Blogger Nail Spa Event at Shi Nail! [pic heavy!!]

From left to right: Emily from Rites of Beauty, Christine from Emicably Yours, Yvonne from Oh So Vonnie, Christine from MACnunu, Alison from Alison-elle, Jordana from Being High Maintenance, not Bitchy, and Moi!

I organized another blogger event which took place last week! We wanted a day of pampering and relaxation so we decided to hit up Shi Nail to get treatments for our hands and feet. Do feel free to visit the blogs of the other girls for their reviews of their respective treatment and experience.

I asked to get the paraffin foot treatment with an added foot scrub because my feet were looking dry and cracked for the winter. I sat in one of the pod-like things you will see in the photos below. It was actually a massage chair so I conveniently got my back massaged at the same time. My feet were first immersed in some warm water for a little bit and then they used a papaya scrub on my feet and lower calf with a bit of a massage. The massage felt very good and exactly what I needed; the scrub smelled absolutely delicious and created the perfect atmosphere. The scrub was then rinsed off, my feet dried, and then my feet were put into plastic baggies containing hot paraffin wax. The heat from the paraffin wax felt amazing on my skin! My feet were then put into socks made with cotton towel and I was left to relax. Twenty minutes later, the wax was peeled off and what was left was super smooth, moisturized feet. They would then leave you in the chair to let the leftover oils from the paraffin absorb and in the meantime you can surf the internet in the netbook that they provide for each of the chairs. The price of the paraffin treatment for my feet was $15 plus an additional $5 for the scrub.

Some general things I was impressed about when I received my treatment as well as in watching others getting their treatment:

• We were provided with water as soon as we arrived
• You could not smell anything chemical like inside the spa because of their amazing air filtration system. Some people were getting gel nails done and others polish work, but you couldn’t smell a thing.
• The girls were all super attentive to detail. I will post up photos of their work near the bottom and we were all amazed.
• The place was super clean and every measure of sanitation is taken. The foot tubs that are used to soak feet are all covered in a plastic cover that can be changed out and towels are washed, clean and fresh for each treatment.

I mostly enjoyed my service; the hot wax felt great on my skin and the massage was also very nicely done. The only thing that needed improvement was that the water could have been warmer. I shower with crazy hot water so I like the feeling of hot water on my skin, especially in the winter. The water they used was lukewarm, which I wasn’t too fond of. Also I felt like my foot could have soaked in the water for a little while longer before they started the scrub because they started scrubbing pretty much right away and at the time the top layer of my skin hasn’t softened fully yet to get the most effective scrub. Other than those things, I felt the service was very attentive and the staff were very friendly. Thus I still recommend that you visit Shi Nail!

Shi Nail
Unit 115, 8033 Saba Road
Richmond, BC

You can make reservations by calling (604) 273-5888.

Here are some photos from my treatment. Sorry there aren’t that many because it’s hard taking photos of myself sitting in the chair, haha.

Click to see more photos of everyone getting their treatments

Calling all Vancouverites!

Interested in a meetup?

Vancouver Bloggers Meetup!

I had so much fun meeting bloggers in London that I really want to do one back home in Vancouver! You don’t have to be a blogger in order to join us, but hopefully you do have an interest in beauty/fashion in some form so it won’t be completely random.

Date: (tentatively) Saturday, August 14, 2010

Time: 12:00PM

Activity: Lunch at TBA (Please let me know if you have any restaurant preferences!) and then product swap! Bring your new or used products for swap or giveaway at this event, its a perfect opportunity to get rid of some beauty buildup or maybe try some new products. Shopping is an option afterwards as well.

More info will come later, but if you are interested, please comment on this post with a valid e-mail address and I will get back to you with more info when the time comes! I’ll be posting a event invitation and bumping this post up for you to RSVP when the date comes closer.

If you are a Vancouver blogger and think there will be other Vancouver bloggers who might be interested, please feel free to repost this information on your own blogs but also link them back to here so I can tally up the number of people interested and then make all the reservations for lunch.

P.S. If you’re thinking of visiting Vancouver during the month of August and want to meet up with me, I am available as well! It doesn’t have to be during the actual blogger meetup, just let me know when you’re coming and I can take you around =)

Let me know!

Willkommen in Wien!

After Prague, we took a train to Vienna. We were only to be in Vienna for a day and a half so we tried to make good use of the time. On the first day, we went to the Schloss Schonbrunn, which is Schonbrunn Palace, basically the summer vacation spot of the Habsburg family. Pictures were not allowed inside, but we took a few outside =) Above is me with Kathleen and Alex, both Queen’s Commies like me.

There was another Easter Market taking place just in front of the palace. They sold traditional Viennese food, but I didn’t buy anything as we were going to eat dinner soon.

Random shot of Coca-Cola. If you know me well, you know that I only drink Coke, never Pepsi. I just don’t like the taste of Pepsi, Coke is much better *insert advertisement*.

For dinner, we had the traditional Viennese Schnitzel (aka Wiener Schnitzel). It was pretty good, but somewhat dry…

Desert was, of course, Apple Strudel.

That night we had tickets to go see a ballet at the Staatsoper, which is the State Opera House.

We saw a Midsummer’s Night Dream. It was pretty good apart from the fact that our tickets were only 8 euros so our seats were complete nosebleed seats…

Me with my ticket!

Entrance! There were a ton of people, a full house actually, which was expected of shows like this. Sadly, most people we saw were dressed up, we were definitely not.

We sat to the very side, and in the back too, so the stage was only half visible…

Alex and Yiran.

Inside the hall.

The next morning, I was scheduled to meet Jess around noon for lunch, so before then we just went for a stroll. If you know Vienna, you know that it is a very musical city with a lot of very famous musicians who resided and worked there. We saw random stars on the sidewalks with famous musician names and autographs. Here is Bach…

And Schubert. Sadly, I did not run in Mozart, who is one of my all-time favourite composers.

The beautiful streets of Vienna. It reminds me a lot of London, actually.

After lunch with Jess at a Japanese restaurant (I had just had Schnitzel the night before, and Jess didn’t want me to overeat it, since it wasn’t very healthy and quite dry, LOL), we went to Stephansplatz for some shopping and a little bit of sightseeing, but mostly shopping. Jess took me to this pretty store that sold cosmetics and skincare and we were in there for about an hour swatching everything and checking everything out. I ended up with 2 things, the Chanel Chance Eau Tendre EDT and a Diorsnow White Reveal D-NA Reverse Intensive Concentrate for night.

We also went to St. Stephan’s Cathedral (aka Stephansdom) for some pictures, just to say I went XD

Inside Stephansdom was mostly like other cathedrals. Dark and very intricately carved out.

It was SO sunny that day, like really bright and pretty.

Stephansplatz is very touristy, everywhere we saw mostly tourists, not many locals at all.

Jess was very gracious and offered to take lots of pictures of me, danke Jess!!

We saw these random guys in old fashioned costumes promoting operas, ballets and symphonies. It was pretty cute actually XD

After Stephansdom, we went for afternoon tea at this really famous place near the cathedral. Jess is so gorgeous!!

I had some Viennese coffee, it was pretty good!

We also had some cream cake, no idea what its called, but it was really good, soft and fluffy =D

And chestnut cake too!

Jess had some tea, it was really cutely set up with various instruments to make the perfect cup of tea. This looks even more complicated than tea in London…

Me in the cafe, it was a really nice cosy cafe with many people just lounging around and talking.

All gone! It was really good, better than tea in England I must say, haha =P

After tea, we shopped around some more, looked at more makeup and then went off to meet the rest of my travel buddies and her boyfriend for dinner. She took us to this local joint that served authentic Viennese food. I had the HUGE piece of turkey stuffed with cheese and ham, it was SO good. Plus there was authentic Viennese salad, which is probably one of the best salads I’ve ever had, everyone loved it.

Our food table. All of the servings were ginormous. It wasn’t very expensive either, like maybe 12-14 euros for food + drink. I didn’t even finish my portion, only had half.

That was the last night in Vienna. After dinner, we left on an overnight trip to Zurich. Pictures of Zurich, Interlaken and other randoms will come later after I manage to snatch some photos from my friend’s camera…

Jess was super generous and gifted me with lots of goodies! I felt so bad because I didn’t bring her anything since I was trying to travel light… I know I’m such a bad friend. I’ve already sent a small pack of stuff, hopefully she got it okay, and more will be coming her way soon, muahahaha.

Short update calling out to European bloggers!

(image from Google)

Starting on the 27th, I’ll be once again on the road! I’m going to a few more cities in Central Europe for a week with a short stop in London before that to meet up with some blogger babes.

My schedule…

March 27 – London
March 28 to 31 – Prague
March 31 to April 1 – Vienna
April 2 to April 3 – Zurich
April 4 – Interlaken

Please let me know if you’re going to be in any of these cities during those dates and might want to meet up with good ol’ me. I’ve already planned a meetup with Jess, so if anyone wants to join us or meet me some other time, please let me know ASAP!

Hope to hear back from you!

Proud to be Canadian! + Beauty Blogger meetups!

Canada won gold against the Americans in men’s ice hockey yesterday. Even though I was all the way here in England, I still stood by my computer and watched the entire game from start to finish (via BBC Sports). Even though I knew by following the official Vancouver 2010 Ice Hockey page that Sidney Crosby had scored the OT goal before I actually saw it (because BBC Sports live streaming has about a minute’s lag), I was still filled with ecstasy when I saw the puck zoom into the net in front of my eyes. I think at that moment, all of Canada was at its peak of nationalism. I am proud to say that I am proud to be Canadian!

At the Winter 2010 games, Canada has also won more gold medals than any other nation in participation with 14 in total. I’m actually surprised China comes within the top 8 of medals won because they’re more of a summer sport country than winter sport. If you can remember from the Summer 2008 games in Beijing, China won something like 50+ gold medals.

Anyways, now that the Olympics are over… I can grab some Olympics gear (like that Quatchi plush I’ve been lemming over for the past like 3 years, or something with Mukmuk on it).

On a different note, I was in London again this weekend for a London Beauty Bloggers meetup! I met up with Liz, Eve, Yinnie and Jennifer at Eve’s place in West London for a nice hot pot dinner. I think that was probably the best meal I’ve had in a long time. Thank you so much Eve for hosting the event! Liz brought her famous Malteser cake and Yinnie bought some macarons from the Pierre Herme at Selfridges, and we all brought stuff to do a beauty swap for after dinner. I didn’t have much to swap out because I left most of my makeup in Canada, but I came back to res with tons of goodies. Thank you to everyone for being so generous! I had a ton of fun, and hope we can meet up again before I leave =)

Speaking of meetups, I’ve been increasingly aware of more and more beauty bloggers, or just bloggers in general from the Greater Vancouver region. I’ve been slightly oblivious of this before, but now that I know… I want to host a meetup when I get back in August. Its coincidentally the most beautiful time of the year in Vancouver as well so I’m sure everyone wants an excuse to get out some more before the rainy season hits us again in September. More information to come as the date creeps closer =)