Hey guys! I recently went to the new restaurant in Stanmore Bay, Auckland, called Paprika. My dad and I went there for dinner to try it out and overall, it's a good restaurant, in my opinion.

FOOD
We're cheap and always budget and spend as little as possible haha so we ordered:

• 'Meat lovers tasting platter' (my dad really wanted to try it and eat a bit 'fancier' instead of only ordering two mains.) - $26. To me, it was very average but I'm not a fan of meat and try to avoid it. However, regardless of that, it's not worth it due to the price. The different sauces/seasonings do taste good but for the price, there wasn't much on the platter. (About two of each delicacy.)
• 'Malai Kofta: mild' (a vegetarian main dish and I wanted to try it because I've never heard of it before.) - $15. There was around 3 or 4 little balls (size of a meatball) in a bowl of curry. I really enjoyed it and would order it again. The curry is quite sweet and the balls only taste good when they are fully covered in the sauce. For the garnish, there is also almonds and raisins which weren't bad, I liked the extra texture.
• Lamb curry: medium (I forgot the name of the dish that my dad ordered but it was some sort of curry with lamb) - $15. It's a good proportion but not sure if it was enough to make my dad full haha (maybe that's why he wanted to order the platter as a safety measure.) 

From top to bottom: Lamb curry, meat platter, malai kofta

SERVICE
All the waiters there are lovely and from what I experienced and saw, they do their jobs well. I've got no complaints at all. Their service is also very fast and efficient.

Food took around 15 minutes (If I recall correctly) and it wasn't a quiet night either, there were around 6+ tables there also.

AMBIENCE 
The music that they play are nice, and like all typical restaurants, they light candles on the table - which I'm glad are real candles and not fake battery operated ones haha

OVERALL
I would recommend this restaurant, it's cheap compared to the other restaurants around the area (since the price for two people is around $60) and the food tastes good! But if you wanted something more formal and fancy with a three-course meal, this probably isn't the perfect restaurant for that.


I hope this helped you make your decision on whether or not to go try this restaurant out! If you've been here before, what did you order and do you recommend it?


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! I recently got my 3 wisdom teeth removed with the use of IV sedation so I figured I'd give my input and experiences for those who are deciding which procedure to pick.

COST:
For the surgeon that I went to, the IV sedation option was $2,400 (including the consultation) which is half the price of what the general anaesthesia procedure costs.

(For me, the price was the reason why I chose IV sedation because I don't have a phobia or anything like that, so nothing made me feel the need to be "fully asleep" with general anaesthesia.)

BEFORE THE PROCEDURE:
Prior to the surgery, they don't allow you to eat (6 hrs prior to surgery) and drink sips of water (2 hrs prior to surgery.)

For me, the last time I ate was 14 hours before the surgery and last drink of water was 2 hours before the surgery. (This is because my appointment was at 10am, so if I wanted to eat exactly 6 hrs prior, I would have had to get up past midnight just for it haha)

PROCEDURE:  
The only things I remember from the procedure is lying in the dentist chair, then getting two needles in my arm. One was in the bending part of the arm (I don't know the proper name for it but I suspect you know what I'm talking about) and after that was out, they kept one in on the side of my wrist. I'm unsure of what the liquids in each one are but just giving you a heads up that needles will be involved! However, in my opinion, if you don't have a phobia of needles, you should be fine. The needles are thin and you barely feel anything.

After the needles, they pressed a white band along my forehead and down one temple. (Again, not sure what it's for haha, just another heads up)

And I basically immediately fell asleep after that, or I have no memory of it at all. Possibly because I was originally tired or that the dose that they gave me was enough to knock me out. Although the procedure is said to put you "half asleep".

I woke up when a nurse came to me, and I think I fell back asleep or she got me up and took me to another room so she can call my mum to pick me up. (Again, my memory is fuzzy on that because I was in a dreamy state considering I just woke up.)

Also, the procedure took around 30-35 minutes, From the moment I went into the room, got the sedation and all the teeth extracted.

AFTER THE PROCEDURE:
When I woke up, I had a cotton gauze on the wounds already and my bottom lip and tongue was still numb from the procedure so I felt no pain at all.

When the numbness died down, the nurse actually suggested and told me to take Panadol before the numbness was set to die down, but I slept through it and it didn't hurt at all so I didn't (and still haven't) taken any Panadol since the pain is highly tolerable.

I was also warned that after the procedure, I may have nausea and vomit, but that didn't happen to me at all. Of course, it's just a helpful reminder that that might happen to you, so just be prepared and bring plastic bags with you, in case that does happen. But in my case, I just felt sleepy during the car ride home.

BLEEDING:
The bleeding continued for about 4 hours, but the cotton gauze was mainly filled with my saliva with tiny bits of blood. After that, I just rinsed my mouth with cold water and didn't use any more cotton gauzes because it was uncomfortable having to keep my mouth open and struggling with swallowing, which led to the build up of saliva.

On the second day, there have been minimal amounts of blood, even when there is blood, it is diluted with saliva. Barely noticeable and was only in the morning when I rinsed my mouth.

FOOD:
The first night I didn't have much of an appetite (until I started eating haha), mum made plain congee, where I then add half a spoonful of marmite and one cube of fermented bean curd (an Asian condiment). Surprisingly delicious when I haven't eaten anything for around 22 hours. Not that they didn't allow me to eat after the procedure, I just didn't have the appetite to eat when my mouth was still bleeding (although the amount of blood gradually lessened of course).

For breakfast and lunch, I had more congee and a bun, then for dinner, I made a vegan Shepard's pie (with lentils) so I'm still cautious and eating soft foods since they recommend eating softer foods for 5 days. And I've only been drinking cold water and rinsing my mouth with warm salt water.

RETAINER:
If you guys have read my previous posts, you'd know that I had braces and chose to get retainers. But I was worried that blood will get onto the retainers during the first night so I decided not to wear them. Because I looked into it and read that there are quite a lot of people that don't wear their retainers at night anymore.

On the second night, I put my retainers in, they don't touch the wounds and doesn't cause any pain either.

SWELLING:
The swelling only started 24 hours after the surgery, and the swelling I had was barely noticeable. It is only on one side/corner of my face and it's just a tiny bump. So it's only noticeable to myself and if I point it out to people.

OVERALL:
To conclude, I definitely recommend choosing IV Sedation, I personally didn't face any horrible side effects. The grossest part, in my opinion, is the blood (I feel sick over the thought/sight of blood) but that happens regardless of which procedure you choose anyways.

In my experience, the procedure is painless and side effects aren't bad either. :)

So whether you're trying to ease your mind for your surgery or you're trying to find ways to get out of the surgery, you shouldn't be too stressed about it. And even if your wisdom teeth aren't causing any pain, you should still get a check up because mine were fine and didn't hurt when they came out, but the x-ray scan showed that one of them were growing directly vertical and the other two were going to cause infections on my other back teeth.

Either way, I wish you luck and comment below your experience or worries regarding the surgery!


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! So I'm going into the second year of university and I figured that I'll give you guys a few tips if you're starting university soon.

I know that not everyone learns/studies the same way but these are the things that I was the most useful for my learning. So feel free to use my techniques too and if they don't work, you'll soon find something that's helpful for yourself. Also, don't feel overwhelmed with univeristy, it's not that much different from high school but university does allow you to have more freedom, as opposed to being at school for the whole day, five days a week.

Hey guys! Earlier in 2015, I bought the new LG G4. Because coincidentally, my previous LG G2 phone fell onto concrete and a corner of the screen cracked. This all happened around the time that LG G4 came out so I figured that this would be the perfect opportunity to buy it.

Although the LG G4 was quite expensive (Around $900 NZD), it was still way cheaper than other high end smart phones like Samsung Galaxy S6 and iPhone 6. Since it's been available for almost a year now, the price of it is currently just under $700 NZD while Samsung Galaxy S6 is just under $900 NZD (with the exception of one company selling it for $999!)

I mainly use my phone to take photos/videos, text, write notes/reminders and to use apps like Facebook and also games for the long bus rides.

There are plenty of pros for the LG G4 but the two below are the main ones for me.


PROS

CAMERA:
The camera on the LG G4 is so good. I love both the rear and front camera because they really do take good photos! The camera captures the light really well and the sensor for the rear camera makes the images even more crisp (if that's the correct term for it..) It takes every photo well, no matter the circumstances, as shown below.

An example of a daylight photo using rear camera

An example of dark photo (only light source being the street lights and sky) using rear camera

An example of a photo that was taken while on a moving bus of moving vehicles with the rear camera

An example of a daylight photo using the front camera

SCREEN:
The screen is great, I'm mainly talking about the size of it haha, it's big enough to be able to do anything on there. Even though big screen sizes aren't a new thing on the latest smart phones, the LG G4's one just seems perfect. I love the fact that there aren't any buttons on the front of the phone so it feels like there's a big screen.

BATTERY LIFE:
The battery life is really good! However, I do usually have the brightness turned down or just to what ever brightness % needed. It's also super quick to charge. Even though the majority of smart phones (even my old LG G2) don't require a long charging time to get to 100%, it still amazes me how quick phones can charge nowadays haha. It takes me around 2 hours to fully charge the LG G4 and even if you're in a hurry, just plug it in for a bit and it would already have charged heaps.

BEAUTIFUL DESIGN:
The back of the phone so pretty. I bought the gold back one because I had no desire for the leather case and I loved the geometric pattern. It's not too in your face but you can definitely see it there as the light shows it nicely. I also love how the back is thin and a little curved because it makes it so much nicer to hold.

CONS

LAG:
Sometimes there's a slight delay when you unlock the phone. Like I'd enter the pin code and it just freezes there for a second then it unlocks. I don't really mind this small con since it doesn't happen every time.


Overall, I love my LG G4! I highly recommend this phone to everyone because there really isn't many cons to it at all. And so far, I haven't been faced with any problems with it apart from it lagging (rarely).


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! So over the weekend, my parents and I drove up to Waipu, New Zealand to check out the Waipu Caves and walk the track right next to the caves. We originally didn't know about this until my dad read about it in the newspaper as they did a review on the caves and track.

The walking track that's next to the cave is pretty too. There are heaps of lime stones and in parts of the track, there are huge piles of lime stones that makes it look like a setting from a Disney movie like the Jungle Book where it's like ancient ruins. (You get the idea.) We didn't end up walking the entire route because we were more excited for the cave haha but we saw the main attraction which is the lime stone and overall topography.

The highest point that we got to. It probably doesn't look as high as it really was.

Now for the GLOW WORMS & CAVE!

That's the entrance (the entrance/cave on the right) but it's not that small, the hill is just blocking the majority of the entrance.

I had no idea what to expect because I didn't read anything about it and knew nothing about it. Since I didn't have any expectations, it was a pretty good way to spend the day. But let's be honest, it's pretty average. I mean, everything is beautiful, especially the glow worms shining bright as if they are stars in the sky. I say that it's average because it's a short walk. I expected it to take a bit longer. However, I don't remember how long exactly it took to walk to the end of the cave, it felt really quick. Even though that could also be due to the fact that it was fun so time just flew by.

We went to the deepest part of the cave that didn't require getting down on hands and knees. Since there are glow worms already anyways, we didn't see a point and it seemed too dangerous to even try.

--The cave is pitch black if you don't use a flashlight. And make sure you use a good flashlight! Mum used those lights that you put on your head but it wasn't useful because the light area wasn't big enough. So dad and I just used the flashlight on our phones. I held onto mine for dear life haha. Because there is water almost the entire way, I didn't want to risk dropping it in there.

TIP: Make sure your flashlight can brighten up a wide area.


--There is quite a lot of water in one part of the cave. The water went up to my knees (but I'm short so just expect water to drench your legs.) There's water along the entire cave and the parts that aren't knee high, will definitely get your shoes wet anyways. So overall, just prepare to have wet shoes and legs! The water is so cooling and fresh though. It looks really pretty because of the clear water (in the shallow parts). It's so clear that you can even see the pebble rocks.

TIP: Wear shorts or a spare change of pants so you can avoid having to sit in wet pants on the car ride home.

This is the super shallow parts of the cave (at the beginning)

--On our way back, from the end of the cave, we realized that glow worms were everywhere! We thought that it was only at the very end because we were so focused on walking and making sure every step is safe, we didn't even check. However, the end of the cave is where most of the glow worms are so you should still go to the end regardless.

TIP: Turn your flashlight off occasionally and just look up throughout the entire walk because the glow worms are everywhere!

OOTD: Singlet, denim shorts, jumper and orange sneakers with cross over bag for my phone and camera.

I definitely recommend going here because it's nature, and mother nature is always beautiful. And besides, it's free! You don't need to pay a crazy amount to see glow worms (Although I'm sure those paid attractions have more glow worms) and walking through the caves by yourself is way more fun and makes you feel so adventurous and daring haha!


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! So just a small little update about my teeth/braces.

Hey guys! So if you read my previous blog post, you would know that I got my braces taken off and got given retainers which I'm supposed to have in all the time apart from eating and brushing my teeth. 

Hey guys! It's been such a long time since my last blog post but I've just been super busy with starting uni and just life in general.

Hey guys! So if you follow my blog or read previous posts, you would know that I once tried to make these pancakes that only require 2 ingredients, banana and eggs. I learnt this recipe from the wonderful Cassey, from Blogilates! And I'm doing her Beginners 2.0 calendar and I'm on day 7 right now, and fellow beginners would know that day 7 is a rest day and that Cassey suggests we make her two ingredient pancakes for breakfast. So I decided to attempt these again since I was 90% sure that it was me that did something wrong, not the recipe itself.

I failed so bad the first time I attempted to make these pancakes. And I've found out for sure what the culprit was. It was the temperature on the pan. I accidentally set it way too high even though it clearly states to put it on low-medium heat. I kind of just forgot about it. Oh well, at least I've learnt from my mistakes.

When I made them this morning, I used this crepe maker machine from Tempo. (It's kind of just a pan, not one of those machines where it has a lid like donut makers.) To be sure the temperature is low enough, I started it on setting 2. The pancakes came out fine but then I changed it to setting 1, just in case. In Cassey's recipe, she said to put in 1 banana and 2 eggs but when I did that, it looked a lot like just scrambled eggs so I added in 1/2 of a banana and mashed it into the mixture.

For each pancake, I just used one table spoon. But of course that's up to you, depending on how big you want the pancakes to be.

This Tempo machine is pretty good, allows me to make quite a lot at one time.

Ended up making 18 mini pancakes

I highly recommend you to try these pancakes! They are sooo good. Make sure you use ripe bananas so the pancakes will be sweet enough to eat without needing to add other things.

Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! During these holidays, I can honestly say that I haven't gotten skinnier and probably gained quite a bit of weight too. It's mainly because I've been lazy and when I don't go out with friends, I'm at home, on the computer, watching tv shows or just going on tumblr. Which is so unhealthy but hey, at least I enjoyed it. haha It's great being lazy and knowing that I won't be having any big responsibilities for the next two months. Buuuut now I'm starting to regret it. Well not really regret, but I'm going to start changing my lifestyle to hopefully result in having a healthy lifestyle! :D

Firstly, I'm cheap and would rather attempt to get fit by spending a minimal amount of money. So I'm doing blogilates. At the moment, I'm following the Blogilates beginners 2.0 calendar. I'm only up to day 4 but 4 days is almost a week so I'm almost there. Almost done with the 4 weeks.. kinda. I'm not 100% sure that I'll get skinny from doing this beginners calendar but working out for like an hour a day makes me feel more energized and it just makes me happy with myself for committing to this.

For those of you who's doing or have done the new beginners calendar, then tell me if you guys did the head stand one from day 4! I found it impossible because I wasn't able to let my legs go up haha. I can do handstands and cartwheels but head stands are much more different. My legs and body and mind just wouldn't let me lift my legs to get onto the wall so I attempted it a few times but gave up. However, I did do some hand stands to make up for it because I used to be able to do cartwheels and handstands really well (when I was young and not scared about breaking a bone) and I can still do them but I haven't done them in a while (not including today) because I don't live on a property with a nice field to do cartwheels and handstands on. And doing it in the house is just scary. Like scared that I'll get unbalanced and hit something. Hopefully I'll be able to do a headstand (with the help of a wall at least) sometime in the near future but for now, I'll just work on hand stands to strengthen my arms and get used to being upside down.

Oh! And remember that failed attempt at those banana pancakes? Here is a photo for that..
How disgusting does that look! haha I think I know where I went wrong though. I'm pretty sure that I set the temperature for the pan too high so the egg was burnt while the insides didn't have enough time to cook properly. I'm going to try it again though! I will not give up in making these pancakes haha! I just have to try again. The batter seemed right, just that the temperature of the pan was too hot.

Speaking of foods, I've set to change my diet. I'm going to cut down on junk food and eat mostly healthy foods. Currently, the only junk food I'm eating is those Mamee noodles. I'm sure fellow Asians know what I'm talking about. Those delicious snack noodles. I don't think that they're as bad as chips and since the Mamee noodles are fairly small for each individual packet, it's like not as guilty as eating half a packet of chips all at once.

This isn't really a new years resolution but it'd be good to have a healthy lifestyle to make myself happier and of course, healthier.


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! A few days ago, I was craving something sweet but I didn't want to make a mess in the kitchen and use up too many ingredients so I thought about blogilates super simple pancake recipe. I read the reviews and the majority of the people said that it came out fine and was delish! However, there were two or three people that commented saying that they faced some difficulties of the pancake turning out more like an omelette than a pancake. But since the recipe only requires two eggs and one banana, I decided to attempt it. It turned out such a fail for me! I think it was mainly because I made the heat too high so the outside was getting brown/burnt while the insides are still kind of wet and uncooked. I still ate some just to see how it tasted as some people were saying that the smell and taste of their pancake was disgusting. But it tastes pretty good, because of the natural sweetness from the banana.

Even though this first attempt was such a fail, I'm going to try again and I'll let you guys know how it goes on instagram.


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! So time for part 2 of my Hong Kong trip! The next two days were calm, with nothing too special going on.

It was my 18th birthday but it felt sort of surreal to actually be 18 now! Buuut, I had a great day and ended it on a pretty high note too! We bought a mango cake which was delish! I could eat that cake all day err' day. Like seriously, I would fly to Hong Kong just to eat more mango cakes. ;)
 Just a casual selfie of me eating lychee flavoured ice cream. It actually tastes really nice! I always get sucked into these kind of ice cream flavours. Like green tea and sakura flavoured ice cream too.
 The day after my brithday, we went for a little walk around Yuen Long because my aunt, uncle and cousin were still fast asleep. It was around 10am but they're used to waking up late and dad and I were still used to NZ time I guess! And we're just natural early birds haha. Speaking of birds.. ;) (what a great little jump from one thing to another) We were in Yuen Long park and saw this huge aviary which is made for the public so we decided to go in and check it out. It's like 7 (or more) stories high! There were quite a few birds in there and the aviary looked really nice. The birds are given a really beautiful area. I didn't know what to expect but it was better than what I expected haha!
 The view from the top was amazing.

I've decided to just do short little posts for each couple of days unless there was something really interesting during those days haha. Next diary post will be about Victoria Peak, Madam Tussauds wax museum and a japanese buffet.

Love,
Elaine

Hey guys, so almost a month away, my dad and I went to Hong Kong and China for a two week holiday. It was so relaxing over there, even though the streets are full of people, it's a different kind of relaxation. Relaxed knowing that I don't have any major responsibilities to take care of until I came back to NZ. This allowed me to enjoy my time and just free my mind from everything. I'll just write about the main things that we did but will do more than one blog post for each event so you guys aren't too overwhelmed by the amount of writing in one post.

So our flight was at like 7am which meant that we had to wake up super early. On the way there, the plane food wasn't too bad but breakfast is always gag-worthy in my opinion. However, the lunch we had was fabulous. Hahhaha I don't think I've ever used fabulous before but anyhow, I got the chicken pie and it was so delish! Even though I didn't have much of an appetite because I couldn't handle the excitement of being in HK so soon!
 While we stopped over at Brisbane airport, we were waiting for our next flight and found this really cute arcade machine thing which had games like Pacman and Invaders. It was for free and you could play one or two player! This was the best time waster ever haha. Every airport should have one in my opinion. :P
 Once we landed, it was like 5pm in HK so my uncles, aunties and cousins took us to this restaurant for dinner. But I still didn't have much of an appetite and I was so tired by then (because I wasn't able to sleep on the plane) that I started feeling kinda sick. But after a good nights rest, I was fine.

Sorry for such a small post but I'll post diary #2 soon where it'll be about my 18th birthday and just our little adventures around Yuen Long.


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! I'm proudly procrastinating by doing this fun questions tag that I found out from seanajvixen :)

1) When is your birthday?
I actually have this in my bio already, but it's the 1st of December. (First day of Summer!)

2) What are 3 of your favorite colors?
Yellow, plum/purple maroon and yellow. (And yes, I know that I wrote yellow twice, just love it that much haha)

3) What are your 3 favorite quotes?
I don't have any special quotes that I live by but right now, I like Alexander Pope's quote,
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot, the world forgetting by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned."
This quote just has a nice ring to it, I don't really know. It's just a nice quote. 

4) Are you addicted to YouTube?
I'm not as addicted anymore, I now just watch TV shows.

5) What are 3 of your favorite shows on TV or YouTube or both?
I am currently loving The Flash, How to get away with murder and Selfie (Still so sad that they cancelled selfie though!)

My all time favorites are FRIENDS (Because I have watched all episodes a billion times and still crack up every time I watch an episode), Gossip Girl (xoxo) and Running Man which is a Korean game show and it's hilarious! Makes me want to learn Korean so I don't need to read the english subtitles.

6) What are 3 qualities you like in a best friend?
Funny, the ability to give advice or talk to you about everything and anything, also loyalty and trust so I can trust them to not blab about important things that I tell them.

7) Do you like your name?
I can't imagine myself with another name but 'Elaine' just seems like such a grown up name

8) If you have the choice to pick your own name, what will it be?
If I was a gwai lo, the name 'Summer' would be perfect since my birthday is on the first day of Summer but if I did change my name, realistically I'd name myself... Lilly. hahaha Imagine if I was called Lilly.. I just think Lilly's a really pretty name but I definitely can't see myself having that name!

9) What is your fantasy dream?
To go to the Willy Wonka factory from the movie 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'!

10) Do you wear makeup?
I wear concealer and bb cream if I go to school and sometimes work if my face is really pigmented. But I have stopped wearing makeup to work because honestly, who cares what you look like at work haha. But if I go to hang out with friends then I wear concealer, bb cream or foundation, masacara, light/natural/soft pink lipstick and a little bit of blush.

11) If you could write a book, what would the title be and what would it be about?
The book title would be 'Cotton Candy Kid' and it would be about a little girl that's rich and is spoiled rotten by her family and one day, she finds out there a magical land called 'Cotton Candy Island' and tries to get her parents to fly her out to this magical island. This island has unicorns that poops out cotton candy, a waterfall of coffee frappe and a forest with 'wild' colorful cotton candy. So pretty much the island is my paradise. Anyways, no one can enter the island unless they are proved worthy. So there are a bunch of tests given to the girl to see if she is worthy enough to be allowed to go on the island. You'll have to read the ending when I actually write this book. ;)

12) What makes you cry?
The movie Hachiko, when I see my friends cry and when I get frustrated, I just burst out crying.

13) What makes you angry?
When people take credit for things that they didn't do. It doesn't make me super mad but I just get annoyed!

14) What makes you happy?
Being with friends, eating yum food and just relaxing with no care in the world.

15) What is "fangirling?"
It's the thing that I do when someone mentions Chace Crawford or Zac Efron. :*

16) What are your 3 favorite snacks?
Doritos and kit kats. I can't think of anymore snacks that I'll never say no to.

17) What are your 3 favorite foods?
Sweet and sour pork, sushi and mashed potatoes.

18) What are your 3 favorite drinks?
Water, iced  milk tea, coffee frappes.

Hey guys! So at the end of this month, I'll be heading off to Hong Kong and then China. I'm only going to two weeks though. Which is fine, I'll have enough time to do most of the stuff. :) I haven't started packing yet since it's still a bit too early to pack stuff into my suitcase right now. However, I have made a packing check list. I thought I'd just share it with you guys because some of you may be stuck or forgetting some of the most important things for your own overseas trip.

This is my list of things I'll be bringing along for my trip, keeping in mind that it will be winter in Hong Kong and China. So I have to pack extra warm things! Annnd, this isn't a final list or anything like that, this is just the stuff that I thought would be helpful if I brought it along. 98% chance I'll be bringing everything on this list though!

Hey guys! I haven't written in here for a while now but I just don't have anything that interesting to be talking about right now. I promise I'll write more blog posts during these Summer/Christmas holidays because I have some stuff planned! You'll find out what my holiday activities are pretty soon. :)

It's my birthday in 2ish weeks and I started thinking all this birthday stuff, like how to celebrate and all. So below are some polls because I'm interested to see what you guys like and do for birthdays! Please answer them, this is just for my curiosity and I'm still trying to think of different ways to celebrate.

For all these questions, just saying the one that's either most realistic right now or the thing that happened on your latest birthday. And answer in the comment box below! :)

Where do you like to celebrate your birthday?

At home

At a restaurant

At the beach

At a club/bar

Overseas vaccation

Road trip

Other

Who do you celebrate your birthday with?

Family (Parents and siblings)

Best friends

Group of friends

Boyfriend/Girlfriend

I invite everyone that I know

What do you do on your birthday?

Talk with friends, socialise (While sober)

Get drunk and party hard

Have a meal

Throw your own party at home/venue

Other

Looking forward to reading your answers!


Love,
Elaine

Hey guys! I'm super excited to tell you guys that I have bought a new phone. It's the not-so-new model, LG G2. It's fairly new, only around a year old but the LG G3 is about to (or maybe it already has) come out. So let's begin this with telling you guys why I opted for the G2 over other smart phones. I have heard some news about the G3 coming out but I thought that it'd be too expensive and out of my budget since it's new and has pretty much just came out. Even though I have to admit, I didn't even set a real budget, I kinda just looked for a phone that I liked and thought was fair priced. I bought the LG G2 over the new Samsung galaxy, an iPhone and other smart phones because I really like the look of the LG G2. I love how there are no buttons which means that the size of the screen would be the entire phone size pretty much. It's a 5 inch phone which is HUGE! So after a week of thinking whether buying a phone is important/worth it or not, I ended up buying it. It was somewhat difficult finding a good, trustworthy store that had it for cheap. The store that I ended up buying from is einfo.co.nz (Expert Infotech). I also looked at Parallel Imported and Trade Me listings but I was kind of worried to buy such an expensive thing from a Trade Me listing since I can't be for sure that the seller is trustworthy. I mean, I know there's a 95% chance that the seller is trustworthy but I still opted for a proper store.

The main reasons that I bought this phone is because of it's large screen size (it's 5 inches), its great camera (13 MP) and also the back power/volume buttons. I think that the power button placed at the back is such a unique idea and I love how the volume buttons at the back allow you to snap pictures. Haha this seems like the ideal phone for selfies. ;)

I've used this phone for over a month now so  However, there are more pros than cons in my opinion.
Pros:
*Great resolution and amazing screen size. I know this isn't the only phone with a large screen and great resolution but it's still awesome!
*The knock on function where you just need to double tap to go to the lock screen. I actually love this function because it's probably me being paranoid, but I always feel like I'm squashing and ruining a button (like lock/home button) when I press it too frequently. With the knock on function, I have only pushed the proper lock button a few times.
*Playing games are so much more fun with the huge screen.
*Fair amount of case/covers to choose from. I bought my case from etsy.

Cons:
*The home button is right below the space button when texting/typing. This makes it super easy for me to accidently go home instead of pressing space while texting. This isn't too bad since once you click back into the messages, you can go back to what you were writing. So this isn't a major con.
*I've cracked the screen already.. I have not dropped this phone yet so something hard and sharp must've been put against the screen to cause it to crack. :'( The crack happened a week or two after I had the phone.

So that pretty much sums up my thoughts on the phone.

Love,
Elaine

Hi guys, I guess my new years resolution of blogging more often (like once every 2 weeks or so) has failed miserably.. I just can't find anything too special and glamorous to blog about. However, there should hopefully be some interesting stuff happening. Anyways, last night, my dad, sister and I went to this Japanese buffet called Haru no Yume. It has a range of food but mainly sushi and sashimi. Time just flew by when we were there. We ended up staying for almost an hour and a half.

Firstly, let's talk about the decor and overall "feel" of the place. They have very pretty fairy lights which is the main theme in this restaurant. Or shall I say light source? Because the ceiling has no lights! They only have fairy lights and some long dangily light bulbs. (Not sure what the specific name for these are because I'm no light expert.) I actually don't even know how the restaurant felt so well lit but in reality, I was pretty dim now that I think about it and look back at the photos. Speaking of lighting though, each table also gets a lighted candle to set a nice, calming atmosphere. They also had some nice decor which consists of giant Japanese style umbrella. They also had some empty sake bottles on this divider wall that they have.

Secondly, ze food! Here's just some of the food that we ate:

This is Yvonne's plate and first thing she pigged out on was sushi and raw fish like salmon, tuna and king fish (I think?) because she wasn't able to eat them while pregnant.

More food

Sashimi plate that they bring over.

Beef that they light the bottom of the "stove" thing for you and the beef will begin to cook.

ICE CREAM. These are just like your typical soft serves. They have a machine for it where you just pour out yourself and I also added this fried thing on to substitute fries :3

I have one major highlight from the entire evening and that is that we originally thought that the beef (in the 2nd and 4th picture) was eaten as beef tataki (pretty much raw beef). But like after grabbing our first plate of food (including the beef), one of the waitress' told us that we're supposed to cook them! haha So embarrassing but hilarious because we were honestly so excited to eat beef tataki since it would have been my first time and also my dads. Even though the plates of raw beef (along with other food that were on the stove type display) were placed with the food that you just grab yourselves, it was misleading and caused us to think we just ate it as it is. This is actually bad and dangerous because not everyone would know that the food had to be taken by a waiter first and then served to the table. They should at least have a sign up. :P

The one downside to my experience is the fact that the website that they have, gives out wrong contact information. There was a cell phone number that they specifically said was where you text to make your booking so I texted that number. I didn't get any replies to the text so I guessed either that they don't reply to confirm bookings (which is weird) or that they didn't receive it. So I texted them again during the day that we were going (yesterday midday). I didn't receive any reply so I looked on their website to see what their shop's number is so I can directly call to confirm/make a booking. BUT every time we tried calling, it went to a voice message saying that they're busy. We tried at least 5 times as well and at different times! We called about every 30 minutes until we gave up. Even though no one ever confirmed our booking, we still went because we doubted that the restaurant will be fully booked with no spare tables anyways. And if it was full, we would've just went to another restaurant. When we arrived, they said that there was no booking made by us and it took them about 2 minutes to think and decide whether we'd get a table or not. I'm seriously dissapointed in the fact that the number to text to make a booking is incorrect because it is on their website and I'm sure lot's of other people have fallen for this too. But what I'm not sad about is the fact that we tried to call them so many times and they were too busy to pick up the phone even once.

Overall, I would go back to this restaurant but I don't want to be the one booking the table! haha Too much of a hassle.


Love,
Elaine