Monthly Archives: April 2012
My First Compliments
[This is not an advertorial.]
I was invited to SK-II’s event earlier this month where they unveiled their latest ambassador, Sheila Sim. I’m blogging about this not because I like her, but because it’s one of those rare times I finally believe in something. As a marketing person myself, it’s not easy to convince me when a brand rolls out their campaigns. This time around, SK-II’s brand proposition is called “My First Compliments”; how a user gets their first compliments after using their products for awhile.
This struck a chord with me cos I have been a very strong advocate of SK-II products to my friends, colleagues and family members. I’m pretty sure I’ve converted at least 10 people to using Facial Treatment Essence (FTE), commonly called Miracle Water. I truly did get my first compliments after using FTE for only a month or so.
I never had perfect skin, or even “normal” skin before I discovered SK-II. I had the typical prone-to-breakouts, dull and dry skin. It was desperation that led me to try Miracle Water, in hopes of a miracle. It was tough the first time when I had to pay more than $200 for a bottle of hope though. I was only an 18 year old student who earned $1,100 per month back then.
The first time I applied FTE to my face, the absorption was instantaneous. Literally. Like how a very good sponge absorbs water. My skin was completely dry and had no evidence of anything being applied to it. I used slightly more than a 50 cent coin amount. There was some slight heartache to how much I was using out of this bottle of “gold” for one application.
I still remember that within 3 days, I woke up one morning and admired myself in the mirror. How my skin was dewy, bouncy (yes! their TVCs don’t lie!) and just… different from how it used to be. I thought it was a good skin day. This “good skin day” never ended. I really had friends asking me why did I put on make up to go to a kopitiam. My BF said I was crazy to go to bed with foundation. My skin was bare. I didn’t even have sun screen on. What they saw was what I was born with, enhanced by a miracle.
Picture don’t lie, and I swear on Tuppy’s life that I have not digitally enhanced them. I am also not wearing ANY foundation, primer or base in the following two pics. That’s my skin with SK-II (and untinted moisturizer of course!).
That’s me in the sleeveless black dress.
I’m on the right in a white t-shirt.
Amazing right? This is why it’s been 10 years and I still am loyal to SK-II. I cannot live without it. I’ve added 2 other items from their range to my regime. I now use a total of 3 SK-II products.
Cleanser, FTE & mask
They have dramatically improved my skin to the point where I need them almost like a drug. People do notice when I skip on a step (e.g. not using my weekly mask or not using FTE for 2 days in a row) and ask why is my skin dehydrated. I no longer need to so much essence too, a mere 10 cent coin amount is usually enough for my face and neck. A bottle of SK-II FTE can last me for about 9 months – 1 year. Money very, very well spent.
And now comes my most convincing argument. I am right handed, and I don’t use cotton pads when I apply SK-II so the essence goes straight onto my left palm. It is extremely obvious in real life that my left palm has A LOT less lines than the right.
Close up shot for you:
Even the main grooves are somewhat diminished. (Wonder if this changes my fortune!)
I’ll be a very sad, dull and wrinkled person if they ever discontinue this product. If you, like me, have skin woes, miracle water might also just be the miracle you need 
xoxo, chryst
Lagging
Sometimes when koky is busier than usual, she can be quite mentally slow in understanding us.
This should be her official pic for those days =p
(For the blur people, look at the top of the picture.)
xoxo, chryst
Our peasant lunch
The most common complaint from Singaporeans is that everything is rising, except our salaries. We, at MFP are Singaporeans too. Here’s what littlewhite, koky & I had for lunch today:
Kan Cheong Spider, are you reading this? BIG BIG HINTS IN THIS POST.
xoxo, chryst
A little gathering & farewell
Over the weekend, we did a little gathering at a japanese friend’s house as she has been transferred to Jakarta to take charge of operations there. So we all had lots of sake, sochu and a sincere home-cooked meal. I’ll just let the pictures continue from here…
Please give a moment for the image to load. Click to enlarge 
Missing in pictures were my favourite Yakisoba and all the pickled dishes. I must already be drunk from all that sake..
Special mention to the white rice.. I’m not a big fan of having white rice on its own but this one is really special. It has a nice kind of sweetness and you can feel the texture of each pearly grain. Not available locally as this rice was grown from my friend’s own family backyard rice fields in Iwate prefecture and processed traditionally, not the modern methods.
All the best Kaori!!
2D1N at Tanjung Pinang, Bintan
There are a lot of deals nowadays including beauty, fashion, services, dining, travel and etc.
I was quite worried when considering which deals to buy as there were quite a number of bad reviews from other people saying that “xxoxxox website was not reliable” & “don’t buy from xxoxxox website”.
After a few research, I bought my first travel’s deal from AllDealsAsia.
The deal was about $118 per pax excluding $25 seaport tax.
Here are some highlights:
–> 2D1N Aston Hotel Tanjung Pinang Superior Room Stay with Daily Breakfast
–> Ranked #1 out of 5 Hotels in Tanjung Pinang by TripAdvisor!
–> Return ferry transfer
–> Return land transfer
–> 60 Min Body Massage adult only
–> Seafood Dinner or BBQ Buffet Dinner on Saturday night only
–> Free Dim Sum Buffet on Sunday afternoon only
–> No surcharge on Weekends
$100 can change about Rp710,000 ( I feel LIKE A BOSS 
)
Boarding Pass
finally we reached tanjung pinang ferry terminal
We were brought to this beauty spa to have an hour indonesian full body massage. Their skills were pretty good as well as their service.
We were served with ginger tea after the session
Having lunch at the ayam penyet restaurant. They had blackout when we were there.
Rp 10,000 is only about $1.00++ This lunch (2pax) cost us around $4++
Coke without gas, taste weird
This mie goreng looked dry and ordinary. It's actually very spicy and quite tasty.
“]
Timbel ayam penyet. Steamed rice with ayam penyet. The ayam was underweight o.O Overall, still acceptable. (Not really suit me)
Finally we reached our hotel
This is the hotel's lobby. We were served with a glass of mango juice as welcome drink. The receptionists were very polite!
Take a look at our room! Big and comfortable bed!
Plasma tv with various tv channel! Surprisingly we got to watch 'Vampire Sucks' at the night!
Minibar and mini fridge
Bought this at the small cafe in the hotel. I must say i super love the tiramisu, it tastes great! (left corner) and my partner loves the black forest very much (right corner). However, the peach cake was not that fantastic.
Had our BBQ buffet right beside the pool.
They had various dishes like spicy soup, fried rice, grid noodles, salad, bbq like chicken wings, prawn, corns, sirloin, tenderloin, fish...etc
Watermelon, honeymelon, papaya were all sweet! love it so much! Besides, they had tasty cake!
Self made caesar salad!
We were looking at the Handbook/Menu for times. A bit pity that we didn't order any food from this menu (as we had no time to eat). The food were quite cheap. Sirloin steak only costs about $15, fish & chips costs about <$10
Finally got to see a supermarket around that area!(there is totally no entertainment and shopping centre T.T) Most of the items were quite cheap except those imported products.
See what i've bought! Mini milo, mini cereals, nyam nyam...all about $10. The drinks were super sweet, i bought it because mini stuff caught my attention XD (I wanted to buy tons of them but too bad i couldn't carry it back o.O)
It was a beautiful morning. We went to have our breakfast at their cozy restaurant.
Besides the english breakfast they had, we had spicy nasi goreng, meehoon, french toast, thai style fish, and hot dogs.
I was so happy to see this >>Honey star<<
I brought my koko crunch there because there was milk supply. However, there was actually instant milk powder in the container. So instant!
They had porridge with unlimited chicken floss & youtiao supply! There was a bread toaster at the back, i love the toasted bread with honey so much!
Orange juice, apple juice, pineapple juice and milk at the corner! If i were to stay there, i would most likely to get diabetes. All the juices were too sweet to me.
After we finished our breakfast, we went to swim for an hour. We were provided with free towel while we were swimming. What a nice and thoughtful service from them! After that, went for our second round ==> Dim Sum Buffet
At first i only ordered 3 of the dim sum. But we were served with the complete set of the dim sum! Too many there, we really couldn't finish all!
Time flies, time to say goodbye. Before leaving there, we walked around to see anything to buy. Sad to say, there were nothing at all other than titbits. One packet of titbit costs about $5 where i can buy it at RM10 for 3 in M'sia. They thought we are 'cai tao' and want to chop us o.O!
Finally we were back. Nice ending with rainbow after the rain
If you ask me whether to re-visit there, I would probably visit north side of Bintan where there is nice beach and lots of water sports. Nevertheless, Bintan is really a relaxing gateway for family & couple
H.O.P.E Volunteer Day
It’s my bloggie time. Volunteered at H.O.P.E doggies bathing day at Johor area.
What is H.O.P.E?
H.O.P.E.(Homeless & Orphan Pets Exists 希望护生园) is a non-profit, no kill shelter that rescues dogs and cats regardless of breed or age organisation. Basically they just help and save those poor animals from abusive. Currently they already saved up to 600-700 dogs and cats in total. They always organise doggies bathing day and adoption drive to gather all the dogs/cats lover together to spread to love towards animals.
Queue-ing up to pom pom
Spot me! Give you a stamp before you bathe! Because they are too many of them so we have to mark them before they bathe so we dont get confused.
The purpose of the “bathing” is just to wash them with some flea repellent solution.
It’s very dirty and smelly there. The smell is really unbearable if i would know i will definitely bring a mask! Doggies shit everywhere. Shit + mud you probably can’t tell and when they see you they are so happy they step on their on shit and jump on you. Can you imagine your whole body full of shit? Haha. Overall, it’s a very good experience and i felt that those poor animals really need our help. Please make a donation to them if you wish to because they are facing a financial issue on the medical fee for those doggies. You can donate doggies food to them as well if you want to.
Join their facebook page and spread the love!
H.O.P.E Facebook
Tuppy’s F-Face
My Tuppy had a furcut last month and boy was he really really unhappy. He doesn’t like it when he’s hairless partly cos he’s cold, and people always laugh at him and he feels ashamed. STOP LAUGHING AT HIM YOU EVIL HUMANS!
I took a picture of his very buay song (unhappy in hokkien) face cos I’m so used to his bright eye, sparkly, smiley face and the effed-up expression just made me giggle non-stop.
You see his face, really damn unhappy right! It seems like he’s saying to me “you horrible evil mummy, make me look like this and ihateyou ihateyou ihateyou”.
By the way, his eyes are usually quite large and adorable. This is his standard look:
And after browsing though my Facebook album of his pictures…. I realised that he actually has always had the funny expression in the first pic. He just had too much fur so it’s not clearly seen.
You see?
Tee-hee-hee. I secretly think that he looks funnier without any fur. I think that I’ll keep his fur relatively short from now on.
xoxo, chryst
Every Day, Every Night
Foo House, Full Tummy
I’ve been patronizing this little gastro bar called Foo House for awhile now cos its really cosy and relatively quiet. It’s helmed by Robert Foo, who was the executive sous chef at Grand Hyatt Hotel Singapore and has more than 40 Years of culinary experience.
BF & I had breakfast cravings again so we popped by last Sunday to try their Full English Breakfast ($17.90).
Have mixed feelings about it – toast and tomato was cold, bangers and bacon not too bad, and would have liked to have scrambled eggs instead of sunny side up. For $18, I much rather prefer having breakfast somewhere else.
Put my infernal diet away in a cubby little corner and ordered Fried Mars Bars ($7) for dessert!
6/10 for this. Nothing against the taste. Chocolate and ice cream can never go wrong. I disliked the batter though. It was chewy, and probably due to the fact that this dish was left sitting for a wee bit before being served since the ice cream came 1/4 melted as well.
And as always, I had a glass of ice lemon tea ($4).
This iced tea is mixed with orange juice, some fruits and well-shaken before being served. Seeing how most other places charge you even more for iced tea that comes from a dispenser, this is good value, and really tasty too!
We also had a furry companion with us during our meal. There’s a cat that skulks around the outdoor sitting area while begging for handouts. She has never hassled us much though. I guess it’s cos we both like animals and always pet her. She’s kinda like “our” pet when we’re there cos she hangs out by my side. Last Sunday, she took comfort and ownership to a whole new level.
She slept ON my BF’s shoe for almost the entire meal! Poor BF couldn’t move his foot cos he didn’t want to disturb her nap.
Dear Kitty, those are Adidas, not Pumas.
xoxo, chryst