Simple and Sure

Sleepless night and it's nearly dawn I thought I'd share The Pains of Being Pure at Heart's new single "Simple and Sure". This could just be your instant mood-lifter when you're having a bad day. 

Enjoy x

May Most Wanted

1. Origins Clear Improvement Active Charcoal Mask
   

Surprise surprise, another mask I've been dying to get my hands on. The charcoal in this mask is an active ingredient that's supposedly act as a "magnet" for all the dirt and oils that's clogging the pores and having that squeaky clean face is has been and always will be a dream of mine. Also, this product comes in a 50ml and a 100ml tube which is a pretty good size for a face mask.

2. Shoe Cult Alkali Flatform

I've been digging flatform sandals like this. Literally in every store I go to there are always ones that are similar to this. Plus the white color looks ultra chic no?

3. Forever 21 Faux Leather Barrel Bag

I'm currently in a hunt for a barrel bag because I'm all about big bags instead of mini purses because I love bringing tons of my essentials everywhere I go and this bag goes along with basically any outfit and any color and look just how cuuuute it looks.

4. Korres Wild Rose Instant Brightening Eye Treatment

I always have problems with dark circles and puffiness under my eyes, mainly because I stay up late at night everyday which is really bad for the skin so I found this eye treatment, and it seems to have great reviews. Also, I'm super super excited for the new Sephora store here in Jakarta and hopefully I will be able to purchase this baby pretty soon!

5. Kate Spade Medium Bella Pouch

Mini black pouches are sleek as hell tho. Nuff said.

6. Tarte Cheek Stain in Fearless

I haven't owned a single blush in my life, and this one in particular by Tarte is really unique and I'm really interested to try this out. Also, Tarte always comes up with killer packaging.

7. Clarisonic Aria - white

I'm always such a skincare freak. It says that clarisonic cleans six times better compared to just washing your face with your hands and I could picture myself washing my face with this and it would feel so good after because I'm obsessed with being squeaky clean so this clarisonic totally attracts me, plus it's white which makes it even more sleeeek.

Sketches

These first three sets of designs happened when I came to a realisation that I was the laziest person on earth so I decided to get a little more productive, you know??

Also, sorry for the bad quality pictures, took these from my instagram.

This first one was a very spontaneous sketch. Like literally, I drew some figures with my pencil and just by using a black permanent marker, I drew whatever I wanted without any inspiration. Whatever was in my mind I made it come to life, basically? After seeing the results, I'd say this has no particular theme but a design expansion of classic black dresses. And also, did some terrible shading there as you can see. For the skin I always use copic markers.

I wanted to be able to design many types of clothes based on different themes, and this futuristic theme I'm only using black, grey, and gold just for little bit pop of color to make them look somewhat "futuristic-y". As you can see I drew the most fabulous shoes in this particular theme (not). And also, these outfits are not 100% my vision, I had to look up for inspirations on the internet. I did the colors of these outfits using pencil color, drawing pen, and a black permanent marker. Also outlined them using a drawing pen.

There is no particular inspiration for these sketches, I wanted to make a set of sketches that's delicate in style and rigid in form, you know? Kinda hard to explain, but probably something like origami. I made these sketches also very spontaneously, I just drew what I had in mind at that time, because I wanted to see how far I could sort of dig my capability to sketch without a particular inspiration. I've done monochromatic designs before, so I was thinking that I should make this one colorful this time. And instead of boring colors on each outfits, I decided to make my own patterns inspired by nature, since origamis are most likely in a form of animals or plants, I felt like they sort of compliment each other? 

Oh and just a little secret which you can probably already tell, I was too lazy to draw outfit no.4's shoes, which explains why I tried to somewhat cover the feet using the pattern design samples. 

Colored all of the outfits using water color aside from the skin which is always colored with my copic marker and the sketch outlines using a drawing pen.

PS more to be updated soooon!

Spring Fever

   The title makes you think of blooming cherry blossoms in every corner in South Korea, but I would say about 60% were green and the remaining 40% were the colourful leaves, (not too many) cherry blossom trees, and all sorts of colorful flowers. It was spring season slowly switching over to summer, although summer doesn't start till June, I guess? 

   Yes, I finally got a chance to visit the beautiful South Korea on the 23rd of April with my family. Actually had been incredibly impatient waiting for that day, but it finally came anyway. We stayed in South Korea for such a brief time, that is, four days and three nights, and it felt just like a finger snap and boom I'm back in my hometown again. 

Day 1

The boarding time from Jakarta was 11.45pm on Wednesday. then we arrived at Incheon International Airport on Thursday morning, picked up our luggages and went straight by a bus to an area near Nami Island to eat lunch. The trip from the airport to that restaurant took about three hours so by the time we arrived, it was already lunch time. 

This was out first lunch in South Korea. Chicken barbecue with some other stuff that I didn't know. I should probably mention that in every set of meal they serve in Korea, there is always Kimchi, which, I'm not really fond of. But that's alright, the chicken barbecue tasted really good. Definitely my favorite meal of the trip. I even ate two portions of rice, don't know whether I was starving, or it just tasted really good. Probably both.

After we finished eating, we went to buy a ticket to go to Nami Island, and so we arrived.

Halfway walking on Nami Island, we found a praying room in a cool little cafe so we had to stop by

After a few hours, we got back to our bus and went to a restaurant to have dinner. 

...and then we got to the hotel in an area near Mt. Sorak where we stayed for a night. The hotel was located in a small town, so there wasn't really anything, but at that night, we went for a walk outside the hotel. Oh and the most awesome thing about South Korea? Free wi-fi. They're everywhere. Literally everywhere. On the streets, hotels, even Nami Island. 

Day 2

The next morning we went to Mt. Sorak National Park and got to the mountain by a cable car. We hiked up but not all the way to the top, because it was hella creepy and I was waring flat shoes so I could easily trip so no thanks.

Pictures that I snapped with my phone from the beautiful view of Mt. Sorak with my brother!

Next up was lunch

We had this sort of mixed vegetables with squid in the middle, with more vegetables around it, and also on the top right corner I'm guessing it was a fishcake? See, I'm not good at describing food, but it was good.

   Next was a ginseng shop. When we arrived, there was a lady welcoming us and she was explaining about ginseng in general and how korean ginseng is different from other ginseng around the world, and the purpose was basically they were trying to sell us ginseng. And god, never have I had any idea they were ridiculously expensive, wow.

    Kimchi school was up next. Basically we learned a little bit to make kimchi, and tasted different kinds of kimchi. I didn't take any picture because unfortunately taking a picture was not allowed. It was allowed after te process of making kimchi, but you know when you're having fun you don't think about taking any picture, right?

    At the same place, after we were all done making kimchi, we went downstairs to wear korean traditional dress, Hanbok. And we got a chance to take pictures in them, so it was quite an experience.

The next destination was Trick Eye Museum and Ice Museum. Both museums were located at the same place, but we visited Trick Eye Museum first. I didn't take many pictures while I was there.

     We were looking around at Hongdae Street were the two museums were located. They were selling clothes, food, korean cosmetics, and so many more. We bought dinner for ourselves this time instead of going to a restaurant with our group like we usually would. We bought taco bell and barbecue chicken on a stick (if that makes sense?) but we didn't consider it dinner, really. 

     Next was Dongdaemun Market. The first store we entered in Boota (Boota is sort of like a department store but much bigger, I suppose?) was a souvenir shop. Again, I didn't take any pictures. See, every time I go shopping, or least just looking around in a shop, I can't really take time to grab my camera and take a picture.

     After we were done shopping in the souvenirs shop, we went to look around other stores. There was a LOT of really cute korean designers clothes in Boota (praise korean designers your style is outta this world), but they were crazy expensive. Or, clothes in general were expensive too, so I only bought a pair of jeans. 

      We bought ourselves some burritos after because we were still hungry from eating only taco bell. But after that, time passed so quickly and all of the sudden we had to get back on the bus and return to our new hotel in Seoul, where we would be staying there for two nights.

Day 3

    Namsangol Hanok village was our first destination. This place is basically a village of traditional houses of Namsan Valley. While I was there, a traditional wedding was held inside one of the houses and everyone was watching the wedding outside the windows. The bride was wearing Korea's traditional dress, hanbok with their usual quirky traditional makeup kinda look? 

    This next one is pretty exciting. We went to a korean cosmetic shop. As usual, there were typical korean brands. We didn't really spend a lot of time there, so we ended up going to a convenient store across the street to buy some snacks while waiting for the others. 

    After that, we went to an amethyst shop. They were selling different kinds of jewellery made from amethyst. There were also huge amethyst stones that were chopped in half where you can see, well, the gorgeous purple crystals thingy, you know what I'm talking about. I wish I could take pictures there, but unfortunately it was not allowed.

   Next was Gwanjang market. This market is literally a market. Mostly they're selling food, but we were honestly kind of grossed out of how the food was cooked, and koreans eat a lot of pork too, so we didn't buy anything there.

    We went to The Shilla duty free shop after. It was crazy though. I could barely walk because this place was packed with over-excited people. There were literally all kinds of makeup, skincare, clothing brands from A-Z. There was also a cafe on the rooftop, the view was nice though, but we didn't get anything.

    Going to this next place was probably my highlight of the day, or even my highlight of the whole trip. Yup, Myeongdong Street. I don't know where to begin because I basically just went insane.

    As soon as we got there, we immediately ate dinner because we were starving, and went shopping after. There were endless Korean cosmetics brands and let's just say I picked up a lot of stuff. That's all I can say.

Day 4

This was the last day of our trip to South Korea. The first place we went to was NSeoul Tower. Me and my brother went all the way up to the tower and saw the view of Seoul from above.  

There was also this place where they attach padlocks with a name of the people they love? It's the exact same thing as the padlock bridge in Paris, that's what I'm trying to say.

We ate lunch and bought some korean snacks after.

This was our last lunch here :(

Bulgogi with noodles and the usual vegetables on the side. Oh and the dried seaweed was gooood. 

    After lunch we went straight to the airport and basically waited for the boarding time. I ate again because I'm always hungry like that. 

    We arrived at Jakarta at about 11PM and got home at 1.30AM ish?I slept at 4.15AM and only got two hours of sleep because I had to go to work at the same day. Ha. Such an amazing day.