僕等がいた Bokura ga Ita

One of my all time favorite manga, Bokura ga Ita (English title: We Were There), has just ended in April's Betsucomi, I believe. It's a slice of life sort of manga, but I enjoyed it for its simplicity.

The start of high school life. To the girls, that also meant the start of their love lives. For brand new first year student, Takahashi Nanami (Nana for short), it was no different... She happens to end up in the same class as the incredibly popular Yano Motoharu, who rumors say that two thirds of all the girls are guaranteed to fall in love with. But will that hold true for Nana, who says that if she had to choose between like or dislike, she'd say she dislikes him!?

-- Hanashi

The rest of the story just revolves around their relationship and issues that arise. If you have time, you should definitely give it a shot. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Hunger Games & Nails

On Saturday I went to get my wisdom teeth removed, so now all of them are gone :o I don't even have any memory of the process.. I remember going into the room and getting hooked up to the IV.. then next thing I know I'm already on my way home and stumbling to bed to sleep off the anesthesia. They wouldn't let me keep my teeth though..something about it being a bio-hazard or whatever.. Dunno if you guys do it, but I keep all my teeth lol. My cheeks are a bit swollen, so I have like a square head right now :(

Later that night I did my nails... they're smiley themed!

The base color is Sally Hansen Yellow Kitty and the rest were with various other colors. It took me a while to realize that I drew my left thumb the wrong way lol. 

So I went to watch The Hunger Games yesterday. I thought it was pretty good, but I haven't read the book yet, so I don't know how it compares. I heard the book is pretty good though, so I was hoping to read it one day.. Someone actually told me a spoiler, so the whole time I was anticipating for it to happen, but it never did! Soo guess I believed it for nothing.

I also went to get some hair dye again since I was in the area and saw Opal One Minute Treatment for my hair, so I picked that up as well because I remember reading good things about it in the past. I haven't used it yet, but I'm hoping for good results! Last time I messed up with Prettia, so I'm hoping that I can do it right this time.

Prettia Custard Brown | Opal One Minute Treatment

Restaurant Week 2012

Soo I caved in and made an exception to my budgeting and went out to eat for restaurant week. I went to a seafood restaurant called Summer Shack. I dunno if other areas do it too, but it's pretty much two weeks in the year where restaurants try to promote their place with a 3 course meal (appetizer, entree, & dessert) at a certain price for light lunch, lunch, or dinner.

Anyways, to start off, here are the appetizers.

 "R.I. Style" Calamari; I expected just fried calamari.. so I was a bit disappointed. It wasn't that bad, but just not that crispy and it was sorta oily.

Sauteed P.E.I. Mussels; I wasn't a fan of the sauce that this was cooked with. It had some beer(?) flavor or something, which I don't like.

Native 1lb Chix Lobster; We weren't sure how big 1lb is.. but it's a pretty decent size. I thought it tasted sorta plain, but the bf enjoyed it so it's all good :D I was debating between this or what I got.. but since I don't really know how to eat a lobster if it's not pre-cut for me, I decided against it.

Grilled Florida Gulf Shrimp; Again, I thought this was sort of plain. The shrimp just tasted like any other shrimp to me and didn't have much of a flavor.

 Ice cream cake..yum! Can't go wrong with that.

Uhh.. apple crisp with vanilla ice cream?

Anyways, I was a bit disappointed because I sort of expected more from this.. and I actually thought that restaurant week was supposed to be cheaper since it was a flat ~$33 for a meal per person, but when I added up the prices on the menu, this meal was only worth $35.50, so I saved about $2 bucks. If that was the case, then I would've just eaten any other day instead of now..instead of going over my budget! Then again, it might just be this particular restaurant and others may offer better deals.

Budgeting

Super long post... and no pictures, sorry!

For the past few months, I have been spending way too much money, considering that I do not work that often so whatever I make is like pocket cash, but my spending has been gone overboard and I've spent everything that I earning last year during the year and in the summer. So this month I decided to enforce a budget for myself and it's making me miserable haha. I can't spend so freely anymore or go pick up a snack or drink when I need one; I would have to wait until I get home. There's still like a third of the month left and for the past few days I have been stuck with a remaining balance of 73 cents to spend D:

But speaking of grabbing some food every now and then, this budget sorta kills two birds with one stone. A week after returning from Canada, I started gaining weight and noticeably in in my tummy area..it just bulges out and I feel like I look almost pregnant or bloated 24/7. Ironically, I didn't gain weight during the trip, but after. Weird. But yeah I guess this way I can control my eating to a more reasonable level, just breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It worked for a week until I pigged out again at home last night LOL :( But yeah, hopefully it all works out :D I'm hoping to cut off snacks for a while too. I'll just finish off whatever I have at home (which is mostly chips -__-) and ban myself from snack shopping, which I used to go like every single week. This would save me lots of $$$ and be way healthier for me..

Anyways, I'll update again maybe at the end of this week or so. It's restaurant week this week and the next, so MAYBE I'll make an exception to the budget for this since I have never gone before (...giving into temptation.) I have to get my bottom two wisdom teeth pulled this Saturday and they said I can't have nail polish on..so no new mani until next week. I hope my cheeks don't swell up for weeks! It's a pretty deep removal, so it probably will :(

Have a nice rest of the week everyone!! Hope it's as nice whereever you live as it is here. Today it was like 80 degrees!

St. Patrick's Day Nail

Like a lot of other people, I did a green mani for St. Patrick's Day. It's something simple though. The nails are sorta messy because I took the pics before cleaning it up since there was good lighting. It was such a nice day out!

I tried doing a glittery gradient effect with this mani

I used: OPI Natural Nail Base Coat | Wet n Wild Craze Jade | Wet n Wild Spoiled Show Me The Money | Essie Good to Go Top Coat

 

Here it is cleaned up :P

China Glaze Magnetix Pull Me Close

 I finally tried a magetic nail polish! I wanted to get the Nails Inc. ones back when they first came out at Sephora, but they were too expensive and I don't think I would've used it that often. But lately there's been a lot more cheaper alternatives :)

Here's CG Pull Me Close.. after using it, I don't think magnetic polishes are really for me :( I'm so bad at it, so  for a lot of my nails, it would only cover half of it.. you can kinda see what I mean on my ring finger and it's more apparent in person. So I messed up A LOT trying to put these on and had to do each nail a couple of times.. so I probably used up a lot of the polish just from one mani.

Here's a tiny food spam :P

 Boneless buffalo chicken ! :D

Mochi 

Weekly Recap: 3/5/12-3/11/12

An update to the whole iTunes situation.. they actually refunded me for the first transaction, but in iTunes credit...which I won't even need. Plus they told me they'd refund it in the original payment methods..so I emailed them but they wouldn't do anything x__x As for the $3x transaction..the transaction cleared with my bank before I could put it on hold & call the bank..so hopefully I can get that money back!

Anyways, here's a recap of what happened last week!

I went to Dave and Busters last Monday. We spent $35 there..and only got around 700 tickets? Which was just enough to get this fellow. :D My top shelf is getting too full for my domos x_x

 Ichigo from a pastry shop :D They're expensive though..like $2.95 each, so I couldn't get that many.

Wednesday night dinner.. had a late shift at work :( Went to get froyo, but they didn't really have the flavors that I liked.. so I didn't really get that much. 

If you remember Yeh from my Canada post, it's a place where I got froyo and crepes. They recently opened up one about half an hour drive away and I wanted to try it so this Friday I had time to go :D THEY'RE SO DELICIOUS! I wish it was closer to home because it is quite far to go often :( They froyo was very rich in flavor. There's like so many different flavors in my cup xD Strawberry mixed w/cheesecake, blueberry, mango, cookies and cream, smores mixed w/vanilla and that's it, I think. They were all so good, but my favorite would have to be their mango. Tastes like real mangos!

 On Saturday, a bunch of friends and I got together to make sushi :) Some of the eggs we made looked like pancakes :o Funny story.. my friend was trying to flip the egg to the other side and it flipped right into the trash can xD

Round 2!

I went to NY on Sunday for the day. Left the house around 6AM and got back at 8PM.

 Bought some new earrings recently :) The pink ones were $1 for the pair and has that hypo-allergy plastic end and the other pair is a tiny one for $3 :) I used to have a tiny pink pair, but I think I lost one of them :\ But yeah they're so small! Might look big in the pic, but you can see how small it is compared to my finger.

 I want to learn how to make those net roses, so I bought some material :) Dunno if it's cheap compared to other places, but the net was only $1.50, wires $0.65 and green tape $1.25. I got these from the Elizabeth Center.

pa: A72 | Revlon: Ocean Breeze 320 | Not So Blueberry 370 | Provence 040

Got the Revlon from CVS since they were on sale for $4.79+$3 extrabucks each. The pa is from a store in the Elizabeth Center in NY. The store had a bunch, but since they're such tiny bottles (0.1 fl oz) and I've heard that they're quite sheer.. I only bought one just to have it. The store had a lot of them, but yeah.. This one was $5. Some of the other sparkly ones were like $6.50 or $8.00.

Nails for the week in Revlon Colorstay Provence. It was kinda thick so I was worried that it'd be streaky, but it didn't come out that bad. However, when I put the top coat on, the polish was like smudging again (got onto my top coat brush) even after a year of drying, so it's not because it's still wet.

Yesterday, I went to Yeh again :x More froyo for me! Ahh how I wish I could go there everyday or something :( Okay, maybe not but wish it was more convenient! Also tried their crepes. It didn't have that many fruits inside.. and I only had a bite so I thought it was okay.

Well that's all for last week!

Beware of iTunes!

Last Friday morning, I received an e-mail from Paypal and iTunes saying that I purchases an app for $19.99+tax and I immediately called Apple asking like what's going on. Unfortunately, they were no help and I also did a bit of researching on my own and found out that this has happened to several other people and found out that usually nothing can be done because there's technically a billing agreement or whatever. But stupid me didn't bother to contact Paypal to tell them to cancel that contract (because I was still waiting for Apple to resolve the issue.) This morning I received even MORE charges -__- This time they're charging me $29.96+tax for four apps that I didn't even purchase. They're all from the same seller Hangzhou MR.GLEE Tech. co., Ltd and I swear the purchases are the same exact items too. Nobody has access to my iTunes nor have I touched my iPod for weeks, so it's obviously not anything from my end. And just the fact that they're all from the same seller is pretty suspicious. I just hope I can get this resolved because I don't think it's likely that the case will be in my favor due to the billing contract thing :\

But bottom line is, if you have a credit card or Paypal account linked to your iTunes account, I would remove it and only add it back on when you have to update your apps or make purchases and afterward take it off again.

New streak!

I actually did this last Sunday. I tried doing a streak over the summer too, but it didn't really show up. 

Looks like I did a huge streak but it's really not. Half my hair was clipped to the back so yeah. 

I used L'Oreal Feria Extra Bleaching Blonde 205 for this.. I was hoping for a lighter color, but it didn't work :( 

But I'm planning on dying it a lighter shade anyways, like an ashier brown because I feel like my hair is sorta orangy sometimes..and I sorta want more streaks! Like peekaboo highlights with a blonde similar to the one on the model. But we'll see :)

Quick nail polish haul & food updates!

Happy Sunday! Here's a quick post on a recent nail polish haul. I got the WetnWild ones because they were on sale last week for $1.50 each at CVS :)

Did I Dye It Too Blonde? | Show Me the Money | Are Mermaids Real? | I’m Ba-roque | Shrimp on the Barbie

The pictures do them no justice, they're so pretty in real person, especially the last one! It's more of a salmon color with gold shimmers, but you can't really tell in the pic.

Zoya: Kym | Maisie | Sally Hansen: Seaside

I got the Zoya earlier last week. Kym is a pretty shimmery red and Maisie is from their new Flecks Collection, so yay another flakie! All my colors this week are like shimmery :x And the Sally Hansen is the one I mentioned in my last post where I got it for $1 in Canada.

Lastly, here's something to drool over :D CURRY!! I don't remember what they were :x Okay, honestly it's not as good as it looks probably because I was getting full by the time this was served. I was snacking on mini muffins and chips right before going there. And as appetizer they served salad and miso soup, soo yeah. But I'm eating it as I type this haha :D (because I packed it up)

Anyways, I'll update again later next week. Hoping to change my nails..but too lazy to remove mine especially because it's so glittery! Any ideas on a nail design?

Canada: Toronto, Ontario

Hi! Here's my last post about my stay in Canada :) I'll include the haul pictures at the very bottom :D

Day 5: February 22, 2012

To start off, when we stopped for gas, I had to go to the bathroom >< So I went to this stop place and saw lots of catch machine sorta things and say a domo!! It was a machine where a light circulates and you get either 1, 2, 3, or one where it opens right up. The domo is on the center and evey time you get the light to land on 1-3 it'll open up slightly (3 the most) We spent $5 to get this, so not too bad :x 

When we got to Toronto, we went to Chinatown. 

 First, we found the Dragon City Mall so we stopped by there.

 DOMO FIGURINES!! They were $7 each, so it would've been a killer to get all of them x__x I didn't get any :(

 It was mostly shops and gachapons in there :o So we left and as we were walking, I saw these staring at me out the window!! MEGA CUTE!!!

 Next is the Chinatown Center that was like a block down.

 Lol. It was pretty much the same thing as the DCM, but I think less flashy and it's bigger.

Walking further into Chinatown... (we were on the outskirts, sorta, before)

So cute!! Saw these at a store called Factory Price to Public. 

We went to T&T :) It's a huge Asian supermarket. This one was really clean and all the food stuffs were stocked well.

 When it was dinner time, we went to a restaurant called Mengrai Gourmet Thai. We ordered a chicken kabob for appetizer. I wasn't a big fan because of the coconut taste. The bf got this seafood pineapple fried rice and it was served in a pineapple! It was so good :) I got a green curry chicken, which was okay. It was milky as Thai-style curry usually is.

 We went to go watch The Vow! :) Okay, honestly I was a tad disappointed by the ending of it and it was a pretty hyped movie. We had the movie theatre to ourself! Jk, a few people started coming in after we did. :P We watched it at the Cineplex, which is like the Canadian AMC I guess :o Which they do have btw, but there was no parking so we went to the Cineplex instead.

After our day was over, we finally headed to the hotel! We avoided going back the whole day because the parking at the hotel was super expensive :\ $45 for valet parking. And if we parked at another parking lot, we couldn't go in and out without having to pay again :(

Anyways, we had stuff that had to be refrigerated..but our room doesn't come with a fridge so we stuck it out the window LOL. Our room also has a nice view and we could see the CN Tower :D We weren't that high though (27th floor) so I didn't have eye to eye level with the buildings I guess LOL

 Late night snacks <3 Pig ears and curry chips... okay the pig ears sound gross :( The chips were good though! I went back and bought 9 bags the day we left lol..

Day 6: February 23, 2012

The next morning, we went to eat dimsum at Casa Imperial Fine Chinese Cuisine. The portions were generous and it was delicious! I would definitely recommend this place if you were ever in Toronto. It's a bit pricer than other dimsum places for me, but our total was $61 for 9 dishes before tips. 

Next stop Pacific Mall!! At this point, my camera died :( So I was only able to take a few pictures with my phone because that died too LOL.

 Hello Kitty face wash!! They were selling it for $16, but I found it online for $9, soo...

 This place has the best mango shakes I have ever tried. Their mango is ripe and they even put diced up mango at the bottom! See all those boxes of mango they go through? There's more not pictured! Pmall has like SOO many Real Fruit chains though, there's at least like 5 in there!

Saw these at a shop AWW! The bf got a few of these and the next day he got the baby ones, one for me one for him :D

DINNER TIME! We went to Starfish Oyster Bed & Grill. We ordered crab cakes, which I thought was okay. Next came oysters of course :P I didn't eat any though because I'm not a fan of raw food. The bf ordered bass and I got duck. I didn't like my food that much so I only took a few bites and packed up the rest :\ The duck was overly expensive..for that price I could've probably bought 2 ducks back at home.

Day 7: February 24, 2012

Our last day in Canada!! :( We planned to visit the CN Tower, but it was rainy and foggy...soo we had to cancel :(

 This is in the lobby of the hotel, so pretty! It's connected to the pool.

For breakfast/lunch we went to Kenzo Ramen. Top: My King of Kings Ramen, Bottom: Nagasaki Champon. The noodles itself remind me of packaged ramen because of the texture. And it had way too many beansprouts in it D: So overall I think it's good, but still okay, if that makes sense :P

 Domo driving hehe :P

Went to T&T to get some deserts after ramen! Their bakery selection is just soooo beautiful!'

We headed back to Pmall one last time to take these photobooth pictures xD There's soooo many frames to choose from. They're a bit pricey, but they're worth it because they're so cute! (I'm sure people can do it themselves too, but it's not as fun that way..) There's a store dedicated to photobooths and we got a regular sized photo for $14 + $6 for an extra copy. They come in three sizes.

Saw this at a store! It's Sentimental Circus and it's soo cute! The lady yelled at me cuz there's no cameras allowed apparently :(

So we came back just to get these mango shakes again LOL. The bf got the largest size x__x It looks small in the picture, but it's like the size of the Big Gulp from 7-Eleven.

Okay time to leave! :( It was around 5:30PM by then...so off we go! :(

 NIAGARA FALLS<3 It was beautiful, despite the wind. It was so windy that I couldn't even close the car door x__x And it was so hard to capture a picture because it was so dark. Nevertheless, it's soo pretty and I'm sure it's better during daytime!

 SkyWheel!

Before we officially left Canada, I got myself some Timbits :) They look like Munchkins, but they taste different! They're both good :)

We didn't get home until 3:00AM :( Geez...10 hour drive!

Anyways, here's what I bought<3 

 Lame..but I bought a new box for my nail polish because my other ones were running out of room! It's the perfect size to match with the other boxes :) $2 at Dollarama :D

 Bought these Skin Food cleansers.. $16 each. I got them in Wildberry Milk and Aloe. I'm not sure where I can get them for cheaper, but I'm sure it's way cheaper online.

 I got some stationary at the store that I got yelled at :( It's the same store with the figurines too. Anyways the notebooks were super cute! $1.49 each and the pens wrote nicely so I bought one of each design since they were only $0.99 and I like nice writing pens.

All my gachapon :x Most of them are $2 in Canada boooo!

I tried doing a compilation of all the gachapons I saw at Toronto after I saw so many at DCM and there were so many! This isn't even all of them. The blue ones are from a store at Pmall, but they're sooo overpriced.. $4 each! No thank you.

I bought these earphone jack accessories. Been wanting to get these every since they first came out on strapya. Cheaper than Strapya though :D $10 for all 3. And they recently started putting them up on eBay, and it's roughly the same price.

 Missha BL001 ~$3 | Essie: Cocktail Bling | Brazilian $2.99 each! | Ianti $1

Apparently Ianti is a Korean brand or something :o I saw it at a bin with a bunch of other $1 nail polishes! The color is really pretty :) I also bought a blue nail polish from that bin, but forgot to get it out of my bag when I took the pic.

China Glaze Prismatic Liquid Crystal | Electrobeat | Instant Chemistry | Pull Me Close

I found a nail store at Pmall near the North entrance at the very corner. They had a large selection of China Glaze, NYX, OPI, and other nail stuff. Their price is okay, but I definitely got ripped off for the Magnetix ones :( -rant- 

I bought the first two and last one and the magnet from that store. It was buy 3 polishes get 15% off. The first two came out to be around $5.50 before tax and the Magnetix one was $8.49-->$7.21 and the magnet was for $8.49. Later I went to the beauty store where I got the Essie nail polishes and all their Magnetix stuff was only $6.99 so I got Instant Chemistry. When it rang up, it was only $6.49. But anyways, now that I'm home I see them at Sally's for $6 each and buy two get the magnet for free. Plus tax here is a lot cheaper!! >:o -rage-

Okay that's all to my Canada trip! It was fun and I would definitely go back again, despite the long drives! Things that I learned are: 

1. Canadians love mirrors. There were mirrors everywhere I went (hotel, restaurants, etc.)

2. Sortie = exit, arret = stop

3. Don't buy nail polish in Canada unless they're super cheap. Chances are, you'll find them much cheaper at home especially because you get to avoid their tax (5% + 9.5%)