Comic Fiesta 2014

Last cosplay event of 2014!!! I once again headed up to Kuala Lumpur for the Comic Fiesta event as I really enjoyed myself last year. 

Took a bus ride this time instead of a plane.  Got super awesome reclining seats with leg rests so it was really comfy on the way over. 

During day1, Selicia, Jo, Candy and I cosplayed characters from Shingeki no Kyojin. I was surprised at the reception we got, as I figured that people were already sick of seeing Shingeki cosplayers

On day 2, Jo, Zephyous and I debuted our cosplay of the movie Redline. If you haven't seen it yet, you really must sit down and ready yourself to be blown away by everything it contains! Exciting car races, handsome cool men, sexy car babes, super catchy soundtrack and did I mention, 7 years of hand drawn animation!!! I mean, no one bothers with hand drawn stuff anymore!!

Friends we met, Lokie and Vivianne, who are cosplaying characters from Space Dandy. It was hilarious to watch Lockie and Zeph engage in "hair war" they looked like narwhales clashing with their horns.

Met new people too and caught up with some like Cvy who was so adorable, and I finally got to meet Lenneth. She's someone I've admired for a long time for her dedication to cosplay and the skills she's developed through it. She was really laid back and funny. 

Bought lots of styff, I really love walking around the artist booths at Comic Fiesta, the quality of work an creativity are amazing. Favourite buys are the top left poster (which i plan to frame and display soon), the Sailormoon artbook, Sailormoon cleaning cloth (that I now bring with me everywhere I go) and the Rex Regrets poster. Rex Regrets is a super hilarious local comic about a T-rex and the problems he encounters due to his large head and small arms, the artist is really fun in real life and was really sporting in personalizing posters when autographing them.

Favourite thing to do at a hotel is to use the bath tub. This time, I came equipped with an Evangelion bath salt packet that Esther had gotten for me ages ago. My Japanese is horrendous, so I can't read bout the benefits it has, but it did leave a lovely purplish hue in the water and my sensitive skin felt softer after the bath.

Ate like a king during my trip, these are just some of the food that I actually remembered to take a pic of. 

An overnight cosplay event isn't an event unless you're partying the night away. The place to be is of course, the ever elusive Shatter Dome. Lots of gossip, drinks, laughter and even famous Filipino cosplayer, Liui Aquino, known for his Hiccup, Jack Frost and Hiro cosplays, popped by. I didn't bother to take a pic with him as I was too tired by then.

A local friend, June, took us to this amazing Mexican bar called Calavera. The decor was a mixture of Rockabilly, steampunk piping, and lots of Sugar Skull motifs tossed all around. The drinks were top notch and the music and vibe even better. 

Pic of the amazing gang I travelled with. From left, June, Jo, Marvin, Rescend and me. 

My friend Kaika also took this video of the event. See if you spot me, though I have to say, I didn't mean to look so constipated and nervous, I was just worried bout looking bad as this was my first ever cosplay that showed my tummy, an area that I'm not too fond of showing on a regular basis. 

I'll probably be slowing down abit on cosplay as I wanna save up money to travel and get things settled for the future. I most certainly will not stop, but priorities change sometimes I guess.

Cosfest 2014

Cosfest is one of the cosplay events I look most forward to every year, partly because it's one of the bigger local events and also nearly everyone in the community chooses to stay in the nearby chalets, so at night the place becomes one huge party fest. 

I chose to do simpler cosplays this year as I didn't have any team, and I didn't feel like stressing myself out with preparations due to the stresses I had from my last job.

Cosplayed as Reira Serizawa from Nana, and took this pic with Candy. Need to trim my wig's bangs abit more, but I love the texture of the wig.

With some of the people I admire in the local cosplay scene, Xiaobai, Kanasai and Cvy. All of them were cosplaying Vocaloids.

For day 2, I cosplayed as Celty from Durarara!! 

With Jo and Jas, both cosplaying different versions of badass Major Motoko from Ghost in the Shell.

Managed to snag a chance to meet Yuegene Fay!! She had run out of cosplay cards by then, but she very sweetly autographed the back of my Celty helmet.

With Jo, Hana and Drefan while watching the stage performances. Drefan's cosplay was especially funny, he kept throwing and body slamming willing people onto a mattress as part of his wrestling cosplay.

Pic taken by Kappa

Pic taken by 8bitwonderland. We actually posed next to random black colour motorcycle and quickly scurried off to avoid being confronted by the bike's owner.

There were also many crazy fun stuff during the chalet too!

Esther brought her little birdy pal, Popcorn, to the chalet and word quickly got round bout her little feathered friend. Popcorn seemed to really take to Dan throughout our stay.

What's a party without awesome junk food?!! Nearly every room had different pizzas resulting in pizza deliverymen scuttling from room to room.

There's also Rescend's annual Cosfest parody video. This year's video was inspired by Hangover by Psy and Snoop Dog, see if you can spot me in the video (hint, I'm polishing my Celty helmet).

Besides the pain of being forced to leave midway through my day 1 cosplay to attend a ridiculous concert for work, Cosfest was as fun as I ever remembered it to be.

Being Touristy

Globe-trotting gyaru, Kayo, was back in town for a week or so a few months back. it was fun being a tour guide and showing her around town like before, though it was more of a shopping/ sight seeing trip this time, unlike the food driven trip last time. 

Started the day with brunch a la Singapore style:

Half boiled eggs mixed with dark soy sauce and white pepper, Kaya (coconut jam) and butter toast with strong coffee

It was amusing to hear Kayo comparing the eggs to Japan's onsen eggs, and she loved the strong coffee.

After that, we headed to Haji Lane, as she had read up about it online.

Tourist shot! My face looks really weird here

Steph's tattoo artist, Kevin, helped to take this picture after we popped by his store to cool off due to the intense heat.

My outfit consisted of:

Inner shirt: Uniqlo

Lace Nightie: Taobao

Shorts: Lowry's Farm

Stockings: taobao

Denim Jacket: Calvin Klein

Badge: taobao

Shoes: Random shop in Holland Village

Hair clips: Sasa

Final shot before Steph had to leave for the day

It was fun catching up with Kayo again and hopefully, I'll get a chance to head to Japan and she'll be my tour guide the next time we meet.

Baked Kit Kats

Ever since I started my diet, I haven't really eaten much sweets except for the occasional treat. But I couldn't resist when I chanced upon a shop selling the Japanese baked kit kats. 

The packaging, clearly showing the kit kats are meant to be baked

The cute individually wrapped kit kats. At 64 kcal each, its a treat I can live with once in awhile.

Though it's much smaller then I expected. It's only half the length of my second finger and I don't exactly have long fingers mind you.

Nice and toasty in my toaster oven. Supposedly the kit kats work only in toaster ovens, not the larger convectional ovens as the heat is too intense.

The kit kats melted down and got stuck to the aluminium foil so I had to slowly peel them off. The packaging says to toast it for about 3 minutes, but it didn't get the caramelised effect I wanted, so I left it for an additional 3 minutes. 

End result!! It was warm and had the lovely caramelised sugar taste of creme brulee, which probably explains the pudding flavour. The inner wafer was still crisp but there was a slight amount of melted gooey-ness from the white chocolate. Super addictve, I'm glad it takes time to slowly toast them otherwise I'd probably finish the entire bag in a single seating.

In other news, I got the job I wanted! I just finished my first week there and the company is really ultra small, like less then 10 people. Good news is, its an express route to learning new things, bad news, I'll probably be doing ALOT of things and might have some late nights. I'm trying to tell myself to just be strong and learn everything I can even if it means working late.

The sucky thing is, I just feel bit unwanted by the colleagues there. They're mega tight together to the point where they have each other on Facebook and Instagram and stuff, so I feel super awkward and out of place right now. I don't even have a chance to enter their conversations because everything is so personal and it sucks when they keep harping bout missing their ex-colleague, the one I replaced. 

The bf says I'm thinking too much and some friends are telling me to just give it time. I guess I just need to steel myself and tell myself to make things work as it's getting really tiring for me and bad for my career to keep jumping jobs. It's do or die now. I need to make it wok whether I like it or not.

Hair Do, Pigging Out and Popping Pills

Nothing much has been happening to me lately besides waking up, surfing the net, catching up with friends, packing up my room and finding a new job. So pardon the lack of posts though i really ought to get a move on review posts since I did get a few new items lately. I might also do a gets post, since I did make some big ticket purchases from last year till now but we'll see how it goes.

I did get a new haircut, hair dye and perm done fairly recently back at Kizuki+LIM. I'm too deeply in love with the ambience of the salon and the skilled hands of my cheerful hairstylist. 

Dyed my hair back to a darker to brown to reduce damage and also because my hair was starting to become multi-coloured once again. I also did a slight body perm, not enough to give me curls like before but enough to create a slight bounce and airy feel to my hair without trying. I must say that the strawberry tea that they serve is really soothing in a nice floral way, something about the place always makes me feel relaxed and drowsy much to my hairstylists's amusement.

I was also holed up at home partly because I came down with a bad case of flu. I was given a battery-load of medicines to take but at least it's nearly over, I just have alittle cough now, and the medicine has helped to calm my eczema down, which is a pretty good bonus. Though for the first 2 days, I was so drugged up I couldn't even make out what I was watching on the tv.

To cheer me up after my illness, the bf brought me out for a lovely brunch at a cafe called Tea Dot. I had yummy scrambled eggs on buttered toast and a grilled portobello mushroom, while the bf satisfied his meat craving with some bangers & mash. Shared a lemon meringue tart and had some bitter tea which helped soothe the throat. I also pigged out on a seriously awesome burger and truffle fries with some friends before I had my hair session, I could use a bag full of those amazing truffle fries now but I'll be patient and wait till my throat gets better first.

On the job front, I've been taking it slow and easy instead of making my past mistakes of whoring myself out and readily accepting any job that came my way. I've scaled back and applied for jobs in industries I feel that I have an interest in and as much as it pains me, I've decided to try entry-level jobs with the PR industry, which means a pay cut but also streamlining my job scope and role and responsibilities so that I needn't run around like a headless chicken wondering what the hell I'm doing. 

I've got a second interview with a PR agency tomorrow and I'm really crossing my fingers and hoping things will work out this time. So let's just see how things go.

Quick Meetup & Dinner

Had a short but lovely dinner meeting with my bestie from another mother, Steph the Magnificent!

Didn't do much other then having dinner at a cafe she hadn't tried and some window shopping, but nonetheless it was fun.

Camwhore pic of the day! This is also my most recent photo after I did a hair dyeing session and quick trim last week, my hair is now a dark brown.

Blurry outfit pic, but it'll have to do as I didn't take any other pic of my outfit

Cropped top: Boy London

Inner dress: M.O.S.

Stockings: Can't remember

Ankle Boots: Online

Spiked hairband: Online

Bowtie choker: JRunway

Winged backpack: Glad News

We ate at this Parisian eatery called PAUL. I've tried their pastries and sandwiches numerous times and dined in once before with the bf. Honestly, I think their pastries and sandwiches to go are better then their dining in options. Their service is also bit slow and lacking.

Had an open-faced beef sandwich, it had a fancy French name, but I've forgotten what it was. I hate raw onions so it was immediately scooted off to the edge of the plate. The salad had a nice vinaigrette  dressing and was pretty fresh. The sandwich itself was overwhelmed by the cheese, I hardly tasted any beef though the crusty bread was good.

Had Strawberry Millefeuille for dessert and was highly disappointed by it. Steph said my picture made it look so much better then how it looked like in real life. it was served shoved towards one edge of the plate though it did look pretty. The pastry layers were quite hard and not at all crisp, light and buttery. The choux cream was too sweet, overwhelming the strawberries and pastry. At least the strawberries weren't too sour.

I'm craving for some decent pastries right now after the disappointment of the dinner. But at least I did manage to have alittle catch up session with Steph. 

Now it's back to cleaning and clearing my pig sty of a room.

Compiled Update

Hey guys, sorry bout the lack of updates, just alot has been  going on for me mentally and emotionally. With me being unemployed and free at the moment, I took it as a much needed break/ holiday for the first week or so, but after that, doubts started plaguing me and my self worth and esteem has kinda plummeted especially when some negative things were said to me by my ex-boss. 

I've been trying to keep myself busy to stave off the negative thoughts so I've been catching up with friends and stuff. Here's a lightning post on what's been happening in my life lately:

Attended Mini's 21st birthday party. Here she is cosplaying as her favourite character Kotetsu (from the anime, Tiger & Bunny) and posing with her cake made in his comic likeness. I attended dressed as Crista Lenz/ Historia Reiss from the series Shingeki no Kyojin/ Attack on Titan but didn't really take a pic.

Also attended Skippy's birthday and had a blast drinking beer, getting stupid and playing truth or dare while almost everyone was half wasted. The silly antics we did were really fun.

Shirt: Emoda

Skirt: Bought in KL

Thigh high socks: Cosmode

Choker: Taobao

Went to the premiere of The Wind Rises and a few of us in the group decided to dress up as Studio Ghibli characters. I did another wardrobe/ ghetto cosplay of Kiki with a blue dress I dug out from my wardrobe this time.

Dress from Nichii

The movie was really nice, and really evoked alot of emotions. Definitely a fitting end to Hayao Miyazaki's amazing career.

Watched an Indie film with my mom called, Size Does Matters. It's quite a cute show.

Dress: Jouetie

Jewelled hairband: Osewaya

Stockings: Taobao

Accompanied Steph when she got another tattoo, this time of her other cat on the other thigh. Felt like dressing up abit that day though I did mostly window shopping on my own.

Dress: Topshop

Inner blue shirt with white polka dots: Uniqlo

Belt: Taobao

Beret: Accessorize

Round framed spectacles: Taobao

Badge: Katie

The final product! Now she has both her beloved cats' portraits on her.

A friend of mine wanted to explore cafes, so we went to a pie specialty cafe called, Windowsill in the Woods. It's really popular among the local hipster crowd but their pies are definitely worth it. Threw a jumble of clothes on and somehow they fitted together hahah.

Inner striped Turtleneck: Uniqlo

Shirt: Candy Stripper

Mullet skirt: Bought in KL

Red bowler hat: Can't remember

Round framed spectacles: Taobao

Shoes: The Salvation Army

Since I have time on my hands now, I decided to start on a healthier diet. So I've been whipping up alot of home-cooked meals whenever I can. I cook mostly salmon, white fish and chicken with lots of vegetables and very little carbohydrates.

So far, my stomach has become less bloated and I definitely feel more energised and my skin has become alot clearer now. Hopefully I can continue whipping up healthier meals when I get a new job.

I also took the opportunity to clear out and streamline my wardrobe, so my wardrobe is less cluttered now. I'm getting round to cleaning my room and updating it as I've had the same posters stuck on my room walls since I was a teenager. Man I feel so old knowing I'm in my twenties now and I still have posters on old anime stuck on my walls. I've been looking at Tumblr for inspiration but since I can't exactly change the layout of my room and my furniture, I'm left with just sprucing up my walls and neatening everything out. let's see how I can make the best of it.

Teatime with Steph

Steph and I met up the day before to catch up, we also had high tea at Antoinette. We shared the afternoon special set, it wasn't cheap but having been there before, I knew that it would be well worth the price and I was right. They gave us 3 tiers worth of goodness, a mixture of sweet and savoury buttery pastries for the bottom, savouries for the middle and tiny sweets at the top that were packed with flavour. I left the place stuffed to the brim. 

It's hard to pick any favourites as they were all so so good!

Accompanied with tea to wash everything down. Mine was Porcelain Rose while Steph had Earl Gray

While we were there, these 2 ladies of leisure who were sitting at the table next to us, asked if they could take pictures with us. It was totally surprising and extremely flattering.

Outfit:

Dress: Jouetie

Garter leggings: DollsKill

Wig: Taobao

Floral headband: Taobao

Flower Princess and her super fashionably decked out bodyguard hahahahha

Been itching to wear my black lipstick out on a normal day. Its an Anna Sui Limited Edition that I had bought for cosplay ages ago. I also placed my blush right below my eyes and above my cheekbones.

Did some window shopping and I spotted a lipgloss that I will probably get next month. I did go home with these babies though:

Leather engineer boots from Payless to replace my previous pair that had crumbled away. Hoping it'll be as comfortable as my old pair so that I will be able to use it for travelling and stuff. 

Been focusing on work as I really wanna be converted to permanent staff soon, I do mess up occasionally but I'm really crossing my fingers and hoping they'll just give me a chance. If they do, I'll be able to save up for more cosplays and a trip to Japan. So praying really hard!