Made For Me!

Regular readers will know that I have a bit of a weakness for O.P.I. nail polish and all their cute names. I've got about ten now, all in different shades & I'm trying to wear them more.

Recently in a magazine I saw that their new range, which is the Germany Collection, has a shade with my name in it. Of course it's on my want list! :P

I looked for it in duty free during my recent Melbourne trip, but they don't have it yet. I could have bought it in Auckland, but why do that when I can wait til it's in DF and get 2 for the price of one? F1rst Duty Free in Aussie airports has a pretty much permanent promotion: 2 O.P.I. colours for $25 ($35NZD in NZ) and it's valid even for Shatter, Base and Topcoats. The 4-pack minis go for about $20-25 a box. Not bad, really!! I'm also keeping an eye out for the Skyfall James Bond collection since they have some nice metallics and sparkles in there. Do you have a favourite shade?

 

My next purchase "Unfor-Greta-Bly Blue" :)

Slow Day in Sydney

After all my grand plans to catch up on posts in Sydney, we have moved to a new hotel where sadly, there's no crew room with internet and no nearby McD's with free wifi for the cost of a cheeseburger ;)

I'm in my old haunt of Woolworth's using the internet cafe to catch up as there's only so much I can do using the browser on my 3DS or on my phone. So it's very timely that Skype have launched wifi for Skype, where at participating hotspots you can use your Skype credit to pay for time online with existing connections. Hop there's one near my new hotel.... :)

Unusually for me, I actually slept when I arrived. I intended only to sleep until the shops opened at 10, but ended up sleeping through until 2pm. Feeling very hungry I wandered to Pitt St mall where I was pretty sure that the Westfield there would be open. tucked into a cheese Kransky sausage & rustic potato wedges then browsed the shops. Sadly for me, Zara proved fruitless in my quest for the White Jacket in a medium (they told me last time I was here they'd get more size M, and if not then in a "few weeks") That was 3 weeks ago and now they tell me that they had no plans to get more in. Darn it! If I hadn't thought more sizes were coming in I would have just suffered with the size S. Oh well! If anyone has one and wants to sell it, drop me a line!

I dropped by Priceline to pick up a few things (mainly hair colour which was 50%- if you use L'Oreal Excellence Creme or the new Mousse one). The "Savvy by DB" stand is still sadly filled with all the unwanted shades of Orly nail laquer. Come back, Savvy, we miss you!!

Cruised by Dotti to eye off the dress I'd been wanting, but had disappeared from their online catalogue. Lucky I did, because it was on sale from $70 to $30. Score! I was in two minds between the size 10 and the 12, and while the 12 is a little big I figured I'd err on the side of caution as I'd rather it be too long than slightly too short for Dubai. There's always leggings of course but sometimes I like to wear just a dress. My penchant for dresses continues.

Still feeling in a shopping mood, I hit up Gloss Cosmetics (2x BYS blushes in Coral and Fierce Fuschia), Woolworths for groceries and stockings for work, and of course more chocolate. Violet Crumble block, I'm talking to you.

Beauty Goodies & Why So Expensive?

This afternoon when I woke up from my post-flight nap, I was in the mood to tidy up my room, and settled on cleaning out some of the bags stored in my closet which contain some of the stash of goodies I've picked up on my travels. I just love buying makeup & beauty items, but being the hoarder that I am, I hardly ever actually get around to using most of them. It's such a shame because there's some really great items out there.

Beauty haul!! :)

Being that I'm pretty much a novice at anything complicated when it comes to applying makeup, my current range is pretty limited and I don't really get too adventurous with my makeup. I decided that I will have a little giveaway soon of some products. Since I saw today that my blog has 41 followers, once it gets to 50 then I will have a giveaway. I have three lots of items planned for giveaways so there will certainly be more coming if I can get my blog revamped and a bit more interest in it.

In the photo above, the row of nail polishes at the bottom is a local brand I picked up in Bangkok called I-Hana. I hadn't seen them before so I took the chance to grab a few. The range of colours was amazing from glitter polishes to metallics and even matte pastels. Wish I'd thought to take a photo of the table setup as everything was in colour-spectrum order and it looked really cool! These six are marked for giveaways or gifts for friends but I will definitely be picking up some for myself next visit so I can try them for myself and see how good they are.

Other items in the photo include a Heroine Make (Japanese) mascara I've been wanting to try for ages, cute animal-shaped hand cream pots from Etude House (Korea), my regular CoverGirl foundation and Nivea moisturiser and my two newest O.P.I. polishes. I love that you can get 2 for $25 in duty free in Aussie airports, when normally they retail between $20-25 each in Australia.

I really do think that we pay far too much for makeup in Australia; I didn't know any better until I visited the US where I bought a NARS blush for $26, and my sister's MAC foundation for the same price. Both retail for well over $65 in Oz and I cannot find a decent reason why that should be the case! Importing products does not cost THAT much that things should cost double to triple the price in certain countries. Anyone know why this is the case, I'd love to find out! Luckily for me, I can travel often enough that I can stock up and save when I go to the US.

What foreign products do you love but don't buy because of the markup in Australia?

Burgundy & Gold (Outfit Post)

I've always liked the combination of burgundy & gold, especially when accented with black and/or white.

I remember seeing Nicole of Gary Pepper Vintage wearing an amazing burgundy pleated skirt in one of her posts, and when I was last in Sydney, pleated skirts were popping up everywhere in the store windows including Dotti and Valleygirl. Sadly, they looked kind of wrong on me.

While on my visit to AdelaideI was very happy to discover a similar, non-pleated skirt in Supre. It also came in black, bone and a tan colour. I really liked the tan and if it's still there next time I get to Sydney I think I'll buy it as well. In the last couple of years I've thought Supre clothes are quite expensive for what they are, but as I wear long skirts all the time in Dubai this purchase would be worth it.

Today I wore it for the first time in Dubai, this test run was to the mall for a nice dinner on my own.



Detail Shot:

This shows what I like to call my 'Lord of the Rings Tree' necklace. I can't recall where I bought this but I know it was $5 or less. I LOOOOVE this necklace & have been wearing it to death lately.



These are also the first pictures of my new hair colour. The lighting is not that great but it's quite red now. Last time I got it coloured it was more a darker, red-brown than a true red-copper brown.

Skirt: Supre
Cardigan: Crossroads, about 4 or 5 years ago
Belt: ICE Brisbane, about 3 years ago
Necklace: Bargain, probably Diva or similar
Shoes: Forever21 New York City
Hair Colour: L'Oreal Excellence #44 ;)
Makeup: Dior Lip Glow, Maybelline Colour Sensational #55 Pinkalicious & Dior Addict Ultra Gloss in #557 with CoverGirl TruBlend Mineral Powder (no longer on sale) :(

Tee Vee

After convincing myself for ages that I didn't *NEED* a tv, at least not for a few more months, the searing temperatures in Dubai finally made me cave & I figured summer & right before Ramadan is as good a time as any to get a tv. So, I went out and got myself a nice shiny 32-inch flat screen tv. The good thing is, I can connect my laptop to view photos and videos, and watch all my DVDs that I have in a list waiting to be seen.

The tv I got is a Sony Bravia, I had wanted a Samsung but it didn't have a VGA port for my computer (which doesn't have HDMI) and it didn't have a headphone port either. I prefer to have the option in case I want to watch movies in the middle of the night, I won't feel bad about making any noise!!

Next time I go home on leave I'll probably bring back my Nintendo 64, or if I can find one for a reasonable price online, a Super Nintendo. I love me some retro games!!!

Finally to Sydney... (part 1)

Hello again!!! I'm currently awake at 3am, having got in from my Sydney trip last night and now my sleeping pattern is way off. I went to bed at 4am and slept until 10am, but fell asleep again at 5 and woke up at 11pm. Not good, as now I'm wide awake and really need to be sleeping nights as I'm going to New York tomorrow morning. Such is the jetlagged life of a flight attendant! :)

Now I know I said I had some planned posts about my last NYC trip, but first I need to let you know about my latest trip to Sydney, as it was pretty eventful!

As you may recall, I was pretty bummed about not getting a Sydney trip this month, and had been madly trying to get someone to swap with me. Every time I thought I had a swap, it fell through or was invalid. Finally, I got lucky and another homesick crewmember gladly took my Manchester flight along with a Jeddah so that she too could go home. Yay!!!

I was totally looking forward to spending some time back in Oz. I didn't have anything special planned, just being there around familiar things is enough. The flight was pretty good, as always the passengers were nice and there was lots more 'please' and 'thankyou' than we often get.

There was a family travelling with four kids who were so sweet, they were so polite and had gorgeous manners. They had been through Europe and were making scrapbooks about their travels. Since kids can't visit the flgiht deck any more, I took the notebooks to the cockpit and the pilots signed them, and told me some facts that I wrote down in the books for them.

I told the kids to come to the galley whenever they wanted, as we had a camera and we'd take their picture. Two of them came up and we dressed them up in our uniforms. The girl wore my hat and jacket and we put the boy in the purser's jacekt and tie. They looked so cute! When the senior saw the photo she got us to get them back to the galley and take another photo to send to headquarters to put on our corkboard in the departures area. At the end of the flight the family came to see the cockpit after we landed and got some more photos. I love nice kids and will do anything for them to make their trip memorable.

We arrived in Sydney at around 8am, I went right to my room and unpacked then got changed and headed out.



It was kind of weird wearing summer clothes again, even though I've been living in the desert, I rarely wore anything above the knee, so it took some getting used to! As always my first stop was to get a bacon & egg roll for breakfast, then I headed into World Square to get my Priceline fix. I'd been looking for my usual L'Oreal moisturiser for ages but it seems it's been discontinued everywhere except Dubai. I didn't want to buy it in Dubai though as the version they sell here doesn't have SPF and I suspect has whitening ingredients in it.

I had just about decided to buy the new range from L'Oreal when on the bottom shelf of the display I saw my item, AND it was discounted to $9.95 from about $40 to make way for the new stock. Bonus! So I bought 2 of the day cream and 2 of the night cream. Later in the discount chemist I saw the collagen treatment for 50% off so I got that as well. Can never have too much moisturiser when you fly in a dry cabin air all the time!

I also made my usual trip to Maccas's for a bacon & egg roll hit. Oh yeah, bacon is always so good, and I am always so hungry after arriving in the early morning! Then of course to Pricleine and when I was done there I made a quick stop at Ally. I just love browsing in the clothing stores back home in Oz. A lot of the clothes in Dubai are ironically far too short for me to even consider wearing in public. I finally found a just-above-the-knee denim skirt like I'd been looking for, for a long time. It even has cute heart-shaped pockets (win!)

For the rest of the day I just enjoyed wandering around Pitt St, checking out the new Sportsgirl store and being in the sunny (but not scorching) weather. Headed back to the hotel to drop off my bags but ended up falling asleep until 6pm when I just wanted to 'close my eyes for a bit'.

Early to bed and of course up early again the next morning for the flight to Auckland which was really busy. Once in Auckland, a few of the crew decided to meet up for early dinner. Our first officer told us about a cute Mexican place that had good food so we headed there. I got a chicken burrito and maaaan was it good. Huge, too, so I only needed one. We also had frozen margaritas :) At the restaurant, there were these little birds that cheekily hopped right inside the restaurant and sat on the backs of our chairs, waiting to be fed leftovers. Hahah they were too funny!

Buddha & Bangkok (Part 2)

On to the second part of the Bangkok photos. As I mentioned earlier, it was quite hot, so we tried to stay in the shady parts and look around there.


I think there would be probably a hundred of these statues all around the temple. Some of them were covered in plastic due to renovations, I noticed they have little number plaques on the base. I'm not sure if that's for the temple staff or if each statue has a particular significance.


In this hall of Buddhas I noticed that they use energy-efficient lightbulbs! :)



The outsides of the buildings had lots of tiles and mirrors on them, it really was quite pretty and almost blinding at times in the bright sun. The photos really don't do it justice.





Eventually after leaving our shoes, we made our way into the hall where the Reclining Buddha rests. It was a nice cool change from outside. As you go in you can hear a repetitive metallic clinking noise, along with the variety of tones of voice of people all speaking in different languages. As I walked along I could get glimpses of the Buddha through the columns holding up the roof.








This is one of the Buddha's feet. All over the soles of the feet are inscriptions & pictures, sadly my picture of this didn't turn out very well. As we rounded the other side of the Buddha, I saw a long line of metal pots on stands lining the walls. These were the source of the clinking noise I mentioned before. Visitors were holding small bowls of coins and walking along the line of pots, dropping coins in until they got to the end.


There wasn't really any explanation of this, but I guessed maybe it's something similar to doing a rosary where each coin is meant to be a prayer or maybe a nice thought. The noises I thought were maybe to bring luck or some such thing. Anyway, I decided to get a coin bowl (20baht) and walk along the line. As I dropped my coins I was trying to think a nice thought for each one, or for something I wanted to do or achieve in the next year. As I neared the end, I saw I sttill had plenty more coins, so started putting in a few at a time instead of one. I found the clinking noise as I dropped the coins strangely satisfying =D

On our way out of the Buddha hall, I spotted this sign, warning about pickpockets operating in the temple grounds.

It's amusing how they stress it's "non-Thai" pickpockets. I guess they want us to know that good Thai people are not pickpockets :p


Found this cat taking a nap in a potted tree in the temple grounds. He looked very relaxed, and doing what I wanted to be doing that afternoon- having a nice sleep! We made a quick stop at the gift shop to buy some postcards before making our way outside to find a taxi. It was too hot and we were too tired to continue on to the Grand Palace.


Outside the temple walls were some merchants selling souvenirs. I didn't really want anything but did notice these little brass bells (with the pink ribbon attached, above) and decided to get one. I always hate bargaining and I know the Thai sellers are less aggressive than elsewhere in Asia, still I thought 450baht was a bit much for the smallest size of bell. In the end I was about to cave and offer the lady her best price of 150 when she said she'd take 100. Win! If only I had a window that opens, so I could hear it ring! It's hanging on the wall next to my desk.


We hailed a taxi only to find that the driver was pretending not to know which hotel we wanted to go to, said the traffic was very busy and wanted to go off-meter and negotiate a price. The one he quoted was way too high, I smelt a scam so we got out and instead walked back through another small market, on our way to the boat pier at the stop before the one we had disembarked from.

After a slight detour around yet another stinky fish-section, we spotted this cool guy making juice from dragonfruit.

He was really nice and very jolly, we nicknamed him the Hippie Juice Guy. I do wonder if he was Thai or from somewhere else, as he had a different demeanor than the rest of the local people, maybe one of his parents is from somewhere else.

Anyway, he happily gave us our juice, told us all about the benefits of the fruit and was very careful to mention that he uses no water or ice, only the juice and it's very good for you with lots of antioxidants and fibre. I thought the colour of the juice was really cool. He told us this jucie is "happy and the colour of love" Awww! Hahaha, anyway, I will definitely go back if I''m in the area again to visit the Grand Palace. I liked the juice, and I was happy that the fruit was tasty as well as looking good, unlike some other cool-looking fruits which taste gross.

We took the boat back to our starting point, then walked to the hotel.


Hungry, we went to a nearby restaurant for a nice lunch, before returning to the hotel for a nap before the flight back to Dubai. Instead of my usual pizza or fish cakes, I tried the mozzarella, tomato and basil along with some garlic bread which was very tasty. Yum!!

The flight back was uneventful, with it being about 2/3 full in economy. I even got to play in business class for awhile after we had finished our service in economy. The cockpit crew were cool enough to let me sit in the cockpit for landing, sadly it being nighttime it was impossible to take photos, but I saw Burj Khalifa very clearly and even my apartment building!! :)

I'm heading back to Bangkok later in January, so hopefully I'll be able to get back and see the Grand Palace.

Bangkok & Buddha (Part 1)

As promised, I finally managed to get the photo editor working so I could resize pics for posting. I really do wish Blogger would get a bulk uploader like Facebook has. I prefer being able to set the upload then go do something else, instead of waiting for every 5 photos to upload before choosing more. Oh well!! At least the resizing worked, so uploading them doesn't take as long as it used to (i.e., forever)

I've been doing a LOT of Bangkok flights over the last roster, actually 3 this month and I have one more midway through January. Considering these are 4 days trips that was pretty much my entire roster for Dec aside from 3 (yes three!) side trips to Jeddah in KSA. Which as you probably gathered from my Twitter are extremely busy, and often frustrating flights. Boarding takes FOREVER due to using buses, and with a plane the size of the one I fly on, well, you do the math!!

As always, the first afternoon was spent visiting the famous MBK mall to get DVDs and on this last trip I once again squeezed in a visit to the Jatujak weekend market. I picked up some cute dresses which I hope to list on Etsy, most of them are not my size but were too cute to pass up! One or two have tempted me enough to keep them, naughty me!!! I also got the cutest vintage clock, which I'll need to post about later on.

Anyway, on to the pictures!!!


Just before we started approach into Suvarnabhumi Airport. The river/s looked really cool from the air. I love taking photos when I can but I had to sneak these in the last minute rush to pack up before landing :P

As we flew (and arrived) on Christmas Day, the decorations were in full swing at the hotel and in the public areas nearby. The hotel had cool reindeer-shaped lights in the windows. This Christmas tree was near a shopping center, I actually took this photo on Boxing Day as I didn't have my camera the first time I saw it. (Bad blogger!)


On the second day of our trip (where we fly a shuttle service to Hong Kong and back) I spotted this cute display in the (BKK) airport. Basically it was a way for visitors to vote on which department they thought gave the best service. Again, like everything in Asia, it was totally cute...


On the third day of the trip (the one with the most free time) I went with a batchmate of mine to go visit the temples. Originally we wanted to see the Grand Palace as well, but we got quite tired and it was hot, so just decided to focus on Wat Pho and visit the Grand Palace on another trip. On the walk to the ferry pier we stopped so my friend could buy some street food. I'm always too chicken to try street food (except for that one time in Korea) but she is pretty brave with it, so off she went.

These leaf-wrapped things were some kind of cooked potato snack, I'm not sure what they were called, but she said they tasted pretty good. We continued on to the pier, stopping along the way at a cute stall to buy cheap shoes (as you do) and nearly got onto the wrong pier where men were selling time on private boats. We politely declined and found the corrcet pier for the public ferry. The tourist boat was about 150baht but the public boat was only 14baht for the trip. Of course we chose the public boat!!! It was just as good as (if a bt more crowded than) the tourist boat.

How cute are these boats? They look like little houses on the water. I eventually figured out that these house-type boats are the shuttle boats for different high-end hotels along the river. Cute, and easily identifiable.


These houses perched on the water remind me of Venice. Okay, so a not-quite-so-pretty version, but still... it's very much like Venice :P




At first we thought this white building was a fancy hotel, but on closer inspection I think it was actually very posh apartments. Either way, I really like the detail on the facade. The round windows are very church-like.




After we got off the boat, to get to the temple you pass through a small market area. My companion decided she wanted to buy some fruit. This lady was selling mangosteen and some other fruit we couldn't identify. She told us the name but we still had no idea! Mangosteen is meant to be very good for immunity and things like arthritis; my mum used to order the juice from o/s before it became known in Australia. She said it really helped with joint pain and so forth. (Mangosteen in the back, weird red fruit is the one I'm holding that we didn't know the name of)


We just enjoyed walking around the little market, seeing all the sights and smelling the food. Again, the street food smelled amazing, but was just sitting out in the open (along with several flies) so we decided not to chance it this time, and I took this picture instead. Mmm, hungry just thinking about it though.


The not-so-pleasant section was where the dried (dryING) fish were, it was very stinky but I stopped to take a picture. Something about the orderly rows of fish with their silver scales appealed to my camera eye :P I don't know if it was 170baht per fish (which seemed kind of expensive) or maybe it was the price per pound/kilo.


After a slight delay getting a) lost and b) having some shady guys try to trick us into a "side tour" (I knew better and my intuition told me they were up to something- a local later confirmed my suspicion and said it was good we did not go with them) we finally found the entrance to Wat Pho, otherwise known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha!


It wasn't as busy as I had expected, so we didn't really have to line up for very long, although by the time we got to the actual Buddha there was a lot of people, the line still moved very quickly and it was only the work of a minute to take off our shoes. My travelling buddy was wearing a strappy top so of course had to 'rent' the requisite scarf/sarong to put over her shoulders. Funny how the men can wear whatever they want!!!



Entrance fee was 50baht (about 5-7 UAE dirhams or not even 2 Australian dollars) which compared to the Grand palace is very cheap. I suppose this temple is a lot smaller and thus requires less upkeep.

We quickly looked around the main courtyards and the outer structures, as it was starting to get quite hot and we wanted to see the actual Buddha. While walking around the grounds we saw a small procession with a casket, my buddy wondered if anyone was actually inside or was it a ceremonial casket. We noticed ropes tied the lid on so guessed it must have been an actual funeral. Weird that while they were mourning, all these tourists were wandering around snapping photos of the temple. No one took any photos of the funeral though, which I was relieved to notice.



I really liked all the colours and of course the golden accents on everything. Some of the spires reminded me more of Indian/Hindu temples and reading the poster near the entrance, apparently this style of temple is Thai-Chinese. You learn something new every day!


I'll continue on with some more photos next time, to keep the post from getting too long. Hope you enjoyed this first part!! :)

And Happy New Year to all, hope 2011 is a great year. Do you have any resolutions??

Sunnies

During the time when I was having a crappy few days last week (homesickness, mainly) I was a bit naughty and succumbed to retail therapy.



Since I wear contact lenses when I fly and mostly during my layovers, I have some cheap'n'cheerful sunglasses as my good (read: expensive) ones are prescription. During my shop, I spotted some cute retro-style sunnies. I like some vintage styles, but they always look stupid on me; also, I tend to shy away from overly large styles. I saw a cute pair with stud detailing & liked them. When I saw the price was 30 dirhams (about $10 Aussie) I snapped them up!!


I love them!!! (However, I think I need to wear my hair out with these, as having it back combined with the large size of the glasses doesn't seem to be so flattering, haha)

I also bought a pair of aviator style glasses



(but not in the cobalt blue/silver tint I've been lusting after), this shirt from Zara- which looks way cuter in my pic-



and some new towels & bath mat for my bathroom. (That last one is boring so I won't show you!!)

Oh yeah and a Grazia, a Kinder Bueno (yum!) and some rose face cream (for half the price it'd be in Oz!)


Yey shopping! Now, I'm eating tinned soup until payday in 4 days' time... hehehehe