Tokyo Eats - Roppongi area Part VII

The last of the Roppongi food posts :(

Hubby and colleagues were super excited when Blue Bottle Coffee opened yet another branch in Roppongi (they're up to 6 branches in Tokyo now!), in the spanking new Tri-Seven Building across the street from Midtown. It made their daily coffee run much easier than, say, Omotesando (will post soon!). Hubby loved going there, and he loved to drag me along. I was more, umm, indifferent. Sure, I like coffee, but more so the flavor than the actual beverage, which can sometimes be too strong and bitter for my unsophisticated taste buds.

Lunasol Full Glamour Lips Part IV

From the same Rakuten JP order for Coffret D'Or Premium Stay Rouge PK-310 and RD-221, I also picked up two more Lunasol Full Glamour Lips in 08 Soft Red Rose and 29 Pure Red. These two colors have been on my wish list since the very first color 02 Cherry Red, so I'm quite happy to finally own them.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

Tokyo Eats - Shinjuku area

Throughout our time in Tokyo, the majority of our visits to Shinjuku was to eat sukiyaki tabehodai (all you can eat hotpot) at Nabezo with a host of friends and visiting family. The remaining of the time was me exploring the Shinjuku Isetan and a few other shopping destinations, me meeting up for lunch and coffee with my old friend K., and our afternoon tea club hanging out at the Peak Lounge or the New York Bar of the Park Hyatt Shinjuku ^.^ So suffice to say we did a great injustice to the enormous and super dense Shinjuku and didn't explore it as much as we could and should have.

Nivea Cream Care Body Wash

I ended up with 6 of these 10mL packets of Nivea Cream Care Body Wash, 4 from the two bottles of Skin Milk Refreshing (Sappari) 200g and 2 from one bottle of Skin Milk Creamy 200g. That's a nice travel-sized 60mL's worth! Good thing I'd just finished a backup bottle of L'Occitane Almond Shower Oil, so I emptied all 6 packets into it ^.^

Tokyo Eats - Ginza area Part III

Wow, has it really been more than a year since my last Ginza post?! Anyway, here's the last of the Ginza series and a long post ahead. I'm almost through with the rest of the Tokyo food photos too. I guess I should be happy to finally be done with the gigantic photo backlog, but coming to the end of the Japan pictures makes me so sad and nostalgic :(

Mum-in-law visited us back in early April 2016 with her older sister, aunt D. Aunt D. was the one who took this pic, with me photo-bombing hubby and his mum ^.^

Coffret D'Or Premium Stay Rouge Part VII

From Rakuten JP, I got a hold of two more Coffret D'Or Premium Stay Rouge from the 2016 LE winter collection, PK-310 and RD-221. I skipped the remaining four colors BE-230, BE-231, PK-309, and RS-336 since I'd swatched them in person and didn't like what I saw. These colors no longer have names, just the color numbers as usual. 

All pictures taken in natural light without flash.

An Afternoon in Asakusa, Tokyo

My brother was visiting us in Tokyo around late September, and during one weekday he and I took a stroll around Asakusa after lunch. No, we didn't go to Senso-ji again. Been there a million times. Instead, we started out at the famous and crowded Asakusa Nakamise and made our way through all the surrounding shotengais.

FANCL Washing Powder Part II

Before leaving Tokyo, J. and I went to the FANCL store in Ginza one last time, and there I picked up a Mild Cleansing Oil and Mini Facial Washing Powder Set. The set includes a full size 120mL Mild Cleansing Oil and a 13g bottle of Facial Washing Powder, all for the price of the cleansing oil alone, so the washing powder was pretty much a freebie.

An Afternoon in Akihabara, Tokyo

Before hubby and I moved home from Japan last October, my brother flew out to hang with us for about 10 days around late September. Free place to crash in Tokyo, so why not, right? When he was there for the holidays season 2015, he got the explore the city a little bit. The second time around he was a lot more comfortable venturing out by himself, knowing how the subway system works, how much things cost, etc.

One Sunday he convinced us to go with him to Akihabara, or Akiba for short. We both have been once, though only briefly a long time ago, back in 2010-2012 when we were living in Yokohama. So hubby and my brother went out there after breakfast, and I joined them after lunch.

Suqqu Extra Glow Lipstick Part II

It's been a heated discussion why Selfridges UK Online has such trouble supplying Suqqu demands. When these Extra Glow Lipsticks went on sale in August of 2016, they were sold out in a snap on Selfridge's website. The problem was they weren't restocked until the second week of December, and even then, only certain colors. I still haven't seen 08 深紅 (Fukabeni) Crimson Red available at all!

Yes, there's always the option of calling the physical Suqqu UK counter at the store, but international customers get stuck with a pretty hefty price tag per order: 1--GBP30 delivery fee (~$36.75!), 2--an administrative charge that's 2% of the subtotal, all on top of the actual order. I don't know about you, but this makes it prohibitively expensive and leaves me solely dependent on the website. I bit the bullet once and I'm positive I won't do that again.

Anyway, in the second week of December, a fellow blog reader Caty alerted me to the limited restock (thanks, Caty!) and I was able to snag four more colors: 03 粋桃 (Suitou) Aquatic Pink, 04 彩珊瑚 (Ayasango) Bright Coral, 06 紅茜 (Beniakane) Madder Red, and 07 瞬朱 (Syunake) True Red.

All pictures taken in natural light without flash. Clickable = zoomable.

Atago-jinja, Minato, Tokyo, Part III

A few days after we returned from Taipei, hubby and I took a late afternoon stroll in the neighborhood and promptly stumbled upon a festival at Atago-jinja. As you can see, it was still gloomy and wet after having rained cats and dogs earlier that day. We were quite surprised to see a festival going on as they usually just cancel and move to the next day.

Paul & Joe Beaute Summer 2017 Web Finds

...Are pretty damn scant so far :(

I first spotted the Paul & Joe Summer 2017 Daydream Believer collection on Instagram, shortly before Iris at Rouge Deluxe posted briefly about it. 

Normally, I only peek at P&J for the lipsticks. I love the sheers and skip the more pigmented ones, and I stay far away from the clear balms or those in gimmicky cat shapes. And then there are the eye shadows, which are mostly miss for me with the exception of the most recent Eye Color M that I truly enjoy. 

Interestingly enough, with this upcoming Summer 2017 to be released on May 1, it's actually the eye shadows that catch my eyes: the Eye Color Limited in a really neat honeycomb pattern! Yes, yes, they'll probably be difficult to pickup, but the colors are so pretty ^.^

The Eye Color Limited palettes come in 3 variations: 005 Blue Mix (not sure if these are official names or what...) in a whale print compact, 006 Green Mix in a paisley print compact, and 007 Brown Mix in a tiny flowers and stripes print compact.

***Photo from VoCEMagazine via Instagram.

National Palace Museum, Taipei, Part VI (故宮)

Last of the National Palace Museum (故宮) photos and the conclusion of our [too] short Taipei trip :(

Here are some really intricate carvings on a variety of materials like jade, stone, ivory, bone, wood, etc. Click to zoom.

Suqqu Bright Up Lipstick Part II

When Selfridges UK Online had their annual cosmetics sales event over the holidays, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Suqqu Bright Up Lipsticks reduced from GBP27 to GBP21, and that was with VAT. For international orders, the price excluded VAT was GBP17.46 (~$21.25 at the current rates). Whaaa?! Yes, please!

So I picked up three colors initially, 02 花紅 (Hanabeni), 03 薔薇色 (Barairo), and 07 朱杏 (Akaanzu). All pictures taken in natural light without flash.