DOG WALKERS

I found this in my mailbox today. So cute.

MY BIG LITTLE BROTHER IS BACK

My little brother has finally returned from his three months of internships and travels. I'm just so relieved that he has made it back in one piece. I am the one who found the internship for him and pushed him to do it. He says it is the best thing he has done in his life, so that's a relief. I was worried that if anything happened, it would be my fault. But now I can say, "I told you it would be good. I was right. And I am always right". Hahaha.

He arrived a couple of hours after midnight on my birthday. So today is like a welcome back party and a birthday party mixed together. Extra fun and extra food.

Speaking of food, my brother brought back a lot of food and a few little non-food things:

Mini flavoured vodka bottles from Poland. He could only bring in 1 litre of alcohol. The rest got confiscated apparently.

Handpainted and handmade pottery from Poland! 

Handmade colouring pencils from Poland.

Little Dutch shoe things.

Misc chocolates and sugary things from Germany, Poland, Belgium,  and Italy.

Today is a good day.
The plan is to be on a sugar-high all day.

COOKING WITH DOG

A while ago, I was over at a friend's house and we were discussing which Youtube channels we subscribed to.
I told her I subscribed to "Cooking With Dog".
And she was like, "What the heck is that?"

So I showed her.
Then she cracked up laughing, saying that this is so typical of me.
She said she could imagine me just sitting and watching this and smiling.

Well.

It's a middle aged Japanese lady who cooks nice food.
And she has a cute dog who hosts the show.
Most of the videos are under 7 minutes.
It's a very likeable channel.
Very watchable.

AMERICAN PSYCHO SCENE PARODY FOR HIPSTERS

Bahahaha. Denham has made an ad that parodies the business card scene in American Psycho.
So funny. 

This is the original scene:



And here is the parody "Denham Psycho":

SUNDAY MORNING FUNNESS

A friend went on a trip to Japan and bought me this architectural model building set!

It's so cute and Japanese. As you can see from the packaging, the scale of the models are 1:100. 

It's so detailed. There is an artist figurine and it has its own brush and palette. 

I substituted my Sunday morning meditation-time playing around with this, placing the models in different layouts, narrating the scene inside my head. It's like a doll-house set for adults. Maybe I will try changing the arrangement every Sunday.

Terada Mokei Architectural Model Accessories (www.teradamokei.jp)

They have such a huge range!

THIS IS A GOOD QUOTE

"Be kinder than necessary. You never know what someone is going through."

OH GOODIE!

I opened the freezer today and found a yogurt-suckie-tube-thing (which I put in the freezer a week ago).  
I had completely forgotten about it!  Now it's all frozen like frozen yogurt.
Yays.

I like it when I surprise myself. 

FAVOURITE STRANGER OF THE WEEK

Today I talked to a girl with pink hair.
She has earned the title of being my 'favourite stranger of the week' this week.

Reasons:

• She had pink hair
• She talked to me in a nice way

Now I want to have pink hair too.

LORDE

MORNING STROLLIN'

THE BRICKHOUSE CAFE

The Brickhouse Cafe makes magical Flat Whites.

The foamy bit at the top has the most amazing texture.

It's like drinking a mouthful of clouds + unicorn milk.  

I think I might just order a Fluffy instead of a Flat White next time.

I like being inside brick buildings. 

Especially orange-brick buildings.

I'm going to spend a lot of time this winter drinking cloudy-unicorn-milk inside this orange-brick building.

The Brickhouse Espresso Bar

86 Symonds St (It's just a little bit further up than Starbucks on the opposite side. Really worth the extra 2 min walk. I like Starbucks too though).

I wouldn't mind living upstairs. 

The entrance

The amazing Flat White

Cozy interior

Bricks!

The Brickhouse Espresso Bar (Only the right corner of the building is used as a cafe)

LIST OF TREES I WANT

A definitive list of trees and plants I want in my backyard when I grow old:

• pear tree
• peach tree
• lemon tree
• feijoa tree
• avocado tree
• hazelnut, almond, pistachio, macademia trees
• chestnut tree
• red grapefruit tree
• mandarin tree
• persimmon tree
• olive tree
• magnolia tree (this is not a food tree. Just for looking)
• golden ash tree (also for just for looking)
• black poui tree (also for looking)
• lavendar plant (for smelling and looking)
• maybe a rose bush, but not sure. They are a bit too mainstream.
• if possible, a watermelon plant

I'll probably have to live on some orchard when I am an old lady. That would work out well actually – because then I would be able to finally have miniature pigs as pets. They are so cute!

And if, by any chance I die young, I would like to be buried next to one of the non-food trees on this list. Or under an olive tree would be okay. But there would have to be a warning placed on the tree letting people know that there is a person buried under it. Oh, and under a pohutukawa tree would be good too, since it is illegal to cut down pohutukawa trees in NZ.


**Update**
I think being buried under a fruit tree will work out quite well actually. I will get lots of visits from birds. 

THINGS I LIKE THESE DAYS

I LOVE getting mail.

I got this letter this morning. Look at all the pretty stamps!

It travelled all the way from England. There's something about mail... it's a so much more labourious process compared to email. It makes it that much more special haha.

The content of this particular letter was not so interesting though. It was to confirm that my subscription for The Economist has been cancelled. 

The Economist is really good, but there is too much to read in one week. I feel really overwhelmed by all the things I need to know about. I just cannot keep up. I end up only reading the briefing section. Aaand it's very expensive. I will just read the briefing section using my 10-articles-per-week allowance on their website from now on. 

Oh, and recently I subscribed to get the NZ Herald delivered. It's so nice that they deliver 7 days a week. It's like getting a mini-present every morning.  It's so much nicer to physically flick through the pages than to scroll and click. Lots more pictures too. And, in the mornings I can now pretend I'm some cool character in a movie, drinking my tea and flicking through the newspaper. 

Also, the print version of the NZ Herald has way more interesting ads than the online version.

Another thing I like these days: pretty bandages!

Pretty bandages are so nice. I just want to wear them on my finger even though I don't have any cuts. 

They are at least 100 trillion times better and much superior to normal bandages in terms of how they make me feel. I wonder who came up with the idea of branded bandages. (It was probably some evil marketing genius with a PhD in the children's consumption patterns).

MAURICE WILLIAMSON: "RAINBOW ACROSS MY ELECTORATE"

This needs to be translated into Korean and played at my church.

I was not an active supporter of the bill nor was I against it. But all the gay-hate and anti-gay marriage fuss that they make at church really upsets me and makes me want to invite gay-rights activists to run a workshop or have the opportunity to explain their side/point of view at church.

AAAND EVEN MORE TEA

More tea...Changed to a bigger cup so I don't have to get up from my desk so often.
Must stop procrastinating.

MORE TEA

Yes, continuing on from last night. More tea.
But now, with soymilk.
Usually, the milkiness of my tea is directly proportional to the level of stress I am under.

Oh feijoas are so cute (and tasty). They are like little sweet jelly puddings, but nicer.

ERMAGERD STRESSSSSS

This is my 8th cup of tea today. 
Yes I am under a lot of stress at the moment. 
Tea calms me down.
But still...
Errrrrmagerrrrrrrrrrrrrrd.

BRUNCHING

Had brunch at Quay Street Cafe.
Brunch is such a lovely, enjoyable thing.

Eating well presented food at a convenient time of the day. 

Oh, the Pomegranate Oolong tea here nice. It has a sweet fragrance and is comforting.

Quay Street Cafe

130 Quay St (Enter from the corner of Tyler St and Gore St)

http://www.quaystreetcafe.co.nz/

I had the Spicy red lentils with soft boiled eggs and yogurt. It was yum. It's like dahl/curry in a flashy bowl with a naan-like flatbread and other things placed in a careful, thoughtful composition haha. 

JUST STROLLING AROUND THE CBD

HOW TO BUY HAPPINESS

Step 1. Walk on down to The Store (address below)
Step 2. Ask for a scoop of Lemoncurd Yogurt gelato.

I did this today.
Ohmygosh.
Lemoncurd Yogurt gelato. 
Oh yum. 
It was perfect.

Like Silo Park on Friday nights, this is cafe is full of hipsters and other well-dressed people who seem to have a lot of cultural capital (and also a lot of capital in general).

Great food, nice design, and good vibes! The Store is a store of happiness.

The Store

5B Gore Street, Auckland (The Pavilions at Britomart)

Open Mon - Sun, 6.30am til 3pm

The gelato was served in these environmentally-friendly-looking paper cups with cute wooden spoons that looked similar to WASARA's range of biodegradable tableware.