Cardigans I: The Classics

A few years ago, if you showed me a classic cardigan like these two below from J Crew, I would probably grimace and claim that it was too old for me.
Now that I've reached legality worldwide though, I can't seem to get enough of it. I've already bought this J Crew cardigan in both colors shown above. I've even raided my mom's wardrobe for cardigans and found some gems like classic Vivienne Westwood and Ralph Lauren twin sets in a navy, gray and pink. They are the best staple a girl can have. It can be by itself with black pants, for a casual office look, Or with jeans for a casual but put together look. It can be worn over something pretty but sheer or summer dresses, to keep the chill away.
And it can paired with printed tees (like the ones above from UO- I LOVE these two printed shirts, one of the few things from UO over the years that I absolutely adore) or bold colored tanks for a fun combo. I personally love these two last ideas, it is put together, sophisticated but still casual and fun. And here's a quick tip: pair the blue printed tee (above) with the white cardigan and the red printed tee with the cobalt blue cardigan.The printed tees by itself may possibly be misconstrued as waitress-like (seriously, I tried mine on and that's what my cousin told me I reminded her of). But in combination with the contrasting colored cardigans that doesn't take away from the design, it is the perfect mix and match combo.

I'm so glad I rediscovered these gems that I'd previously discarded!

Image Source: J Crew and UO

Fashion magazine and some iced bubble tea!

Nothing beats reading a good fashion magazine and sipping a tall glass of iced bubble tea! For fashion tips and inspirations, I sometimes turn to the many Japanese imported fashion magazines popularly sold on newstands and bookstores here in Taiwan. "Lucky" remains my favorite American fashion magazine though. What's your favorite fashion magazine?

Retail Therapy Ganguro style

After weeks of work related stress, I needed some retail therapy. Armed with my newly accquired muave pink quilted shoulder bag and my huge adorale sunnies, I headed to Taipei's trendiest shopping district.



The pedestrian-only streets were jammed with the fabulously and fashionably dressed young crowd, as on any given weekend. Over a mere 4 - 5 blocks space, Japanese & Korean fashion boutiques and American teenage clothing line imports vie for attention with the shops each blasting their own respective tunes.



While there I couldn't resist trying on this summer's hot trend - the wedges. My photos are really blurry because we managed hard to have them taken even though photographing isn't welcomed by most boutiques.

Vuitton Clutches

The other day, my mom surprised me with a Vuitton clutch. She exclaimed over the phone, about how pretty it was, with gold trimming and a little wristlet thing. I was excited because I love clutches and she made it sound gorgeous. I was a bit skeptical though when I found out that it was white with multicolored prints all over it. But then she said that the color was just what I needed to go with all my very dark colored clothes. Mom's know best, right?
My first reaction upon seeing this picture was.......oh no. It seems that no matter how they package the white canvas with the multicolored logos they will always appear somewhat tacky and fake to me. It must be because the one and only fake Vuitton I ever bought was also of this print and thus I shall always associate it with being fake. The mutlicolor logo also looks... toy like. Adding the gold trimming to this combination just didn't help.

I do LOVE the shape and design of the clutch though. It's just so cute and perfectly sized. I don't understand why they would not produce this in any other pattern! Maybe it is some marketing plot by the masterminds at LVMH to make consumers buy this clutch anyway because of the style and then hope that the pattern will grow on them!
I would much prefer a Vuitton clutch like these Vernis clutches. They are colorful yet sophisticated and tasteful. They even have straps to transform it into a shoulder bag! Classic and versatile. I wouldn't mind the red or the purple!

But alas, the prices of these clutch aren't exactly the same (the Vernis is more expensive!). Maybe the white canvas multicolor logo print would grow on me..........what do you reckon?

Image Source: E Luxury

3 Days in Vienna

Continuing from Budapest, the next place we went to was Vienna.

The first (and very hot) day we went to the Belvedere, which like the other palaces, consists of a palace and a large garden. Unlike other palaces, Belvedere doesn't have the typical apartment tours but instead are art museums. We spent the afternoon walking leisurely in the meseums attempting to learn about the artwork.

Next, we saw the Hundertwasser Haus, which looks like a colourful building from a cartoon but was actually a block of council flats. This building was fun to look around and discover its quirks!

At night, we went to the Musikverein. There, we watched an orchestra perform music by Mozart. I was amazed by how many songs that I know or have heard before are by Mozart. There were also two opera singers who sang with some of the pieces, although I didn't enjoy those performances qutie as much since they didn't sing in English and I have no idea how to appreciate opera singing.

The next day we visited the Schonbrunn Palace. We thought this was the most impressive palace in Vienna, although we were definitely liked the back garden more (below.)

The main attraction of the garden was the Gloriette, which just looked like a very fancy ornament to the garden to us. And yes, we walked all the way up to see the Gloriette up close.

In the afternoon, we visited Stephansdom. After visiting many European churches, many of them have started to look very similar. But I really like and remember this one -the exterior and interior remain very old-looking and authentic. The inside of the church was dark and grey, and you could really appreciate the Gothetic style inside. It's honestly one of the few sightseeing churches that has made an impression on me.

On the last day, we visited the Hofburg Complex. There are a few exhibitions and tours inside, but the one we really liked was the Sisi Museum. After going through all the guided tours in the past few days, I feel like I've really learnt something about the history of Vienna -or at least the history of the Austrian Royal family!

For the rest of the afternoon before going to the airport, we decided to just chill in coffee shops and try the cakes Austria is so famous for: the Sachertorte and apple strudel. To be honest, the Sachertorte wasn't that great -it just tasted like a dry piece of chocolate cake. And while the apple strudel was tasty, we weren't all too impressed by it either, (probably because all the cakes were so hyped up that we had high expectations for them.)

Walking around Vienna, the general feeling I got was the Vienna was much more tourist-friendly and had a very holiday-feeling to it. Everything there felt very artistic, creative and cultured, although I'm sure that's just because we all already know that Vienna is the 'music capital of the world'.

Image Credit: the blog

HTC Diamond

Despite the upcoming launch of the new 3G iphone, July 11th, last week I decided to make the jump and got myself a HTC Diamond phone instead. Even though the idea of the iphone, combining a 3G phone, storage and an ipod all in one, sounds extremely appealing, in the end I decided that the iphone (even the second 3G generation) was too common and too bulky. The design is just not exactly the sleek and cool or girly and cute style that I like. I considered waiting for the NEXT generation of iphone, which is reputedly smaller than the original, but my disintegrating Nokia 6280, with its expanded battery and barely attached back cover wouldn't allow me to wait.

And so I walked into the store thinking to get a very sophisticated but cute and girly pink Blackberry. Even if I'm too cheap to get the full plan, it would look so adorable! Unfortunately, it appears that the pink Blackberry has not landed in Hong Kong yet (and I don't plan to join Verizon just for it) and they only had it in grey or black- boring. For a moment, I considered getting the grey one. But unfamiliar to the whole Blackberry craze in the US and clueless about phone functions beyond making a call, my mom was disapproving. "Why would you get that? It looks like a phone from 10 years ago."

She thought I should get one that was trendy and hip- like the one they were show casing in the glass case- the HTC Diamond (the store we were at just happened to be promoting it). I was hesitant at first. Since I've owned a phone 10 years ago, I've been a Nokia fan. They are always reliable and durable (to be fair, my Nokia 6280 has suffered through countless drops onto concrete surfaces in the last two years and a case of waterlog before coming to this state of disintegration). I was only willing to consider switching to the iphone or the Blackberry in the first place because they were just as reputable (kind of). And I've never even heard of the HTC before!

I wasn't sure about the durability and reliability of HTC (I eventually found out that it was from Taiwan). But then my mom stepped in, again proving that she is much more open minded and young about modern technology than I was. She said that I was probably only going to use the phone for two years anyway, and so I should just stop over thinking and get the model that I liked regardless of brand and durability.

Admittedly, the design is beautiful. It is small, sleek and shiny, with very cool smooth angles on the back cover giving it that diamond touch. They also very neatly fitten in a pen slot in this sleek design and it stays put magnetically. Very cool. The specs are quite good too. It is basically a touch screen PDA, with wifi and all the little PDA features like calendar, email, music, photos etc all on a very prettily designed interactive windows program that is very easy to use. Seriously. I am technically challenged and even I figured it out. There is 4GB of internal memory, so you can fit everything in. It also has a 3.2 pixel built in camera with auto focus, which is awesome, since even my very first digital camera only had 3.2 pixels. It works in North America, Europe, Australasia and Asia (including Japan and Korea) - just not South America. Supposedly it has GPS too, but I have no idea how it works. I figured since I don’t even have an internet plan for my phone the GPS feature will just go undiscovered. And this is the general gist of the HTC Diamond as I understand it. I’m no expert, so I could be wrong. For more accurate details, check out their website.

From all this, it appears that the HTC Diamond trumps the iphone, Blackberry and even the Samsung Armani (I briefly considered it since it was the same price, but it is a Korean brand phone that doesn’t work in Korea and thus I rejected it. There was also some other things not so good about the specs, though I must say the case it comes with is very nice) phone. In reality though, it doesn’t work quite like a dream. After almost a week of use, here are some things I found wrong with it

• Even though the camera is 3.2 pixels, the pictures taken indoors tend to be yellowish and not very flattering for anyone. Seriously. Very yellowish. Outdoors, it’s not bad. But over all that autofocus thing means it takes a few seconds to actually take a picture. Not exactly snap.
• There are a lot of functions, but it takes a while to get from one place to another. Either the touch screen is not very sensitive or it is very slow (probably a bit of both). It needs more RAM. In this aspect, the iphone is much faster.
• Another thing is that people don’t seem to be hearing me very well these days. I used to talk to people when I’m walking around all the time and they hear me fine. Now I can hear them perfectly fine but they can’t hear me!
• Another major thing and I’m not sure if it is only me, for two days, my phone would suddenly just switch off with no trigger and I can’t turn it on! I had to take the battery out and then turn it on again to get it to work. This is a major concern. But it hasn’t happened for 2 days now and I’m hoping that it was only an aberration. I think I’ve gone over my 7 day trial period, so I can’t exchange for a new one. And besides, I’m already out of the country……… fingers crossed!

Overall, I wouldn’t really recommend anyone buying the HTC Diamond, even though I’m an owner. I mean, besides those things I mentioned, it works fine. I haven’t personally tried out the music playing (because I haven’t gotten around to figuring out how to connect it with my computer yet- busy busy these days…), but I assume it works fine too. Still, as you can tell, they still have a way to go to perfecting this model. Once they do though, the HTC Diamond would be perfect!

*Update*

Thanks Kate. After playing around for a while, I finally figured out how to adjust the brightness/color contrast of the photos, and now the pictures look much better! Now all they need is a flash!

Image Source: Apple, HTC and Blackberry

2 Days in Budapest

I figured I ought to see more of Europe before graduating so last week, I travelled with another friend to Budapest and Vienna (another post.) The great thing about Budapest was that everything was so affordable there! One doesn't have to think too much before buying something since everything seemed relatively cheap. Here are the sights we visited:

After spending 3 hours at the main train station, waiting to buy train tickets to Vienna, we visited the Buda Castle...

... and Fishermen's Bastion. To be honest, when we saw these two sights up close, we didn't think they looked that impressive, especially since there wasn't any signs to explain the sights. There was an exhibition/ museum inside the Castle, but it didn't sound that attractive so we didn't go in.

But these two spots are on top of a hill so it was a terrific spot to get a great view of Budapest.

The next day, we took a sightseeing hop on hop off bus to get around the sites. If you go to Budapest and want a convenient way to get to the sites, try the service. It's affordable and convenient, making the whole sightseeing experience very relaxing and simple.

From afar, the Castle looked very pretty.

The Parliament is one of the must-see sights, although we didn't actually go in. It's one of the most impressive buildings in Budapest and again, looks great from across the island.

Afterwards, we visited St. Stephan Balisica.

Then we took a guided tour inside the Opera House. The tour was interesting, with the tour guide describing the history of the Opera House with funny stories. It was very gold and shiny inside, together with paintings and statues.

Finally, we visited Heroes' Square, which is suppsedly a must-see sight. To be honest, it just looked like a normal square, ie. empty space with statues to us.

Budapest is definitely a great place to visit for a very short amount of time and low budget. It's a good choice if you want to see Central Europe. Overall, it was fun and interesting to walk around casually in Budapest, but frankly, the sightseeing spots weren't as well 'put-together' (ie. as tourist-friendly) relative to other countries'.

Image Credit: this blog