Interview guest post

Howdy!
We wrote our first guest post ever for my fellow blogger friend Kristin on her blog My life as a tea cup. It was great fun doing it and I hope you will have fun reading it too! Here's a snippet of the interview... hop over to Kristin's blog to see the whole thing and check out her wonderful recipes/work out tips/lovely web links.



Tell us a bit about yourselves! 

Erica: I’m Erica, the shorter one of The Bazinga Girls (believe it or not there is a whole-head-difference in our height haha). We love doing things together: shopping, doing masks, exploring new restaurants, giggling, imagining life stories of strangers etc.

Cora: I graduated in England two years ago with an accounting degree, now I'm back in Hong Kong working as an accountant. I love Hong Kong, but I do love England more: I think it was those years in England that inspired my passion about makeups and fashion (also got that from my sister), popping into Boots and Topshop (and looking at pretty girls in London) makes my day!! I love music, movies, yummy food; it takes so much pressure off doing something enjoyable after a hectic day at work.


I know you both love The Big Bang Theory :D – do you have a favorite episode? 

Erica: I don’t know! I refuse to choose. I love them all.

Cora: It's hard to pick one! Few favourites are: the one Sheldon got sick (penny singing "soft kitty"), the gang went on a quest to bust the guy who hacked into Sheldon's World of Warcraft account and the halloween special: the gang finally gets a chance to play pranks on Sheldon! 

(we love taking weird pictures!)

Thanks for reading and have a lovely weekend! I think I will practice sleeping these next two days :P

To all lovelies in Hong Kong:

Until this sat!! Be quick!!

Little something for summer

It's been a long long time since I last shopped at H&M, so I couldn't help but bought a few things there the other day - getting ready for summer!

Loving this minty colour (tiffany blue) at the moment. The spree started from a nail color, and then to a shirt, camera strap, clutch, and then now a hat.

A pair of basic colour sandal is a must-have for summer, agree?

Normally I would say this dress looks too old on me. But since this summer is all about 50s and patterns, I guess I wouldn't mind dressing up a little for an afternoon tea with the girls :D haha

This basic tunic caught my eyes in the shop with its little golden rhinestones sparking (literally!) under the spotlights! This can go with a lot of outfits, from formal to chic and casual - with a jacket on top or tucking in a pair of shorts (basically any colour) and you're good to go!

Hope you enjoyed this mini haul of mine... Ok, back to work tomorrow. Wish me luck!

- Cora

Sorry, I am back!

Hello people! Sorry for the disappearance last month, here are some recent updates about me which will explain why:

• Went to Taiwan in early March. My first time there and it was AMAZING. Nice food, bazaar shops and funny friends. 

• Lost my phone. I was completely devastated about it. Not the phone itself, but the photos taken over past few months. Now I learn the lesson not to be lazy about backups.

• I am assigned to work in a client’s office for about 2 months with another colleague, to take up the HR manager’s work until she’s back from her maternity leave. It is an internationally famous retail company (ok, it starts with a V), which tells you the amount of work and pressure we are experiencing. I am learning new things everyday, and I need to learn fast. So this whole thing totally drains me out. But, surprisingly, I think I am enjoying this experience - I see so much more from the HR perspective. I’m gonna share some interesting stories about this job at a later stage, but for the time being, god bless we will make this through!

Anyway, I will try to write if I haven’t used up all my energy from work haha. And oh, super congratz to Erica!! She’s finally got a permanent job which she truly enjoys! I’m so happy for you sweetie :D

Here are some photos from Taiwan taken with my camera (not everything though, most of the photos I had were in my lost phone):

Went to a really cute cafe to spend the first afternoon there..

On the way to Taipei 101...

Another cafe for afternoon dessert, after a tiring shopping spree. Things in Taiwan aren't exactly cheap in general (well.. cheaper than HK, so can't complain), but I'm happy to have bought a few goodies - those I know I'm going to use a lot and are unlikely to be found somewhere else.

 (My cute friend Lucia. And that's coffee in the bowl, french style!)

Spent a day in this fantastic hot-spring resort. I say fantastic because: a) free taxi picking us up from & back to city centre; b) we got to wear these cute japanese robe in the resort and we can pick the pattern we like; c) no time limit, you can literally spend a whole day there; d) it's only TW$1,000 (ard USD35)!!

And it's EEL time... Lucia was so so excited about bringing me to this restaurant which is famous for their eel. And it was indeed satisfying!! We waited about 30 mins for the cooking because it was made from fresh eel in the tank. And the amazing part was that, there are 4 ways to enjoy this eel rice:

1) normal eel rice 

2) mix with seaweed and seasoning

3) mix with soup (like a porridge), yum!!

4) mix with soft-boiled eggs

Definitely going back to Taiwan, for the food, for the clothes... 

(Bought these 2 goodies from night market, yay!!)

Everyone in Hong Kong is on such a holiday hyper mood, most of the people I know are going away for a whole week for Easter! Enjoy the vacation people!! Have a nice week!


- Cora xx

The Parisian (Part 3)

Our hotel room in Paris! We got the MJ room although I wanted the Lady Gaga one. Still super cool though haha :)

 

Hello people! Here's my last post on my adventure in Paris. One thing I really like about being in England is that it is sooooooo easy to travel around Europe! I can just hop on Eurostar and be in Paris in less than 2 hours. So if you are in Paris for just a weekend and don't really have a lot of time, be sure to check out these favorite tourist spots of mine (note they are all super busy touristy places so there is always going to be crowds and crowds of people!)

• ·         The Catacombs of Paris

A cemetery deep underground with the remains of millions of people. It feels surreal walking through this place so deeply embedded with history, right next to all the skulls and bones. Very chilly down there and can feel quite scary too. But it is just so special, I definitely recommend it. 

•  ·         Montparnasse Cemetery

This beautiful cemetery is very close to the Catacombs, so you can easily combine these two places into one trip. This is also very worth going because it is the resting place for many famous people: Durkheim (excuse my anthro roots…), Man Ray, Jean-Paul Sautre etc. 

 

• ·         Tour Eiffel

I like visiting the Eiffel Tower because I have many good memories there: visiting it for the first time with my parents, going there with my good friends from college, raining cats and dogs and hiding underneath it etc. However, as for tower visits, I’d recommend Tokyo Tower instead. There’s more going on in there and the view of Tokyo looks more impressive to me (excuse my city roots). Anyway it is always nice to go to the Tour Eiffel and get some pictures, just to reassure my touristy and Asian nature.

Finally something I wanted to share: I saw Chuck on TV when I was in Paris!! Made me super duper excited... I know I'm silly but couldn't help it!

 

Hope you enjoyed my little Paris guide! Stay tuned for the others coming soon: Barcelona, Dresden, Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong!!

Cora my lovely Bazinga Girl will be back from her trip in Taipei soon -- Come back for her adventure stories and photos!

e. xoxo

PIZZA!

We tried to make pizzas ourselves the other day and although we are amateurs, the pizzas turned out to be really yummy (again we are no picky eaters...)! So I thought I'd share how I made them here since there isn't anyone I know who doesn't like pizzas!

I was roughly following Jamie's recipe although most part of my pizza-making is more free style. But it's worth reading his cause it is very simple too!

Jamie's pizza dough:  http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pizza-recipes/pizza-dough

First, the DOUGH.

Ingredients for the Dough:

• 1kg plain flour (i used self-raising flour because of plain flour emergency haha! it worked well too)
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (this makes the dough taste really olivey and yummy!)

• two 8g sachets of yeast
• 650ml water

Put all these into a big mixing bowl, or on a clean table surface. Mix them all up and knead the dough. Usually I am not patient enough when I see food, so after kneading the dough I only leave it to set for about 20 minutes. But it is better if you leave more time (eg. 1 hour) for the yeast to do its trick and the dough to rise to twice its original size.

 

 

 Once it is ready, roll it out on a flat surface sprinkled with flour (to give the bottom more texture and to avoid sticking). Something to mention is that I used a coffee container as my roller here since I don’t have a proper one… it worked perfectly fine so I guess it’s ok to be creative haha.

  

Ingredients we put on our pizza:

• ·         Mushroom
• ·         Tuna
• ·         Sausage
• ·         Tomato (remove the gooey watery bits in the middle to avoid making the pizza soggy)
• ·         Black olives
• ·         Red onion
• ·         Red pepper
• ·         Ham
• ·         Pepperoni
• ·         Salami
• ·         Buffalo mozzarella
• ·         Sliced mozzarella

 

Smear the surface with lots of tomato puree. We put red pesto in one corner and it turned out great too. Then simply slice all the ingredients up and then spread them out on the pizza evenly, or in person-dedicated-quarters so you can have more of your favorite stuff. Shower the surface with cheese GENEROUSLY.

Put the tray of pizza into a pre-heated oven, leave it in there for about 20-30 minutes, depending on how thick your crust is. Right before serving, add some fresh rockets and basil leaves, they really do the trick. Tada… here’s our lovely homemade pizza!

With this amount of dough, we were able to make two huge square pizzas. It was great fun making these homemade pizzas cause the customized ingredients taste very fresh and yummy! And it really doesn’t take that long! Next time I’m going to make star-, heart-, bear-shaped pizzas topped with only olives and cheese!!

What’s your favorite pizza toppings?

e.
[how can it be snowing so hard when it's 6 degrees out?!?!??!]

The Parisian (Part 2)

FOOD TIME! I am totally in a food coma right now after the wonderful snack plate the Boy made me -- olives, jalapeno cheese, grapes, crackers, and sun-dried tomatoes... yum! 

Talking about food in Paris, crepes and steak are the two must eat for me. But of course there are also the wonderful desserts!

I love food and am not a picky eater. As long as something is pretty and yummy, then I am satisfied. Therefore my recommendations here are probably not the best you can find in Paris, but if you like cute little strawberry-shaped cakes, then you might want to try out the places I tell you about.

 

• ·         Laduree

One reason I like the idea of visiting Laduree so much is because of Gossip Girl. Remember that first episode of season 4 when Blair and Serena went to Paris? Laduree macarons. I have been to the Ladurees in New York, Tokyo, London, and Geneva, but none of them feels as special as the Paris one. Not because the food tastes better (told you I am not a picky eater), simply because I like the idea of experiencing the GG. You gotta admit the idea behind something is sometimes more important than the thingy itself haha.

• ·         Pierre Herme

Their macarons taste equally yummy to me, but it has a special place in my heart because this is where Chuck got the macarons for Blair in the last episode of season 2 (Blair in her bright green coat, ring any bell?)  All GG fans, you know where you have to go when you’re in Paris next.

(source)

• ·         Angelina

Their famous hot chocolate is really quite good, however it is not as thick as the one I had before in a small hut/café in Lausanne in Switzerland (sadly I can’t remember where that place is anymore). But Angelina has got a nice brunch set and the deco is pretty too, and it’s conveniently located close to the Louvre.  

TGIF! e. xoxo