Singapore - Day2

Saturday (29th October) was the day that we were to go to the Zoo, River safari and Night safari ... We decided to start the day at 9 AM, had breakfast at the Delifrance that is at the Toa Payoh MRT, post which we proceeded to take the uh ...The uh... ummm... Ok, this is embarrassing .... I've forgotten how we got there .. I do know we took a bus after getting down from the train, which took us to the zoo, but I have no recollection of which line and which stations we changed at. Hmmm.

Anyhoo, we got to the zoo around 10am (that's when it opens). My cousin had booked passes for the 2 of us to all the 4 animal related attractions - it cost 125 SD for 2 people :) Reached the place and got a map at the turnstile - Boy! are there a lot of animals to see ... Super excited and super charged up (at least I was), we proceeded to walk along the route suggested by the map. Slowly along the way we realised that if we only followed the route marked in orange, we would miss half the animals. Hmm, traveling salesman problem was at hand to be solved ! :) :)

As soon as you enter the zoo you walk along a bridge of sorts where you see river animals below (alligators, turtles etc). We walked the entire place and saw every single enclosure. I was the self-appointed navigator and I DID NOT MISS A SINGLE TURN or make any of us walk even a foot extra in distance :) So proud of myself :) The zoo is maintained very well, every single enclosure has enough space to watch the animals and see what they are upto (and this space is apart from what is there for taking pics). The place is so so so so clean (I will not be able to get over this and will constantly repeat myself). There are shows throughout the day where they have small events with animals. We just about managed to catch one of the shows (albeit the ending) - Elephants of Asia.

Here are a few pics of the animals we saw! The zoo also had 2 pandas - hahaha they totally reminded me of Po. Happy big fat lazy adorable creatures !

After we got done with the zoo, which was around 2PM (which is 4 hours of continuous walking), we sat down at the food stalls outside, which is called Mandai Mart (rofl !!), and stuffed our faces with food.  They gave us our juices in nice mugs (with either Zoo pics or Safari pics) which are ours to keep !!! 

We then went to the River Safari (it's in the same enclosure). The thing that I loved about the River Safari is the fact that you do not sit in a boat and are ferried around the place. You have to walk through the route, and they have created sections of the route for all the famous rivers in the world. We saw the Nile, the Ganga, Amazon etc! The Amazon river had its own boat ride where we saw animals in their enclosures (open areas with a most separating them from the public). The Ganga had the dolphin and the Ghariyal. There was even a section where we got to touch fishes and star fishes !!! :)

The starfish I touched :)

There is this massive tank where several river creatures are kept - it's incredible !

After completing the river safari (which included tonnes of walking), it was almost 5:30PM. The Night Safari entry was for 7:15PM and by that time we were so tired that we HAD to take a break. We got some ice cream from Mandai Mart to cool our throats.Thankfully it did not rain the entire day and was just overcast (had heard about how it always rains in Singapore, but we got lucky :)) and joined the massive queue that had started forming to enter the night safari area. I was so tired by then (had not eaten due to the bad stomach that I had), I just sat down on the road while we were waiting.

We got to enter the enclosure at 7:15 sharp. We did not take any pics as flash photography was not allowed (sorry folks, no pics to share). Most of the animals were not in cages. As luck would have it, as we approached the lion enclosure we read on the sign board that their feeding time was at 8PM ! We hung around there for 10 minutes (until the feeders came along). There were 5 lionesses and one of them was pacing up and down (seemed as though she was super impatient for food). As the time for their dinner approached we heard a  lion roaring!! Even though we knew that there is no scope for anything to happen, the roar did send shivers down my spine - loud, fearsome, majestic it was, I tell you.
We got to see hyenas and the cheetahs being fed - very cool :) but nothing as awesome as the king of the jungle. 

We finally got done at 9PM and headed home. Already along the way back, I was dreading the next day given the amount we would have to walk at the bird park ('coz as per The Plan, we were to go to Jurong Bird Park the next day). Then a brain-wave struck us - THE PLAN WAS NOT FIXED !!! hahahaha, so we decided to do some sight seeing and shopping from another day, and move the bird park to Monday. Phew, knowing that the next day was going to be a little light on our feet, we returned happily.

Once we got back, my cousin tells me that he has a bath tub. A BATH TUB !! OMG - I started hyperventilating !! :D I decided that the next day we were going to buy bubble bath and I was going to spend at least 1 hour a day in it :) (I love bubble baths - which I am sure if evident by now).

Thus ended Day 2 and we were already exhausted beyond reasonable limits. My FitBit tracked 25k steps taken on Saturday alone!

Singapore and why 8 days are not enough (Part1)

As mentioned, we landed and headed straight to Ravi's place. That Friday night (as per our itinerary) we were to go to Clarke Quay (pronounced as kee) - don't ask me why. Wait, I think it is best if I shared our itinerary with you guys - below is a snapshot of the plan. The finalized plan was an amalgamation of both places to visit columns ...

You can click on the image to see an expanded view of The Plan (yes, it deserves being a proper noun given the amount of time, sweat, blood, tears and effort that went into making it).

As per The Plan we were to spend the evening at Clarke Quay. First off, my cousin lives in Toa Payoh  (circled in black in the MRT map here) and is a 2 minute walk from it. We walked down to the place and purchased our metro cards. Boarded the North-South (red colour) line to go to Dhoby Ghaut (hee hee, even I was amused - reminded me of Bombay), which is an intersection point to change lines; and go by the purple line (North-East) to Clarke Quay.  (map attached on the side to give you an idea of the planning the city has and how everything is connected by metro - even though you can walk the distances :P)

Clarke Quay is gorgeous; I have no other word to describe the place. It is beautifully lit at night and is bustling with people who are busy partying or getting smashed out of their brains. The Friday we went was the Halloween weekend, and we saw several Harley Quinns, Marilyn Monroes, Batmans, Iron Mans etc :) Unfortunately I do not have any pics with them, but the mood was extremely lively and there was this electric buzz in the air.

Apologies for the poor picture quality, I had shaky hands while the camera as I was busy ogling at the way the place is lit up and the number of places there are to hang out.

Clarke Quay ceiling is extremely pretty !!! It is a huge place filled with places to eat / shop / drink and it has this fancy sort of cover to help people not get wet during the rains that come up at any point of time ! :) We walked through the place trying to figure out a place to have dinner. As luck would have it, I had an upset stomach (I NEVER fall sick, and of all the times something could go wrong, it was at Singapore - AAARGH !!). Anyway, I didn't let that get in the way of having fun, and we hopped through a few places. We didn't do dinner per se at any place, more like ate munchies at multiple places.

We had awesome ice-cream from Clmado (Spanish ice-cream) and it was scrumplicious ! The person serving us did those fancy tricks where he held the cone on a rod of sorts, dropped it, turned it around, faked giving us icr-cream etc) and we actually had to use our terribly poor reflexes to catch (rather, snatch) our cones :D

I took the cookies and cream flavour (safest bet as I do not think you can try out flavours there), while Sudhir had mango and Ravi took the chocolate (if I remember correctly).

After having ice-cream and watching the young crowd dance on the roads to loud music (in their Halloween costumes), we went to this place called Octapas - a Spanish outlet. There we had tapas for the first time, and let me tell you - they are perfect to have as munchies during dinner or while having drinks :) ... We took an olive dish which was soaked in vinegar and had pickles in it :) Super tasty, I tell you. Need to find a place in India that serves such a dish.

We hung around at the place till I think around 12AM (by which time we were dead tired) post which we walked back across a bridge (full of people chilling out) to the cab boarding point.
At the cab pick up point people politely waited their turn even though there was no "official" queue of any sort!! I was like, super impressed with this - wish it happened back home too ...

Thus ended Day 1 ....

Singapore - and preparation done for the trip

Myself and Sudhir have never been on an international trip together - hell, we have been on very few trips together :P That being said, we decided that it is good for us if we travel and see the world (everyone talks about how travel changed their lives and made them realise that there is much more to it than even money). So, we got our passports made and decided to go to Singapore as 

1. it is close by (to India)

2. there is quite a bit to see and a variety at that

3. my cousin and his wife there, so there will always be a friendly face around if needed

So we got our passport done some time last year and then 2 months back I started making our itinerary. I wanted to make sure everything to see is covered and that we have some time to relax and unwind, and take in some of the local culture. Decided that we would go there for 8 days - fly out on a Fri morning and come back Sat morning so that we have the weekend (in India) to get over the hangover of our trip :)
Spent ages figuring out what to do and where all to go, ate Shubhi's head in this process, but she was damn nice about the whole thing.. Unfortunately she and Ravi (my cousin) decided to have a baby at this time, due to which she was not going to be IN Singapore when we planned to go ... She super helped though, with the planning. I made an excel with the itinerary and sent it to both of them and we kind of finalised on one which merged what I had in mind, what Ravi said we should do, and what Shubhi said we HAVE to do :)

Applied for leave, got it approved and put those out of office emails - with so much joy I cannot begin to describe. It was my first long vacation from office (out for 9 straight days with 0 email and phone access). Once leave was approved we needed to get our visas done. We got it through an agent ('coz I don't think you can do it on your own) - the person charged us 3.2k while the visa fee is 1.5 ... Feel like we were ripped off, but I do not think there is any other way to get the visa.

The Friday before the Diwali weekend we chose as our date to fly to Singapore ! Booked tickets around 1.5 months advance through the Singapore Airlines website and got a round trip for both of us at a total of 53K INR. We booked the Silk Air one as it was around 12k cheaper (Silk Air is a codeshare airline of Singapore Airlines).

We got to the airport around 3 hours in advance (like we have been instructed to do so by our parents and the airport authorities), and noticed that none of the counters were open !! :D Goofed around a bit, while I tried to calm my nerves (I have a weird fear of flights and it began around a year or two ago when I was on a flight to Bombay and there was terrible turbulence. The plane actually made those screeching sounds while we bounced around in the clouds). I know flying is the safest mode of transport there is, but I still sh*t in my pants when I am told that I need to take a flight some where. To get over the fear, I have tried mind control but it did little to help. So what did I decide to do ? Not sleep - so that I pass out on the flight. Didn't even have coffee at the airport while we wiled away time. Once the counters opened, we checked in and completed our immigration process, exchanged some money at the airport (terrible idea) and then reached our terminal ... 

I used my cute Chumbak passport case to hold our documents, cards and some money. Oh, completely missed mentioning this point. We opened a savings account where we transfer some money every month - we made this our travel account, which we would dip into while traveling so that we don't hit our salary accounts and feel the pinch in one shot :)

While we were waiting for our flight to be announced for boarding, Sudhir's name was suddenly called out at the counter. I freaked out thinking that there was some issue and that he would not be allowed to fly. I wondered if I should pretend as though I did not know him and still board the flight, or if I should go and check what was going on and if I could be of any help. Turns out that he won some lucky draw and we got some vouchers at restaurants and spas at Singapore! yay :) (good thing I didn't ditch him :P)

Comfortable flight while going to Singapore :)

Finally boarded our flight at 10:00 AM (for a 9:45AM take off) and I prayed throughout the journey (I took a print out of the Hanuman Chalisa and was chanting it the whole time, or was at least holding the paper). No one was sitting next to us - loads of space to dump everything. In flight service was quite good, comfortable seats, enough leg room. But the in-flight entertainment was slightly sad - not much variety. We watched some random stuff and movies to kill time. 

Landed at Singapore around 15 min post our scheduled arrival. Immigration was super smooth and easy - everyone was quite helpful and it was a breeze :) Collected our luggage and spotted my cousin waiting for us at arrival. Went to his place and took some rest for a while while he cooked for us delicious potato fry in smoked paprika powder !

This is Ravi's home at Oleander Towers - Tao Payoh

Next few posts will be about the place and what all we did there and whether 8 days are enough to see everything properly as a tourist :)

Glossier

AAAA !!! All the stuff I bought from Glossier has finally arrived !!! I am SO SO SOOOO excited .... Okay, a few deep breaths ... Let me explain my excitement and why I am hyper about this ...

Glossier is a make up brand that (as of today) tries to emphasise on how minimal is better, and that skin care comes before make up. Due to this, most of their products are aimed at "going out without make up, or a makeup free look is ok" and I think they are trying to get this back into vogue. 

Quite a few of their products are hits, and sell quite fast. The brand was started by Emily Weiss, who is with ITG (Into The Gloss). The brand was launched, I think, around a couple of years back and has quite a few good products on its shelves - which sell like hot cakes. After watching videos of Tamira Jarrel raving about how she loves their products, I was like, I need to try some of their stuff. Went online and realised that they do not sell anywhere except their online platform - not even at Sephora .. Hmmm, how was I to get my hands on their stuff ? Luckily my aunt was flying down to India a couple of months after I decided I wanted to get some other things and hence, I ordered. This idea was suggested to my by my cousin (thank you Arvind!!) :)

I spent a couple of hours online obsessing over everything that they had for sale and finally decided on getting their highlighter (which they call Haloscope) and a Generation G sheer matte lipstick.

I like the GIFs they have going on their site where women of different skin tones wear each shade of the products they have - so that you get a better idea of what it might look like on you. I got a 20% discount on my first purchase (everyone gets that - don't worry), and got it shipped to her home. She landed last evening and here I am, blogging about the stuff I got and the packaging it arrived in, and why I think it is super cool and spunky :)

The various things that came in the package (L-R cardboard for a flat surface, poster, stickers, products in the pouch)

The products were in a bubble wrap kinda bag which had a ZipLock top. They sent a poster and a few stickers along with their items.

Now, coming to the items and how they look and swatches :)

I purchased the "Cake" shade of Generation G, coz I wanted something nude and this one seemed to go well with the medium skin tone girl on their website. After trying on the colour, I wonder if I should have gone with a brighter shade - as I can get nude ones here in India ... But the colour is really pretty and I have ZERO regrets buying it.

bot-top : 4 swipes, 2 ,1

As you can see from the image of my arm, the colour is not too intense and builds really well on layers of application.

I'm trying to  make a GIF of me applying the shade and how it looks t the end -  will post that here once it is done :)

Some images of the packaging and ingredients are also here ... The product contains quite a bit of stuff, and they say that there is no animal testing during the process of creation.
There is quite a bit of product inside, and it is not a very thick or soft application which makes you feel as though a tonne of product is sitting on your lips.


I think with the amount in one stick it should last probably 2-3 months on daily application. Price tag is $18 ... :|















Now, to the next product - The Topaz shade haloscope. I got Topaz as I have something silvery from Benefit; and this colour (Tamira said) looks amazing on her skin - it gave her this sun tanned bronze look and hence I was like, let me try that.

It comes in a cute white-pink packaging (exactly like all Glossier products). I love the way the packages have little smiley on the inside of them (light pink on the white box :)).

The haloscope comes with a "solid oil core of vitamin-rich moisturisers for a hydrated, dewy finish" - as per the website. It does not have any particular smell, but has a slight oily ring to it. I o not mind it as the smell is not strong.

The colour is kind of a sun kissed light brown tone - at least that is what it looked like on my skin. I have warmish-neutral undertones on a medium colour skin... 
Here is what it looks like on my face.
One pic showing how much I applied  (or is it a video, I am not sure)

 There is a bit of a shine - don't mind the skin, I have not a single gram of anything on my face except face wash and cream :)

The packaging was quite cool. Here are a few snaps showing he ingredients and all that jazz.

All in all, a good haul :) And I am quite thrilled with the stuff I got :)

Foundation and the difficulty of finding your match

As I recently started watching a few videos on foundation and how women manage to transfer their pretty normal spotted face into absolutely gorgeous faces, I was like " I NEED TO TRY THAT". Then I started reading up on foundations and came to learn how hard it is to find your correct matching foundation colour.
What is a foundation ? A foundation is a make up product that is applied over your washed-moisturised skin so as to
1. Hold make up in its place
2. Make the skin seem smooth and blemish free
3. Give your skin an even tone and texture

Finding your perfect matching colour of foundation (as they come in SO SO SO many colours) can be tricky at times and it is best to go to a store to try out the colour, rather than reading reviews of a shade online. While figuring out what kinds of shades are there, and all the brands that are available in the market, I came across this term called "undertone" and how it is extremely important to find your undertone while choosing your foundation. I had no clue what that is and how it affects what colour  foundation you use on your face.

I watched a few videos on this topic and read up on this concept. I took some of these online "tests" which are to help you find your undertone colour. Now the funny thing is, most of them bucketize you as either warm, cool or neutral (and combinations of these 3). However, when I watched a video by Melissa Alatorre, I got super confused as she introduced an Olive undertone :D 

This being said, I was able to find that my skin tone is a warm neutral (as gold, peach shades look good on me and the veins on my inner arm are green in colour) and my skin colour looks to be medium beige.  Being the psycho that I am I went berserk on searching for the "best foundation brand that there is on the planet". Heard about this brand called Make Up For Ever, an their Ultra HD Foundation and the fact that they have 40 shades made me want to check them out and buy one - was pretty sure that one of those 40 is going to match. Was also debating between M.A.C and Benefit and Anastasia (and we do not get them in India, so chucked). Googled a lot, and I researched some more on which one is the best of all of them, and most blogs I read said that the MUFE HD foundation is among the best that they have worn.
Once this was done, I needed some expert's opinion. So, I again bugged Roomi (whom I bugged even for highlighters) to understand if MUFE is a good brand, and which one she used, and whether I should go for M.A.C instead, and nonsense like this. (sometimes I  feel she should be the one blogging). A lot of patient listening, and few hundred chat messages later I decided to go ahead with the MUFE HD foundation.... (yay).

Anyway, I now needed to buy this thing. How was I to get my hands on it ? Thankfully, Sephora has opened a couple of stores in Bangalore and they carry this brand (it is one of their in-house brands). I enjoy going to the outlets simply because of the sheer volume and diversity of products they have and brands to choose from. They sell Benefit, MUFE, NYX, Stilla etc etc. I will definitely write a post about the store :)

There is this Sephora at Orion Mall (next building to where I work - lucky me :P). So one day after work I went there to get The Foundation. People there helped and I was able to find a perfect match to my face - shade N128 (Almond; also called VC238). The chap there applied a primer (more about that later :)), and then applied this foundation to my face. I swear, I tell you, I could not see it once he finished applying, but my skin looked SOOO much smoother, and even, and 'nice' :).

The only pinching point is its price point - 4k :( :( :( But this foundation, I tel you, is ideal for those 'special' occasions and when you want to look your best and want to feel all good and pretty :)

Given that I cannot wear this f'ing expensive foundation on a daily basis, I researched some more for the best foundation that one can get in India that is in my budget, and I came across multiple reviews about Loreal Infallible's 24 hour foundation (amazon.in right now is having this super crazy sale, I recommend you go to a store, find your match and then buy it online). Even blogs and videos and "Top 10 foundation" pages for US and EU folks were like, Loreal Infallible foundation is a must have if you are looking for a budget friendly foundation that does it's job.

I went to Orion once again with a friend of mine and we went to Shoppers Stop. The Loreal lady there was super friendly and sat us down and tried on shades on our faces and helped us find stuff that suited us very well - in that light it looked flawless and perfect. I got the shade 220 (Sable Sand) and it looks good on my face ! Suited my skin tone, seemed as though I had much smoother skin, but was slightly lighter than my skin tone - which I felt was okay and not too much of an issue. The next shade was too dark.

Left side is Loreal and right is MUF

Left Loreal is more pinkish, Right MUFE one is spot on 

To give you guys a comparison of how they look on my skin, I will show you guys images of their consistency, colour, blending effect etc.

After blending, both colours look extremely similar, however the Loreal one has a slightly pinkish tone to it when blended against my skin. I let the foundation sit on my skin for some 5 minutes before taking the pic as it needs that much time to settle down.

Steps that are generally followed while applying foundation are mentioned below (all these fancy video people do so much more, I just carry out the basic steps).

Clean face after washing

Applied a bit of Colorer primer and Olay Moisturiser

1. Clean face after washing 

2. Applied a bit of primer on my skin.

Below I have applied the MUFE one on the right side of my face and the Loreal one on the left side. I think that the Loreal one is slightly pinkish on my face an shows up a bit - but it is not something that bothers me too much. But you can see how the foundations cover up all those visible spots (to some extent) on my face. A little heavier application will smoothen the skin out completely and will not show those blemishes.

MUFE on right, Loreal on left

 I have gotten slightly tanned recently and I know this will be all right when I wear it during winter (no sun :P)

High-lighters

Okay, so ever since a friend of mine (Roomi :) ) told me to do an article on "strobing" I have been obsessing over it; going through YouTube videos, reading up online about it, reading reviews of different brands etc. I read a lot of brand reviews and watched a lot of videos (this one, this one, this one and this one as well). The last link and the point that Kim Kardashian said that "strobing is the new contouring" made me want to get the product her make up guy uses on her face :P In the process I discovered a lot of people I decided to follow (Deepica, Tati (lol), Stephanie Lange and Tamira Jarrel) :) It's good time pass for me when I am bored - I just open up Youtube and watch some random product review, make up tutorial etc ...

Anyway coming to the products. After watching the Kim Kardashian video I was like, I want to try that out - Watt's Up! cream Highlighter strobing stick. I was not sure where I would be able to find this in India, so I was like let me try some other brand. I went to Sephora (which opened recently in India - Forum has one and orion Mall has another outlet). The Koramangala outlet had such expensive shit !! 4k onwards, and I was like - no way am I spending that much money on this item, will live life without the "pearly dewy glow"... Then I was like, I work next to Orion, let me go check that outlet. Went to the Sephora there and THEY HAD THIS PRODUCT !!!!! I tried it on one cheek, and it looked fabulous. But then something inside me was like, you should try the M.A.C. highlighter as well before making a call. So I politely told the lady that I would come back if I did not like the MAC product.
I tried on the illuminators they had there (illuminator / highlighter / strobing products - are all EXACTLY the same thing, just called by different names). Those things did not look good on me, it greyed out my skin and added absolutely no glow; even the guy at the outlet was like you should go with the other product you have on. So, I went back to Sephora and was contemplating buying the product ... Then I realised that my birthday had just passed and friends that I had treated were clueless about what to get me and told me to choose something and that they would get it for me ..  I mean, who gets treated for a friend's birthday and has the temerity to not give them something ?? Lol, so I suggested this What's Up highlighter and they were totally cool with the price and everything (it is 2.8k rupees).

I bought it !!! The packaging is so pretty and petite :)

The highlighter part is the end with the cap, and the other end is a small sponge like thing to brush out the product on to your face so that it doesn't look like it is too much or has been applied like a noob :) It is cute, isn't it :)

Anyway, I tried it on at home recently and it looks gorgeous. I do not apply all the make up that the women in the videos do - its a simple face wash, then cream with some primer and then eye make up and compact. This highlighter doesn't stand out and looks pretty-pretty on my face.

There is another product that I got which does something similar but not with this much intensity - it is the Revlon Photo Studio highlighter in peach shade.
As you can see, it does do something similar but is more soft on the skin and doesn't stand out too much. This one is liquid based and I generally take a small squeeze on the top of my hand and apply with my finger tips onto my cheek bones, nose bridge and upper brow.

So, these are the two highlighters that I own and which I love :) Until later!