My 23rd Birthday: Dinner Buffet at Café Too, Island Shangri-la

After an afternoon at Café Hillywood, Jason and I went shopping in Cotton On (I spent $400 in just half an hour - oops!) then suddenly it was time for my birthday dinner buffet at Café Too at the Island Shangri-la. The decision to celebrate with a buffet, as we did last year for my 22nd birthday, was super last minute. Yep, Jason booked the dinner less than 24 hours before we actually went, haha. I didn't really have a preference for my birthday celebration and honestly I would've been fine with a simple dinner - but hey, since he suggested a buffet, why the hell not?

This was actually my third time having Island Shangri-la's buffet, surprisingly! Though it was my first time trying their dinner offers. My first experience there was for its Christmas Eve lunch buffet in 2013, which was bombass. The second was to celebrate surviving my Architecture degree half a year later, again for their lunch buffet. I honestly think Café Too has the biggest range of choices. They did not disappoint this time too. Much, much better than The Excelsior's buffet (which was probably the worst I've had)!

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Darren Almond: Time and Being at White Cube

A huge number of people were uploading Instagram pictures with the location tag at White Cube lately, and all of these pictures were of themselves in a plain, minimalist space. Obviously, judging by these photos and the type of people posting them, they were not there to admire Darren Almond's first exhibition in Hong Kong, Time and Being, but rather because they just want to take pretty pictures of themselves. I say that with no sarcasm, by the way. And I will be the first to admit that although I love art and architecture, having studied both, sometimes I just feel narcissistic. So I dressed to match the white gallery space (I love it!) and basically forced Jason to be my photographer.

We also stopped by PMQ and then Pressed Juices, where I got a green juice. It was also the weekend before International Women's Day and when we got to Causeway Bay, Lancôme was doing a promotion where if you sampled their lipstick, then they'll donate to charity. And... they'll also give you pink balloons and roses. It was a nice gesture, and although I wiped the shocking pink lipstick off almost right after (I really don't like make-up!), I was totally sold by the balloons and rose LOL. We ended the night with dinner at Elephant Grounds - the last time I was there was back when the Causeway Bay branch was still in its soft opening phase!

Oh, and by the way: you can totally look younger with a cap. I went to buy the Mark 6 in this outfit and the woman behind the counter asked if I was 18 yet. Yeah, I wish. Sadly I'm turning 23 in April - sad times.

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Hong Kong Design Institute

Another day without planning! Every weekend, I'd usually mention a café I wanted to try, but for some reason I wasn't feeling it much in particular yesterday. It was already the afternoon when Jason and I met up, so we randomly decided to visit the Hong Kong Design Institute which had some exhibitions I'd been meaning to see for a while. We not only checked out two exhibitions: Weingart Typography and Urban Regeneration - Past, Present and Future, but we also looked at the architecture of the school. Afterwards, we went for a drink (non-alcoholic of course) at The Brewed Vena, a nearby café on my to-do-list!

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Valentine's Day 2016: Coffee Jobs, Be Tabula Rasa Studio & Deadpool

Writing this, I'm very tempted to break this up into three separate posts. We went to quite a couple of spots (especially my new 2016 favourite activity, if you haven't yet noticed - going to little cafés!) that I think deserve their own post. But alas, this is supposed to be a post on Valentine's Day. I was quite curious on how I spent this day in 2014 and 2015 so I decided to look back - man, really feels like a lifetime ago!

This special Sunday, Jason and I had no specific plans. We actually never do, haha, except last year I guess, when we rent a game room in Kwun Tong for the sole purpose of cooking dinner together. And it was only because our homes are never free (both his Mum and my Mum don't work, so they're home 24/7). This year, we started off with a delicious and photogenic lunch at Coffee Jobs!

And guess what, Jason got me a broccoli bouquet! I'd been requesting/hinting at one for ages, and he actually bought the vegetables in the morning and made it for me! I love it so much, hehe, I even cooked the broccoli and asparagus for lunch the next day. :D

After a quick lunch, we detoured to Sham Shui Po to go to Be Tabula Rasa Studio, a little dried-flower workshop cum café. It's definitely a hidden oasis in the busy streets, and if it hadn't gained fame on social media no one would stumble across it with its location in one of the upstairs room of a sketchy, crumbling building. It was such a chill environment, with three fat cats roaming around at their own freewill and the cutest sleeping hedgehog ever! They serve snacks which you don't even have to pay for (but of course everyone just makes a little donation) but we just had a drink. We couldn't spend much time there though cos around 6PM we had to catch Deadpool back in Admiralty!

Deadpool was out of my expectations. I'm not a movie person - I can't sit still for more than 30 minutes - but it was super funny and I actually didn't get bored at all throughout the movie. I liked that it didn't drag on. Anyway, the reason we bought tickets in Admiralty was cos we'd planned to have dinner at McDonald's (I know LOL, McDonald's on Valentine's Day?) but it turned out hella full! No seats at all! In the end we randomly went to Oolaa Petite on Star Street. I was quite disappointed cos I really craved McDonald's... but the food we had was super yummy too.

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