Got the chance to visit Smokey Joe's Apartment Hotel (冒煙的喬_就是公寓旅店) at Gaoxiong during this trip and I was glad that we had two nights there. This Hotel is gorgeous and I love their design concept. Rather quirky and having the Texas feel in the middle of Gaoxiong.
When i walked it, I was greet by a lovely vintage turquoise car and the day we checked it, it was pretty late. I had the opportunity to see the lovely balloons lighting up the lobby in their brightest colours. I was awed away by the scene that I didn't want to go up to my room yet. *haha* But little did I know, my room was another wonderful little cozy area for photos too.
After playing around at the lobby, I finally lug my luggage up to my room, the double room. I was welcomed with a lovely pinkish room with a little western taste. I loved every single details in the room. The side lamp is actually in a shape of the tap, the dressing table is lovely though the mirror was a little too far for my liking but it is spacious enough for me.
I can sleep without worries when I have three animal heads looking over me
The other side of the room, please pardon my luggage and the bags.
They have like super cute toilettes too! It's like they branded everything to match the style of the hotel, with a little tint of cozy and cuteness in the little details of the room. Even the bath mat has the hotel logo, though I didnt take any photos, because I only realised after getting out of the shower *haha*.
Look at how cute the labels of each package are! Credit: 周杰克.
Whoever is the designer has pretty much done a decent job to design each product here. Credit: 周杰克.
I had the chance to visit two other sizes room, that's the Quad Room and the Balcony Quad Room.
This room is a combination of English and British style, the posters in each room are randomly choose to be placed. BTW the toilet door is pretty cool too! It's a slide door which has metal poles as part of their design. Rather unique but heavy when i tried to close it.
Small cozy corner.
The sofa area, even the sofa is uniquely designed. And that's the staff from the Apartment Hotel.
The Balcony Quad Room is a great room to book if you have kids and wants them to have some entertainment while you slip the tea/coffee complementary from the hotel. Or you want to have a home feel when you check into the hotel with your friends/ family, this is the room to book for. It is spacious enough to rest after a long day out on your trip.
The spacious living room
The living room is well equipped with a table hockey, lovely vintage sofa set and a vintage fridge.
The table hockey that you can enjoy when you are back in the room. Credit:周杰克.
There's a mini balcony to look out to the lovely view to relax after a long day out when you don't feel like staying in your room. The bedroom is exactly like the Quad Room, well-equipped with two cozy queen beds and a lovely armchair.
Each room is labeled with an alphabet and room number. Using 24 letters out of the 26 standard letters, each label is well-designed, hand crafted too. As mentioned by the boss, the unit numbers are made up with screws, slowly done by the staffs. Bravos to them to do such a great job. I stayed at Room Z and here's a N for you guys.
Each letter will light up when there are occupants inside the room.
Since there are only 24 rooms, give it a try and guess which two alphabets are omit from their list (hehe).
If you are planning to visit Gaoxiong, do consider their hotel, if you like something western and a little vintage touch.
Recently, Xiaomi Singapore have announced that there's a new product coming into our market, which is the Mi 4i! That's the first global product which is launch outside of China, their home market. India have started selling Mi 4i on the 30th April, and it's coming to our shores on 12 May, noon time! So I am happy that I managed to get my hands on Mi 4i before the launch and I am going to do a comparison with its previous model, the Mi 4.
True to its weigh, I've tested both Mi 4 and Mi 4i on the weighing scale. And Mi 4i is indeed lighter than Mi 4, due to the build of the set. As Mi 4 is a metal build while Mi 4i is a plastic build. As far as I can remember, Mi 4i is the lightest phone so far with Xiaomi's launch in Singapore (it is even lighter than Redmi 2).
Weighing at 129g, 1g lighter than stated on their website.
Mi 4 is nearly 23g heavier than Mi 4i, but u can feel the weight difference.
With a lighter phone, you don't have to worry about weighing your pants down. Even though it maybe lighter, it does not feel like a toy phone, so that's a plus point for the phone (Not sure if it's gonna slip out of my butter fingers though). Besides the weight, the thickness of the Mi 4i wins over Mi 4, for it is thinner than Mi 4 by slightly a little.
Very slight difference in the thickness but Mi 4i is still the slimmer one!
The only thing that Mi 4 wins over Mi 4i is that it is smaller in width as Mi 4i is slightly wider as compared to Mi 4.
Slightly wider, maybe it's time to get a wider pocket for Mi 4i.
Mi 4i back casing is actually matt, hence, it doesn't feel slippery or fragile, as compared to Mi 4. In fact, Xiaomi Singapore had conducted a Mi 4i stress lab for their Mi fans on the 8th May. Highlights of the events were all posted here: http://c.mi.com/sg/thread-494-1-1.html.
It is interesting that Mi 4i is really stress resistance! :p I did have my fair share of stressing that poor little Mi 4i. Enough of the physical comparison of the phones, next I'm moving to the battery test, I can't say it is a fair test since my Mi 4 is a 3G set while Mi 4i is a dual sim 4G set. But at least both data SIMs are on Starhub (pretty fair in this sense). Also, I've reset my Mi 4 to Global stable ROM, factory reset, so Mi 4 is in the same state as Mi 4i. Apart from the fact that Mi 4 runs on KK based MIUI 6 while Mi 4i runs on Lollipop based MIUI 6.
Had to reboot two phones even though both had been charged till 100%, but because I've not reboot Mi 4 for more than 48hours. :p So reboot and these were the battery life of each of the phone.
Mi 4i takes a little longer to boot up, hence the time since boot up is shorter than Mi 4.
For this test, I've used Spotify to test on battery drainage, and also network connection.
SS to show that both phones are on the same playlist.
After 15 mins of playing on both phones, it doesn't seems to have any connection issue that's very severe, even during my trip on the mrt, under tunnel. :D But Mi 4i seems to drain a little more battery.
Mi 4i drained 1% more than Mi 4.
Most probably because Mi 4i is running on lollipop which results in higher battery drainage. So I decided to let both phones run on Spotify for the next 1 hour plus while I was doing something else. And I came back to check on the phones:
Both phones drained same percentage of battery juice in an hour plus.
Both Mi 4 and Mi 4i drained same percentage of battery juice and the temperature did not rise that much either. Both are still within the acceptable range of temperature, even though both phones may feel a little warm while using, but it's not a burning touch.
Being a fan of photo-taking, camera test is something I'm not gonna miss out. All settings are set as default, apart from the fact Mi 4i was set @ 16:9 and Mi 4 @ 4:3 for this shoot (my mistake for not checking). But the condition for the photos were the same. Orange warm light @ Swensens.
The colours of the nanoblocks looks pretty neat though in my opinion.
The colours look rather harsh here.
Base on the two photos, Mi 4 photo turned out better than Mi 4i, but Mi 4i seems to have cooler colours than Mi 4. I prefer the Mi 4 photo out of these two though, for I feel that Mi 4i didn't bring out the vibrant colours of the instagram nanoblock.
Next I set both phones to HDR normal mode, taking my favorite stuffs of all time, FOOD! Since yesterday was Mother's day, its time to feast (Secretly yay! to food)
Colours are rather dark though.
Colours here looks brighter and yummy!
Base on HDR normal mode, Mi 4i seems to bring out the colours of the food while Mi 4 seems to be darker in pictures. So both phones have their pros and cons, is how we adjust the focus point when we take photos.
Lastly I've created this video and tested the following:
* Boot up time/Loading time
* Gaming quality (Since on Xiaomi website, they boost that Mi 4i is adept at handling both everyday apps and intense 3D gaming)
* Sound quality (For it has smart PA)
* The battery drainage and temperature after gaming.
I've read through that there are heating issues with Mi 4i and I just had to test it myself.
Can't compare SD 801 and SD 615 second gen, as the loading speed and game frame rates will be slower for Mi 4i. But I am happy that indeed, Mi 4i is able to handle the graphics of hearthstone, and also inner world (not in the video) without any lagging. Besides the game frame rate, Mi 4i really lives up to its smart PA. In this video, the speaker of Mi 4i is technically covered, as it is at the back. But the sound quality and volumes is exactly the same as Mi 4, which has its speakers at the bottom of the phone (uncovered).
I've also tested playing games with the speaker uncovered for Mi 4i, and the verdict from my family members were that Mi 4i sounds louder and clearer than Mi 4 when I'm playing the exact same games on both phone. I ran the games at the same time for testing purposes. SO gamers, rejoice!!
And I do not experience any overheating issue as what some might have and there's no lag at all at this moment in time. Both Mi 4 and Mi 4i have the exact same apps installed so maybe a SD 615 second gen with a better GPU makes up for the lag in CPU? :D
Oh, another point to take note (probably some of you know this, but I kuku), you can use whatsapp on the non-data phone, but using the data of the other SIM card. Just a question that my friend asked yesterday so I tried it out today and it works (new discovery for me).
For a price of $279, you'll get a phone that has specs like this and able to do some serious gaming (for people like my brother), why not?
Had a chance to head down to Xiaomi Singapore office for a visit yesterday. And we managed to unbox a Mi 4i, which will be launched next Tuesday, 12 May, Noon. The set comes with the standard items, without earphones, as usual.
In this video, the set is a HK Mi 4i white 16GB set. And it comes with the UK adaptor right in the box, instead of the usual China two-pin adaptor. I hope that the Singapore set comes with the UK adaptor right in the package, this way, we can cut down on the number of boxes to one box, instead of a separate UK adaptor.
I have to admit, I have not look through the keynotes for Mi 4i, where Hugo presented this in India. :P But Louis, the product manager of Xiaomi Singapore told me that Mi 4i comes with Sunlight Display that is something new for all Xiaomi phones. I was WOW-ed by the function, even though it was not tested under strong sunlight, but it was still amazing to see it with my own eyes.
I video-ed down the process, we tested using Xiaomi's USB LED Light, acting as the "sunlight" source for this video.
I'm still in my WOW mood whenever I watch this video. *haha* It is amazing how technology advance and it is definitely a plus point for people who are frequently outdoors doing activities or work (like most sales and marketing personnel).
Another note is that Mi 4i is even lighter than Redmi 2 which is considered one of the lightest phone that Xiaomi has ever released in Singapore. Light-weight, great battery life, great visual settings, all for the price of $279 without contract. *WOW* 12 May please come quickly ~~~
I always have issue with dry and damaged hair. All started ever since I dying my hair like nearly 10 years ago, my hair hasn't been at its best stage. :( At times, it will get so dry that split ends appears and that annoys me much. So bad that I am afraid to use hair dyer to dry my hair.
I'm always searching for leave-on hair treatment that will repair my dry, flat hair that has split ends too. However, nothing much works well.
Shiseido came up with a new product, Tsubaki Hair Oil. This hair oil is formulated with high concentration of selected camellia oil to deeply protect, moisturise and repair your hair, resulting in a luxurious shine. Sounds amazing and I couldn't wait to give it a try.
Application of one side to show the results
I've decided to apply one side to compare if it looks better after applying. In the picture, you can see that the side without Tsubaki Hair Oil looks dry and damaged. The side with application of Tsubaki Hair Oil looks smoother. And the best part is, it doesn't leave any sticky or greasy feeling like most hair treatment products (countless products have this issue).
And even after applying the whole day, my hair doesn't get sticky or uncomfy. This product also protects my hair from UV rays damage while preventing split ends and hair breakage. This is a must in hair products as many of us miss out in protecting our hair from UV rays. We only remember our skin protection but not our hair. Time to keep up with the protection. *shivers from bad memories of head sunburn*
Tsubaki Hair Oil uses selected Camellia Oil, which has a elegant and indulgent scent of floral and green fruity notes. I like how my hair smells after applying. *sniff sniff* The Camellia Oil used is produced in the Goto Islands in Nagasaki, the perfect location for producing quality camellia oil thanks to the warm climate, fertile soils, and other favourable conditions.
This Camellia Oil have shininess, protective care, moisturising and repair effects. 4-in-1, which are things that we always lag in protecting our hair. And my hair does have that shiny effect even after 6 hours. I am happy to find this product before my big day this month, can't wait to have beautiful hair that doesn't look dry and dull all the time. Plus, my hair tends to get super flat in the afternoon when the weather is too humid. *gah*
Application of the hair oil is quite easy.
■How to apply evenly
To prevent irregular application, spread half the appropriate amount (about 20-cent coin size for mid- length hair) onto the palms and work through the hair. Then, spread the second half onto the palms and focus on areas that require extra application.
Abou 20-cent coin size on palm
Rub on palms first before applying
Work through the bottom of the hair, especially those split-ends
Spread the second half of the palm on areas that need extra applications.
■How to prevent flat hair
(Particularly recommendable to those who have soft and fine hair, like mine. I called it the stubborn hair)
Refrain from applying large amount inappropriately and unevenly. Start application from the damaged tips and gradually work upwards to the roots to avoid flat hair.
■How to reduce volume or prevent dry hair
(Particularly recommendable to those who have thick and voluminous hair)
Apply an appropriate amount to wet hair and dry it with a hair dryer. Then, spread a small amount onto the palms and apply on bottom half of the hair to reduce the volume.
Wanna know more updates from Tsubaki? Remember to like their facebook page to receive updates of their products !https://www.facebook.com/TsubakiSG And guess what? They are having a facebook contest, starting this Friday, 12th Sept. You May stand a chance to win a retail size Tsubaki Hair Oil!
As promised in my previous post on the Xiaomi Fan Meet that I would post up my interview with Hugo Barra and his unboxing of Redmi Note.
These videos has been posted up at the forum, so hahaa. Not very well done, but I've did my best as a first timer. And thank you Hugo and Nanana for their time to be interviewed by me. :p Enjoy.
Equipment used for all videos here: Lumix G2 (mine) Microphone: A cheap S$15 microphone. (FoliathR's)
Questions came up by FoliathR, Jack and Me.
Even though Vday has already passed, I believe some couples out there are still celebrating this special day. It is a day reserved for all guys and girls to express their love to their partners or their crush and also your friends and family. :D
This year, even though D didn't want to celebrate initially, I felt we still should since it would be my last celebration as Miss. We kept it simple, no flowers, no fancy restaurants or even presents. I've decided to plan this since he planned the vday last year. ^_^ So this year, I planned to have our celebration at Keppal Bay where we could enjoy the night sky and the lovely breeze from the sea.
We bought sushi, biscuits and beer but we forgot one thing. We forgot a mat sadly, so I sat on a plastic bag :P Lucky for us, there wasn't many couples there for many were out in fancy restaurants Q-ing up.
Our dinner (I was so hungry that I forgot to take photos of the kani onigiri and the salmon temaki):
It may not look fancy but it taste decent. (:
Since it was Vday, D made a exception for me to drink ~~ ♥
Double sided Eyelid tape (found on my sale section)
Maybelline Colorshow Crayon Khol Brown
Makemania Chip-Graduation Liner Brown
Etude House Styling Eyeliner 02 White
Etude House Blink Blink Eye Stick 01
Maybelline Rocket Volume Express
Model Co Fat Lash
Ayumi Hamasaki Natural Days Eyelash 01
Cheeks:
Majolic Majorca Puff de Cheeks R414
Canydoll Cheekcolor Strawberry Pink
Lips:
EOS Lip Balm
Revlon ColorBurst Matt Balm 230 Complex
Bellabox Pout Pencil
We stayed there for about an hour, but it was too windy for us. Lesson learnt, next time I will need a cardigan and mat if I ever go there again at night :D. Keppal Bay is indeed a lovely place to hangout, at night especially. But it is hard to access :(. I still love that place.
Even though this Valentines' Day may be a simple celebration, nothing beats having your loved one being there for you everything ♥♥. And I look very much forward to White Day (14 March) ^_^
Didn't get a chance to go since its opening last year and this year CNY break lasted for a week ^_^. So D and I took this opportunity to visit the S.E.A Aquarium on a weekday where based on assumption, it should be less crowded. :D And being my virgin trip to S.E.A Aquarium, I acted totally like a tourist, well-equipped with bottled water and camera. While its the second trip for D, it was his first time spending such long time
We got our tickets online to avoid queuing on the day itself and indeed that decision was correct. So we proceed right into the place and was greeted with different culture items at the entrance. And we took quite a number of photos, reading and understanding the exhibits since we had the whole day to spend there.
After going through the culture exhibits, we headed down to the main item for the day ~~~ The aquarium. Both D and I took our time to try out taking photos and testing out the different setting. He was using his Canon 60D while I brought my Olympus EPL3, not the best but we tried and learnt a lot about take aquarium photos.
Not going to post all the photos here, for the both of us took total of more than 1500 photos there and we spent nearly 6 hours at the S.E.A Aquarium. It was fun learning the different species for me and I have an expert (aka D) with me.
Some of the shots that day (after editing, coz most of the photos didn't turn out well)
Angel Fish, but ain't angel in character
Everyone's favorite nemo~~~
Jelly oh jellyfish ~~
The rest of the photos can be found here, in original format, coz I'm too lazy to edit every photo. *opps* (There's like 10GB worth of photos to look through, but not going to upload every single photo)
I will definitely visit the S.E.A Aquarium again when I gain more insights and skills in the art of taking aquarium photos. Good place to date the whole day too, apart from the price of the tickets and food, I think its a great place to spend time. How crowded is it during weekends I am not sure, but hopefully its still a great place to spend time. :D
I had been away for so long that I lost track of time. And today's the first day of December, time really flies that fast and soon 30 days left for year 2011. What have I done for the year 2011, gotta look back and think about it. So many things have happened and changed. Trying to juggle between work and study, trying to fit everything into schedule. Oh wells.... sometimes its either I'm too lazy or things just don't go the way I've planned.... no point pondering over what's done and gone.
One thing, I hadn't been into buying makeups is because my cabinet is bursting with stuffs and its time to use them all up before I purchase more new makeups. Plus I've got like 4 body lotion sitting on my desk, shouting "use me use me!" The only think I will ever need to restock will be my liquid eyeliner... *hahaha* Anyone who knows me should know that I use eyeliner like using pen. hahahaha. :x It is always running out of ink dry.
But Tooface Christmas items are too tempting. I'm still deciding should I get the face palette a not. Gotta think carefully will I fully use it a not too. I've been spending a lot ever since, but then its not ever since. Its always. hahaha. Using Iphone back then, I'm always looking out for cute casing for it. Now that I've got my playbook and BB 9900♥, that temptation has toned down, but I'm looking at the casing for 9900 :x it needs a new good case.
I think I will do a photo spam soon. I hadn't even spam up photos of my June trip -.-''' bday presents, events! AFA!!! I went for AFA on 12 Nov, with the aim to buy some Kamen Rider stuffs. I'll post my loots up later when I get home, I haven't even get it displayed out hahaha. :p But this year's AFA was not very awesome as I thought it would be. Oh wells, will do an individual post about it, along with the concert details. yesh, I went for the anicon on 12 nov. :p coz there was FLOW!!!!
I think I will have pretty much time to blog about things the next few days. Sadly I'm not going anywhere this time round. No money *ka-ching ka-ching*
Once again, GOODBYE November and HELLO December ~~
I'm back I'm back...... not for long I think.... hahahahah.... Ooppppxxxx If this will stay that long enough for me to be back... hahaha. Opps last post was in May, probably most the readers will just think chey, a dead blog anyways......
ok long post? I don't know but I know I'm spamming lots of photos from my recent trip to Melbourne!!!!! (: After the last winter trip to Japan in 2008, I was still wondering when is my next trip to a winter season. and ta-da!! Its Melbourne Winter trip!!! ♥ oh god I actually forgot that I can upload pics on my picasa. =.=''' silly old me.
This is at the Federation Square. I just love this arty farty place.... and its like I think we went back there for a few times, plus the visitor center is there. lovely place seriously and they have like music festival during the period that we went. (: Lovely jazz music that we managed to catch there live.
HAHAHA. when we saw this, first thing came to mind was Actually Cannot Make It. But actual name is actually, Australian Center for the Moving Image. hahahaha. :x I know, we are mean people.
The lego place. But we didn't go visit, coz need to pay and it was the first day in Melbourne. But it was interesting to look at the mini shop that was inside. Lots of lego stuffs and love the structures that they built out of them.
Ferries wheel with legos characters in it. ♥ so cute
Federation Square built out of Lego too.
Mini Melbourne. That was built in 2007, through a competition. Used about 15,000 pieces of lego. amazing seriously.
Ok took lots lots of random photos, with my baby G2 of coz. Bought it, so must fully utilize the camera. :D Basically we just stayed around the city area since we are kinda too lazy to plan out the trip so, the travel guide was the key the everything. hahahaha (: Went to Science Park, Chinatown, Queens Victoria Market, Immigration Museum, Eureka Skydeck, DFO and Old Melbourne Gaol...... I think that's about all??? With trips back to the same few places, hahaha. oh wells. its just hanging out in the city and loving the relaxing life.
I think I shall post up photos of kangaroos later. Went philip island to feed kangaroos, trying to spot Kola bears and also the penguin show~~~~ ♥♥♥ The penguins are soooo cuteeeeee!!! and whinnyyyyy.... hahahaha (:
