We didn’t know that the pope was making an appearance on that very day we visited Vatican but there were tons of people who knew it and thronged the entire place. Two of my friends would have gone to catch a glimpse of him had we not booked the tour earlier. So as we walked towards the Vatican museums to meet up with the tour guide, large hordes of tourists were walking in the opposite directions.

Entrance to the museums

The way to the museums from the nearest bus stop was quite a long walk. We had to walk really quickly so that our tour guide won’t leave us behind. I think we were about 20 minutes late but whew, we manage to catch up with our tour guide. There were quite a few other tours taking place as well.

What stood out from the many treasures that Vatican museums contain were the mediveal maps representing the Italian regions and the papal properties and the Sistine Chapel of course.

The Gallery of Maps – the maps look wonderfully illustrated. Though I make no sense of it, it looks good as an art piece!

Tapestry that decorated Sistine Chapel in the past
They have since been taken down to preserve them. Tapestries were used to keep the cold out.

We did something naughty on our trip. Guess what? We took photos in the Sistine Chapel. Photography is banned in the chapel to preserve the paintings by great artists. Despite knowing that, it was too hard to resist especially when there were many who went snap mad. The tour guide told us not to take it when he’s around as I guess they will be held responsible. But when he’s not around…….. So here are some pictures that I took….

Sistine Chapel

“Creation of Adam” – The most reproduced out of all the paintings in the room

As can be seen from the photos, there were many people visiting the museum and I think this is considered an off peak crowd since many people would have gone to see the Pope. The tour guide told us that when the museum was built, it wasn’t intented for massive crowd of visitors. Instead, few visitors would roam around and view the pieces in leisure. I wish that could have been my experience as well but since I’m neither royalty nor staff, there wasn’t such a good environment to appreciate the many great works around. It was quite exhausting to be exposed to arts in such an intense way. I think I’ve never seen so many valuable paintings by great artists in a day, even if you grouped all my exposure since I was borned, I doubt it would have accounted for 10% of what I saw in Vatican!

To be continued – tired now…

Went for a Europe trip 1.5 months back with friends and it’s been a long time since I’ve gone for a long break – 20 over days to be exact. The trip was really an eye-opener. We went from Rome-Florence-Venice-Milan-Paris-London, and transited in Hongkong before returning to Singapore. Fare was S$1212 from Singapore to Hongkong to Rome and we returned from London to Hongkong to Singapore. It was considered cheap but I had another colleague who went to Italy on just $800++ on Emirates, barely two weeks later than my trip. I could have easily used that $200 to get more souvenirs! But well, it’s all a matter of luck and I’m fine with paying $1212.

We reached Rome at about 7 plus, after more than 15 hours of flight, including transit time. I love flying on plane for the beautifully arranged food on trays, served by well-groomed stewardesses and the anticipation of a whole new experience at the end of the flight. It’s magical when you think how the invention of planes enable any person with a little extra cash to go to another country to experience life. While I’ve heard how some people hate airline food, I simply love it. There was plently of food offered and tea breaks during the long haul. What I usually do is I keep leftovers in my bag so that I can eat it when I’m hungry later on. So my routine is to bring a roomy bag on board and keep food, erm.. yes, I am one of those guilty of stealing airline’s blankets. Why? Because it is convenient and you’ll never know whether you need them when you move from city to city. I use them as either pillows or blankets, depending on my needs. Do I see it as stealing? Not really since the cost of missing blankets would have been included in all fares (lousy justification but that a matter of perspective).

How’s Rome?

Rome is quite a rundown city and a crowded one. The image of what I had of Rome didn’t quite gel with what I saw. The place is too commercialised and had plently of tourists everywhere we turned. While we’ve heard stories of it being an unsafe city, we didn’t meet with any mishap. One possibiliy is that the many tourists there in April reduced the possibility of us being seen as targets. Moreover, the fact that we look like poor students on our graduation trip probably helped as well. Dressed in jeans and tees with our thick coats – the weather was still somewhat chilly – I doubt we were seen as rich pickings. Also, returning back in our hostels before nightfall also eliminated much of the danger a tourist faces.

Leonardo Express – Train from airport to city – costs €9.50 one way

From airport to the main city, we had to take a train. The tickets can be purchased from the many vendors at the train station, which was linked to the airport. We were quite disorientated with the many different vendors selling the same tickets and had to ask around. It was also at the station when we tried to break down our bills into smaller change. After purchasing the tickets, we had to valid them via the little machines placed in front of the train platform. It took us some time to figure out how to validate them as some of the machines were not working. It was on the train where we had our first sight of how affectionate Europeans in general are – lots of loud kissing sound came from one of the seats near us. It’s not a common sound in Singapore’s trains, so it felt a little disconcerting at first.

After reaching the station, we took a stroll to our hostel, which was near the station. The name of the hostel was called Yellow and we paid €58.00 per person for two nights. Mixed dorms basically refers to how males and females are placed together in a room and is cost saving for hostel since it doesn’t have to separate males and females. It sounds like an awkward situation when I first heard of it from a friend but you actually stay in one, it’s really not a big deal. Hostels for Americans are like places where you can socialise but for us, the reason for us picking hostels over hotels was to save money. Saving a little each day means that we save quite a bit on lodgings. The room we stayed in was clean and there’s a little antique lift that stops at each level, so we needn’t lug our luggage over the many flights of stairs to our room.

Stairway of the hostel

Posters at the hostel

I didn’t take any pictures of the room but you can check them out on their website: http://www.yellowhostel.com/tour.php#
The ladies at the counter were really friendly and chatty but as we reached there before the check-in time, we had to leave our bags in their store room first. After we left our bags, we went to a nearby eatery for brunch and the prices for a sandwich were pretty much like delifrance or cedele. The sandwiches were delicious and had a cappuccino to go with it and cost about €4.10 in total.

Nearby eatry, just a street from the hostel

Brunch

We then went grocery shopping at a supermarket at the basement of the train station, getting a bottle of water to keep us hydrated for the day. It was also at the supermarket that I saw this entire shelf of Kinder products that we don’t have it in Singapore. Pretty cool right? I stood there for quite sometime, overwhelmed witht the selection. I had wanted to get something back but the thought of lugging it all over Italy to France and to London kills the idea the moment it was formed in my head.

At the supermarket

We were then ready for our first adventure on our trip! Our first stop: II Vittoriano, a a monument to honour Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy, located in Rome, Italy. We had to take a bus from the station to the monument. Can’t quite remember the cost of it though. The monument was quite an impressive sight and if you have the time, do climb up the stairs to have a top view of the plaza. Although we didn’t quite appreciate the meaning behind the monument, we felt awed by the whole architecture.

II Vittoriano

Top view from II Vittoriano

After you reach the II Vittoriano, all the sightseeing places that we planned for the day are just walking distances apart. The imperial forums, Arch of Constantine, Palatine Hills, Roman Forum, Capitoline Hill.

Layout of the places we went on our first day in Rome

Imperial forums

Colosseum

We managed to get into Colosseum and many other places of interest for free as Italy was having its cultural week where they open up state owned tourists destination for free. It was a really good deal which we didn’t plan for earlier (it’s quite difficult to plan one’s holidays around as they don’t really publicise it. The free admissions also meant that there were long queues that made up of both tourists and locals. Although there’s no charge, we still had to get a ticket from the ticketing office which I felt was a waste of paper. I mean the purpose of having tickets is to show that one has paid for it right? In this case, where’s the need?

Ticket for Colosseum, Palatino and Forum

Arch of Constantine, picture taken to show its promixity to the Colosseum

When we chanced upon the Arch of Constantine, we didn’t realise that it was the monument we were looking for as there were no tourists surrounding it. Which is weird especially when everywhere’s crowded. On our way to the Palatino, we saw lots of ruins and it wasn’t easy to tell what each of the ruin was. This was a real problem for me as I had tried to avoid viewing photos of Rome while doing up my itinerary. I wanted to experience first hand how Rome looked instead of having a preconceived idea of how everything looks like. So, I pretty much was overwhelmed by the sights such that all ruins look the same to me. Yeah, it was a bad idea…. Don’t be like me!

Map of all the ruins – the map was situated in the Musei Capitolini where you can check against the map and look out at the actual scenery through the window.

When viewing the ruins, we were caught in the rain. Luckily we brought umbrellas along on our first day and we quickly took shelter at the Musei Capitolini. The museum wasn’t in our itinerary but since we were caught in the rain, we decided to just enter the museum (which had free admission again due to the cultural week promotion).

Compared to the other museums and palaces that we went, the Musei Capitolini is considered less significant and the pieces aren’t as valuable. However, it was the first time I encountered such richness in decor and I was taken aback at the sightings of the paintings, tapestry and sculptures. I can still remember how it felt to encounter the beautiful rooms where every nook contains something interesting to view. There was also this extremely spacious exhibition area where it seems almost like you are at outdoors. The sun shines in almost unblocked in this room and there are steps where many visitors would sit on after a long day of touring.

One of the stairway at the museum

To end our day off, we had our meals in the museum’s cafe. Sandwich and a pot of tea (I took the whole tray of teabags and had two different types of tea, quite a good deal for just the tea itself!) cost €5.40 – about S$11 – not cheap but not expensive either.

Back to hostel we went. After checking in, a friend and I had to stay in a room where we had male strangers for roomies that day. I had initally thought one of the roomies was a girl because there was a bath lily around the bed. And to think that me, a girl, has never used one before, even till today! Was given a free one from thebodyshop but just don’t have the habit of using it. The only problem I faced with mixed dorm was that guys really snore loudly and their problem with us was probably our practice of hogging the toilets. Ha…. And I think for one of the nights, one of the guys slept naked, so he had to wait for a long while till we got out of the room before he could out of his blankets and get dressed. Lesson learnt: If I ever stay in a hostel again, I’ll definitely bring ear plugs & not to forget, my useful eye mask to block out the lights (not everyone sleep at the same time as you)!

Well, The Body Shop reeled me in with their rose edition collection and membership privileges. Although I only wanted to purchase the blusher, I got a blusher and a lipstick from the limited rose edition so as to enjoy a 20% discount. In addition, I bought a lip scuffer which has a refreshing minty smell for exfoliating and condiitoning, just to enjoy 10% discount, plus get a membership. Besides the discount, I too got a free pouch with two generous sized samples of shampoo and body bath + a sponge like thingy for bathing =) I’m having mixed feelings for my packages now: feel a little bad for spending so much on things I don’t need yet feel like I’ve just had a bargain for the items I’ve bought!

]]> http://mychictrove.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/mixed-feelings-over-my-bodyshop-haul/feed/ 0 thechicshop bodyshop-purchase http://mychictrove.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/paul-joe-beaute-biteki-oct-2008/ http://mychictrove.wordpress.com/2008/09/09/paul-joe-beaute-biteki-oct-2008/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:02:18 +0000 thechicshop http://mychictrove.wordpress.com/?p=79 ]]> I am so so so emamoured of the latest Paul & Joe collection that I purchased four items out of their six items! Could it be that poppy in print are just as addictive? =p After reading online that Biteki was giving out P&J gifts, I quickly went to Kino to grab a copy even though it was out of the way!

The gift it comes with really looks gorgeous and it was worth the long trip I had to make to go down to Orchard! Included in the gift was a pouch made from Inspiree print cloth and it is surprisingly of good quality. I’ll probably use it as a camera pouch =) Comes with a free makeup testers as well. =) Since I was there, I bought extra copies for thechicshop as in stock items well. If you wish to purchase a set of the gift, can get in touch~ =)

I’m now trying to catch up on my Japanese drama. Haven’t been watching the many DVDs that my dear sister bought over the last two years. Plenty of great shows but I haven’t the time to watch! I’m now at the fifth episode of ‘Last Friends’, a show about a group of young people who came together and stayed at a shared apartment, which according to a character of the show, is a trend that has been catching on in Japan. It shows how they face the problems they have – an abusive boyfriend, a suspected gender identity disorder, suppressed love and childhood trauma. Interesting show but there seems to be a lack of a chemistry between the love relationships in the show. That’s the only down part of the show, but other than that, it’s still quite watchable. It’s not something that will move you to tears (at least till episode 5), but rather gives you glimpses of how others may be living a life that’s world apart from yours

There’s some merchandise associated with the show. There’s the cups that are used in the show, handphone charms (with cup charms), and tees (which I haven’t seen in the show yet). I’m thinking of recommending to thechicshop to do a preorder. If anyone’s interested, can drop thechicshop an email. I think we’ll probably see what’s the interest rate like first.

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.

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!~

This year’s coffret

2006 LE collection

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!