Bali Culinary : Dirty Duck Diner

When I was in Bali, I had a great lunch at Dirty Duck Diner. It’s a very nice place to relax and enjoy your leisure time. It has garden with many sculptures and koi ponds. The back view is a paddy field.

paddy field

dirty duck diner statue

flowers and pond

komodo statue

praying monument

As you may know, most of Balinese are Hindus, which means they don’t eat beef. Most of foods are made of pork, chicken, or duck. Me, I don’t eat red meat, including pork (some people said that pork isn’t red meat – it’s pink), shark, or whale. I prefer fish but chicken is great too.

chicken pelalah

So I ordered this Chicken Pelalah and Mixed Rice in Dirty Duck Style. Seems like Chicken Pelalah is very spicy with red sauce all over the chicken and I rate the spiciness with 7. And for the Mixed Rice, it was delicious too after I put sambal (chili sauce) on it. They serve with 3 kinds of sambals : raw, salty, and oily. All of those sambals are taste so good.

mixed rice a la dirty duck

With those foods, I ordered two drinks. Lime juice which was so fresh and sour (didn’t put much sugar to it). And this ice lemon honey lemon grass soda tasted so perfect that day.

lime juice and ice lemon honey lemon grass

Where have I been last week...

Hello, I’m back. Sorry for not posting any story in the last week. I went on business trip to Bali. I know, Bali means vacation, but I really went there for business purpose.

But yeah, of course, I extended my stay and had a little not-business-trip. I went to Seminyak and Ubud in Bali to give my eyes some refreshment. FYI, Seminyak and Ubud are about 1 hour distance one to another but both are well known as art village in Bali.

Unfortunately, art market in Ubud are closed due to renovation but there are still other enticing places in Ubud to explore.

paintings...

lots of paintings...

this tree bears monkeys...

clothes. see a face?

store in an alley.

in the end of the store, there's a bungalow.

colorful bags.

Old Pictures

     Found a flash drive I used in college. Instead of research scrap, pictures take most of the capacity. I played with those pictures and here are the results. These are how I looked few years ago. It's funny to see how much I've changed.

Peace. Early 2009.

Bitten by Alice Cullen. Late 2008.

Lost this sunnies at school. Early 2008.

Longest hair I had in the last six years. Late 2007.

And this is my pick today :
- top by alexapopwear.com
- Gabor boots
- Zara bag
- Forever 21 bangles set
- alexapopwear.com necklace set

raccoon eyes.

Makeup Lessons

I like makeup. I think makeup is fun. With makeup I can make myself look like anything I want. Right makeup plus right clothes are important to me.

It took years and years of trial and error to know what looks good on my face and what makes me look like a walking mistake. Looking back I’ve had some pretty disastrous makeup moments that I have comprised into my top 5 makeup regrets.

1. Glitter eye shadow makes me look like a drag queen in a carnival. When I was in junior high, I thought it was hot and I looked like a pop star. Fortunately, cell phone didn’t have camera back then. 

if you cannot make this, glitter eye shadow is not a choice.

2. Chapped lips aren’t cool. I used to spend 30 minutes to draw eyebrows, 20 to apply eyeliners, and 5 for moisturizer. So I didn’t have time to care about my lips. And I didn’t like my lips back then. I thought they were NOT sexy because they were thick but not shaped like Angelina Jolie’s. I didn’t even apply lip balm. 

chapped vs. healthy lips.

3. Eye makeup base is incredibly important. Few years back, I didn't applied smoky eyes everyday (Yes, now I have them every single day) so I didn't really care about eye makeup base. Then one hot sunny day, I felt itchy in my eyelids. When I looked in the mirror, my eyelids were like soil after hurricane strikes. Awful. 

perfect eye makeup needs eye makeup base.

4. Always get the right bronzer for your skin. I have a bright skin tone, my face and my hands have the (pretty much) same tone. I know so many girls are trying (too) hard to get what I have. Sometimes I just want to look more tan because tan is sexy (but maybe not for some people). And after watched Resident Evil, I finally bought my first bronzer.

First mistake here, I bought a bronzer with 3 levels darker than my natural skin tone. My hands looked paler than my face (weird #1). Second, I thought bronzer can replace moisturizer (Now I realize how stupid I was). I just applied it (large amount) with my bare hands and didn’t really blend it. It was awful and too fake. I was an Asian girl with pale hands and blotchy face (weird #2). Third, I didn’t apply powder at all. I think everybody can see the bronzer particles from miles away (weird #3). 

without bronzer, and with the right bronzer.

Last but not least...

5. Super thin eyebrows with the color much lighter than your natural hair is NOT hot. In the first year I applied eyebrows, all I could do was draw a thin line with sharp arch using light brown eyebrows pencil. My mistake #1 : I thought if I use light brown color, it wouldn’t be so obvious that I applied them. The right thing is chose 1 tone darker than your natural hair color if you're blonde. If you're brunette choose 1 tone lighter. Mistake #2 : Just draw a line without feathery strokes (and sometimes not in the same direction as hair growth) made my eyebrows too fake.  Feathery strokes seems hard to make, but trust me it's fun and works like stress reliever. Mistake #3 : I didn’t softened and blended pointy edges and it added more years to my face. Mistake #4 : I only applied super short tail. Some people (Yes, Rooney Mara!) looks super cool with short tail eyebrows, but not me. I looked like an evil witch in horror movies. Lesson from 4 mistakes : finding the perfect eyebrows for your face and drawing eyebrows isn’t easy. Experiment and more practice, it’s not too late to find the best. 

perfect eye brows and disaster ones.

Anyway, this is my pick for today :

- capuchon by alexapopwear.com

- Gabor boots

- Longchamp bag

- Rayban sunnies

The very first step

     I’m very excited to start this fashion blog. I wanted to start one for so long time, but always put it off because of my schedule, little things that bothered me big, and of course I think too much –like what to say, who will read, what will happen, etc.

     Then so many reasons to start came and I thought now's the right time. So, here I am. Having this first blog posted with pictures of me. I hope everyone will enjoy and keep reading my next posts too.

What I’m wearing:
 
- dress by alexapopwear.com 
- Fossil bag 
- Nine West shoes

I love the color, the print, and of course the embellishment of this dress.

Fossil bag, got this around last year.

Nine West shoes, comfortable and fits perfectly.

pocket!!

Necklace-like embellishment, so cute!