Friday, September 13, 2013

Phuket Tripping Part I

My travelogues are something I love collecting but it's quite tiring to compile, sieve and edit all the pictures. The accomplishment of seeing it all done up however, is really satisfying. Contradicting isn't it? My Eurotrip is still... incomplete, oops! I love my pictures and take immense pride in it. 7/8 of the pictures here are captured by G, and all edited by me. Been playing around with colors quite a bit, and my edits seem to be largely influenced by one of my favourite photo app filters - VSCOcam. 

This was a trip I really needed after an immense burnout from work. I've been terribly sick at that point of time too, so getting this bit of breather was essential for my system. Plus, I flew off on my birthday, hence I spent a quiet birthday in a foreign land. Probably the most uneventful birthday I've experienced, in terms of having not many celebratory meals back home BUT, best birthday present to myself, ever. Went through quite an upsetting phrase with work and even as G is there to hear my woes, I had to go through everything alone which was really, really tiring. The moment I reached the airport, my mood lifted and my excitement began building up. Escaping from reality for a bit never hurts ;)

Hello Phuket, goodbye worries.


We took an early morning flight so this was captured by G while I slept on... teehee.


Welcome to our villa @ The Village Resort & Spa, says G's very satisfied face. 
I regret not capturing more pictures of the interior & exterior!


Beautiful decor and pretty well kept I must say!


Our welcome fruits kindly delivered to our villa!


So gorgeous I couldn't bear to ruin it!!


The passageway to our room. On my left was the bathroom, and the right, a walk-in wardrobe!


Ta-da! Such a huge area with a bathtub, shower, toilet, makeup corner and sink.



Very pleased with the service and our villa. Our only misgiving has to be the abundant mozzies waiting to suck our blood. We have to be so careful about opening our villa's doors because the mosquitos there are commandos -.- They would rush at us and bite us very skilfully. Thankfully, I've got a boyfriend who smacks mosquitos well. He killed ALL the mosquitos that came into our villa. Okay, maybe 99% of them la, hahaha.

After resting a little in our villa, we proceeded out for lunch. Drove off to Phuket Town in search of some good food. We found Kopitiam, a retro looking eating place with lots of old school memorabilia and furniture. So rustic!  









The food was not bad! I stuck with the traditional offerings like Pad Thai while G ordered some Pork Chop Rice which wasn't very nice at all ahahha. The Tom Yum Soup is good though. Reasonably priced to boot. Sticking to the traditional stuff pays off sometimes! Worth a try but I would say, don't be too adventurous! 



Saved some space in our stomachs to check out this hipster cafe - Mac-chiato House & Cake Box, further down the street. It looks pretty hip and very different from the other shops along the same street but I would say, a growing trend of such cafes is prevalent in Thailand. More so in Bangkok I think!






We order Banoffee, which was YUMMY! (:


This is how a part Phuket Town looks like. It's actually quite a big generic area so you can walk around to explore... which we didn't because we had a car and we were such lazy asses.



We found a great massage place almost around the corner and G loved it so much, we made another trip down before we headed back to the airport on the last day, heehee. Which also unfortunately made us late for our dinner appointment that night.

G booked a special restaurant for my birthday dinner. We almost had a private dining experience because it's low season in Phuket and it's not crowded at most places. We had to drive for about an hour to reach our restaurant, Dedos.







Tomato butter for our bread. A surprisingly lovely combination!


Sashimi platter of Salmon, Tuna and Scallops which was really reasonable for the amount we had. The fish was alright only though, still acceptable, but we were happy because the price for the platter is something we will NEVER find back home :D We also ordered another appetiser but I think I lost the pictures!


Pasta with vodka, smoked Salmon & Vodka-Dill-Cream sauce


Pan seared Yellow-Fin Tuna fillet in Cashew nut – black pepper robe, Tabbouleh & wasabi-crème fraiche


We could have ordered a lot more because everything on the menu looks really tantalising, but sadly our stomachs can only fill so much, plus I was severely sick. I couldn't even hold a proper conversation with G for 1 minute without coughing several times. It was really really bad :(

After being so stuffed, the waiters came out holding a plate of dessert and singing the birthday song together with G. Awww! (: It's a simple simple surprise but I LOVE IT. I love (good) surprises and very blessed that he would take the initiative to request for a birthday surprise for me. Thank you <3






The dessert was sweet (taste and gesture), and thus ended our extravagant dinner at Dedos. Couldn't be happier because I know that this would have cost x2 in Singapore, and having such a pleasant dining experience in a foreign land makes it even better. Happy happy girl that night! (:

I had one of the best dining experiences in a humble area of Phuket. The food was fantastic, the ambience is soothing (too soothing in fact; all the pictures are captured in lowlight), and the waiters are really attentive. Two thumbs up for Dedos, a French-Asian fusion restaurant! 


The next day, the sun was out (at least for a while), so we headed down to the beach to catch whatever sunlight we can get before lunch. Yes when we are on holidays, we catch 10-12 hours of sleep! Such a waste of time, I know. But for me, it's impossible to get such luxurious sleep back home because I'm surrounded by work. I wake up to work, I work where I sleep, so yup. It's not a very good environment honestly...






Happy us! (:

We stayed near Karon Beach but decided to head downwards to Kata Beach to explore. Got terribly hungry and sieved through many restaurants before finally deciding on one. Because everywhere is so empty, it's very difficult to decide on where to eat because we are afraid of tourist-trap restaurants. Thankfully, whatever we ate on this trip was nothing short of fantastic. 

We stopped to have lunch at this restaurant called Eightfolds (near Kata beach). They had a tripadvisor feature hanging off the wall too so we decided to take a chance!





Verdict? We LOVED THE FOOD. Again we chose the usual traditional stuff, but since you're in Thailand, eat Thai food right?! Haha! It was flavourful and filling! Very indulgent :P

While randomly driving around, we passed by this scenic spot and just had to stop and take pictures!




This, is our pick-up truck hahaha!!! We picked auto so I can have a taste of driving, but honestly I don't feel very safe driving in busy cities except for Singapore... sooo... G drove all the way :P It feels like some times, you need to have the balls to charge your way, people just don't give in and it's not like they are rude or anything, but that's the way things are.




Stopped by a tourist attraction, which is the southern most point of Phuket. Yup, so apparently that is a tourist attraction? Haha. I think, if it wasn't for the rainy season and the clouds, we would have quite a lovely view of the setting sun and the waters.







I LOVE DOGS. Love them. This cutie stopped and obediently allowed me to take its picture, but refuses to face the camera straight. Whenever I'd move, he/she would move too, hahaha.




Yup, this is the view! Quite pretty actually. Plus the winds there were soooo good.

Spotted this dog too. My heart broke after I saw him/her. It was blind in one eye, and its tail had only a small bunch of fur left. It definitely dealt with a lot physically, but it was so cheery when it came up to people, wagging his/her tail, hoping to get some food. It kinda showed me how we should always be. 

Life might sometimes deal us a bad card, but we just have to get back up and face the day in the best way we can. We can make it through the difficult times if our attitude is right (:





I was intrigued by all that has been said about Patong being very touristy and all, and I don't know if it's a city girl thing, but I feel like I need to have people around me. Hahaha! I wanted to see what it's like anyway, so we drove down. I'm quite thankful we went in low season, because I can not imagine how bad it would be in high season. No parking lots, crowded streets and beaches. There were many many touters. I think that's the only thing that really annoyed me at Patong!



Again we had to walk around before deciding on where to eat because there's simply too many choices around! We also had my trusty phone + 3G to google and check out the reviews for the places. Finally settled on a place called The Sweet along one of Patong's alleyways, and yes it had that tripadvisor award thing again, haha!


Oh and we spotted a Winner too!!




G's BBQ extravaganza! The special for the night. It was filled with so much food!


I settled for boring ol' green curry that was really nice but spicy!


This concludes Part I of our Phuket Trippin'! Teehee!
Till the next time ;)

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Behind every glamour shot

Here's my update about BTS for last month's outdoor shoot! It was quite a stressful one considering how we had to postpone and how there were a few collaborators on board this time (thank you for having faith in me and Lace & Ebony! (': ). My dear boy had to wake up painfully early with me that morning, and we made our way down to get my make-up done. It's the first time I'm driving myself to my own outdoor shoot. Usually I'd prefer having G behind the wheel because I have so much on my mind and I really want to conserve my energy to make each shoot good. Hehe, so I really got to step up my game this time, and multi-task to the max! Thankfully, the weather held up for us despite having a few gloomy clouds here and there. 

The makeup in this shoot is very kindly done up by Sherie of Makeup Refinery. I really got to say that I love her makeup skills. It seeks to enhance your features in the most brilliant of ways. I have never seen my eyes look this good (if you don't count the dramatic lashes). The eyeshadow application & perfect shading is so hard to achieve on eyes like mine. I really have difficult eyes so kudos to Sherie's skills! Really really need to learn how she does it because most Youtube tutorials teach you shading on Western deep set eyes, whereas mine is thattt Asian-looking, but one of the rarer ones to have a specific tutorial for. I was really really pleased with my makeup!

While I was doing my makeup, this is what the boy gets up to... :P



Anddd, onto the shoot! :D






Bags are kindly sponsored by Picard for this shoot, and we've paired these bags with the outfits in the lookbook! It was nice having accessories for a change, instead of my hands dangling around awkwardly, hahaha.



I love the lipstick so much, I went back to ask Sherie for the shade of this lipstick and so happy to finally it! Might do a review of my new make-up buys! I have found the best eyeliner in the world, seriously.

































Yes, I was trying to capture the look that I really really love, but it's gonna be so hard to duplicate! :(

I know it's quite a picture spam of me, haha, sorry! But look beyond me and you'll realised how much G's photography skills have grown. I'm so proud of my man!

Every lookbook I create for Lace & Ebony is through a lot of hard work by my team, but everything just dissipates once I see the pictures that Fiona captures. Aww, it's really, the happiest thing to receive whenever she sends me the pictures! Haha. There are two Lace & Ebony label items in this shoot, and I really am happy about the quality. One thing that you can be sure of when you purchase a self-manufactured item, is the quality above other clothes sourced from BKK, China etc.

My favourite dress would be the Reire Crochet Dress in White & Mint. I deliberated for quite a bit, and finally set on Mint as Lace & Ebony's exclusive color for this piece. It's quite a feminine color I would say, but it goes extremely well with the crochet waistband, and any other color with the crochet might seem a bit too loud. Mint's my best pick! :) We've kind of 'perfected' the size I would say? The cutting is really, really flattering. Even I'm surprised! Haha. Modified it from the sample piece to make it a little more expensive looking though it costs a bit more. Can't scrimp on some things!

Check out Lace & Ebony's Facebook page to view the lookbook! Like & share the featured picture in the album to win a Picard Bag in our latest giveaway.

Photos by Gregory L.

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