Update

Hi! long time no see...
 I have been absent from my blog for quite a while (well.. the entirety of Michaelmas term...). Clearly failed to do both my academic work and post blogs. Having settled back at home, I decide to do a blog post and guess what I find out? All the photos are no longer visible. They had been replaced by a grey error icon. If anyone has any clue as to why that may have happened, please let me know! Anyway, this put me off doing anything on this blog but I've finally dealt with that issue and have made some slight changes to my blog (title being one of them).
 Since it is nearly the end of the year, there are a few thing I would like to get done by the end of the year. I'm posting my 'to do list' up in the hope that a) I would actually get these things done and b)inform anyone (who may be remotely interested for any particular reason) as to where I'm going with this blog.

To do list for 2014

• finish the 'Road trip to the Swiss Alps' series (I'm aware this is long over due!!)
• Christmas 2015 (This year it has been the most Christmassy Christmas for me so I feel the need to do a blog post on this)

Aim for 2015

• Post one Blog post per week (this includes lifestyle, beauty and any other exciting thing that happens in my life!)

Well, I better get going with this plan!

My Parents' Silver Wedding Anniversary Celebration

Last Sunday I went to Danesfield House for a family dinner with all 5 of us for my parents' Silver Wedding Anniversary. Since my sister moved back to Japan two years ago, it has got more and more infrequent for all of us to be together so this was such a lovely occasion!! Apparently I had been here before and even stayed there for a night when I was around 4 yeas old but I obviously don't remember that! (neither do both of my siblings!) It was such a beautiful house and now that I think back, I wish I had taken more photos! The Garden was very pretty and had an amazing view onto the river.

The dinner was amazing too! I went adventurous with my menu choices! Tasted fois gras and raw oysters for the first time but both of them were absolutely delicious. The chocolate tarte that I had for dessert was just divine.

It was such an amazing evening and I'm sure this time round, I'll remember about my visit to Danesfield House.

Collective Drugstore skincare haul

Being on holiday has proved to be very damaging for my bank account. Too much time on my hand to watch various beauty youtubers which makes me want to try out all the products in Superdrug and Boots. I also happen to have the time to just wonder into the nearest Superdrug/Boots and spend forever browsing through products! However, I have restricted myself to products that I would actually use..... i.e. skincare! (well, most of the times...)

My skin has been problematic for as long as I can remember. My acne scar has got a lot better then my early teen days but they still like to pop up regularly.

So here are the things I have picked up this month.

Clearasil Rapid Action Treatment Cream - This works much better than the clean&clear spot treatment gel and doesn't leave a weird film. It does have a slightly unpleasant smell to it but as long as it does the job I'm happy with it.

Clearasil Blemish+Marks Treatment Cream - Apparently it helps to clear bleishes fast and fight the appearance of marks. I haven't used it long enough so I shall report back if this product is any good.

Clean&Clear advantage spot control moisturiser - This is a repurchase for me so I have liked it enough. It is a pretty light moisturiser, more like a lotion so I liked using it during the summer period but I'm not sure if I would be using this during the upcoming Autumn and Winter season.

These are my first purchase from Botanics. 

Rosewater toning spritz - Absolutely love this! smells amazing and gives you a nice refreshing spritz.

Refreshing eye roll-on - Purchased this because I have finally finished using the the eye cream from Garnier. Eye cream are one of those things that I can't exactly tell if it is doing much but I have a feeling it does de-puff and brighten my eye area. 

I have been loving using the Neutrogena Visibly clear oil-free moisturiser (the one in the orange and white packaging) but it is running out soon so I thought I will give the Pink Grapefruit moisturiser and daily scrub a try. 

Another first time purchase from Simple. I had run out of make up wipes so I thought I'll give the simple's wipe a try since I heard good things about the whole simple line. I also purchased the kind to skin protecting light moisturiser. You can probably tell I'm in the process of trying out new moisturisers! 

I have a bit of a things for facial scrubs. I'm not entirely happy with my current scrub (Clean&Clear exfoliating daily wash) because, although I like the really fine micro-beads, it smell like a male shaving cream.

St. Ives apricot scrub - Has a pretty gritty texture so it is probably the harshest scrub that I have yet used but I really like it. It smells really great and leaves your skin very soft after using it so would recommend it to people who doesn't have sensitive skin.

Finally Tea Tree Toner Water from Lush. I have been put off tea tree products since smelling the tea tree oil from The Body Shop but still I felt like I need to try out some tea tree products since its meant to be good for acne care. This toner has a much diluted smell so tea tree so its more pleasant to apply. I have only used it for a week or so but its feeling good so far.

Please let me know if there are any recommended products, especially for acne care!

High Street shopping!

Last Saturday, I set off and hopped onto the tube towards Charing Cross excited to see my friend. And guess what. At the first stop or so I get a text saying she can't make it any more. Great! I purposefully made the effort to leave the house (which doesn't happen often during the holiday) so I wasn't just going to do a U turn and go home. What better things are there to do when you are slightly annoyed than to go SHOPPING! 

I'm one of those people who has to go shopping by themselves so I took this as a great opportunity. It has been a while since I've been to Oxford Street but it was crowded as always! 

Here's are a few things I got.

KIKO

Denim Nail Lacquer - 465 British Jean £2.50
Luscious Cream Lipstick - 505 Dark Tea Rose £6.90

It was my first time going into the KIKO store (http://www.kikocosmetics.co.uk/) on Regents Street so that was pretty exciting! Absolutely love the formula of the lipstick and I'm very tempted to try out other shades and lines from KIKO. Let me know if there are other recommendations.

 H&M

Here is a boring old plane white Tshirt from H&M. Although they are not the most exciting piece of clothing I think it is a must have in one's wardrobe. I just love the loose fitting casual style. 

Primark

I had a bit of a moment in Primark. In recent years, I have stayed away from the Primark because the I thought the stores were just filled with low quality junk and to be honest, who can be bothered to fight the crowds in there. It is madness in the stores! Anyway, as I was quickly browsing round, I found so many cute stuff and as you can see, when slightly overboard with the number or tops! Also I was apparently feeling the Reddish, Pinkish colour. Primark, I have totally changed my opinion on you. You are cheap and amazing!

Road trip to the Swiss Alps --Part 1--

It has been a month since my family holiday to the Swiss Alps. It has taken this long for me to sort out the many photos that I have taken during the course of the holiday. I am not like a typical Asian, in the sense that I don't feel the need to take a photo of every single thing that they see on holiday and do that 'peace' sign every single time they are in the photo. Apparently by doing so it make their faces appear smaller... I beg to disagree. Having said that, recently I have come to realise that taking photographs are actually a really good way to record 'The moment' (and might as well utilise your iphone functions to the max!).

This post would be one massive post if I put my entire trip in one so I will do a post each on the 5 different places we stayed at.

Part 1 will be the road journey to Interlaken via Strasbourg and a short stop at Luxembourg and Colmar.

Day 1

On the way to Strasbourg, we stopped at Luxembourg. It was my first time there but I really like it! As you can see from the map, it was a long distance to cover in one day so we could only stay there for a few hours but of what I saw, it felt very much like a capital city. I know I'm stating the obvious but it is probably because I had just been to Warsaw which is also a capital city of Poland and it just did not feel like a capital city! 

After some lovely ice coffee in Luxembourg, we set off for Strasbourg. Soon after we left Luxembourg, we faced a bit of traffic jam. It was then that the sat nav tried to be clever and decided to take us on another route to avoid the traffic jam. We didn't really have much idea of the roads around there (obviously!) so just followed the sat nav. We had no intentions of driving through Germany but before we knew it, we were in Germany! Great! That wasn't all. The sat nav took us off the motor way and directed us through the local countryside road! (like we hadn't had enough distance to cover already!) Anyway, when we saw the road sign saying we were near Saarbrucken, we took the navigating into our own hands and went back to the good old map (probably should have done this a little earlier..) and finally arrived in Strasbourg :)

We tried Alastian cuisine called flambee and some other stuff for dinner but it was amazing! You never get disappointed by French food in my opinion! (well, although British food has grown on me in the past few years, the French just seems to have a better taste for their food)

The old town just looked so pretty and luckily we managed to catch a bit of the light show at the cathedral which was pretty cool! It must have been difficult to project a screen onto a building with such Gothic details but they seemed have managed it pretty well.

It was a pretty cool experience to have gone from London through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and back to France again in one single day! Having lived in an island country (Japan and UK) for my whole life, casually driving into another country isn't what I am used to doing often.

Day 2

Here are some photos taken in Strasbourg during the day. The whole of the old town was really pretty but especially the area called La Petite France was super cute! In contrast, the tram that ran through the town looked very modern. It reminded me of the high tech trains portrayed in some old animes!

After having done some sightseeing in Strasbourg, we set off heading to Interlaken via Colmar.

Colmar was like a smaller version of Strasbourg but more touristy.

I'm not entirely sure where I saw this but there was a mini Statue of Liberty in the middle of a roundabout!

 This is a view from our hotel in Interlaken. So pretty in a different way from what it was like in Strasbourg.

That evening, we ventured out in to the centre of Interlaken and heard some music in the nearby park. We went to check it out and this is what we saw. It was some local music festival thing but it was very interesting. Was pretty thrilled to see the alpenhorn played live with a flag waver (why not!). The bell ringers were pretty entertaining to watch but slightly awkward at the same time....

Part 1 was the journey to the Swiss Alps and from next time it will be some photos taken whilst I'm up in the mountains. 

A week in Warsaw

Mid July I went on a holiday to Warsaw with some friends from uni and stayed at an apartment in Warsaw for a week. To be honest, I didn't think there would be much to do in Warsaw (considering we were going to stay for a whole week!) but  for us, skint students, cheap food and cheap alcohol sounded like a very good option. To my surprise, Warsaw had so much to offer and was an absolutely amazing place!!My First impression of Warsaw wasn't exactly that great. The city looked very grey, sparse and had too many dingy areas for my liking. (Maybe this would have been slightly better had the weather been better on the first day.)  However, the more I saw of Warsaw and learnt of their history, the more I was attracted to the place and found it fascinating!
Here are my recommendations on the places to visit / things to do.

Free Tours of the City
Orange Umbrella Free Tour (http://orangeumbrella.pl/) run many types of tours focusing on a particular area of the city or on a particular historical event. I went on the tour of the Old town, Communist tour and the Jewish tour. They were brilliant for someone like myself who had absolutely no knowledge of Warsaw and its history and would highly recommend anyone to go! Apparently there are these free tours running in quite a few European cities too!

Old Town 

Castle Square

Old town market place

This is a 'must visit' place. Can you believe that most of the buildings in these photos were reconstructed after WW2!  Because of this the Old town is listed on the UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Warsaw suffered huge amounts of damage during WW2 and I was informed that 80% of the city was destroyed. The combination of the scale of destruction during the war  and the communist times post war, a large proportion of the city was still going through construction works. It would be quite interesting to see how Warsaw will shape its self during the course of the next few years.

Lazienki Park and Palace

 Unfortunately when I visited, Lazienki Palace, it was under construction work but there were still many thinks to see within the park complex. Firstly there was a very pretty botanical garden on the north side of the park. It was just the right size to have a nice stroll admiring the beautiful flowers.

For those who are into classical music may well know this but Frederic Chopin was born in Warsaw and have spent his younger years in Warsaw. For those who are a great admire of Chopin it will definitely be worth visiting the Fryderyk Chopin Museum too!!

Day trip to Auschwitz

If you are to visit Auschwitz, Warsaw isn't the easiest of places to go from but it is definitely possible! If I had planned this trip better, I would strongly advise staying in Warsaw for a few nights and in Krakow for a few nights because there are also so much to see in the southern part of Poland!

By all means, Auschwitz is not a place you would like to visit if you just want a relaxing happy holiday and personally it was a very emotionally tiring visit and would not like to go back. Having said that, I personally feel that for those who haven't been there yet, it is very much worth visiting. I'm sure everyone would have leaned about the horrific things that had happened during the Holocaust but there is literally no way of being emotionally prepared. Although I was going to  take many more photos, (because I felt it was such an important visit) I literally couldn't bring myself to take them. I'm not the type of person to get easily emotional but even I found it difficult to listen to the horrifying things that the tour guide was telling us at times. During the summer seasons you can only go round on a tour which  lasted a good 4-5 hours (comfortable shoes are definitely in need!). 

Vodka Bar crawl

Now, onto a more light hearted thing to do! When we were there, we couldn't find any organised bar crawls so we just got the map from  http://www.warsawinsider.pl/feature/warsaw-pub-crawl-1 and went on our own bar crawl. I didn't think there would come day for me to say this but Polish vodkas were amazing! Forget the ones that you would normally drink in the UK like Smirnoff! Flavoured vodkas are the way to go! They had so many flavours such as apple, cherry, black cherry, pineapple,  pear but my favourite one out of all was LEMON. 

Brunch at E. Wedel

Oh the hot chocolate at this chocolate shop was just gorgeous!! So rich and divine! The set menu which came with hot chocolate, fresh juice (which was amazing as well!), 2 croissant, 2 slices of baguette and the three sauces came to a grand total of £5!! What!? If you tried to get the same quality and quantity of food, it will definitely cost you more than double the amount.

I have definitely missed out quite a few places that I visited in Warsaw such as the Uprising Museum and the Palace of Culture and Science (also known as Stalin's Penis) as well as all the lovely (and relatively cheap!) cuisine that Warsaw had to offer but here were the main bulk from my Poland trip. I hope this post will inspire some of you to consider stopping by at the weird but fascinating city of Warsaw.