California Trip pt.3

hello~

I'm back with another segment of my trip.
The reason I'm doing it in so many segments is because I don't want to be making one huge picture heavy post, and it cuts my trip in to the different things I did.

So here's the first of the two times we went down to San Francisco.

We took the Megabus, which was awesome because it was cheap and exactly what we needed, not to mention a relatively comfortable, medium-length drive.

This huge coke sign was one of the first things I passed as we made our way to the city.
I have no idea how old it is, but it looks lovely and vintage.

Another random pass-by.
An old light up hotel sign, which I was fascinated by.
I can just imagine it lighting up and flickering like in some old film.

I don't know exactly where we went, but it was some large shopping centre with some incredible architecture.

It reminded me a lot of the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney so I got a bit excited, especially with huge windows like that. 

I really like big windows. 

Next we went to the absolutely massive Forever21, which had this awesome roof complete with chandeliers, which reminded me a lot of one of my old houses. 

I love this style of the intricate designs, gold, and chandeliers, slightly french.

Then we moved on, making our way to China Town. 

There were a lot of cable cars passing us, and I got a couple shots of them. 

Another random building shot, because along with signs and windows, I love the metal stairs that a lot of these city buildings had. 

Imagine sitting out on one of those on a cool summer evening. (Life Goals)

And of course, I couldn't pass up the chance to take pictures of flowers.

Another thing we passed several of, were these incredible little "Kiosk Museums"

They're basically exactly what they sound like.

Little Kiosks with Museum artifices and little signs explaining what the items were along with facts pertaining to each of them. 

History is one of my absolute favourite subjects so I found these super cool and interesting. 

Finally we made it to China Town and I wasn't let down with the lanterns decorating the air everywhere you looked. 

We weren't there for too long, and sadly this was the only picture I managed to get. 

We left China Town and found a cute tiny park in the middle of the city, in which we sat down for a while to rest our dying feet. 

I snapped a couple pictures before leaving to make our bus back home. 

Of course, more buildings and stairs.

And this adorable church across the street.
It was very old and charming.

Finally we were on our way home, and closer to the end of the drive, the moon looked absolutely /incredible/

Unfortunately my blurry picture does it no justice, but it was big and golden.

That is true to colour there, but it was about three times bigger in real life. 

I really wanted to get a shot of it between the palm trees as we got closer to Sacramento, but my camera had other ideas. 

That was it for the third leg of my journey.

Next time join me as I explore quite possibly my favourite part of my trip, Old Sacramento!

California Trip pt.2

Hello!

I'm back with the second part of my California adventure.

Let's get right in to it.

My next outing was to the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk.

It took us about 2 - 2 1/2 hours to drive from Sacramento to Santa Cruz, but it was so fun.

Lots of mountainous nature. We don't get much of this in Hawaii, so it was a nice change.

Before we headed to the actual boardwalk, we stopped to grab some lunch at a falafel place in town.
I got the falafel burger, and even though I'm not much one for falafels, I must admit it was pretty good.

And then we arrived.
I was super excited because I absolutely adore amusement parks. (Even after a traumatic experience a couple years back. Aka hot, nauseous, and headache.)

The first thing I saw when we got out of the car was this mini roller coaster thing, and my only thought was "I must ride it."

Of all rides, two things reign, the mega drop type of rides, (which I also went on) and the roller coasters.

There was two roller coaster like rides there, the small one above, which I went on with my younger cousin, and this big one, which we all went on.

I love the way the flags look up there, and it was windy enough to get an action shot.

I took that while my other cousin and I were on this thing:

A very cool way to get from one side of the walk to the other.
Can you see the lonely chinese man.

I also got a shot of this ride from it, which I'm pretty proud of.

I can't remember if I went on it.
I don't think so.

After all the fun and heat and overly-sugary drinks, it was finally time to be heading home.
We stopped for an early dinner at The Saturn Cafe in Berkeley, which is an entirely vegetarian restaurant, with vegan options for most things.

I think I just got some kind of burger, (as you do), but I took a picture of my cousin's grilled cheese sandwich, and garlic fries. (Which were delicious. Although the garlic was a little bit dangerous.)

After we ate, we wandered around Berkeley a little more, and it is one of the cutest little hipstery places ever.

I took pictures of some flowers growing all around, because I am a bit obsessed with flowers.

Don't the pink fluff balls remind you of something from a Doctor Suess book?
I wish I'd been able to get better pictures but it was getting dark and it was a rather tall tree.

They also had this adorable little old fashioned movie theatre that I would have loved to have seen a movie in.

Last but not least we made the customary stop at starbucks before starting the long drive home.
I just got a hot chocolate, which I did take a picture of, but it did not come out well. :'D

Our car was parked next to a lovely little restaurant, and I had to take a picture of the vines crawling the wall in the ambient lighting.

Does anyone else hear Ratatouille music when they see this? No?

And so we spent three hours driving home, all with a full bladder.
I should have listened to my aunt when she told me to go to the bathroom at starbucks.

And that was all for this leg of my journey!
Come back next time when we go over the first of my two trips down to San Francisco!

Thank you~

California Trip pt.1

hello~

So as promised (although much much after promised) is my California trip!

-----------------

My flight left around 1:00 Hawaii Time, so I was at the airport around 11.

After checking in and going through the security checkpoints, I meandered over to my gate where I would be waiting for a couple hours.

Honolulu airport has this adorable little asian garden area for people to walk around.

I was pretty lazy though so I popped down for a little while and then came back up so I could sit at my gate.

After sitting on my phone for an hour or so, it was finally time to board.
It didn't take long for my flight to take off, and I took a few shots of Oahu from the air.

Including the famous Diamond Head Volcano.

Seeing as California is 3 hours ahead of Hawaii, I got to see the sunset from my window.

After a quick five hour flight, I finally saw San Fran lights. 

After being stuck on an island for over two years I was excited to go to a proper city, to say the least.

(Big Bang T.O.P Mask, ebay, $3.75 + shipping. Great for asthmatics/allergy prone people on planes, or even if you just dislike getting dry sinuses.)

I arrived at 10:00pm and we had a 2-3 hour drive back to sacramento (Thanks to my wonderful aunt and cousins that homed me and transported me the two weeks I was there!)

The first day we didn't do much, but we went to Fresh Choice for dinner!
I'd been there the first time I'd gone to California back in 2011 and the idea of buffet style eating was exciting and foreign.

(Bear with me, I haven't perfected the food shots yet.)

The next day I think we went to one of the smaller Sacramento malls.

I beautiful half made face :|

I snapped a shot of this covered wall while we walked along. (As you will see.... I love covered walls.)

I also went to a drive-in cinema with my cousin and a couple of her friends!
I've never been to a drive-in before so it was super fun.
It got really cold but we had blankets and snacks for days.

My attempt at making an arty picture at the drive-in.

At some point that week we also went to Sac's Korean Plaza, which had a huge Korean market, and Nature Republic.

First we went to the market, and all the fresh vegetables had me in love.

There is nothing more beautiful than fresh vegetables.
I also bought some of the famous Choco Pie.

I've been wanting to try these ever since Minho of SHINee specifically brought one to England in SHINee's One Fine Day for his football player idol.
They were a little stale from being shipped from Korea to California.

On to Nature Republic!

The first thing you will notice is that the entire storefront is plastered in Exo posters.
I screamed.
I also wanted to peel off every poster and take them home.
But I didn't.

A closer look at the posters, and the little stand they had outside the door.

I bought a few things, some lip colour, soap and lotion, nail polish, a couple masks, and various other things, which are now scattered though out my makeup collections.

But, they had a promotion where if you spent x amount of money, you got a free little plastic poster thing, and if you spent xx amount, you get a paper poster like on their walls, or if you spent xxx amount, you get a calendar.

Now funny story this.
My cousin and I spent xx amount, (it was something like $60+ for the paper poster.) and the woman was super nice and talking about Exo and stuff, so she gave us BOTH a poster, and THEN.
The cash register was not working.
(at first I panicked because I thought there was something wrong with my credit card)
But it turned out there was something wrong with their system, so she walked us over to another shop to do the transaction there, and gave us the Exo calendars as compensation for our time and trouble.

Honestly it hadn't been a problem but I wasn't about to say no to the $100 value calendar.
I don't have a picture of it on hand, but I'll be sure to pull it out some time.
However, here's a picture of me and the poster.

*cough* can you tell who my current bias is.

Anyway, this post is already drowning in the pictures, so I'll leave the rest of my pictures for other posts!
Be sure to check back and see the rest of my cali adventure.

Thank you!

Long Time No See

Hello!
First off let me apologise for completely disappearing there.
A lot of things have been going on since I last said I would update!

The biggest being I will be visiting (and most likely moving to) Sydney, Australia!
If you've known me for a little while you'll know Sydney is my hometown.
I can't wait to go back!

Another thing is I'm finally trying to pick up my styling on other platforms.
I just started up my fashion oriented Instagram today, Coordi.Noona, and would be forever grateful if you showed it some support!

Anyway I should jump straight in to the catching up.
I'll post some pictures from my visit to California back in may!


Thanks for sticking around~

Here's a pic of me last weekend in my new favourite comfortable outfit, perfect for this hot humid hawaiian summer.

Ala Moana Haul.

Hello!
So I just finished a post here where I talked about my shopping adventure, and now I'm going to share what I bought!

First off, I apologize of the quality of these pictures. They're uncreative, terribly lit, and done on an iPhone because my good camera charger has broken for no good reason and I have yet to replace it.

Taking care of that, I'll go straight in.

First up was Lush.

Lush has been one of my absolute favourite shops since I was a little kid. 

Before I could only buy it in australia, which was frustrating seeing as I moved back and forth quite often, but they now have Lush stores popping up all over the place! 

I was pretty overwhelmed when I first entered. I wanted to buy everything and use them all at once.
After much talking to a very friendly employee, I decided on this, which I believe is the Fizzbanger.
They're definitely not cheap here, but for my love of all things body product, I bought it.
It's about $6 for this one bath bomb, but there are cheaper, and more expensive ones.

Next up will be my Nature Republic things.
As much as I wish I could say I brought home a standee, I did not.

I have been craving all things citrusy, particularly orange, and this face mask was just a must have for my never-ending sheet mask collection. (About $1.90)

This. 

The famous aloe gel. 

It's only about $6 and I have literally not stopped hearing about it, so I got one. 

I was super eager to try it out, and busted in to it as soon as I took the picture. 

It definitely smells nice, and it has a lot of advertised uses. 

It did leave a sliiiight tacky feeling on my hands for a little while despite a lot of claims that it doesn't. 

It doesn't bother me much, but to someone who is particularly sensitive about the feel of things, might not like it. 

I've yet to use this for anything except my hands so far, but I'll keep you updated.

Now if you have lived in Hawaii for any considerable amount of time, you will know that there really isn't many houses with bathes.
I don't know why. But there isn't.
After our most recent move (January), we had a bathtub, and I have been dying to get my hands on some Nature Republic bubble bath.
I have yet to use it but again, I will keep you posted!
It had a very nice light floral scent in the store, and I hope it stays on skin.

The hand creams. Ah the hand creams. 

I actually heard about a girl who bought literally hundreds of these just to collect all the promotional Exo cards that used to come with them! 

I have yet to use these but my mum, who has, likes them, and she's very picky with creams, so I'm assuming they're pretty nice. 

As customary, the free samples with my purchase!
I don't remember what that first packet was, something aqua.
The second is a snail solution thing that I am definitely apprehensive to use.
The last is some kind of collagen thing.

Moving on to some things I got at Claire's.

 A wire bun wrap thing made of lace.
Some lion door knocker-like earrings to match a necklace that is exactly the same.
Some faux plug kinda things.
And another little set of lion earrings.

Now for my forever 21 things!
You really cannot see much, and hanging them on hangers doesn't do much either.

This really god damn comfy jumpsuit that I'm sure everyone will yell at me for getting!

A romper with little daisies on it! Also not exactly suited to my body type, but I adore rompers, and this is the first time I've found one that fits.

These were high waisted jeans, and man I do not suit high waisted jeans, however, they made an excellent pair of regular jeans because they covered what a short shirt doesn't!

The last is just an oversized pair of distressed jean shorts.
It's going in to summer here, which means from hot to even hotter.


That was my little haul of the day!
Hope you enjoyed reading it, and maybe even come back for more!
Thank you!