Book review on Yakuza Moon

I managed to get my hands on the Yakuza Moon, a book by Shoko Tendo, a woman who lived a life in the darkness in the yakuza circles. After reading the synopsis about the book, my curiousity was piqued, especially so after being glued to several Japanese dramas e.g. big brother and Gokusen over the past year.

The queue at Singapore’s National Library book reservation for the book was really long. When I put in my reservation, I had the shock of my life – my queue number was 114! Imagine there were 113 people ahead of me. Anyway, my perseverance paid off and I finally got it last week and have finished reading it =)

The book is written as a first person narrative, with Shoko speaking about her life from a little child who has a yakuza boss for a dad to an adult who has undergone much trials in life. Life’s circumstances and her fun loving ways had made her life more difficult and unusual compared to an average person.

While the book tries to portray her as a victim who overcomes tribulations, I did not get the sense of happiness at the end of the tale, despite it being a good ending. My emotions were also not strung up while reading the book and I felt more like an detached observer. I felt quite let down by the book after having such high hopes for it. But if one is interested to reading more about the brutality a child may face in a yakuza world and get insights about it, it may be worth picking the book up. But if one is merely trying to find a book to read for enjoyment, my opinion is that there are other books that are more interesting.

Tokyo Trip in Jun/Jul – My personal purchases from the trip

I’m hereby bowing down to pressure from many friends who have asked what do I do on my trips with thechicshop girls when we go to Japan for our spree.

I always answer – what else… shopping of course!~

This time round, I’m very satisfied with all the purchases for myself and it’s pretty ironic to say, but I did save $$$ shopping in Tokyo, a city which is said to be expensive for many products!~

I always get excited when I view pictures of what people buy on their trips to Japan. So, to up the adrenaline in this first post on the Jun/Jul trip, here are the items that I’ve purchased:

1. Lycee Eyedrops. It gives a cooling sensation which Yan and I call it our Miracle water (named after skII). Really refreshes tired and dry eyes. It’s sold in Matsumoto Kiyoshi.

2. Three different bottles of nail polish – Kiss cosmetics, Majolica Majorca and Jill Stuart – my dad made this comment after I’ve told him about my purchases in Tokyo – ‘Singapore cannnot buy nail polish is it?’

3. Jill Stuart Mix Compact Blush – Yes, I finally thrown in the towel and got a mix compact for myself.

4. RMK eye gel – not bad, quite like the cooling effect of the gel after application and eye area does feel more hydrated. But it’s not for people looking for lighten dark eye circles. Not much difference from Fancl eyegel but I think RMK might be a cheaper alternative because it comes in 20g a tube.

5. Shu Uemura Depsea skincare and UV base – cheaper in Japan.

6. New mascara from Fiberwig called Fiberwig Ex – not sure if it’s good as I bought it on a whim.

7. Majolica Majorca full and smooth mascara + white eyeliner- restocking for my own makeup supplies. Still one of my favorite brands for mascara.

8. Sunblock from Allie – its point of sale poster said it is one of the fave sunblock by Japanese. I’ve tried it and it still has the smell of normal sunblock but it feels less greasy. Think I’ll not be purchasing another bottle after I’ve finished with it.

9. Nivea Lipbalm – nothing special just that I forgot to bring my lipbalm to Tokyo and hence had to get one from the stores. Air is really dry over there. Need to bring moisturister and lipbalm.

1. Three tees from cecil mcbee – they had a sale and each costs 2980 Yen,

2. Three canisters of Uniqlo tees. Uniqlo had a sale and some tees went down to 999 Yen. Only managed to buy one that cost 999. The other two cost 1500 Yen. bought a tee with ranma picture, very happy with the surprise buy,

3. a skirt from a flea market (800 Yen) at long last, managed to visit a flea market!,

4. a pretty lacy top (2100 Yen) Another surprise buy but what I felt was disappointing is that it requires drycleaning. Ex!

Besides the above, I also purchased a Canon camera which is way cheaper than the prices in Singapore, one Agnes B bag, one Garcia bag, one pair of shoes, a audio technica earphone and an ipod gift set (contains a 1500 Yen card, a charger for use in Japan, two cleaning cloth, plastic film protector, the plastic piece that coils up the excess earphones!)

Don’t ask me how much I’ve spent as I’m not going to give myself a fright! It’s already quite scary to see the difference in my bank account before and after the trip!~

Wedding, A/T and an ex-salesgirl’s gossip!~

Wedding dinner invitations at my age seem to come all at once. Just this year alone, I had been invited to four friends’ wedding!

Anyway, not only the bride has trouble about what to wear, the invitees to the wedding too has to crack her head on their appearance as well! For this wedding, I wore my beautiful black A/T dress that I got at a bargain during Tokyo’s sales, costing only 10400yen! It’s a little strange to be wearing black for a wedding. Furthermore, at my table, four of us were wearing black and we didn’t even plan it!
Here’s a picture of the accessories I had on… =) The dress isn’t with me as I’ve sent it to the cleaners straight after I wore it. Need to take great care with silk!

A Celine McBee ring with diamantes, bought it in Tokyo at Shibuya 109, a pearls, crystals and silver balls bracelet that thechicshop is selling for S$7 and a silk rose brooch from the A/T dress (all from my personal collection but if you wish to purchase the ring, you can give us your best price and we’ll see if we want to sell it off =) Hee)

For those who don’t know what A/T is, it stands for Atsuro Tayama and is a cheaper line from Atsuro Tayama.

I actually worked at their outlet for a few months many years back then. Love their clothes! But they were too expensive for a girl living in poverty line, then trying to save up for another big purchase. The designs are pretty detailed and well made. Now, they’ve closed all their outlet. The reason for the closure is probably because the distributor had overestimated the demand of the brand in Singapore as the expansion did not bring in more sales, but rather the existing sales were divided between the two shops. The customers who bought the clothes were pretty much the same few who comes by every month. There were few new customers as the brand was not that well known in Singapore to justify the price.

Haiz… but well we can always fly to Japan in Jul to shop for more clothes!

Benefit Holiday Sets – I want I want!

Have you seen the new collection that Benefit cosmetics just put up on their website? This is the first time I am so tempted to spend S$200 for the items!

The one million dollar question: Should I or should I not?

 

Krispy Kreme Donuts in Tokyo – sweet nothings Part 1

I really wonder why people love queuing up for donuts. Being curious over this, I too joined the queue for it but personally, I feel it is not worth an hour to 1.5 hours wait. Before even attempting to queue, I walked pass the outlet once and commented to my partner-in-crime Yan that “these people are crazy, queuing for donuts in the rain”.

Who knew on the next day, we were one of the crazy fellows queuing up for donuts! That day, we queued up for more than 1.5 hours just to step in the outlet. The strangest thing wasn’t the 1.5 hours wait but rather everyone was still queuing when Tokyo faced earthquake tremors! Yan, who was then in queue (erm.. I was shopping in Takashimaya when that happened), said that noone attempted to move out from their spot in the queue even though the bridge swayed quite forcefully. Imagine that! Either the Japanese were nonchalant about earthquakes, treating it like a normal occurance or they felt too much was at stake if they moved away from the bridge (meaning their spot in the queue). Sigh… I seriously hope it is the latter reason.

There were two queues, one in front of the outlet and another that was up on the bridge. It took more than 1.5 hours to step into the outlet!!

But the great thing about Krispy Kreme in Japan was that they gave free delicious original donuts, just out from the oven, and a cup of iced water for those in queue. For those in the first queue (in front of the outlet), there were umbrellas for them to use it. Really that was fantastic service. and that’s what I love about Japan! The service people are really considerate! However, both Yan and I agreed that this would never materialise in Singapore. Not because Singapore’s service industry is bad but rather Singaporeans will just queue up and take their free donuts and then run off. Perhaps they may even take the umbrellas away (after all they look really sweet, with ruffles at the ends)!

 

About 1.5 hours later, we got to the line that was nearest to the glass windows of the outlet and took pictures of the donut processing chain where the donuts were first dipped into oil then sugar syrup was dripped all over the donuts, then quality checks. Some were wrapped up to give out as free donuts while the others were put into crates. It was quite interesting to see how donuts were made but it really shows you how unhealthy donuts are.. Immersed in oil and full of sugar and starch. My.. why would anyone wants to go for a second serving??

 

 

I luv birthday promotions!

Had my birthday celebrations a few days ago and being one year older, I’ve become older and wiser to financial matters and more apt at saving while shopping! Please clap for me!

(Beautifully decorated white chocolate macadamia cake

from Secret Recipe S$45

Though I love this cake, I must say it is an acquired taste. My younger sister treated some of her friends and they didn’t like it! A waste of my cake!!! )

Like Rebecca in the Shopaholic series, I went really mad over cosmetics and skincare shopping. But really shopping during birthday months and special promotions is exhilarating! I took advantage of my Shu promotion, got a 20% discount, and used my sister’s fancl 20% promotion……. and then got $60 Isetan vouchers plus chalking up Isetan points and credit card points! Feel like I’ve saved a lot this time round though my pocket’s feeling much lighter after today’s spree. =)

I think this is the first time I’ve splurged so much in a single day ($10 Isetan voucher for every $100 spent, so you can do the math). If only every month’s my birthday month!

I think I’ve got 3/4 of a year’s supply of powder and 5 months’ of skincare products!!

Other discounts that I enjoyed for my birthday month:

Reds – 30% for members

Ezy video – $4 each movie for 5 days (sad to say I wasn’t able to get a free movie from them. They have this promotion whereby members can rent a movie foc on their birthday)