I remember years ago when I didn't need any connection when we went overseas. I basically just put my phone on flight mode and enjoyed the trip unplugged. No internet connection, sms, call, no nothing. Just me, my family, and our camera.
HOW??? HOW YOU TELL ME?? How did I survive then given that nowadays I'll be pissed and panicky if I can't get a connection within an hour of landing??!!
Ahh, it was such a simpler time then~
Last time I went to China, I used up my XL credit not realizing I hadn't signed up for their international package. Even worse, my dad DID sign up and the internet connection SUCKS BALLS!!! It took gazillion years just to open up google *rolls eyes*. Pretty expensive too wtf. I ended up begging for connection tethering from a friend cos he used Telkomsel*** (I think it was Simpati) and the connection was way better (still not fast, but after that stupid XL connection, it felt like lightning speed).
Anyway, the point is, I'm so dependant on internet connection now that I'll gladly resort to begging for one than be left unplugged for a whole day. Sad.
I want NEED to open up Township ok, which needs an internet connection. SO SO SO addicted to this game it's terrifying. It's the longest I've ever been stuck on a game I think (I'm easily bored you see), aside from Harvest Moon (PS 1, still play it until now on emulator from time to time), The Sims, and Pokemon (not GO!, but sapphire, diamond, etc. ones).
***He said the previous time he went to China, the connection from telkomsel also sucked, so maybe just cross your finger and hope that it's your lucky day.
If you think this is already a smug-angsty-adolescent look, you'd be wrong 'cos it's even more emo-juvenille shit now smh.
We're going to Gotemba today, which is the famous shopping outlet that tour agents always bring the tourists to.
But FIRST, LUNCH!
Group photo.
The bento set. Everything was decent. The star was actually the plum furikake (rice topping) they made in-house! You can buy the furikake on the first floor. They also have the unagi flavored one!
simple noodle soup (was it udon? can't remember. it's been 2 YEARS 😱 )
Haha, I found this sign to be freakingHILARIOUS!!!
I imagine me pooping and when I'm done I'd be standing up, taking a bow and be like "thank you all, thank you very much."
And the crowd would go wild and make a standing ovation applauding my excellent performance of successfully dropping a deuce and go "WOW such performance, such girth, such viscosity!" then proceed to exuberantly applaud me again.
hi.la.ri.ous.
I know, I'm so childish. and disgusting. And I put that horrendous image on your mind. HA!
I digress.
We went to Gotemba Premium Outlet after lunch.
The place is like an outdoor mall with strings of shops on either side of the main street. There are WEST and EAST parts (or was it north and south?) and both are connected by this bridge AND you can see Mount Fuji clearly from this bridge when the weather allows!!
Actually, if I remember correctly, you can see Mount Fuji from various parts of this outlet, so you can very well dine at one of the eatery there and have Mount Fuji as the view! Nice, yeah?
Random R2D2 (is it r2d2 tho? can't be bothered to check on google) lego
Adorable elderly woman with 3 equally adorable Shiba inus (I'm pretty sure it's Shiba inu, not Akita, after I googled them both, but cmiiw).
I feel like this will make me sound incredibly creepy, but I gotta say that I love love that auntie's face (like I said, creepy). She just has this nice demeanor face, you know? Like the sort that is super kind and trustworthy. The perfect grandma type. LOVE! Seeing her face makes me calm wth.
Also, pretty sure the auntie wasn't posing for the photo, it was just pure perfect timing.
Made it black and white so it seemed more artsy fartsy.
To the measly amount of guys who got lost and ended up on my blog, you're welcome. Adorbs tho, right?
The Mount Fuji from the bridge that I talked about earlier!
*insert a photo of me here because there hasn't been any in this post (except for the group photo, but that doesn't count!)*
*insert another one just to remind everyone that this is indeed my blog*
Anyway!
Behind me is this sushi place that serves OMFG AMAZING SUSHI!
It's called Uogashi!*read about it on cheeserland*
Even until now after another 2 trips to Japan, I still think this place serves the best and value-for-money sushi. Granted I've never tried like the Michelin sushi *shrugs*. Who would be willing to treat me to one?
Also, side note, missing my long hair, but at the same time, short hair is super duper convenient I feel like chopping my hair off every time it gets to shoulder-length. *sigh, the first-world dilemma is real guys*
The awesome awesome awesome sushi!! There were more, but they were repetitions.
The unagi seemed so plain, but it burst with flavor and oh-so-soft melt in your mouth. Ordered this twice or thrice I think. Even the simple Inari is damn good.
OH! OH! And it was my first time trying Aburi Engawa.. It was... nothing short of MAGICAL, to say the least.
I know, I'm so extra haha.
But it's true! It was a marvelous experience for a foodie *read: glutton* like me. Soft, melty fish that tastes so buttery and indulgent even though it was simply torched. It's like there's a lot of fat, so when torched, the fat melts and you get this oily (in a good way), buttery, rich taste (I don't know if it's true, it just tastes like it has a lot of fatty goodness).
Aburi engawa (along with unagi) is hands down my most favoritestesttesttest sushi ever! And maybe oo-toro too.
p.s. I don't like non-aburi engawa tho, it's too rubery/chewy for my liking.
Waiting/rest area. It has wi-fi I think. Even the bloody waiting room is damn cute like a kindergarten of sort!!
Locker in case you have luggage with you. And Gachapon!
Random shot of this clothing store I really liked. It's a local Japanese brand I think. They sell pastel, flowy, fluttery, girly, spring-ish type of clothing. Very lovely. I didn't get any tho 'cox it's too expensive for me.
I WANT!! So delicate and cute.
One of my fav vending machine drink, Royal Milk Tea.
Okay, abrupt end here. See you on the next one! WOOHOOO, Almost halfway done with this travelogue!
Whelp, more than half a year later and still no update. Just to clarify, I DID do the 2-weeks challenge! IN FACT, I'm still drinking DIVA every day till now. I just didn't update this blog, that's all.
This blog is so abandoned, I don't even blog unless I'm obligated to lol (like this post right here). Oh, well, at least I'm honest about it 😅
But I digress.
Where was I? Oh yeah, DIVA update. While I didn't do any update on this blog, I DID do a sorta-update on my youtube channel. *shameless plug incoming*
English channel
Bahasa channel
*ignore the stupid punchable face on the thumbnail, tyvm*
But that's about all the update I had. UNTIL NOW, that is. Because today I'm gonna do a proper update with BEFORE and AFTER photos too for good measure!
I know people love a before and after photos cos a photo speaks a thousand words, yes? Or maybe they just like looking at the horrible before photos~
Anyway! I'm gonna talk a bit about my skin and its woes first, yeah? So you can get the idea how this collagen drink has worked for me.
Here goes...
Growing up, I had no problem with acne whatsoever despite my oily-combination skin. Even through my pre-adolescent/adolescent years when most people would get horrid pimples all over the place, I only had one or two and far in between, and when it heals, it healed completely leaving no mark or scarring. I even had a friend commented how smooth my skin was *toot toot*. *ahem*
So I thought to myself,
"HOW LUCKY AM I???NO ACNE NO PIMPLES NO NOTHING. AND! my skin is not dry either. Smooth as a baby's butt. SO LUCKY!I MUST BE THE CHOSEN ONE!!! MUAHAHAHHAHA*evil laugh* Bow down to me you mere humans"hashtag #soblessed
Okay lah, I exaggerate the quote a bit, but you get the point. I thought I'll breeze through the worst pimple phase totally SCOT-FREE.
And BOY WAS I WRONG.
In 2011, when I was almost 17, I moved to Tangerang for university and this is where it all began...
*omg I feel so dramatic lol*
Maybe it's the pollution-heavy air, or the water, or maybe just my hormones getting all messed up a bit later than the others, I started getting pimples on my forehead, cheeks, and chin. And sometimes it's cystic acne and most of the time those damn cystic acnes would leave scarring.
It started very slow, so I wasn't too worried about it.
It was around 2013 when I felt like the acnes were getting a lot worse.
all photos in this entry are unedited and untouched, not even brightness & contrast edit, only cropping and collaging.
Consider yourself warnedlol
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HAHAHA WTF THIS PHOTO, and this is not even the worst one in this set. You're in for a treat guys if you want to see unglam, horrid photos of me.
This is circa MAY 2013. I think I still didn't do much in term of skin care at this point, just a simple acne cream.
AUGUST 2013
This is when I thought, "okay, this is the worst. I NEED to start a skin care routine."
Yup, I considered this extremely bad.
Oh, naive little ol' me, you're in for a surprise, my dear.
I started using some skin care stuff like essence, mud mask, serum etc. None really did wonders to my skin I reckon. In fact, my skin was just getting worse and worse...
NOVEMBER 2015
See? It's actually worse than before I started bothering with skin care. At this point, I got pimples ALL DAY ERR DAY and they were almost ALWAYS stupid cystic acnes and they ALWAYS ALWAYS left horrible box scars.
And surprise, surprise, this is NOT the worst one yet.
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The next one is.
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LO and BEHOLD...
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FEBRUARY 2016
HAHHAHAHAHA DOUBLEWTF THIS PHOTO.
There were AT LEAST 7 cystic acnes there. All stuck to one another creating humongous painful acnes.
*it's not super apparent in this photo because of the low light and low-quality front-camera. Believe it or not, it's much worse in real life*
What's with that dopey, stupid face some more?!
I don't even know why I'm willingly publishing this *ahem* personal *ahem* collection. I thought these abominations of photos would never see the light of day. You're welcome.
Anyway *ahem* *change topic I must*, it was around this time that I started using vita blanc. And it helped quite a bit. I didn't get cystic acne AS often and not ALL of the cystic acne left boxscaring, some were just hyperpigmentation.
JUNE 2016
It kinda looks worse, but it was actually getting better. All the redness were hyperpigmentation left by previous acnes. There wasn't as much active acne compared to the previous photo.
At this point, my problem with acnes were:
Frequent occurances of CYSTIC ACNE (it was lesser, but I still got it every week or so, worse during period)
BOXSCARRING. This is what I hate the most. The way my acne healed, it usually got dried out over time, and then it flaked itself off and almost always left a scar instead of just disappearing altogether, or just leaving hyperpigmentation at the very least.
I didn't really add any additional thing to my skin care until NOVEMBER 2016, which is when I started drinking DIVA, a collagen drink.
I wrote in great details on what DIVA is, its beneficial properties and what it SUPPOSEDto do in terms of improving your skin in my initial blog post.
So today I'm gonna share what it ACTUALLY has done to MY skin over the course of 9 months:
I DON'T really get cystic acne anymore. I do stil get them from time to time, but rarely, and by rarely I mean like not even once a month, they are very very far in between. Sometimes when I'm about to get my period, I'll get like one or two cystic acne or small pustule ones, but that's about it.
No more boxscarring. After drinking diva, I noticed that my acne heals by deflating instead of drying out. When the acnes are not drying out, they don't form crust and flake off leaving a scar. So my acnes are just deflating and disappearing when they heal. YAY!! Either that, or they left hyperpigmentations, which I'm okay with compared to scarring. At least hyperpigmentation will fade overtime.
I know, awesome, right? It works wonderfully for my acne problem, which is why I proceeded to buy more and more on my own when I ran out of the free sample given to me.
At one point, this whole shelf is FULL to the brim with DIVA and all bought on my own, not sponsored.
The only thing about collagen drink? It's not like a medicine one-time-fix-all. It's a constant nourishment and reparation of your skin, so...
You HAVE to keep drinking it forever and ever if you want to keep the effect.
This is WHY:
AUGUST 2017
I took this photo a couple days ago.
Sure, it's in no way flawless, I still have plenty of leftover box scars, but it IS better than the last photo by LEAPS AND BOUNDS, wouldn't you say?
I mean, LOOK AT THAT FOREHEAD!! No, not the size, I'm well aware that I have an airport landing as a forehead. I mean compare it to the acne and redness on the forehead in June 2016 please!!
BUT! This is actually not the best my skin has ever been after the whole acne saga. I kinda drank diva sporadically during May-July because I was traveling a lot a lot and I didn't bring any with me. During those 3 months, I started getting bad cystic acne again.
So, yes, it's NOT some miracle product that you can just take at one point in time and solve all your skin problems and that's it. You have to keep drinking it everyday. Think of it as a supplement for your skin. You have to take your supplements (e.g. calcium, etc etc) everyday forever and ever to keep having the benefit, right? Same goes with collagen drink.
I would say that this is the best my skin had ever been. Screen grabbed from my video because I don't have a photo of my skin during this time (tried to find a selfie, but I don't really take many selfies randomly so this screen grab will have to do). Please keep in mind that I have a ring light blasted in front of me, and the fact that it is a screen grab from a 1080p video, so the redness and scarring are blurred a bit and not as pronounced in this photo compared to if I'd just take a normal photo. Maybe I'd do another update with a good quality dslr photo next time.
Anyway, I drink diva diligently again starting late July, so my skin is getting better again. Like I said, it's not a miracle product, so even at its best, my skin was still far from flawless, but this drink does help me with my acne problem.
Now it's time for the shameless plug again where I'll offer you to buy this drink haha:
If you guys are interested in giving collagen drinks bandwagon a try, I honestly think Diva is a good start since it's quite affordable compared to other collagen drinks in the market. You can click HERE(*) to get it. You can also use the code "Lisa100" to get 100k off your purchase (min. purchase 300k).
Ok, bye for now xo. Let me know if you have any remedy for acne scars!
/*Post-notes: I know a lot of people will perceive this post as somehow biased given that it is sponsored. But please note that I ONLY talked about its wonder specifically for my cystic acne problem here, which is true and I showed you the photos as proof. However, It doesn't really help with my existing acne scarring (or at least not in a super significant way). So I don't want you guys to expect some sort of fix-'em-all product. Take everything with a grain of salt. This is how it has worked on MY skin. Maybe it won't be as much help for your acne, but it will make your skin baby smooth and lighten hyperpigmentation? Every skin care product works differently on every skin. I can't tell you HOW MANY raved products I've tried and been disappointed with. Anyway, at the end of the day, I'm still very thankful that I was introduced to this product last year and for its' help in controlling my incessant acne problem and I hope this article will aid you in making an informed decision before you jumped into the whole collagen drink bandwagon.*/
FTC Disclaimer: This is a sponsored blog post as a part of the collaboration between Diva and Sociolla. All opinion remains my own and honest, just like my other blog posts. I truly love Diva and do use it regularly. Link with (*) is an affiliate link.
Hi guys, I have another makeup tutorial. This one can last all night long and is quite bold, so it perfect for girls' night.
This blog post is actually a part of NIVEA double effect campaign to be a part of the video competition.
After trying out the makeup remover I gotta say that I honestly love it.
It’s ONE OF THE NICEST oil-based removers I’ve ever tried. I swear ✌🏼.
It can remove even THE heroine make volume & curl super-waterproof mascara COMPLETELY. If you’ve tried that particular heroine make mascara before, you know that while it’s an awesome mascara, it’s also such a pain in the butt to remove, even with oil-based remover (most of the time I just gave up and I’d wake up with panda eyes for the next 3 days lol). This remover does it effortlessly and in a 1-minute flat.
AND no need to rub you eyes roughly to get the make-up off, just gentle swipe is enough. That’s how powerful this remover is. Roughly tugging and rubbing your skin caused premature wrinkles btw.
The only thing though, it still left a bit of an oily residue on your skin despite the “non-oily” claim. I personally don’t mind it so much as long as it can remove waterproof shiz easily.
You can see in the following Instagram video of how powerful the remover is:
Disclaimer: Nivea products were sent to me for review purposes. I'm not paid to write this blogpost, however I am obligated to as a part of Sociolla Blogger Network.
