my favorite kind of scents

I distinctly remember back when I was in the third grade I was so intrigued with this delicious scent that my best friend at the time used to smell like a lot, but I never ask her what it was until one day I went to her bedroom and saw a brown tinted plastic bottle that smells exactly like how she did. It was The Body Shop's Vanilla body mist which sadly has been discontinued in its original form. Ever since that experience of finding out what that scent was, I always ask my mom to get me a bottle of this Vanilla goodness whenever we walked past the store so I never ran out of it. Eventually, that body mist has been replaced with a newer and improved more modern looking sister which I feel like just not the same. As I grew older, at one point in my life I stopped wearing this body mist or any scents at all. I even hated when my mom just sprayed perfume on herself because I always feel like it's always too much and gave me a headache. Although I didn't understand about scents, when I was younger if I was travelling away without my mom and had to spend the night, I always carry a scarf that smells literally just like her to cover my pillow with and that makes me feel less anxious. 

Au Revoir Taipei / 一頁台北 (2010)

When you try to mix a dash of crime theft with a bowl of rom-com, you're basically gonna end up with something like Au Revoir Taipei. This big screen debut of Chinese-American director, Arvin Chen, tells a story of young man called Kai, who's so lovesick that he even tried in his cheap way to learn French language to impress his long distance girlfriend who clearly—as we can tell from the first 10 minutes of the movie—is not interested anymore. Kai works for his parents in a small noodle restaurant and constantly wonders when he'll finally be able to fly to Paris to see his girlfriend. He's not the only character that you'd want to care about, the bigger picture patches together into one horizontal storyline, including point of views from a couple of buddy cops, a chill gangster leader and his eerily deadpan nephew, the dance-enthusiast bookstore employee Susie, and ordinary minimart shop assistant Gao (who like his name, is literally so gao—tall), another hopeless romantic boy with a love interest coworker named Peach 🍑

If jazz is a movie genre that's set in modern day Taiwan that's so densely packed with activities at night through the lens of local dwellers, I'd like to imagine it looking like this one. Au Revoir offers a feel-good slice-of-life story with uncomplicated direction that will make you smile at the end. The crime part of the movie is kinda lacking in action, but enough to drive the whole story together to where it wants to be. Despite being pretty mediocre with the premise, director Chen manages to give his own fresh take on the slapstick moments that has been redid over and over again in past movies. Other than the uplifting rhythmic soundtrack that often played while these people are in the middle of intense scenes, the best parts of this movie is definitely the sneaky mouth-watering food scenes every now and then. Really makes you crave for that noodle and dumplings!

The setting of the movie in cosy downtown Taipei neighbourhood at night is so organic. To people who have never stayed in China before, this is a good illustration of what life is like for majority of lower-middle class citizen there. Family run businesses where both couple are working side by side, eating out with a friend at night market after work or classes, gangster business just a couple blocks from your house (kinda extreme), brightly lit neon signs on almost every building—to me this is comforting to see.

You know that feeling when you took a sip of sweet milk tea and caught some chewy boba between your teeth? Watching this movie kinda feels like that.

empties #1 | a lot of mini review and what i'm gonna restock lol

Here laid some of the empty packages of products I used up recently. To be honest I already discarded about half of the empty stuffs already while I was cleaning up my stash earlier this month, but I think this is a good enough amount to start with the "empties" talk that everyone has been doing since the dawn of beauty blogging. I feel like post is gonna be kind of long though.

my TV spirit animals

If I had to choose between watching shows with numerous episodes versus a two hour long movie, I'd definitely pick the later. That being said, it's not at all that rare for me to binge watch the whole season of shows that are funny because I tend to overanalyse stuffs and I don't want to do it with TV shows. However, before you jump down my throat, yes I do watch Stranger Things, Black Mirror, Mr. Robot, Westworld and the likes, but I'm only gonna talk about characters from more lighthearted shows because if you know me at all, I'm all about NOT getting a headache from having to psychoanalyse characters with heavier personalities and try to match myself to them. Nope. Anyway I'm listing down on screen people who I see myself in and I just want to protect them at all cost!!!

Gina Linetti (Brooklyn 99)

Gina is my number one spirit animal in general. She's quick-witted, sardonic, very blunt, confident, and always seen with her iPhone while painting her nails in the office not doing any work (me). She's not afraid to say 'no' when people asked her to do some favor, but she can also be helpful towards the people she cared about. I need to learn more on how to insult people the way she does because it's almost like she can see the future and prepared a perfect burn in advance for her victims without failing. Her extreme narcissism is also admirable because it's not that often you find a woman with astounding credence of herself in today's society and she can be a good example by being whoever she wanted to be no matter what other people's opinion.

Max Black (Two Broke Girls) 

Max is probably my first on screen woman crush ever. Her personality is so spot on and her dark sense of humour never cease to amuse me. She will never let you see her being too vulnerable but she's not at all an introvert. Sometimes she doesn't really show confidence in things that she's good at, more often than not she tried to find flaws in herself because she thinks her broken home background doesn't allow her to be happy. Despite that, Max enjoys her regular life even though she wishes to be high and get laid, preferably at the same time, all the time. She's never afraid to insult and offend customers at the diner where she works, especially hipsters because like myself, she too find these type of youth quite revolting. Although she seems rude most of the time, she's actually nice to people around her.

Alex Vause (Orange is The New Black)

This woman is not necessarily funny, but I find her chill attitude very inspiring. Alex is street smart and quite snarky, she will manipulate people into liking her and do what she wants them to do. Which is not a nice trait, but I think she can be that way because she's a people person and she knows her way with words. I also love how she prefers to read a book in her corner most of the time whilst in the prison, avoiding conflicts and dramas at all cost. Her appearance with dark hair, plucked eyebrows, and thick glasses might make her seem unapproachable but she's not a bad person at all.

Jim Halpert (The Office - US)

Here's a guy who can be unlikable and likeable at the same time. I know he's adorable when he's interacting with Pam, but let's face it he can be quite annoying with his endless elaborate pranks. I enjoy both sides of him actually, when he's being annoying and when he's being cute. Jim is the kind of guy that everyone kinda wanna be friends with because he's charming, funny, and smart. He's also very collected most of the times when it comes to problems at work. He doesn't discriminate anyone (except Dwight probably) and try to maintain a good relationship with his friends. He's never seen angry or upset, rather keep a casual attitude towards anything and everything. What a joyful human being.

Jane Lane (Daria)

I've been dubbed as Daria a couple times by some people due to my sarcasm, but Jane, her only friend, is someone whom I feel more connection with. Daria is the extremely misanthropic cynical teenager while Jane, albeit as sardonic, is actually less hateful towards her teenage life and actually quite enjoy it despite the fact that she too would prefer for human extinction if possible because people are the worst. That being said, at least she tried to express herself through art and not just cocooning in the shell of hate like her best friend. Jane wore red lipstick and numerous piercings, showing that she actually cared about how she looked which makes her much more approachable than Daria. Her motto stated "every cloud has smoky gray lining" and to be fair I think we all could relate to that.