"I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing; kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles."- Audrey Hepburn

Nov 30, 2011

Inspiration.


Such gorgeous prints, flow designs, sexy cut. Everything was so effortless yet so elegant and enchanted. Felt like I was taken to the Caribbean. 

I absolute adore everything about this girl, and was rooting for her since the very first episode, actually, since the 4th episode of the season. LOVE LOVE LOVE her hair, her clothes and her accessories and of course, her designs. There is not one thing that I did not want to have in my closet.

Miss Trinidad and Tobago and Miss Universe (gosh, wish I could have known this 4 years ago when she was in Vietnam), and now Project Runway winner, esp when she just learned to sew 4 months before hand. Somebody's got both beauty and talent <3

Nov 23, 2011


Born to be a heartbreaker... 

Born to be nonchalant... 
Born to be coolheaded...
Born to be hard-hearted... 
Born to be fastidious... 
All is not my fault. 


Don't blame me if i've broken your heart. 
Don't blame me if i'm indiffenrent while seeing you. 
Don't blame me if sometimes i'm too practical. 
Don't blame me if you cannot make me open my heart. 
Don't blame me if one day I tell you :I don't want you anymore. 
Don't blame me for all that. That's the way it is. 


Shed your tears when you're hurt. 
Share your friends your happiness and sorrows. 
To make life less painful and complicated. 
And to get over me also. 
Peace will come to your soul, sooner or later. 
And mine, too. 


Used to wonder... 
What will be left of me? 
In your heart. 
What will become of me? 
In your mind. 
Tattoo and scar: what's the difference? 

Scar: You don't wish for it. 
Getting from an accident. 
Ugly... 
and painful. 

Tatoo: You choose to have it. 
Having needles pinned to your heart. 
Painful... 
but beautiful. 

If you're not gonna delete me totally. 


I wish to be a tattoo in your heart. 

Beautiful... 

To give your pain... 

Hard to erase... 

So that I'll never be forgotten. 

Your selfish friend 
Shall you be happy.



[az]
inspired by amor amor perfume ad

Nov 21, 2011


Nov 20, 2011

If you love a thing, you let it go?



Time was ticking away. I had precisely 9 days left in Cape Town to make the best out of it, and I was determined to not waste any minute of it.  The past few days I've spent seeing the city ofCape Townand all it had to offer, dancing terribly to music with friends, broiling up new things in the kitchen each day, walking through endless miles of markets and just simply seizing the day. Each day seemed to linger on longer than the next, and I was simply "conteno" as they put it.

Toni and I decided to celebrate the end of Thanh's "all work and no play" week with my most favorite activity - baking, of course.  This time I decided to try something different and used Toni's recipe to make a humongous and super fattening chocolate peanut butter torte. All my dead brain cells needed all that sugar to revive themselves. Turned out, it was a great drunk food after we got back from a crazy night of partying and dancing. My best accomplishment of the night: dancing for hours on 7'' heels without breaking my neck, especially when it included dancing on a super slippery granite table (whoever thought of making dancing tables out of granite?). Although after that, Toni and I had a blast pretended to be a lesbian couple to avoid all the random attacking and grasping from guys. What ever happened to gracefully and politely asking a girl to dance with you, instead of just grabbing them? Thanksfully Wes was there to play our "man" of the night. Toni and I also got into an argument/almost-fight with a cab driver, who lied to us, attempted to cheat us, cursed at us and called us "you women with no fucking manners" and that we did not have the right to talk to him that way. Obviously, I flipped out and Toni did her part too. Thanks God Wilson did not get scared of me after witnessing my vicious act. I was in my angry drunk mode, too =.= What a night.




People really got to witness what happened when Nadia and I got bored. After making a trip to the Asian market, Nadia and I filled the kitchen and the fridge with food and dessert. I made Vietnamese spring rolls and dumplings, while Nadia made samosas with four different fillings: corn and cheese, potato, veggie curry and mince. For dessert, we made the chocolate peanut butter torte, orange cupcakes, coconut cupcakes, cinnamon biscuits, apple cinnamon and cranberry muffins, all went perfect with the ice cream that we made Wes bring over. Nadia and I came out with a genius idea to have hotpot, and to introduce Wesley to the notion of an Asian hotpot and I was attempting to sit and laugh at Wes when he tried to use chopsticks during the meal. I went overboard with the mushrooms, as always (now people discovered another obsession of mine). The hotpot was such a hit, and we had so much left over,  that we had another one on Saturday so that Chester, Nadia's boyfriend, could try it to. Spending time with Nadia, Chester and Wesley has always been my favorite. It was relaxing, entertaining and they always made me feel like I was the baby of the group and got super spoiled. Anyways, point of the story: when Thanh and Nadia are bored, we made food, lots of them.


Friday 11/11/11 was celebrated by another one of my crazy idea: finishing 11 drinks and only Nadia would do something as crazy with me. So we did finish 11 drinks to celebrate the day, went home, made samosas and home-made pizza, and passed out. Lol.

                                     

 Monday was Toni's big birthday party. After spending a morning shopping at Canal Walk, Nadia and I headed back to attempt to make Toni as drunk as possible and to play our part of being "the Underworld" in the Beer Pong Olympic. True to self, I sucked at beer pong, and being in the same team with Nadia, who had never played before, meant that we guaranteed our … ultimate loss. We started drinking at 2pm and did not finish until around midnight. In total, among 15 of us, we finished a fridge full of beers, a bottle of Patron, several bottles of Smirnoff and unlimited amount of shots at Pancho's. Even for me, I had ways too many drinks that I had to call it a night around 10pm.

 

Besides spending tons of time with Nadia and Toni at night eating and watching movies, these last few days, I also gave myself some along time exploring Cape Town, whether it was shopping at flea markets, lying on the grass in the park staring at clouds and listening to a local band, or enjoying the hot sun and summer breeze on various beaches. I also took time to go to various studios around town to collect things that I had people specially made for me. Everywhere I went, I got lost. I got lost downtown, I got lost finding my way to the train, got on the wrong train, got on the wrong bus, and so on. Wouldn't be my stories if there was no confusion of direction involved. Sometimes it got quite sketchy and scary, but I was grateful because there had always been people who offered me help. As long as I tried to spend as much time with everyone as possible, I felt that I needed all these moments by myself: to do my own things. There were various things occurred the I could not help but keeping going over in my mind, and I needed time to just relax and think. The feeling of sitting on a crowded train or on a beach, surrounded by strangers, where no one knew your name or who you were has, for some reason, always brought me a peace of mind.  It felt like I was no one in the world, just another ordinary person, and I had no responsibility to fulfill nor expectations to live up to. I could be depressed all I wanted, I could be quiet, I could cry, I could laugh, and no one would ask me any questions, at all. It was my attempt to cope with emotional problems while trying to not let them interfering and spoiling my last few days in Cape Town. 




We were all aware of the little time that we had left, and the fact that the chances of us seeing each other again was slim. "Bittersweet" - that was the word that everyone used. We cherished every moment we had together. I had to juggle spending nights in Nadia's room watching TV shows with her, shopping and exploring with Toni, chatting and eating with Wes, AND finishing making their goodbye gifts without them finding out about it. Yeah, it was a struggle trying to hide the fact that I was making a trillion treats in my kitchen. But mission accomplished, looking at Wes and Nadia's expressions when they received their photo collages and the jar full of sweets was the best feeling in the world. At least I always know that when they see these things, they will think of me.

All of these people had made my last day and night in Cape Town an unforgettable one. Toni and Susan took me on a hike up to Lion's Head and Signal Hill to watch my "last sunset". Four months in Cape Town, and this town could still amaze me with its beauty. Looking at the vast sea, glowing with fire from the setting sun, Table Mountain covered in soft and foaming white clouds, and the city itself twinkling with night lights, made my heart ache. As I took in the scene and breath in the air, all the great moments that I had shared with friends under this blue sky went through my mind - all the laughters, all the joys, all the excitement.


It never hit me how real it was until late that night after the final dinner with Nadia, when I got back to my empty flat that suddenly felt unbearably quiet. It was not the first time I came back to the flat without Megan being there, but somehow it felt different. Wes laughed at me when I said that, but nevertheless, he came over and kept me company for the entire night to make sure that I wasn't being by myself on the last night. I always keep the habit of not sleeping the night before I leave some place, because as people say, "the night feels longer when you have to stay up", I just want to make it last longer.

Regardless of the actual time, it has felt like years. I've gotten to know the place and the people so quickly, and can hardly imagine leaving. It felt unreal. I felt like I was just doing another one of my "adventures" and tomorrow, I would be once again baking with Nadia, shopping with Toni, studying with Spencer, eating with Monica, going to beaches with Susan, and chilling with Wes. Faces, stories, memories are made everyday when you travel. I have done this many times, and I thought I would be used to the feeling, but I am not. Every time I move to a new destination, I am forced to say goodbye and move on forward. As hard as you try to detach myself, you simply cannot help it.

I secretly wished I never had to leave the place nor to forget about it. I've grown attached to and comfortable with the people, and the place. I felt like a part of me has been left behind. Hopefully, the people there will always remember that parts of me, like I will always think of them. For four months, Cape Town has been home, and the people there have been family for me.

Someday, I will be under that blue sky again. Until then, it will always hold a little piece of my heart.

 [az]

Nov 18, 2011

Halloween and other smurfy adventures


My finals weeks (or final weeks) in Cape Town were the weirdest of all time. It could go by so slow when you were dying to get that one exam over it, but it could go by so quickly when you frantically tried to get ready to leave and explore the last bits of Cape Town at the same time. I felt stressful and focused, yet at the same time relaxed and distracted. It put me in an emotional roller coaster, up down round and about.

Exam started on the 24th of October, but my first exam was not until the 2nd of Nov and the other two were both on the 9th. This exam schedule gave me ample time to squeeze in various study breaks in between studying. On Wednesday,  Nadia, Olivia, Hannah and I made a trip to Charly's bakery to treat us to some sweet, a proper "brain food" in my definition. The triple chocolate fudge brownie there was so rich and the serving was so big that even I could not finish my own.  I went on a dessert shopping spree and bought back tons of petit four, cheesecake and brownies for my friends. It was a way for me to be their moral support, while I had no time to bake the goods myself. I have always believed that dessert makes people happy, and Spencer has proven my belief to be true. Just looking at how happy she was eating the cheesecake and, hopefully, forgot to be stressed over her exam for a few minutes make me feel a whole lot better.



Exams definitely did not stop us from having fun. We decided to celebrate Nadia's birthday by throwing a Halloween party at the Two Oceans Aquarium at the Waterfront, and called it "Terror in the Deep". The day started off with Spencer and I making tons of jello shots and Nadia made us a jug of mojitos (yay for the convenience of having a mint tree right on her balcony). I was given the responsibility to take care of everyone's make up, making sure that everyone looked their part and pretty at the same time. Nadia went as a pimp (it was her birthday she had the right too), Spencer went as No Face (from Spirited Away), Susan went as a lion, Toni went as a Nutella jar, and me, the one and only Smurfette of the night. When I was desperate and about to use acrylic to my body, I ran into a friend who offered me enough blue paint to cover my body. Thanks God for random friends ;) It took everyone's collaboration to paint my entire half upper body blue, including my face and ears. After way too many jello and vodka shots, I realized that looking at fish while you were drunk was quite entertaining, although you wanted to make sure to have someone to stop you from falling into a tank of stingrays. The dance floor was right next to the predator tank. It felt like I was "dancing with the sharks". One of the greatest parties I have ever been too, minus the way too many shots part.

Pretty much capture the process of making me blue

In my super summer/hungry mode
Only having a few weeks left in South Africa meant that it was no longer time to cruise and window shop. It was time to take action.  Toni and I went on a spontaneous trip to Kalk Bay on a Wednesday afternoon, and discovered that not only do we share a same taste for shopping, but also enjoy the same vibe of shopping area. Kalk Bay consists of small shops and antiques along the train track that runs along the beach. It is a little sea town next to the harbor with its signature colorful boats, and its delicious sushi restaurants. Generally, Toni and I enjoy the local feeling of the place. It does not give out the tourist-y feeling like Long Street, Green Market Square, Camp Bays, or Waterfront. On the other hand, the stores still carry most of local products and souvenir and they have quite a collection of rare antiques and interesting finds. Toni and I did not enough have time to shop within only in the afternoon, so we came back on the next Sunday, also to check out the weekly market they had to offer. It was a perfect day off spending eating ice cream while  checking out antique and vintage stores, having a delicious lunch and not having to worry about exams for a few hours. Ok, I lied, we spent the entire day shopping from the morning until the evening.

Ice cream <3

Oh, I forgot to mention that Susan and I went to attend a speech given by the Prince of Wales and hanging out with the other royalty affiliated people. I wish I would have known earlier that they attended mass at the St. George Cathedral otherwise I wouldn’t mind spending two hours in mass downtown in the presence of the royal family. It felt so normal yet so special to see someone like that in person, only a few footsteps away from me. I didn’t care much about the speech but that was trivial, haha.


I was counting down the day until I could get my Immunology and Neuropsychology exams over. While I was stressing out over 100 something pages to memorize, Nadia and Spencer were the best moral support ever, by continuously making me dinner and delicious dessert. And finally, the day has came. Approximately 8pm on Wednesday Nov 9th, Thanh was free, and now life in Cape Town started once again.