Holy grail item: Etude House nail polish remover

If you have been watching my recent YouTube videos, you would know that I have been obsessed with my Etude House nail polish remover recently.

I never thought that nail polish removers can vary so much until I tried this one. I did not buy mine myself, but a friend of mine bought it as a souvenir from Taiwan. Now that they opened a store in Hong Kong, we all know that's where I'm going to shop while I'm back.

Recently, I've been more and more into Asian beauty products. They match my skin tone better. It's funny how I was jealous of everyone in America who gets all the western brands of makeup, and now I appreciate Asian products more and more now that I'm not always in Asia.

Now back to the product itself. I have the regular nail polish remover from Etude House.

It's in a normal pink bottle. Nothing special. The first time I used it, I didn't expect much. However, it instantly took off my thick coated nail polish, and even my friend's glitter nail polish. If you are a nail polish person like myself, you would know that while glitter nail polish is gorgeous, it is a pain in the butt to take off. Hence this:

Anyways, this remover does the job easily. It does smell like any other nail polish remover would, and not healthy to sniff, but its effectiveness trumps everything.

It only costs HKD $15 and Removes nail polish with no other. I highly recommend everyone to try it out, it's worth the $15. 

Brand: Etude House

Product name: Nail Polish Remover

Price: HKD 15

Where to get it: Etude House stores

Rating: 4.5/5

If you have ever tried this nail polish, or anything from Etude House, leave a comment below! I've been shopping there lately while I still can in Hong Kong :P

xoxo

Washington DC

Date: 30 June - 9 July, 2013

This has been a summer full of travelling! Before I headed back to Hong Kong, I attended a medical forum in DC. Such a nerd. I know.

I was both excited and nervous about the program. Since I'm a passive and quite person, I was worried about making friends and being the dumbest person around crazy smart people. But I enjoyed myself a lot during those 10 days and made friends around the States, even around the world.

Lets not talk about the boring academics itself. We were allowed to walk around the DC area and Georgetown over the weekend. I visited the Smithsonians, national monuments and had fun just hanging out with my friends.

My favourite museum was the Museum of Natural History. As someone who loves animals, it was very fun to look at the different species represented in the museum. The funny thing is, since I just went to Kenya, every East African animal I see there is like déjà vu to me. "Oh. Saw that I'm the wild", "yep, that too. Oh and that...". The hope diamond was in itself a huge hype. People gather around just to take the perfect picture of it. The pictures can never represent the real beauty of it though.

Georgetown cupcake is DA BOMB. It might be because I was just recovering from being sick for at least a week, the cupcake I had was like heaven on earth. I got lava fudge, peanut butter fudge, and red velvet cupcakes. As I said, I should not be eating cupcakes when all I'm supposed to eat was plain white bread, so I gave the latter two away. The lava fudge though. Oh god. If you ever go to Georgetown, go get a cupcake from them. It was well worth the 20min I waited in line for them (there are way less people in the mornings FYI).

Through the forum, I learnt a lot and made a lot of good friends. I highly recommend joining a programme on something you really love. Go to dancing camp, go on service trips... Anything you want to do. Spend summer wisely, have fun, and use it as an excuse to travel!

Hope y'all are enjoying your summers!
Amanda

Kenya Trip

Date: 12-28 June, 2013

I can finally check Africa off my bucket list. To anyone who enjoys travelling as much as I do, I strongly recommend at least going to Africa once, and probably fall in love with the place like I did.

I decided to travel to Kenya with my school. It was an opportunity that I could not pass up. We stayed at Daraja Academy for 1 week, then we were on two safaris for the rest of the trip. There is so much I can talk about: the people, the landscape, the wildlife. I didn't know what I was expecting when I first signed up for the trip, but it was an adventure I will never forget.

Daraja Academy

Daraja Academy is an all-girls, boarding secondary school in Kenya "for girls with exceptional leadership skills, strong scores, and no financial means to continue their education past primary school". The girls, who come from all over Kenya and represent ~30 tribes, receive a full 4-year scholarship at the school.

My high school has been involved with the development of Daraja Academy for quite some years already. I have helped with fundraisers, but wasn't very committed to the cause. All this has changed since the trip. I can talk forever about my stay at Daraja, so here goes.

As a quite and shy person, I was overwhelmed by the girls attacking us with hugs. We arrived late, well past their lights out time (the school can only afford 4 hours of electricity every day), but they stayed up to welcome us. I was kind of freaked out by it, but it just shows how happy they were that we visited.

Throughout the week, we shadowed the girls, we tutored them, we did volunteer work around the campus, played many games, and went on field trips with them. But nothing beats the friendships we made during our stay. The girls are so open about themselves, and they are so genuine. Listening to their stories, I'm thankful that I'm so fortunate, but I also felt ashamed. The things they consider as luxuries, I take for granted (electricity, education, food, clean water, AC/heater...) since I grew up having so much more compared to most of them. However, this by no means make them any less happy or smart. They are wicked smart, and will definitely achieve their hopes and dreams

I have enjoyed every little bit of my stay at Daraja, and leaving was bittersweet. I will never forget the place, and I hope another opportunity will come by so they can come to me or I can go visit them again.

Connect with Daraja:
Official page | YouTube | Facebook | Twitter


Safari

After Daraja, the safari was a whole new world. As it is meant for tourists, the hotels were exceptional. It is both amazing and sad to see such a huge difference in the areas merely separated by fences. There are the hotels inside the national parks, then there are the villages outside the parks. The people with the money who spend thousands of dollars to see wild animals, and the people who run after tourists' buses just to try to earn a little bit by selling cheap products.

Lake Nakuru and Maasai Mara was another week of the trip. They are two very different habitats, so it was nice to be able to go to both and see the diversity in animals. My favourites were of course the big cats. I loved watching the lions and the cheetahs. Unfortunately, we were not lucky enough to see leopards (another excuse to go again!). Giraffes, wildebeasts, dik diks, zebras... There are too many animals to name!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

I greatly recommend travelling to Africa, both to actually experience (not only to know) the culture difference, and also to see animals in wildlife. Put "going to Africa" in your bucket list!

Nakupenda sana (I love you so much)!
Amanda

Two New Jewelry Designs!

Hey everyone!

Ok, here are my two new designs! I really like them! I'm currently obsessed with braided friendship bracelets!

This is a pink, yellow, orange, braided wrap bracelet :)

I love wrapped bracelet because they just, I guess, wrap around your wrist nicely.

It has texture and look like you paired a bunch of different bracelets together.

The charms are a ballerina, a heart, and an Eiffel Tower.

They match nice with the colors, and charms add interest instead of just a plain bracelet.

This is a very nautical inspired braided bracelet.

It has a white strand, a navy strand and gold chain braided together.

It's perfect for spring because the nautical trend is very in this season.

Not a lot of people put chains into braids, but I think it really adds texture and interest to it!

So I hope you enjoy these handmade jewelry posts. I love arts and craft and you can customize it to become your own!

Don't forget to subscribe to my beauty channel for more fashion tips!

xoxo,

Amanda