// This post first appeared on Les Deux - my previous blog //
Last instalment of San Francisco loving, and this one is without a doubt overdue! But with good reason :)
I definitely spent way over my intended budget across the several days I was there, including $100 at Safeway (thanks Essie!), and nearly double the amount at Sephora, amongst others. But American retail was just too cool (and cheap!) to avoid, and I had no one stopping me either…
New Essie babies: I couldn’t buy any more after I realised I would be taking them through in my carry on bag and they are technically liquid ;)
Plethora of girly goodness!
One of the biggest discoveries of my life: Sephora Perfecting Eye Primer.
Eye makeup always tends to slide off on my eyelids around and my eyes, no matter how awesome the brand. I didn’t think I could be saved… until I found this and bought it on a whim. No turning back!
Sweater lines (from top to bottom): Zara, Forever 21, Madewell ♡
I’ve been eyeing this for ages! Solid perfume from Diptyque (in Eau Duelle)
New Nike kicks!
Now it wouldn’t be an American dream without a large packet of Reese’s peanut butter cups. Seriously.
Ahhh.. doing this last post makes me realise how much I miss travelling! At least it’s only about 4 months until I holiday around Malaysia, which I’m really looking forward to. Work’s busy as usual which partially explains for my lack of blogging activity. The other main reason I would attribute my inactivity to, is a lack of interest. I’ve found that I’ve lost my voice/will to blog in recent times… and I was planning to blog about the fact that I was going on a mini hiatus for some soul searching, but then that would entail further blogging, right? So the hiatus is over and decisions have been made (sort of)! I think my next few lines should be in a mini post all in itself!
// This post first appeared on Les Deux - my previous blog //
…and I’m back for Part 2 of my recount of San Francisco! This one is all about gluttony - mainly food of course, but also a bit of this and a bit of that to make it interesting :) As I previously mentioned in SF: Part 1, I was in San Francisco for work so here’s a snapshot of one corner of the new office!!
Before arriving in SF, everyone back in Sydney kept telling me “make sure you go eat some Mexican. It’s amazing!!” - I have to be honest, I was a bit confused about what the fuss was all about, but hey I love it when I’m proven wrong and my tummy thanks me for it! It’s not the fast-foody, cheesy, nachoey-specific mexican that we have in most Sydney joints… it actually tastes so much more authentic and flavoursome. The variety particularly was awesome, and here’s some visual proof:
A burrito which I couldn’t finish because it was so massive !!
This one was at a proper sit-down Mexican restaurant in Santa Clara (compared to the more fast foody one above). This is a Chimichanga and I more or less demolished it. It’s obviously no secret that I’d pile on the pounds if I actually lived here in America… oh boy! (Please excuse the lack of quality in some of these iPhone photos!)
Before leaving Sydney, one of my younger sisters request was quite literally: “can you please go buy some Mcdonalds and take a photo of its size?” - I swear she’s never watched Super Size Me, but hey it must be a well known fact that the sizes are larger there in the States. In any case, the situation presented itself when during one of the mornings before work, John and I couldn’t find a taxi (and we were hungry). Bonus win was that there was a Mcdonalds directly across the road from us, so we thought why not, let’s do it! Here’s the evidence! The orange juice was enormous but seriously disgusting so I couldn’t finish it :(
There were a couple of other memorable foodie moments that I just can’t let slip because they were too funny! The first being the first ever meal that I had with John after we landed. We made our way to our respective accommodations and then found our way to Union Square… where we befriended a Hot Dog, some Fries & Ketchup! As you can imagine, we were beyond starving, so we gobbled it all up within minutes! The second? 2am walk in the freezing cold with the whole group of us Sydney-siders along the high way in Santa Clara to IHOP. We simply couldn’t resist. Particularly since none of us had eaten a proper dinner, however Camparis, Cocktails and Beers were a-plenty! Donut World and Louisiana Fried Chicken could have also easily made it on the menu but to be honest… I really could not continue doing such nastie things to my body and regret it later at the gym, so I resisted: woop woop! But that didn’t stop me from taking a Kodak moment ;)
And last of all…. can I just say that Walgreens/Safeway etc are just a paradise for nail polish lovers such as myself. The range is of Armageddon-esque proportions, simply amazing! Here’s just one section of it:
And seriously… GOLDFISH COLORS WTF?!??! I love you America.
// This post first appeared on Les Deux - my previous blog //
Happy Leap Year! Work’s been really busy lately, and I’ve been visiting family and getting my car serviced (and getting ripped off). I’ve been meaning for a while to post up some photos of last month’s quick visit to San Francisco - so here we go!!
For those that didn’t know, I had the chance to go to SF for a week, primarily for work-related training for 3 days in Santa Clara and 2 days in the Bay area at our office in the city. This was coincidentally a great time to go too, since they had just moved to their new office in SF and it was all squeaky clean and shiny!
I arrived on Sunday over there and luckily, their shops open until very late (relative to Sydney) so I went a bit crazy. It was like retail paradise :) Special kudos goes to @jmasson for being such an awesome workmate and friend, being my shopping buddy as I dragged him from store to store for ~2hrs was pretty amazing! Luckily another workmate met up with us and they went drinking whilst I continued shopping…. it got to the stage where I realised my hands were so full I couldn’t physically shop anymore that I stopped, well for that day at least ;)
Since it was such a short trip, I didn’t have the time to take many photos and so did not bother bringing my DSLR camera. All these photos were taken by either my iPhone or Gareth’s compact Canon that I borrowed for the trip. I’ve decided to split my recount of San Francisco into themed posts, and this one is clearly dedicated to over-consumption and the Union Square surroundings!
Walgreens. Was. Awesome. They had a huge range of Essie nail polishes, it was incredible! The confectionary aisle also kicked ass. And everything was so cheap!!
I can’t recall the name of this street but I nearly missed it. It was a nostalgic moment as I realised that it was essentially a mini rue à la Paris - all the stores were French: Façonnable, Diptyque, Chanel ♡
It was winter when we were there and boy was it cold. I was literally wearing my leather gloves that I originally bought in Turkey when it was snowing/freezing and still I was cold in SF!
A sneak peak of my Sephora haul. I was so surprised when I got to cash register and the total ended up being > $150 ! Let me say firstly that this was not a sign that the goods were expensive, I just bought sooo much! This has never happened before as I’m not much of a makeup addict or user, but obviously they had too many irresistible things…
