Tiny events #1

I thought of starting this new series in my blog documenting a compilation of photo that I randomly take in a day with some stories behind it, captions.
It is somewhat like a project 365 just without the 365 days. I won't be documenting all 365 days, maybe 3-4 days in a week.

It has been a journey in Russia, I have been studying here for over 5 years and the next would be my last. I have always thought of documenting small little details in life to do like a weekly check in on my life here but I never did it, I was lazy and uninspired then but this year I want took take this chance to document the short one year that I am left with in this country to document the tiny details in life. So that, after I leave this place, I still have something to hold on to, to reminiscence.
University life in Russia is not a everytime chance, it only happens once in my life, so I would like to make as much memories out of it.


Let's start with uninteresting food post but it might get interesting along the way.

"I am not a Mcdonalds lover but I love their breakfast menu especially the Mcmuffins. The muffins especially eaten warm is so fluffy and soft.
I just dislike the fact that I have to get up before 10am to catch them.
Anyhow, I woke up early on one snowy day to get these Mcmuffins cravings satisfied before my grocery shopping.
Mcmuffin with egg. My favourite of all the muffins.
Also on the last day of our semester we missed our Mcmuffin chance due to class issues (let's keep it private) and heavy traffic due to heavy snow. We arrived in McD just slightly after 10am and the menu has changed to the normal menu. We wanted to settle despite the menu change but McD was so crowded, so we settled for Burger King"

"Karelia pastry. We spotted this unique pastry in Stokmann. I haven't heard about or seen this pastry before. It is the first time seeing it.
Stokmann boulangerie section has pastry and bread from around Europe and also locally made in Russia. This pastry is imported from Finland.
There were 3 flavours to choose from, potatoes, rice and rice with carrots. We chose rice with carrots and oh my, it taste really good. "

"Silver earrings that someone special got it for me. My old earrings faded really terribly. I could not complain because they aren't silver or gold they are just fashion earrings from Diva. They are bound to fade sooner or later with me wearing it 24 hours a day 365 days a year. They are really nasty looking now. Turning all coppery and green.
I did not expect that someone special to swipe the debit card on my behalf. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate it. "

" Pizza hut after a long tiring day. We had our pizza dinner/supper close to 10pm, probably the 2nd meal of that day.
Pizza hut has just opened a branch not too long ago in one of my regular grocery shopping spots. The price is pretty reasonable.
What I like the most is that they prepare the pizza on the spot when you place your order. They are not pre-made cold pizza so, you will get nice pipping hot pizza fresh from the oven.
These are the Pizza Hut Supreme and Chicken Pizza. I like the chicken pizza much better, the onions add more flavour to the pizza. Probably the best affordable pizza you can get in Russia right now."

" Russian confectionery. I got a whole bunch of them prior to New Year.
Alyonka (Аленка) and Babaevsky (Бабаевский) are famous Russian confectionery brands that has been around for ages.
These are the selections of my favourite Russian confectionery from various brands including Alyonka and Babaevsky. I got to say Babaevsky is my favourite. "

" Current situation : Exam period. It is war on my study table.
I am not an organized person, I am very messy. Everything gets even messier when it is exam season.
It is really stressful but yet I feel so uninspired to study,"

" I have been staying in the room all day and night right now since it is exam season so I am really disconnected with the outside world.
There's a snowstorm outside in the morning. It has been snowing everyday of late and the weather has been cold in Moscow right now that I refuse to get out of my room door and all I want to do is snuggle in my bed the whole day. " 

Eating out Malaysia : Komugi

I am writing this post with some homesick tendencies and being food deprived.

Last summer, I went to try out a new Japanese bakery, it was new for me atleast because I wasn't there when I was back during 2013 summer.
It is located in Tokyo Street, the top floor of Pavillion Shopping Complex.

I love cakes and pastries. Don't we girls just love them. No matter how full we are, we always seem to have this special second stomach to fill it up with desserts. I craved dessert after lunch.
So after having Ippudo Hakata Ramen, we decided to have some desserts in Komugi.

Yukitama, Tofu Cheesecake , Fuwa Fuwa (ふわふわ) Cream Bun

The lighting in the cafe cast a lot of shadows and has grey out my pictures, thus apologies for the grey tone. It doesn't do justice to food photography.

Tofu Cheesecake

Since it contains tofu, the texture is not as soft and creamy as a normal cheesecake would be, it is slightly rubbery and more chewy. From the picture, you can see the cake is firm. As opposed to normal cheesemake, sometimes you can see it slightly melty or "fluffy". The tofu has lighten the cheesy taste and the sweetness of the cake. I like it. It gives a new twist to the cheesecake, giving a mild and subtle flavour.

Fuwa Fuwa Cream Bun

This is one of the shop's signature.
Like its name, it is really ふわふわ。In Japanese. fuwa fuwa means fluffy, light, airy,marshmallow-like. The bun was served slightly warm so it was a delight. The waitress must had heated up for us.Warm buns just taste so much better, they are more aromatic. The texture of the bun is really soft, light and airy. The warmth also contributed to extra fluffiness. It is filled with custard cream  inside. The custard cream is smooth and sweet and compliments very well with the bread.

Yukitama Chantilly Cake

Well, this is a disappointment.It taste like a dense sponge cake. There's nothing special to it. It is like a sweet dense sponge cake. That is all.
Maybe it is because we ordered the original praline which no not contain any filling thus it was plain and basic. Might turn out better with filling. Next time we are going to try the flavours with fillings.

How could all these desserts could we enough for us dessert lovers. Naturally we have to add on our order.
So we called for the shop's signature Hanjyuku Cheese Cake.

半熟 means half cooked/ half baked in Japanese.
It could be said that this cheese cake is the cheese cake version of a Chocolate lava cake (minus all the meltyness liquid in the middle).
This cake taste so good.
The outside , Japanese fluffy cheese cake and inside is soft and slightly liquidy (like a not fully baked cake, to bakers out there I guess you know what I am trying to convey) but not to the extend the content spills away when you slice the cake into half. In the mouth, the cake just melts into creamy and soft goodness. Heaven.
If I were to recommend any cakes from Komugi, this would be it.

So far, from my first trip to Komugi, I like most of the desserts there and I can't wait to head back and try out more of their selections. 

2015 beauty wishlist

Here comes the time of the year that I compile my beauty wishlist. It is a tough job compiling this beauty wishlist. With many beauty brands constantly pushing out new products every season, it just makes you want all of them but ofcourse I can't have all of them, I don't have a big fat wallet.

I took me some time to narrow down my wishlist to a more realistic amount and more attainable and achievable for me throught out these 12 months. Ofcourse throughout the year, there would be changes to the wishlist since beauty brands are ever so hardworking with releasing new products.
They are mostly high-end since they are more of a challenge obtaining due to their price.

2015 Beauty Wishlist

High end beauty wishlist 2015 by suzannelsx featuring Chanel

New Year Resolution 2015

Every new year, we have people talking about resolutions and what would you like to do in the new year. I know this thing gets boring but what better time to set new goals to kick start the year ahead.

Setting up goals is all about embracing changes whether it may be changes for a better, healthier you, finding yourself etc. 

Let me rewinds my year back to 2014 and check my resolution. 

I am proud to say that I have achieved some of the goals I have set. Also, there are some goals that I have yet to achieve but in the process. Looking back, I can say I came a long way. It is not like I did not put any effort into the resolutions. I am still proud of myself.

On the more materialistic note. My beauty wishlist of the year 2014.
I got some of them I didn't get some of them. Through out the year, I did switch up my wishlist here and there.
The items that I managed to tick off my wishlist are the Nars Sheer Glow Foundation, Urban Decay Naked 3 Palette, Tarte Amazonian Clay 12 Hour Blush and Chanel Rouge Allure Lipstick.
The one that didn't join my collection are the Stila Convertible Colour and Chanel Le Blanc Light Revealing Whitening Fluid Foundaiton.

Let's stop the rambling and head on to 2015's resolutions.

So, 15 new resolutions for 2015. What could they be.

2015 resolutions 

- Lose 5 more kgs and maintain my goal weight
I have came a long way from being the fat bum to so close to my goal weight. This has been on my resolution for the longest time ever but I never had actually put much effort on it, in the year 2014, I have been putting more effort with weight loss with changes in my diet , like downsizing my portion, eating healthy and clean, stop the fast food and picking up some exercising routine. With it, I manage to lose weight but weight loss is an up and down graph, there are times I do hit a plateau and get very frustrated and sad. Still, worth every effort I put in.

- Travel more
Travel is good for the soul. Travel opens up our perspective and view towards the world. It opens experiences of a new culture, lifestyle and also unobtainable knowledge from the books.
With travelling, I have grown more as a person and found myself. It is a good soul-searching remedy. 

- Blog more often on my beauty stuffs, my daily life and interest
With 2014, I have blogged more than 2013 and I hope that I can keep up this trend. My blog is my own beauty diary and to some extend a personal diary in some ways (but not too personal). In 2015, I hope to incorporate more on my daily life (something more personal and day in a life-ish), interest besides beauty (like my food hunting, travel) to spice up my blog.
Well, since my blog do serve as my life diary I do hope to leave memories in my blog. Which reminds me, I need to get all my travel diary up and be more productive in blogging.

- Spend less on unnecessary stuffs, save money and manage my finances
I admit it I am a hoarder. This is a very bad habit I need to get rid off. With me going to graduate soon, I do hope I could complete my Europe tour before I head back to Asia. To travel, I do need money.
I need to manage my finances to not to have retail therapy tendencies if I do want to travel.

-Maintain my exercise routine
Eversince I started exercising. I felt much better physically as a person. I do get sick as much as before, the most I get is just cold and it do not last that long as before. Those days I could get a cold for a month accompanied with fatigue, migraine and sinusitis.
Anyway, since it is exam period, I am slacking on this since I do not have exercise space, can't distrub my roommates or blockmate. Will get back to business after my winter holidays.

-Spending more time with love ones, keep in touch with them
With many tragedy happening in the Year 2014, it struck me that life is short. You will never know what will happen tomorrow. Cherish every moment, spend more time with love ones.
I am studying abroad, very far from home and my family. I do hope to make an effort to keep in contact with my family daily. I am so glad that we are living in this cyber age where we are connected by the mobile, skype, messengers.
Also, glad my family have been cyber savvy, even the dad who is stuck in the stone age has his iphone! Now I could contact him via whatsapp. I am also happy that my sister is contacting me via wechat, she use to not reply my messages.
Mum? She is always chatting with me via facebook messenger and whatsapp.
I hope to keep this habit.

-Learn to bake
I am not the world's worst baker and also not close to being one of the best. I do hope to learn to bake other things either than my old butter cake or cheese cakes.

-Cut down the sugars
I am on a diet and I have been eating a lot of greens but after meal I still couldn't help myself from getting a sweet or two or even munching on sweet food like biscuit, cookies, cakes.
No matter how healthy or clean eating I am, this is just going to wreck my diet. Let's start down slowly by downsizing the portion of the sweet foods I take in and replace it with healthier options like yogurt, fruits etc

-Try out more makeup brands
I love makeup and collecting makeup is also one of my interest. Of late, I am venturing out to higher ends makeup brands and trying the out. Most brands have blow me out of the water and with this, I do hope I am able to try them  out more (hope my finance allows me to). Also, I would love to try out makeup brands from different countries. Let's set an aim to get makeup brands that I can't get in my country and also where I live now whenever I go travelling.

-Buy Less, Choose Well
I like collecting makeup as I said from my previous resolution but that doesn't allow me to hoard and buy anything as I like. Quality over quantity. This is how it should be.
When I was just starting this blog, I would buy anything just because it is cheap and not because I know I am going to use it or it is a product of quality. In the end, the product is left collecting dust in my vanity. Some got thrown away and some gifted away.
Now I will make sure to read reviews before purchasing the product and make sure that the product is something I will use often and not something I buy for the sake and letting it rot in vanity. Something I aim for this year and hope to maintain it.


-Say "NO"
I know people are about saying 'yes' but you can't say 'yes' to everything.Like saying 'yes' to things that I do not want to do or uncomfortable doing it. I am the type who says 'Yes' most of the time and over time, I realize it is pointless pleasing people when you are not happy yourself because not everyone appreciates the effort you put into doing it and sometimes people take you for granted because you are so used to saying 'yes' and they think it is natural for you to do so.
So say 'no' to things that doesn't make you happy and only 'yes' to people who actually appreciates it or people worth saying 'yes' to.

-Be less negative
Not everything bad is negative, there are good sides to everything that happens.

-Invest in a good eyecream
I hate to say this but I am almost hitting quarter life and I am starting to notice a little crow's feet at the end of my eyes. Looks like it is time to hunt down a good eyecream instead of relying of the supermarket racks one which might be not too moisturizing for my skin anymore.

-Incorporate a "no buy month" in the year 2015
I am a hoarder and collector thus my collection has become quite overwhelming. I need to get started with a no buy month so that I could have time to shop my stash and declutter my stash and find old loves from my vanity.

-Reach out to people with my blog
This is quite a secluded and uninteresting blog most of the time with not much content but somehow in someway, I would wish to reach out more to the community with my blog this year. It is not about hitting how many followers, wrecking the bloglovin' or view counts.
I do hope to be more productive and inspirational with my blog post that could inspire or reach out to people out there.

So that is my 15 resolutions for the year 2015. Wow, this is such a long blog post and it actually took me about 5 days to construct this post. Now it is finally up.
So for the next post, it is going to be more on the materialistic side, it is my beauty wishlist for the year 2015.

Please follow me on,
 

FOTD : Few days before New Year

This is a random look of the day that I did a few days before New Year. We went out for last minute shopping and also to look for sales and I just quickly dolled myself up.

So for my face, I am using the Catrice Nude Illusion foundation. From my past FOTDs, as you can see I have been using this foundation religiously. I have grown to really love this foundation. It is the drugstore foundation for me for the last quarter of 2014.
And, I dusted ELF Tone Correcting Powder in Shimmer on top of my foundation. Shimmers is not for everyone but I love shimmer in my powder, it gives my skin a very nice glow and personally I think it is very photogenic. Love shimmers in my powder so much that I bought another loose powder with shimmers.
I will post about that powder in a haul post.

For blush it is the Catrice Lip and Cheek Colour in Neo Geisha. Bronzer, The Body Shop Honey Bronzer Bronzing Powder in 01 and Highlighter, Essence Soo Glow Highlighter in 10.

My eye products are really simple and light. I am using my trusty Catrice Absolute Nude Eyeshadow Palette (Kinda wonder why I did not bring my Naked 3 palette over here) with Maybelline Master Precise eyeliner.
Mascara is Max Factor 2000 Calorie Mascara and Maybelline Volum' Express Cat Eyes Mascara.

My lip colour this time around is bold. I just want to have fun with my lip colour since the new year is coming then. It is L'oreal Colour Riche Extraordinaire Liquid Lipstick in Fuchsia Drama.

Walking out Moscow : Citylights & Starbucks

The Citylights in Moscow this year for new year is pretty awesome. The government did spend a great deal of money to transform the City of Moscow into a beautiful city of new year lights.
I went out to Bolshaya Dmitrovka street to run some errands and I was surprised by beautiful city lights.

The lights are colour changing, from reds to blue to greens and even so multi coloured.
Ice sculptures are also along the street and "mirror-like" display.

These are little Christmas-y / New Year booths along the shop streets of Bolshaya Dmitrovka.
Along this street, there are a lot of restaurants and cafes.

After running my errands, popped into Starbucks. Oh wow, the Holiday blend is still available in this Starbucks. I have been to about five Starbucks and without luck, the Holiday blend is always not available or sold out.
I am really happy that the holiday blend is still available in this Starbucks. Maybe because this Starbucks is located in the city thus they have more stock of the Holiday blend.

Holiday blend and carrot cake.
Starbucks' carrot cake is taste so heavenly. The cake so moist and the cream cheese rich.

The Starbucks is so crowded that we had to wait to get a seat. The weather is so cold outside, everyone just want to snug into a coffee shop to get themselves a warm cup of coffee to warm their soul up. 

Happy New Year 2015

Happy New Year!

Hello 2015 and Goodbye 2014.

2014 has been a memorable and great year for me. It is really happening year for me,a lot of opportunities and memories are created. Well, there are down moments too but I would say the up moments shines over the down. 

2015, I will be 24, still not at quarter life but so close to it. Mentally I do not feel 24, maybe it is the environment I am in. I am still in university, coming close to ending it next year September. It is the university life that makes me feel that I am still in my early 20s. I like life as it is now, I am afraid of the day when step into society and start working. Within these 2 years (2015 and 2016), I have to mentally prepare myself for the challenges. 

2014 has been great. I have been given opportunities. 2014, I manage two visit two countries, Italy and Greece. Chances like this do not come easily, I have to thank my parents for making this come true by sending me to study in Europe. Also, I manage to catch the Winter Olympics. This is what I call a golden opportunity. 

It is also my blog's 5th birthday. It has been a long journey since I started blogging in 2010, time really flies.
I did not even realize I have been blogging for that long.

This blog is very precious to me since it does hold memories down the memory lane. When I get bored I do scroll back my old post and reminiscence the good old days. 

Let's go ahead for a New Year activity post.

So on new year's eve. I had the chance to catch a circus show in the Big Moscow Circus

I bought these tickets one month prior to the show for someone as a Christmas gift. New year eve's is a popular day and tickets are hard to grab, I am glad I did manage to grab it. Things have to be pre-planned a month earlier though.

It is a full house! 

For new year's eve, we a surprise from the crew, a surprise Christmas tree.

Overall, the circus was pretty enjoyable. There are acrobatic moves and also the use of animals. It is not a cruel way of animal use. There are use of leopards, dogs, kangaroos and bears.
The dogs are particularly cute especially the pomeranian ( I might be wrong with the breed).
The circus is fully conducted in Russian, even so, it is not hard to grasp the storyline.

The Church of Christ the Saviour.

We are heading towards the bridge which looks over the Moscow River and Red Square to experience the fireworks display in a less crowded manner.

You can get a great view of Red Square from the bridge.

The fireworks show begins. Happy New Year 2015.
The fireworks is nothing sort of grand but still a very lovely sight.

Sticking in a New Year eve selfie. A FOTD post will come some time soon.
The wind was really strong on New Year's Eve and it was snowing. You can feel that snow flakes hitting on your face. Not a great weather on New Year's Eve.
I wrapped myself up in anything thick and warm that I could find from my closet.