Personally for me, 2016 was a good year! We were healthy, and we took some fantastic vacations. But the world at large… yikes. I sincerely hope that 2017 will prove to be more stable and the everyday lives for more people will improve! Happy New Year, everyone! ❤
General
Merry Christmas!
Have yourself a Merry Christmas! I hope you were just a little bit naughty. 😉
Cruise Life – My Experience
So what’s it like to go on a 7-day cruise? I’ll admit that I’m not keen on all-inclusive resorts, or packaged vacations because I feel trapped. I do not like being herded around like cattle for meal time and activities. I know a lot of people who have gone on cruises and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, so we decided to give it a try.
We went on the ship Vision of the Sea, which is part of the “Vision” class of ships from Royal Caribbean. We chose the cruise line based on a lot of discussions with friends and the top 3 recommended cruise lines were Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian and Royal Caribbean. Celebrity Cruises was our top choice but it did not have any remaining sail dates for 2016 to the destinations we wanted.
I had jokingly said that I would name this post “Cruise Life for Type A Personalities” – I wouldn’t call myself a true “Type A” personality, but I do have some traits. It takes me a while to relax whenever we go on vacation. On a 7-day vacation, it probably takes me 2 days to stop pacing the hotel room, and then another 2 days to stop waking up at 6am. 😛 So how did I find cruise life?
Mediterranean Cruise – Trip Photos
Hey! I’m back from our cruise to the Mediterranean. 🙂 It was a fantastic trip! But I’ll start out with the not so good: our flight home from Venice was delayed by over 5 hours because of a careless remark by a fellow passenger. What was an otherwise seamless transport from sea to air was marred by what the captain of the flight called “an asinine comment”. Apparently during the check-in process, someone on our flight made a comment about airport security – we never found out who it was or what the person said or if the person was detained afterward. We were kept in the dark about the situation until after we reboarded the plane. We had all originally boarded the flight on time but the plane just sat on the tarmac for over an hour until we we told that due to a “technical issue”, we had to to take all of our stuff and deplane. Then we had to go through security screening again – we thought it was a mechanical issue with the plane so we all joked that we were going through screening again to provide us with “something to do” while they fixed the plane. They had one screening station for the entire flight! 😡 The Italian police and fire department were called and the cargo hold thoroughly checked. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 11:30am but we did not leave until close to 5pm. It wasn’t the worst thing by any means for us, we just got home later than we had anticipated. But for many fellow passengers who had connecting flights, they missed their flights and were put on the next available flight – some were rebooked for flights departing 2 days later! 😮 So, please please even if you think it’s a funny joke, don’t utter any comments about airport security while in the airport / airplane. They take this stuff seriously! 🙄 I said to the SO, “Imagine if this had happened when we were flying out to Venice and missed the cruise ship?” Ugh!
Now, with that out of the way, onward to the good stuff! 😛
Ciao!
I’m off on a Mediterranean cruise! 🙂
I will truly be unplugged so I won’t be updating the blog or posting social media for the duration of my trip. But I’ll be sure to share my experiences and photos once I’m back at the end of the month.
See you!
August Happiness Highlights
I saw this on Chanelle’s blog and I thought it was such a great idea that I decided to give it a whirl! This is quite a departure for me since it’s mostly non-beauty related discussion… here’s a glimpse into my everyday life. 🙂
Mon Aug 1 – Civic Holiday so a day off from work! I met with my friend from Newfoundland for lunch.
Tues Aug 2 – attended a MUJI open house event and got some stationery loot to play with! 😀
Wed Aug 3 – I had 5 meetings that spanned 7 hours, leaving me with 1 hour to do actual work – but the Happiness Highlight is that I got to eat my sushi lunch during a conference call.
Thurs Aug 4 – I got to pet 2 puppies in 2 separate puppy encounters. One was a French Bulldog, and the other was a poodle type and both tried to play with me by nipping at my hand with their sharp little teeth! 😛
Fri Aug 5 – went to MAC over lunch with coworker and she treated me to some eye shadows!
Sat Aug 6 – watched the new Jason Bourne movie, which was enjoyable (although the first one is still the best).
Sun Aug 7 – met up with Cat (my PLC!) to do Back to MAC! ❤
Back to School and Organizing with MUJI!
Yes, it’s a little sad to think, isn’t it… but Back to School is just around the corner! Even though I’m no longer in school (some days I think about how great it would be to be back in school, and then I remember the assignments and exams! 😛 ), I’m still a stationery fiend. I am that person at the office who will not lend out my pen because I know you will either 1) chew on it 2) not return it, or 3) lose it! 😡 So it was with excitement that I visited the MUJI Canada HQ once again, this time, to learn about their stationery and organizational products!
Behind the Scenes Tag
I was tagged by Robyn of Lipstick on the Lake! I love behind-the-scene stuff so I’m excited to do this. Thanks for tagging me to do this, Robyn! 🙂
Tag Questions
1) What camera do you use?
99% of the time, I use a point and shoot: Canon Powershot SX610
The 1% I will use my phone which is iPhone 5S (as evident in the Japan Makeup Shopping post for the in-store displays).
Happy Canada Day!
Canada turns 149 today! 🙂 I hope my fellow Canadians are enjoying the day off and the long weekend. I saw the below cartoon posted on Reddit just before the Brexit referendum, and it sums up Canada so well:
My background and header will have the Canadian maple leaf design for a bit in July to celebrate Canada! 😀
Happy Canada Day!
More Japan Trip: Food and Culture
Japan is such an interesting place to a foreigner like me. No matter what you hear about Japan in the media, it doesn’t prepare you for what the reality is. Here are some photos and observations I took note of during my trip.
Food
I had already been advised that sushi is not the mainstay food in Japan. In fact, I only ate sushi 3 times while I was there. The food we came across the most were:
• ramen
• donburi (beef rice bowls, think Yoshinoya)
• “curry” (which is like a brown gravy with a little bit of spice)
• tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet)
• yakitori (chicken skewers)
• tempura
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stash matters 