sakufaru

Inside this shell there’s a prison cell

choubo — Wed, 01 May 2013 12:47:29 +0000

Once in a while, I’ll go through a severe bout of joylessness. Anhedonia. It’s hard for me to rationalize this behavior when I’ve come such a long way as far as my recovery goes in all of this, especially because I have made opportunities for myself, engaged in new experiences and the like.

I even wonder now if that’s what it is – that I’ve experienced too much, too soon. Is everything that predictable and mundane now that I can relate to every experience?

I often find that I sink deeper into this anhedonic depression after a particularly good period in my life. It almost feels too good to be real. Right now, I’m successful at work, people look up to me. People seek me out. I have that sense of purpose. I am successful in a part of my life.

Right now, I feel like I shouldn’t exist. I feel like a wasted, ungrateful resource.

I understand how this stuff works. I just know its easier to not be a part of it.

You said I was the most exotic flower

choubo — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:16:27 +0000

So, I have some pretty big news. After nine long years of elation, doubt, torment, ecstasy, confusion, agony and delirium – I am engaged.

Engaged, engaged, engaged, engaged. I am actually engaged.

My, now fiancé, took me down south to Dunsborough for a much needed break away from the stresses of work. And life in general. We stayed at the esteemed Pullman Resort in Bunker Bay and spent most of our time at the beach, sipping on Yahava coffee, visiting wineries and genuinely enjoying each others company.

On our last evening there, he ran me a bubble bath and cooked me up some pasta and tossed in some jumbo local prawns, poured me a glass of some awesome rosé wine that we picked up from Laurance wineries and asked me to marry him. It was a beautiful and emotional process. One of the greatest highs I have ever had the pleasure of going through.

I’m in a great place right now. Let me be.

High Tea: Origins

choubo — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 13:10:17 +0000

I recently ventured over on to my next high tea venture – this time into the city of Perth over at Origins.

I’ve been wanting to do the rounds with high teas, along with pretty much every single out-of-the-way-amazing cafe and restaurant out there. This was just the next one after Rochelle Adonis.

Three pretty awesome friends joined my boyrfriend and I on this little escapade on a pretty cruisy Sunday afternoon. We made our way up to the Pan Pacific hotel and into a fairly standard hotel dining room.

The interior was okay. I wasn’t really expecting too much. I’ve been into far too many hotel restaurants to ever really bat an eyelid. Yes, they’re all tidy, they all have those irritating thick cloth napkins and they all have a somewhat complimentary colour palette. Origins had a navy and gold theme going on with pretty china tea cups adorning the tables. AND THOSE STUPID THICK CLOTH NAPKINS. I CAN’T EXPLAIN MY HATRED FOR THEM, JUST KNOW THAT I HAVE ONE.

They have three pricings for their high tea – I don’t know if this necessarily means that you get different menu items, but we went with the Sparkling High Tea priced at $48 per head. I would have liked to have gone for the Moët & Chandon High Tea ($60 per person), but I think the argument there was that not enough people drank. Pfft.

They had an impressive selection of teas and I wished to god I could have tried them all. I went with a Jasmine Green tea and an iced South African Rooibos. Not much I know, but I would definitely go back just for their selection!

Our first savoury dishes consisted of a 1) dressed lamb kofta, 2) roasted pear, goats curd and candied walnuts and 2) a shot of a mushroom “cappuccino”. The cappuccino was more of a frothy soup but hot damn. It was so good – even Richard asked for mine.

What irritated me a little bit about Origins was that the next few courses were abruptly condensed by throwing the food items onto a tiered serving tray, shoving them in front of us and then fucking off. That is pretty much where the “service” ended. I really quite liked the idea of spacing out the courses like Rochelle Adonis had done it. Ah well.

The first tier of food had some of the sweeter items on it: we had 1) scones, 2) a sweet bread and 3) a slice of orange cake. The scone was too dry but that orange cake was deliciously moist and not to dense. I could have eaten that all day errday.

The second tier, we had more of the savoury courses. Unfortunately two of them had egg in them and if you know anything about me, its that I have pretty much been scarred for life as far as eggs go. We had 1) Demon egg and tomato sandwiches, 2) Demon quiche, 3) Prawn salad and 4) Cream cheese and salmon roll. Not my favourite tier but the prawn salad was pretty heavenly.

The last tier was the dessert tier – again mixed reactions for this one. We had 1) Macaroons, 2) Melting moments and 3) Coffee Cups. The Macaroons were incredibely undercooked, you could still taste the batter in the center! The coffee cups and melting moments were pretty divine though but by that stage I was feeling pretty stuffed.

Overall, not a bad visit – it’s a good place to start for High Tea in Perth. I loved the fact that I was with a great bunch of people and that we could share this experience together. It was the boy’s first high tea – so it was a bit of a fluffy experience for them, but hey, they seemed to like it! It looks like we’ll be doing a few of these this year

Origins Restaurant: email: enquiry.ppper@panpacific.com; phone: + 618 9224 7777 ; address: 207 Adelaide Terrace Perth WA 6000

Majolica Majorca and Etude House

choubo — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 14:57:25 +0000

I’ve put off this review for a little while now, but as I’ve got some free time, I’ve been able to sit down and get to it.So, I got my hands on a couple of beauty products whilst I was in the Philippines. For me to go three months without any sort of make up is against whatever drives me internally. So, yeah.

Whilst I was there, I got wind of a Korean beauty label called Etude House and Japanese drug store makeup label, Majolica Majorca. I had known that Shiseido released a sub label that was more affordable and catered to a much younger audience and because of this, I was really quite eager to try out Majolica Majorca. The packaging is cute, it looked pretty edgy – why the fuck not. I hadn’t, however, heard too much over Etude House, but would later find advertising all over the back of buses and hung on the outsides of gargantuan shopping malls.

I took a couple of pictures whilst I was in the Philippines because I knew I would want to review these later on – so you may find a couple of inconsistent photos between Instagram and my SLR.

Here is a small subset of the things that I got. Bear in mind I really only focused on lip products whilst I was there because I’m pretty picky when it comes to face products. In total, from Etude I got four lipsticks from the Dear My range, pretty sure that orange lip gloss was a gift to me because I kept going back there to spend my money, the two pencils you see are lip balms (claimed to be tints), one magic tint balm (more gloss than balm), and one more lip tint (Kissful Tint Chou).

To the far left, I only got two lip glosses from Majolica Majorca, they really didn’t have too much of a range when I went.

I’ll start with the lipsticks.

They had a wide range of colour which is one of the things that attracted me to this range. The packaging was really gorgeous for these too, very pretty and pink. Made me think of high tea, cupcakes and pastel soaps. I DON’T KNOW, I’M STRANGE.

These were okay. They were quite pigmented, I didn’t feel like I had to keep layering the product on, going over twice at times became too much. Wasn’t a huge fan of the consistency I got off of these. It tends to be a little bit chalky when on – I think this needs a light base of balm. I tend to go over this with my YSL sheer candy to even out the patchy bits.

Below, I trialed out the red that I got. I’m a sucker for blood reds. Hah, get it. No? I’m a loser.

Eh. I’m sort of meh about these. I can’t tell you what the colours were called, but as you can see – I got two pinks, a tangerine and a berry red. They’re great for what they are – and I love the colours, but they’re a little too chalky for my liking. YSL for lipsticks still win me over, hands down. They’re smooth to go on, moisturizing and highly pigmented. They’re a little bit pricier over the $12 that I paid for the Etude range, but you get your money’s worth.

The next item I got (which I forgot to photograph with my SLR), was the Plumping Lip Tint in red. I got it for two reasons 1) it’s red 2) it’s plumping. The colour doesn’t come out as much as I’d hope – but I do still like this product. It’s cool to the touch and as weird as this sounds, I really like the wand. Something about bristles. Not sure what it’s made out of, but it feels so gorgeous against your lips – so soft and sensual.

The plumping factor of this product is not too bad either – it doesn’t feel as harsh as some of the other stuff I’ve tried. Often you’ll find that these products are over powering and have a very sharp mint sting about them. It goes on quite wet instead of sticky, which I ultimately prefer. The plumping action kicks in almost immediately too.

The dear my lip glosses weren’t too bad either. Again, my odd fascination with the wand kicks in again – but Etude’s wands feel so great on your lips. These were nice. I can’t properly comment on colour pigment because I only got the orange which was more of a clear, glittery gloss – you know the type. For what it was, it was a cheap thrill. Which I’m happy with. Let me come our straight and say, I’m more of a lipstick user than a gloss girl.

Quickly going across the above – the Magic Tint Balm did come in red, but surprisingly, I didn’t get it. The pink worked out okay in the end. Opening it up, your hit with such a rich warm pink – which transfers across quite nicely on your lips. The texture is similar to that of the Plumping tint, but without the mintyness. It’s a cross between a gloss and a balm. If you think of a lip balm pot – think of a lip balm pot that’s been in the microwave for five seconds. That’s the kind of consistency you’re looking at.

The tint chou trumped all the “tint”glosses for sure – it comes out from the tube extremely tinted, not as tinted as say OCC lip tar or Sleek pout paints. I was happy enough with this product that it has a permanent spot in my handbag.

The Apricot sticks? In a word, shit. In two words? Utter shit. They’re essentially twist up balms, that leave a tiny bit of colour. But shit.

So the only items on the table here from Majolica Majorca are the Honey Pump Gloss, I probably need to test these out more before I pass judgement on these. I should probably like lip glosses more before I can justify buying them. Rofl.

So here’s a swatch of all the products (minus the lip plumper):

1) – 4) Dear My lipstick
5) YSL Rouge Volumpte No 11
6) Dear My Lipgloss
7) Magic Tint Balm
8)Kissful Tint Chou
9), 10) Majolica Majorca Honey Pump Gloss
11), 12) Apricot shit Sticks

The reason I threw in the YSL was to compare consistencies, textures and pigments. YSL smoothes on whilst Etude scrapes on – and much more pigment is transferred in one swipe with YSL.

At the end of the day, these products were cheap and I had no make up. I felt that I was let down by some of the products whilst the marketing seemed to promise so much – then again, isn’t that what advertising is all about? I had fun testing them out and it was nice being exposed to another beauty label. Meh. I’m a girl. This is what we do. And this concludes my review.

In other news: I’ve got more skull rings than I know what to do with and I need to write, draw, love more.

choubo — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:56:10 +0000

I don’t take kindly to being talked down to.

I have been trained and conditioned to look for your fuck-ups.

Watch your fucking back because one day I’ll get to a position where I am your reporting superior.

Hello Perth

choubo — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 13:37:14 +0000

So, it’s been a little more than one week since I got back from Manila and I’ve been enjoying the comfort of the seemingly familiar surroundings around me. At the same time, I haven’t been able to shake this feeling of disorientation off of me. I feel indifferent, it feels surreal. It honestly feels like my body has been tricked into thinking that I won’t be here for very long.

I got a fair few things when I was away. I would’ve had to – I was away for three months! My thoughts and recommendations to come shortly.

I suppose it’ll take me a little while to overcome this feeling of meh-ness, I’ll get over it. Meanwhile, here’s what I got up to under the cut.

Amor ordinem nescit

choubo — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:11:08 +0000

A fair bit has happened since my last post. I had an epic week down South in the country with a great bunch of friends, I got more opportunities and responsibilty thrust to me at work which was great – I got to prove my worth. I got nominated for an award, I almost very literally died and more notably – not that they dying part wasn’t notable; I got seconded to Manila for three months.

I’m here now in Makati with my lover and an awesome crew from various sites. I’ve been here for four weeks now and I’m loving it. I’ve made new, invaluable friendships, I’ve shown off my country to my boyfriend. For the most part, I couldn’t be at a happier place in my life.

I got my first tattoo a couple of days ago. Actually, I got my first two. Everything is so cheap here that I felt I might as well get it over and done with.

Born to die. This was placed on my ribs – chose the best place to get my first tattoo done. It hurt like a motherfucker, but luckily it was small and took less than 10 minutes to do.

Sometimes, I have a slightly morbid outlook on life. This was probably reinforced by the fact I almost drowned with Richard and one of my best friends. It fucked me up, there’s no doubt about that. But that’s another story for another time.

My second tattoo was placed on my right hip. I designed and adopted a rose motif early on in my art. These were probably one of the first pieces I used them in. At the time, I was in a really bad place. I was a thousand miles away from Richard and there was nothing I could do to fill the void. He was a subject I would use often in my art and I wanted something I could use to tell him, “Hey, this is something I did for you. This is something I took out hours of my day to do for you. This is how much you mean to me. I’m thinking of you – I never stop.”

I carried this on for the one and a half years I was away from him for. It was hard. It was one of the biggest mind fucks I had ever gone through, but I’m glad I had.

This has continued on to this day. I eventually started placing this motif onto my character’s bodies more and more; and more and more did the appeal of the idea of having this rose tattooed onto me permanently become greatly desirable.

So I went ahead and did it. It is now a part of who I am. I am one of my art pieces. This again is for him and I don’t think I will regret this decision, even if in the end we don’t work out. He was my first and I poured eight years of time, effort and love into this.

Now my life is sweet like cinnamon, like a fucking dream I’m living in.

choubo — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:21:03 +0000

Talk to me please, don’t have much to believe in.

I always had my sights on Rochelle Adonis since spotting them on Libertine Eats. After having done High Tea at The C Restaurant and thoroughly enjoying the glamorous experience and the beautiful company (not so much the food – all you really pay for is the view), this place seemed like the end all and be all of High Tea’s.

I’m honestly not one for hyping shit up. Following that rather bold statement, I don’t watch trailer after trailer of a movie I think might be interesting or read review after review of a game I think might finally kill my World of Warcraft PVP addiction. A hard lesson I learned all those years ago, pumping myself up for the epicness that could have been Final Fantasy X. What a fucking joke. OMG VOICE OVERS IN FINAL FANTASYWKHEAHOTAKUOTAKUOTAKU THIS IS PERFECT, THIS IS WHAT FINAL FANTASY HAS ALWAYS NEEDED HURRRDURRRR.

No Choubo. This is exactly what Final Fantasy did not need. They did not need some fucking chick with the worst fucking speech impediment or some tool of a fucking lead that sounds as if he is twelve. Thank you for crushing my faith in a series, Squeenix.

But, I digress.

I had read one blog post and maybe drooled over a bunch of well taken photos of miniature cakes and tarts and thought for all of five minutes as I was skimming through that article, “golly gosh, I really must treat myself to such delight-fullness one of these fine days.” Definitely not, “THOSE CAKES TOTES LOOK LIKE SEX AND I WANT THEM IN AND AROUND MY MOUTH.” No, definitely not.

I finally got to act on this desire, a year after stumbling upon that post. I wandered over to Northbridge last Saturday and met up with a couple of girls from work. The interior was intricate and feminine with floral motifs carried throughout the room – fresh flowers on the tables, printed china and the pretty chandeliers dangling above the communal table. That, coupled with the pictures of award winning cakes (probably) hung from the walls added colour and brightness to an otherwise clinical looking white space.

We started with beverages – green tea for me, not the best – but I didn’t expect anything too amazing. It was green tea. The best I’ve had was a Cherry Blossom loose leaf tea at Atomic -not too many places I’ve stumbled across carry this.

Tea was followed by a rather interesting little plate of a niçoise salad (it was topped off with half a quails egg which I very promptly discarded onto a colleagues plate), cheese and cucumber sandwiches, a virgin Bloody Mary with celery caviar, and a sort of shredded ham/pork pâté toppled onto biscotti.

Needless to say, it was pretty damn good. Following that we had a small palate cleanser – a pineapple and mango sorbet. Gorgeous and refreshing for a pretty humid summers day. A great break up for what was to come next. THE GOOD SHIT.

Good lord. So it wasn’t as large as these images make them out to be. Each dessert piece fit onto a tea cup but they were so rich, that the portion was more than sufficient. The dessert menu consisted of a miniature wagon wheel, peach melba, cinnamon donuts with caramel filling and a lime and blueberry trifle. It was heaven.

You know that pit feeling you get when you see something and expect it to taste as orgasmic as it looks but in reality always seem to fall short? Yeah. Definitely not one of those cases. It was all I expected and more.

I honestly don’t think I can find a place in Perth to top this experience. I can always try, but something tells me this was it. I do not hesitate to recommend this little studio, I will most likely be going to their famous degustations at some point (when I can afford to) over the next few months.

In the mean time – have at thee!

Rochelle Adonis: email: www.rochelleadonis.com; phone: +61 8 9227 0007; address: 193 Brisbane Street, Northbridge WA 6003

Hello, hello, remember me? I’m everything you can’t control

choubo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:21:19 +0000

Oh boy.

I’ve been feeling pretty restless lately.

I need to do a review on pretty much all of these, plus more.
I’VE BEEN A BAD GIRL.

And waiting on these darlings:

OH SHIT.

Final Hours: twentyeleven

choubo — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:59:18 +0000