yet this time I didn’t think twice! Either way I wasn’t upset when I went to cut my hair, I just knew I’ll go through with it.

It was only when I was sitting in the salon chair that I notified some of my gfs about what I was about to do. Every single one of them said Nooooooooooo! LOL!

My hairstylist measured my hair which is at my hips when straightened, made sure I knew what I wanted. She then tied a rubberband and with one swift motion, she clipped off the entire pony tail. I cringed for a second and then it was over. No mourning of any kind as my stylist went about snipping my hair to shape.

And here is the end result…

I like my cut! Normally they say you need time to grow into a new haircut but I think my stylist did a great job! However, I do have to admit that I didn’t recognize myself in reflections and mirrors for the first 2 days and even though it’s been 5 days I’m pretty much still dealing with shocked looks from friends and family. Regina met me shortly after my hair cut and as even when I was right in front of her, she couldn’t recognize me till I was about 2 arms length! Others who have seen my instagram pictures of my short hair were a little more prepared but some still take awhile to realize it’s me.

Here’s the comparisons of before and after.

Friends and family who have been with me for years and the men, generally preferred me with my previous long hair. My colleagues, friends that don’t meet me that often and fellow bloggers say they prefer my new look much better. However, a lot of those who prefer me with long hair are changing their sentiments to you look good either way after getting used to my new hair style.

I think the short hair makes me my face looks rounder and my hair has more volume. My hair was dyed ash as well so I probably look a little more trendy then before. Head feels light without the long hair and shampoo consumption is definitely gonna drop. Maintenance of the hair is really easy and no styling is need at all! The only thing to remember is that I can no longer sleep with wet hair because the shape would look all funky when I wake up ( which could be a cool wake-up hair look if I can pull it off).

Feel free to share your thoughts about my new look! And for those who miss me with long hair, the good news is that you’ll still see me posting tons of  photos of me in long hair on my blog because I’m crazily backdated on so many photos and trips that I’ve yet to share with my readers. My blog is not exactly posted in chronological sequence anyways.

PS- Happy Vesak Day!