Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Soup curry in Hachioji



 My boyfriend lives in the countryside, on the very edge of the Tokyo borders. If you were to take the train to Shinjuku from where he lives, it would take you about an hour. Since there is not much to do there, we usually meet here in Koenji, or in other more central areas of Tokyo, but every once in a while, I make the trek to Hachioji for a date, so that he doesn’t have to bear the long ride back home in the grossly overpacked train ^_-

I took one such trip last week. Bf had been sick for a little while, and he was finally doing better so he decided to take me to this soup curry shop he liked. Normally, I wouldn’t bother telling you about a lunch date in Hachioji, but this shop was so interesting and cute, I thought it was worth mentioning!

Actually, I don’t even know what it’s called since the name was all in kanji, but upon having a look at the website, I think it’s “Okushou”? I asked the bf after we left, but he said he didn’t know either. What?!? :p



The original restaurant is from Hokkaido, and apparently, this is the only other one on the mainland. Ooooh… But… why you had to choose Hajioji to open shop in???? :/



The restaurant was really really tiny. It seats about 12 people max, and bf said that it was always busy. Indeed, we went there on a Friday at around 1pm, and we had to wait about 40 minutes before we could sit down. They gave us menus and took our order while we were waiting though, so we didn’t actually have to wait that much longer for our food. One funny thing was that, upon taking a look at my pasty gaijin face, the cute little waitress exclaimed in Japanese “we have English menus!” then ran inside and came back out with a nicely typed English menu and proudly gave it to me, asking to let her know if there were any mistakes in it. lol. Turns out I was the very first person to try out their English menu, haha. Apparently, one of their former staff who was studying English at university had made it just for fun. Guess that tells you how often they’ve seen a foreigner in there…

When bf had told me we were going to a curry place, I thought he meant Indian (since he loves it so much) or Japanese (you know that gravy stuff…) but this place was neither. It was more of a “spicy soup” thing than curry, if you ask me…

I ordered one that said “cabbage and bacon” on the menu, while bf ordered the “vegetables” one. We only had to wait about 10-15 minutes or so before our food arrived. Two ginormous bowls full of delicious and healthy-looking food! Look at this! Yum!

BF's food

My food


Now if you don’t know, I am on a diet now, so going to places like this is really awesome because everything in there is healthy and diet-proof. You could even order “genmai” (brown rice) instead of normal rice, which was pretty sweet! I feel no shame in saying that I ate the whole entire thing.

allgone!


The inside of the restaurant was really charming with its old-fashioned décor, and even the inside of the toilet was really cute! lol. 

i sent bf to take the pics after i'd already been in... lol...


One thing that was kinda annoying though, was that the booth where we were sitting had these two low-slung couches, so you were sitting really far away from the side of the table, which made it kinda awkward to eat. But other than that it was fine. Plus, every “booth” had different kinds of seats, and there was a counter too. Oh! And I forgot, this is the type of restaurants where you have to take your shoes off!! Which it would have been nice to know before I decided to wear high-heeled booths to go in… but whatever…



They also had a little notebook on our table, in which you were supposed to write comments about your meal, or draw pictures.



All in all, I had I had a really lovely experience. I’d definitely go there again if it wasn’t so damn far! If you’re ever in the area though, you should check it out!



Here’s a little map on how to get there from the station.



They have a really cute website too, if you can read Japanese…


Peace!
KC

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Sunday, March 10, 2013

My makeup routine


Hello everyone!

Well, I promised I was gonna talk about makeup, so here I am!

As you know, I love makeup. I own a lot of it, and I wear a lot of it. This is just a basic look as what I put on my face on a day-to-day basis. Of course, I might play with the colors, or the thickness of my eyeliner, or add some false lashes to the mix, but usually, this is what I do every day. Yes, even when I go to work.

And now... ready? 



Oh my goodness! I really hate my face without makeup. I look like I’m 12, and like I’ve been living in a cave for the last 10 years… lol.

These are the basic products that I use first



From left to right:

1.    It’s Skin power 10 formula VC effector
2.    Biotherm Homme high recharge eye shot
3.    Etude House precious minerals BB cream
4.  Tony Moly Silky Smooth Balm
5.    L’Oreal Revitalift eye contours roll-on concealer
6.    Etude House precious minerals powder

Now let me ramble on a bit about each product.

The little yellow bottle is from the Korean brand It’s Skin. If you don’t know yet, Korean cosmetics are absolutely AWESOME, and have the added benefit of being super CHEAP! I bought this on a whim in Shin-Okubo (korea-town) and I really like it. They have a whole line of these for various things from whitening your skin, to wrinkles, to tightening your skin… there’s like 12 different colors and they all do something different. This one is for brightening up your skin, and you can really see it seconds after you apply it. I’m not really sure as to “what” it is… a moisturizer? A moisturizing toner? Essence? But whatever. It feels like a light moisturizer so that’s what I use it for.

After that, I use the little Biotherm eye stick. You might have noticed that it’s from the men’s line. Yes. And who cares? Lol. I was looking for something for the circles under my eyes (that never ever go away) and the girl at the store when I went home recommended this to me. For some reason, there isn’t an equivalent in the women’s line… why?? This thing does something similar to the VC Effector, it has green tea and other ingredients that activate the circulation of the blood under your skin, so it brightens up those dark areas under your eyes. I also sometimes use it on my nose, where it’s a bit red, and the redness goes away! It’s a really nice little product! (^^)

Now, as for the order of things, I’m not sure if you should put the primer on before or after the BB cream (since bb cream is also a moisturizer…) but I always put the bb cream on first since it has moisturizing propreties and i'm afraid the primer would prevent it from really soaking into my skin. 

The BB cream I use is from another Korean brand, Etude House, and I really love it and it’s so cheap and awesome, especially in the summer cuz it’s very light. I used to buy MAC foundation before and I was paying through the roof (4,000yen) cuz it’s more expensive here than back home… stupid import laws… but I tried this one and I just loved it! And it’s only about 1,700yen. As you can see, that’s a huge price gap. I do not miss my MAC :p

After the BB cream, I follow up with the shinny little egg (no but seriously, isn’t the packaging totally cute?!) from Tony Moly, which is another Korean brand. This is a make up primer/base and it’s AMAZING. I don’t use it everyday though, cuz mostly I can’t be bothered, but if I have a special occasion or a big date, I’ll definitely add the extra step. What it does is that it makes your skin suuuuuper smooth, going over your wrinkles or imperfections, so that when you apply your makeup afterwards, your skin is less “bumpy” and thus the makeup goes on smoother.

After that, I put concealer under my eyes. As I’ve mentioned before, the circles under my eyes are my worst “problem area”. They’re not circles, really, I just have these deep wedges under my eyes that no amount of sleep can make go away… *sigh* so I’ve tried a LOT of different types of concealers. I really like this L’Oreal one because it also doubles as an anti-wrinkle cream. Who knows how well that works, but the concealer at least works very well. It’s liquidy and goes on very smooth. There are only 2 shades though, so if you’re not pasty white, or pasty pink, you’re out of luck.

Finally, I apply a light coating of powder all over my face to set things in place, and voila! Step 1 is done. (lol. We’re only getting started)



Once my base makeup is done, I’ll apply some blush. These days, I’m really liking this BYS bronzer that I got, and I wear it pretty much all the time, even paired with another blush. Today I’m wearing it with a bright pink blush from MAC. But I change pretty much every day. I have about 10 different shades of blush. What I do is I brush on some bronzer on my cheekbones, then I go down towards my chin. Then I apply the pink color on the apples of my cheeks.

Now that was a lot of me talking, and no pictures for you. I’m sorry. I actually took some photos of my face in between stages, but I was so appalled by them that I decided not to show you. Haha. Patience though, there are some coming!



1.    A medium eyeshadow brush
2.    A thin eyeshadow brush
3.    A big fluffy eyeshadow brush
4.    Coastal Scents ultra-shimmer palette
5.    MAC eyeshadow base
6.    Maybelline eyeliner pencil
7.    Eyeliner brush (this is actually a lip-liner brush though… lol)
8.    MAC gel liner


Playtime!!

Ok, this is the fun part. Look at that color palette. Look at it!!! Actually, I have two of those cuz they were having a sale on the Coastal Scents website when I bought it. My second one is called “Metal Mania” and has – as the name says – more metallic tones. This is great if you are someone who loves playing with colors when you do your makeup and wear something different every day. If, however, you’re someone who tends to wear the same shades all the time, I wouldn’t recommend this since the little plaquettes of eyeshadow are so small, you’d run out of them really fast. Also, you need a primer for this eyeshadow if you want it to stay on. But that’s only a minor setback. I use a MAC primer. And though it’s expensive, I bought it last summer and use it every single day and I’m not even halfway done yet, so it’s definitely worth it.

So first, that’s what you wanna do. Apply the eyeshadow base all over your lid.



Then, you wanna choose a “medium” color and – using the medium brush – apply it all over your lid.



After that, you’re gonna pick a light color and apply it under your eyebrow. I suggest not using anything other than shades of white to yellowy gold, cuz it just looks weird.



Then, you’re gonna pick a dark color, and apply it in the corner of your eye, making a little “V” with your smaller brush.

After that, you take the fluffy brush and blend it all in. and tadah! Pretty eyeshadow.



After the shadow, it’s eyeliner time. This is my lazy day makeup, so I just line my lower lashes with the pencil, and smudge it a bit. Because I’m blonde, it looks like I have no bottom lashes (or upper lashes for that matter) so doing that creates a little bit of eye-contour for me. 

Then, I take my MAC gel liner, and paint it onto my upper lash line with my lip-liner brush. The reason I use a lip liner brush for my eyeliner is that I like the length and it works well for me. I also use MAC gel liner because it gives a really strong, dark, black, and it doesn’t “double up” throughout the day. I’m not sure what the professional term is for this, but with many types of eyeliner, you’ll put it on and go through your day and then stop in the bathroom at 3pm and realize that your eyeliner has printed a little copy of itself into your eye crease, and it’s really not sexy at all (haha). Well MAC gel doesn’t do that. So go buy it! Lol. Also, one little pot like that lasts a really long time. More than 6 months. And I use it every day.



Finally, the last 2 steps are mascara, and lipstick. Now, my favorite mascara of all time is Hypnose by Lancome, but it’s about 4000yen a tube here, and lasts about 3 months, and I am poor, so now I use Maybelline Magnum Volume Express. It’s really not bad for a cheapie mascara. And look, I got a hello kitty on this one! XD

Tip for really volumey lashes : don’t apply your mascara for 5 seconds!! Spend at least one or two minute on each eye! Do it over and over again! Start from your lashline then zigzag up. Again and again. And then, to reach the tip of the lashes and make them longer, you gotta look down and push your brush up. Or I do this thing where I keep my brush in place and just blink on it. It sounds really retarded said like this, but it makes a huge difference.

Finally, I applied a bit of Melliesh lip gloss to my lips, and voila! Unfortunately, it seems that they’ve discontinued this particular type of gloss… which is a shame cuz it’s really nice.

And here's the final result!




And here’s a montage of me pulling stupid faces…






That’s it!

I hope I didn’t bore you too much with the details, but I do love blathering on about makeup. Please feel free to ask me if you have any questions about products and whatnot!!

Peace,
KC

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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Kiddy coffee date

please forgive my shitty picture-taking skills...


The other day, the boyfriend and I were looking for a place to kill time around Koenji, and we ended up going to this little Café called “All C’s Café”. It’s on the second floor of a building and we’d passed by it loads of times but he never wanted to go in cuz he said it was meant for kids. Lol.

Well, you’ll see…

it's like an apartment door in a hallway...

The inside was made up to be like a gingerbread house, and it was really cute!!! Well, actually, only one part of the café was cute… the part where we sat, by the windows, overlooking the street. It was like a little alcove of cuteness with cushions shaped like cookies and candies and really low ceilings. The middle part of the shop, however, left a bit to be desired… it was really barren with mismatched tables and chairs that look like they belong in your autie’s house or something. And it looked like the inside of someone’s apartment, which of course, it was. This space was obviously not meant to be a business, and someone renovated a large apartment into a quaint little café. I think with a bit more work, the whole thing could be really cute.



I could see the childlike “theme” all around, the cookies and cushions and there were boxes of plushies and toys, but it was definitely just a normal café… Bf’s fears were unfounded! Also, when we went there, it was completely empty!! It was about 4pm on a Thursday or Friday afternoon… I forget…

But anyways, so we were basically there just to kill time until the restaurant we wanted to go to actually opened, so I just ordered a latte. Look how cute it was! It was severely overpriced though (580yen), for the tininess of that cup… *sigh* but such is life, in Japan, I guess.

look at the little face drawn into the foam!


Bf had some honey toast, since he can basically ingest anything he wants and stay stick thin… *sigh*



They had this little old-fashioned bell that you had to ring if you wanted to call the waitress over!



This is what the counter looked like… over-run with cookies, toys, cakes and cooking implements. I found it charming.




These cookies basically jumped at me and I HAD to take a picture, because one of my students (incidently, my one “devilchild”… lol) is OBSESSED with this character called “kikilala”… all she does is draw kikilala pictures all over the place and ask me to buy kikilala stickers… I figured I’d take a picture and show her… lol.



Overall, it was a cute place but I’m not sure I’d go back. I was kinda unimpressed with the prices, and there are sooooo many other funky places in Koenji. But it’s definitely worth a look if you’re into cute things like that.

Here’s the address:   I know it looks far on this little map, but it's only like a 3 min walk from the station.


166-0002 Tokyo, Suginami, Koenjikita,
3丁目2524 三宅ビル2F‎
03-5356-9914




Peace out!

KC
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