2 days, 13 capsules

That is how much coffee we drank. Mostly J actually.


While I was doing some last minute work (as usual) trying to make sense of my conference presentation slides, J was writing a chapter for his PhD thesis. I have long decided that it isn't just brains that you need to do a PhD, it's perseverance with a capital P. And in the last month alone, he read over 70 articles just to put together this 1 chapter. I.do.not.envy.

Wolf Blass Gold Label

I'm not much of a drinker but this sits well with me.

We got it from the airport. It's sweet and smooth. I feel like I'm drinking the rum in the rum and raisin ice-cream. :)

Botrytis Semillon


We should have bought more bottles!

Bag #2

is the 34th Street Treesh in Bone. :)

Oh yes, it is another bag which was sold here and on the kate spade website many moons ago!

Previously when everyone was carrying it, the colours did not impress me. The fire-engine red and snapdragon pink were pretty but not exactly my kinda colours. I did not want to get another bag in peacock blue since I have the Frosted Felt Magazine Tote. Someone told me the black was very classy but at the store when I carried it on the crook of my arm, I looked like I had stolen my grandma's bag!


Then in HK, I spotted the bag in this colour! Call it cream, off-white, bone, whatever! It cannot be new and was probably on the kate spade website but why didn't I see it before??

Even J thinks the bag is quite pretty. :)

How colourful, how whimsical the tutti frutti dot lining!

Crinkled patent! And I love the noel rivets.

Bag #1

So what exactly did I buy in Hong Kong?

I got the Frosted Felt Quinn. Oh yes, I bought the little sister of my giant ass Frosted Felt Magazine Tote!


I love my Magazine Tote for its colours. I love it that it's so roomy. For the 2 months that I carried it, I received a lot of compliments for it. Then sometime before I left for Hong Kong, I saw someone carrying a black Quinn and loved the look of it! I realised it was not tiny like I had thought. And there lies my problem because nowhere in Singapore can I buy one since it is an item from the Spring season. Or was it even winter?? Okay, it was that far back!

But in HK, I found the grey version! kate spade calls this colour 'heather'. Whatever.

I was jolly pleased! Heather is not exactly black but since I don't have a grey or silver bag this suits me fine.

Look at the shiny straps! Don't they scream 'Glam'?! How come the bag did not look so pretty when I saw it online previously?

I do have one complaint though. The shiny base of this bag is extremely rough and on the first day I carried it in HK, it scratched against my shorts and ruined a part of it! Now I know better than to wear delicate fabric with the Frosted Felt Quinn.

kate spade in Hong Kong

I told J there are 6 kate spade stores in Hong Kong; he thought I wanted to visit them all!


I was sure I wanted to visit the one at the Citygate Outlets at Tung Chung and one other retail store in any of the malls. In the end, we went to more than 2. :)


This is the one at Harbour City, Ocean Centre. It is in Tsim Sha Tsui, about 30min walk from our hotel. We were at Harbour City running an errand for a friend and I decided to drop by for a quick look.


The outlet store at Citygate sells different things from the other retail stores but the products are not really that cheap. Here you can also find some items from the last season.



The third store we went to is in SOGO, Causeway Bay. It is a speciality shop, similar to the one we have in Takashimaya. This visit was completely by chance. We were in the area and decided to go inside SOGO to enjoy some air conditioning because the weather was so hot! That was when we discovered that SOGO was having a massive sale. Everything in kate spade was on sale. 30%! 40%! 50% discount! I have to confess I went a little mad here that day. Hehe!



The last store we went to is in Elements, Kowloon. We were on our way to the airport and the shopping mall is where the Airport Express station is. I took less than 2 minutes to tour this store. All the retail stores sell the same stuff. Much as I like kate spade, I really did not wish to look at the same items over and again in 4 days.

More of Maryanne!

p.s. J read this post a day after I blogged and screamed, 'Too much! Too many pictures of your bags already!' Well, this is MY blog. And for now, this is all I want to talk about. So if you also feel the same as J, I say, 'Oops, too bad!' ;)

And this makes 4

J bought me this iPhone cover in Hong Kong. I know I know, I already have 2 other hardshell cases and 1 silicone one from kate spade but how can I say no to this? Tis so pretty!


The unique bit about it is that the tiny spade emblem appears on the side/rim of the cover and not on the back like the others. :)


Cute, isn't it? :)

I'm thinking I should stop at 4. After all these cases will probably not fit an iPhone 5 or 6. :P

Maryanne, I love thee

(Photo from katespade.com)

I ordered the Gold Coast Maryanne some time in April. C, a friend in the USA, got a 20% store discount and bought this on my behalf. Later she sent me regular updates and also pictures of my bag. Buying the bag through her was a joy and breeze. :)

But (there's always a but in every story) Speedpost gave me a lot of grief. :(

Although C got USPS to send out my bag a day after she got it from the kate spade store, it took more than 2 weeks before it was delivered to my place. While C and USPS were efficient, the same cannot be said about Speedpost. USPS has a tracking system which updates the status of the parcel so I know exactly when C sent it out, when USPS shipped it to Singapore and when it arrived and cleared the customs here. Speedpost's tracking system on the other hand only showed ONE status and there were NO MORE updates after that. My bag sat in their sorting centre for an entire week before they delivered it! In fact I had to call on day 4 to ask about my parcel, only to hear them report most nonchalantly that the item was damaged! When I asked if it was the box that was damaged or the item inside, they said they could not tell! On day 5, they called to say they could not locate the item! I was livid because clearly nobody gave a damn about my parcel. All of my requests were not acceeded to. No, I cannot go to the central post office to assess the damage and collect the parcel. No, they cannot deliver it to me asap. No, No, NO!

Eventually when the parcel arrived, I was at work and J who signed for it told me the box was horribly crushed and torn. Even the kate spade gold-striped paper was ripped, and as was the plastic bag that wrapped the bag in. When I got home and saw the box for myself, I thought: OH GOOD GRIEF! Did an elephant sit on it?!?

Thankfully my Maryanne survived the ordeal. There are no visible scratches despite the torn box and layers of wrapping and she looks perfect!

Mother's Day

came and went 2 Sundays ago.

On Facebook and blogs, friends posted pictures of their children, the gifts they received and how they celebrated Mother's Day. All in all, very sweet. :)

Which makes me wish my 74-year-old mother has a blog or facebook account too! What would she write? Would she put up pictures of her children? Would she post something about me, her youngest at 35?? Hahaha!

But since my mum does not have a blog, I shall post on her behalf here. :)


This is the card I gave her. She asked why there were 2 tigers.

No! That's a kitten kissing the mother cat.
Oh... but they look like tigers.

Oh whatever!

妈妈，母亲节快乐!

Hillview

is a place that I know exists but have never explored before till I visited a colleague the other day.

Her apartment in Hilltop Grove is lovely at first sight. It's at the end of a road lined with condominiums on both sides. Although a little old in appearance, the estate is surrounded by so many lush green trees that it gives you a feeling that you are right in the middle of a nature reserve. Very serene.


This is the view from her living room. You see the Hillview estate, a mixture of some very old terrace houses as well as newly rebuilt ones.


I love the quiet and peace. Very nice neighbourhood indeed.

Practice

Before I forget how Lily works!

tirelessly

(Video source - www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX5lxAUci-A)

Have courage

It's a hot and sunny day. We see this on our way to the polling centre.

35

The disconnect between us is so great.
Where do I even start?