Day 5 & 6 Taipei Fun

Day 5 in Taipei, we took our time to explore more of this city. Mr Holiday needed some shopping time on electronic goods so we went to one of the biggest computer centre in Taipei. It was huge! Anything about computers, electrical appliances, you name it; here has it!

We then made our way to another fairly newly opened Eslite Bookshop nearby. It's inside a huge park where it used to be the place for a cigarette factory in the past; now turned into a cultural park. 

Inside Eslite bookshop, apart from selling books, and other special little things; you can also find plenty of Taiwanese tea room.

We chose one of them and had a bit of tea time there! In this tea room, it serves everything made with rice. Such as rice tea, rice pudding and brown rice ice-cream. 

It was the ultimate unique relaxing tea time for a long time! 

In the evening before we met up with our friends for some late night local food, we strolled down near a busy shopping areas, and as I walk passed a shop in an underground shopping area, one familiar bottle caught the back of my eyes and I quickly made a U-turn and dashed into the shop.  Ah!!!!! I found Marc Jacob's nail polish on the rack!  How could this be? It's not available in London or Hong Kong yet and I desparately wanted this! There were only a few colours available and I picked this sparkly metallic dark copper shade, which I'm wearing on me nails as I type this blog.

I love Taipei even more! If anyone knows when Marc Jacob makeup range will be launched in the UK or Hong Kong, please let me know!

To end the night on a high, our friends brought us to have some yumminess in a very local restaurant. Look at all these small dishes of delicious food!

Day 6.... Returning to Hong Kong in the morning... Sad times but we had such an amazing time in here!! We will be back, hopefully very soon!

I hope you have enjoyed sharing the highlights of my trip with me in the last few days! I shopped but didn't drop. I'm so pleased though I managed to get a few things that are only available in Taipei.

Day 4 Taipei Fun

Uh-Oh! Day 4 in Taipei had led me to get this little beaut!

It's a lovely faux leather bubble handbag by a Japanese brand called Rootote, which I haven't come across in neither London or Hong Kong. I've been longing to get one by Chanel but the price tag has once again freaked me out. When I saw this I fell in love with it instantly, and my handbag shopping ban went out of the window like it hasn't even been set out in the past! Can't wait to use this lovely handbag!

After a little browse in shops nearby our hotel, we head towards the National Theatre direction as Mr Holiday had a voice workshop to deliver with a local theatre group run by his school friend. 

At night we met up with our friends at a night market for very local Taiwanese food!

Bitter melon soup noodles, very soothing and felt like this was proper food therapy!

Steamed stinky tofu. Now I love fried stinky tofu but steamed one was the first time I tried and it tasted so good! However Mr Holiday couldn't stand the srinkiness, I wondered why?

This looks a bit weird but it's fried eel in a rice wine soup, very special!

We didn't go overboard in the food department, less is more!

I'm going to miss Taipei so much when I leave but we still have a full day ahead of us! Bring on day 5!

Day 3 Taipei Fun

You can see food before words! Yes that basically summed up how we started day 3 in Taipei. Beef noodles in soup is one of the many popular food in Taiwan. It's hard to find good quality beef noodles in Hong Kong, so I had this on my to-eat list as soon as I knew I was coming to Taipei!

Then we took metro Taipei to a few places for the rest of the day. One of which being the flagship Eslite Book shop. There were 6 floors inside, aside from selling books, there were music records, handbags, stationery, and plenty of tea rooms and restaurants. A real entertainment city!

In the evening, we had business lunch with Mr Holiday's counterparts from the North Taipei Arts University.

After dinner, we were brought to walk around the neighbourhood area, it was lovely! It was an area full of cafés and western restaurants, also lots of small independent boutiques. 

Surprisingly day 3 in Taipei passed without picking up any beauty products. Let's see what happens in day 4....

To be continued......

Day 2 Taipei Fun

Day 2 in Taipei continued to be fun!

We didn't want to rush like an ordinary tourist so we took our time to walk around the area in our hotel. We stayed in the Taipei Central Station area, so you can imagine how busy and vibrant this area can get!

A trip isn't fulfilled until I visited some beauty goodies. Funnily enough, as soon as Mr Holiday saw a Watson's (equivalent of Boots or Superdrug in the UK) as we passed by, he slowed down and said to me, "you want to go in?". Heehee

I'm not familiar of any big beauty or skincare brands by Taiwan.  However this brand 1028 Visual Therapy suddenly came up in my mind. It is by a Taiwanese makeup artist called Kevin. I was so excited when I saw his makeup stand inside Watson's!

He has a whole range of products and they all look very well designed, packaged and with good quality.

In the end I picked two eye shadow palettes.  One is his latest launch called Brownie eyes which is in a light tin. It contains 6 shades, all are my favourite natural shades and they remind me of the  Bobbi Brown Chocolate palette. 

Another eyeshadow quad are available in 3 sets I picked this quad which had some greenish silver colour, it's for my sister (forksandbrushes), she said it's exactly what she's looking for! 

We also walked pass Eslite bookshop, probably one of the most famous and popular place in Taipei. We didn't go to its flagship store yet but we passed by a branch. Then I saw these cute little solid perfume which I was completely attracted to! 

In the end I picked two: 

Both have lovely pictures on the cover, and they smell like fresh floral scents.

Here's some of the food we had. We didn't go overboard at all. Food in Taiwan is never dull or not enough, you can only eat too much and have not enough time to eat! This time, we paced ourselves to enjoy what to eat!

In the evening, it was time to make our way to Taipei National University of Arts to fulfil the purpose of why we are here. Mr Holiday's colleague is on an exchange programme teaching here, and he is currently directing a show these two weeks. 

It's such a valuable experience. I don't think anyone would actually think of visiting a University here, and to see a show; whilst in Taipei. So here we were doing these couple of things that aren't conventional!

Well done to all students in the show, you guys rock!

Bring on Day 3!!!!

Hello from Taipei, Taiwan

A big fat hello from Taipei!

For the next few days, I'm in this lovely city; with Mr Holiday who is on a semi-business trip. 

We arrived late afternoon yesterday, we then checked-in straight away at the iTaipei Service Apartment.  

The double room wasn't available so we were put into a room for 3 persons for the night. Wow it was amazing, it's a properly 2 bedrooms flat! 

We then popped to next door, there's a massive department store, it's like Taiwanese Selfridges, we ended up having an amazing buffet meal at the top floor of the department store. 

After dinner we had a quick tour around inside and it was lovely! I plan to go back there today to shop a little bit!

The first night was finished off by having a drink in our flat with one of Mr Holiday's friends.

I can't wait what's interesting stuff we will do in the next few days! As it's not our first time in here, but it's our first time in Taipei together; so I wonder what new things we will be doing this time! (As the previous few times I came here with my family)

Ciao for now!

Nail polish by Burberry

Meet Burberry nail polish (No.104 Stone), HK$180. It has taken a rather long while for it to make its way to Hong Kong.

As soon as I saw it became available on the website, I dashed out of the door; literally, to buy it. 

There were only 3 colours available in the shop. A pitch black (poppy black), a burgundy red (oxblood) and this nude shade I bought.  However on the website it presented many more shades.... perhaps some are available online only or are waiting to be launched in store?

The packaging is absolutely lush! It's got a light metal cap with the signature Burberry design printed on it. It looks very high end. 

The application is very user friendly, a lot better than other high end nail polish. 

The brush is a flat one, together with the rich and creamy formula, you get a gel-like finish. You do, however need 2 coats to get a more opaque finish. I also noticed that it doesn't smell too strong of alcohol once you open the bottle which makes you feel that you are damaging your nails too much.... 

The colour pay off looks very high end and it flatters my hands. It's definitely suitable to wear all year round.

I seem to be collecting every shade of nude/ beige these days. Something about nude shade which makes an outfit more chic!

This Burberry nail polish reminds me of Revlon Cool Beige, you can view here to re-live the memory of my love for beige/ nude nail colours.

Is it a dupe or is it not?

Nail Collection Episode 6: L'Oreal

From left to right
805 Mysterious Icon
204 Boudoir Rose
622 Soft Chinchilla

These L'Oreal nail polish is simply great!  If you are obsessed with spending loads of your time in shopping in drugstores like me, you will have been attracted by the massive collection of nail polish at each L'Oreal counter.

These little bottles are designed so nicely that it looks so sleek with a gold cap in a narrow bottle - great for storage!

204 Boudoir Rose was my first purchase from this range as I was on the hunt for some natural pink colour on my nails.  I really really liked them after first application.  Sometimes pink can be a nightmare to put on if the formulation of the nail polish and the shade of colour are right - it could leave streak on your nails if you are impatient (like me!).

With this collection, there's no problem such as imperfection.  Both the formula of the nail polish and the brush seem to be a perfect combo for perfect looking nails:

The brush is short and flat which makes applying like a dream!  The colour is long lasting and when I say long lasting, they just don't chip at all even after a good 5 days!

I'm definitely going to keep my eyes on these and will be investing in a few more colours in future.

What are you waiting for?  They are only £4.99 - worth giving yourself a treat!