That Anniversary thing!

Anniversaries-they happen every year, you know? A little while ago, that whole wedding anniversary happened and we went out to celebrate. Now, our anniversary falls between semesters. For those who don't rely on student loans for, like, everything, let me explain the importance of this.

Student loans come the beginning of each semester, and the end of semester and period between semesters is the Dark Place of no money, little food, and being a homebody. Now, we planned for this, a little. We put aside a bit of extra money, and made sure to have enough to go out for the wedding anniversary.
We decided to go to the Van Dusen Gardens, here in Vancouver.

Van Dusen is a HUGE garden in the middle of the city which has a cute little cafe/restaurant, a special area for weddings and events, and an insanely huge collection of rare plants from all over the world. They have separated each area into specific geographic regions, each of which tend to bloom at different times of the year, which is how the gardens are able to stay open year round. We came during the early spring period, but just after the cherry blossom festival.

The gardens feature several festivals year round, which highlight the plants that are in bloom. They also have a FANTASTIC festival of lights during the christmas season to celebrate that whole thing. It is just a huge affair, with winter favourites-including hot chocolate, story readings, Santa and, of course, millions of Christmas lights. I haven't gone yet, but I have heard nothing be fantastic things about this festival.

What I love about the gardens are the little places to get lost, and just get caught up in the beauty of nature, and just BE. The gardens take about 1.5 hours to go through in their entirety, but I suggest taking closer to 2 or 3 hours there. The little cafe/restaurant has afternoon tea available, as well as snacks, drinks and full meals at fairy decent prices. I had an Earl Grey macaron, and it was just sinful.

I have loads more pictures, but I'll put them in another post, which will be the photo-only continuation of this post in a day or so!
Until then!
xo

Fan Expo-Vancouver style

This is way late in the coming, but back in April, I went to Fan Expo here in Vancouver! For interest's sake, Fan Expo is one of the largest comic conventions in North America and the Toronto counterpart is actually the biggest in Canada (which isn't saying much, since we are all of 33 million people up here) and takes place in August. I want to go to that one, but, alas, my travel dates have me leaving right before that convention.

Now, the totally unfortunate thing about this convention is that I dropped the ball. I actually forgot the charge my camera, and my battery died! It actually died in the middle of filming of Billy Boyd singing the Edge of Night. It was tragic!

So, these are the small amount of pictures I managed to get before the camera died, and the video is one that I stole from someone else.

 I LOVED The Last Unicorn when I was young. My parents bought me the new released DVD, but I have to convince the husband to watch it still. But, that is totally the author, Peter Beagle.

Original Star Wars concept art? So awesome!

Billy Boyd, of Lord of the Rings fame

Tom Felton. I had to keep my distance, otherwise I would fangirl too much. Seriously. Sorta in love with him

The reason I can't lose weight-sweet, delicious mini donuts. So good!

Billy Boyd, again.

More Billy Boyd!

The things that some people can do with lego is nuts.

I tried to record this, but my damn camera died, as mentioned. It still pisses me off. But, here is his talk about the song, and the making of it, and, finally, singing Edge of Night (the King Denethor scene for those who don't know)

May Nail Swatches!

I've been a little remiss in posting, my apologies. Intensive classes are intensive. But, I hope to remedy this by doing this post now! I will hopefully also be writing a few more before my upcoming exams, and throw them in the queue.

But, for now, nails!
Official Disclaimer! I have been working a lot lately, so my nails have not been taken care of as well as I usually do. I also haven't been painting them that often, what with the whole kitchen work thing and all. This means that there may not be a nails post next month. You've been forewarned!

First up, a Korean brand of nail polish! I ordered this from KoreaDepart (the online store I bought all that Korean makeup from a few posts back) a long time ago. I actually specifically bought this colour to be my Avatar Aang/Airbender art colour. I never used it for that though. It is, however, a delightful spring colour. I used white cherry blossom decals that I got in Korea as well. Cute, right?
The polish is by Etude House and has a name, but I can't translate it. It also seems to be discontinued from the KoreaDepart site, but may be available from other sites that sell Korean cosmetics. If you look for it, and find it, please let me know!

 I got this one by NYC because it matched my new dress perfectly. I wanted to look coordinated for my wedding anniversary date (pics soon!) and thought the nails would be a great addition. Now, like I said, the brand is NYC, so its pretty cheap (about $1.00CDN) and that shows in the quality of the product. I had it on less than 6 hours before it chipped BIG across several nails. I was not impressed. I have several bottles of this brand, and its great for one night bouts, but not for long term wear. This colour is called Sidewalkers.

Only 2 polishes for my lovelies this time. I had 2 other colour changes this month, but both looked like crap. Maybe I'll re-do them with some nail art, and see if they look better.
Until next time!
xox

More Nature!

I've shown you guys some of the trails and stuff around my apartment/campus before. This time, I actually walked down the mountain, to the inlet and beach that is at the bottom. It was a super cool hike, not too strenuous, but a lot of fun. I even made a video!

I know, I post  a lot of nature things, and that wasn't what I had in mind with this blog, really, but it seems that now, and for the foreseeable future, I'm going to be living in a place with spectacular nature. So, please, bear with me for a while on this.
I think that spending time outdoors is really important, not just for the body, but for the mind and soul. It has been proven in multiple studies that spending time outside daily relieves stress and stimulates different areas of the brain that being inside does not. Furthermore, we need to remember that we are a PART of nature, and not separate from it.
I think if more of the stuffed shirts in politics spent more time outside, there wouldn't BE a climate change debate-it would be accepted for the fact it is.
A little ranty, but, whatever.

I challenge everyone who reads this to spend 30 minutes a day outside around trees, or flowers, or mountains, or the water, or anything less concrete for one week. Throw some chill tunes on your ipod and just walk. Look around you. Experience all that this earth provides for us, and just BE.
If you do do this challenge (which I hope you do), please share your experiences or insights with me! I'd love to hear about them!

Korean Beauty products!

A few months ago, I ordered a bunch of beauty products from Korea. They arrived a few months ago (don't worry, it didn't take MONTHS for it to get here-more like a week) and I've been using them this past while, and want to review/gush about a few of them. If this isn't your kind of thing, move along and come back later, or look at my other posts!

So, of course, I ordered things that weren't just beauty products-there were a number of foods and snacks that I missed. I ordered cheese bokki and these super yummy bon bons. I wanted to order my fave Korean chips, which are honey and cinnamon flavoured, but I cannot remember the name of them-do any of you guys know?

Anyways, to the beauty products! Before we continue, I should add that all of this is ordered from Korea Depart, which is an online Korean department store. You can order food, beauty products, makeup, clothing, specialty items, and hair products all from the same site, which cuts down on shipping costs. Well, sorta. The shipping is still expensive, but much cheaper than ordering it all separably.

 First up, BB cream by Nature Republic. I actually love this brand quite a bit. They are really good about using many natural ingredients in their products, which make them small very lovely. This BB cream goes on well, gives good coverage, smells super great and lasts a long time. The price is quite good too, coming in at $5.00USD per container.

CC cream is actually different than BB cream. While BB cream acts more like makeup with skin care, CC cream is designed to be skin care that is able to smooth the skin, hide dark spots, and be a makeup base. This is a brand that I have never worked with before, and, frankly, its kinda meh. I get a nice coverage, yes, but it also makes me skin so pale, I should be in a Twilight movie. The SPF (50) and price are quite nice though-$7.00USD

Tony Moly egg pore cleaning is amazing. I LOVE Tony Moly as a brand. It is just fantastic. I love the pore cleanser series-its super smooth, super foamy and FEELS like its cleaning deep. It has nice little beads that exfoliate the skin, that are big enough to not cause irritation, and able to be used daily. Which I do.  I find my skin has been smoother since using it. At $6.00USD I call it pretty awesome.

This is a cleanser that is used for that blackhead problem area of the nose (we all have it, there's no shame in it!). This is part of a set by Holika Holika, which had a cleanser and a massage oil and a nose peel. Now, we only bought this steam starter, as we already have the sticky peel things. Now, the peels are totally required for this to be any good. Ideally, get the whole set if you can. Its a great starter kit and really works well. This item is $4.00, and the set is $8.00.

Oh Happy Days by Etude House is just fantastic. I loved the way my hands felt after using it. I actually went through this container in just over a month, I loved it so much. It smelled great as well. My husband didn't like the smell really, but whatever. It was light and floral, and super summery. At $3.00 its pretty much a steal.

Finally, another cleanser. This one is by The Face Shop, and is a lemon cleanser that is really good for more oily skin. it helps reduce redness and the acid in the lemon helps to 'burn' away the top layer of dead skin cells. I use this daily (in the morning to get off all the sleepy dirt on my skin) and my skin is super soft all day. It foams up really nicely and each bottle lasts a long time. Again, the price is amazing too-$4.00USD

I hope you guys enjoyed this little review-if you have any questions about these products, or others like it, or want me to do a video showing how to use them,  feel free to drop me a line!