Pen Japan First Shipment!!! - May 2014

Hi guys!

In case you didn't know and may be interested Candy Japan have launched a sister subscription service call Pen Japan.

Basically this service costs $14.95 USD per month (free shipping!!) to recieve 2-4 pieces of stationery from Japan which come in the regular envelope that the Candy Japan shipments come in.

I decided that I wanted to try this for 3 months to see if I should continue or not so I subscribed.

Here is what I received for the very first shipment of Pen Japan:

The envelope it came in 

All together I received 3 items: Sticky note marker, penguin stamp and a gold stamp pad

I didn't receive an email saying what will be in the shipment like Candy Japan however in the Candy Japan email it said that the Pen Japan items were being shipped.

No real problems at all, the items are cute but I'm not really into collecting stamps so I'll see what the other items are for the next 2 subscriptions to see if I will continue.

Thanks for reading!

Candy Japan May 2014 Unboxing

Hey guys

So I got my second shipment from Candy Japan recently so I will post what was in both shipments for this month:

The first shipment came in an envelope like this:

It contained three items:

First is the Puccho Peach chews:

closer look at the packaging - little AoT promo thingy >.<

The actual candy - its not really an ooze-like centre

Second item was the Chou Himo Q - basically a really long piece of purple and green gummy rope

Lastly the third item was Rocket Byuun - DIY rocket chewing gum candy

instructions on the side of the box

The little blue and yellow things were the pieces of candy you can mold to create different parts of the rocket

Thus was the part of the rocket you could separate

The final product

 Now on to the second shipment:

This shipment mainly had candies or snacks that people would eat whilst drinking tea

the box it came in

nicely wrapped

All of the candy and 2 green tea packets

The square ones are 'monaka' and the round ones are 'momoyama'.

the green tea 

Thats all that I recieved for the month of May, Thank you for reading :)

Candy Japan April 2014 Unboxing and First Impression!!!

Hi everyone!

I recently bought a subscription to
Candy Japan!

In case you don't know what this subscription service is well the name says it all. You get a bunch of random candy and snacks from Japan about twice a month!

It costs $25 USD (<- note its in USD) with free shipping all the way from Japan.

They also will send you an email with information on what is in the shipment and any other news.

Here are some photos of what I got in my package and thoughts on whether or not I liked the snacks!

The package it came in

A larger than normal shipment apparently 

This is everything I got in my package :O

There was quite a lot of things which I was really excited to try! Although I'm not too fond of trying shrimp/prawn/fish flavoured snacks because I can easily find them in my local store :P Anyway on to my impressions of the candy.

1) Strawberry Fortune Telling Chocolates

OMG these were sooooo good! If only there were more of them in the package. I didn't pay too much attention to the actual fortune telling info though. This is how you know what your fortune was: You either get a circle, double circle, cross or triangle. The email explained what they meant and what they were about eg. karaoke, school...

2) Orange Bubblegum

I've bought these before at my local Asian grocer and I've had pretty much every flavour there is!

They are really nice but the taste doesn't last long 

3) Ramune

Okay so this had the taste of ramune but it was in a tablet like form that sort of melted in your mouth. Still really good!

4) Nericho Soft

This was kinda fun to make and it tasted quite nice, it had a sherbet taste to it.

5) Shittori Choco

Omfggggg this was the most amazing thing I have ever eaten!! The chocolatey goodness is to die for. Anyway here is what it looks like in all its glory~

6) Anpanman Biscuits

These were nice, they tasted like the McDonalds cookies. Wish there were more in the packet though

7) Ebisen

Your average shrimp flavoured snack

8) Yamato no kame-san

These were so good! They tasted just like these other Asian biscuits but I don't know what they are called :P 

9) Umai bou Cheese and Potage Flavour

cheese flavour

not a nice photo.. but the potage one was broken

Okay tasting... not a good choice to eat it on my bed though lol - potage flavour is ok, I'm not too sure what it is but yeah...

10) Tai Arare

Again fish flavoured snacks. These were red snapper flavour.

11) Corn Potage

Potage flavour is okay. Just another savoury snack

12) Aji Curry

These snacks tasted just like Japanese curry!! I really liked these. They were so delicious.

Overall Thoughts 

The service is very good in my opinion. The shipping is very on time with the estimated delivery time and I really have no complaints about communication as an email is sent out about the shipment quite early. I do feel that the price is quite reasonable as shipping from Japan can be expensive. I definitely recommend this service to people who are interested in trying Japanese snacks or cannot get other Japanese candy services to ship to their country (eg. skoshbox does not ship to Australia). 

Thank you for reading and hopefully this was helpful!

First year uni tips!!

Ok, so you're starting your first year of uni - how effing nerve racking right? unless this is not your first time starting in a tertiary institute then well.. i don't know maybe you feel relaxed?

Whatever.. so you get to pick your timetable, deal with hecs, go to orientation and freak out about meeting new people (or not)... but what are the things that you should know? How can you make your first year smooth sailing and money saving? (cause we all know how expensive uni is right?)

FIRST YEAR UNI TIPS!!!!!!!!!!!

1. Don't buy your books until the end of week 1/2 

why? because sometimes you realise you don't effing need it at all and that you could of saved a heck load of money just borrowing the book from the library. Oh and don't fret, most of the lecturers and tutors shouldn't be fussy if you don't have it in the first week if you require it in class. I mean some of the textbooks are for pre-reading or just to reinforce what was said in the lectures

2. If you do need to buy the book check out the second hand store, library (just to borrow for extended periods of time) or ebay/gumtree/other cheap second hand sites where you can find textbooks

One big issue for students is money money money money!! Save as much money as you can because of the fees and equipment/uniforms/whatever that are 100% required for your classes.

3. Pack your lunches or meals to bring from home!!

Again.. money matters. Food is sooooo goood on campus right? I mean sometimes it won't hurt but I would say not to buy food all the time. Who knows when you'd need that extra $5? It's certainly more nutritious than some of the food they sell on campus too. (Also if you are avoiding weight gain... uni food everyday will kill you. I mean I didn't even realise I gained weight during first semester  D: )

4. If your commute involves public transport and you are not a morning person/do not live 10-30 minutes away from campus then do not have 8am classes!!!

Unless you really do not mind waking up early all the time. You do not know how sleepy I would be in the middle of the day (mind you I do not drink coffee in the morning either). Back when I had 8am classes I would have to wake up at 6-6:30 just so I can get ready and have breakfast etc.. and be on time with public transport. But do keep in mind any peak hour traffic that may occur during the route as that could make you late.

5. Don't be afraid to make new friends!

Talk to people, ask them about their interests, ask them stuff to get the convo going. Who knows? they might be really cool. I was real afraid because I think that I'm not good at making friends but after a while I was like eff it "hey, what music are you into?" super lame but whatever haha

6. Start your assignments early and don't forget to record them in your diary/planner

This is so important! I know that throughout your entire schooling life you have been told this and we all know teacher like to make everything due on the same day maybe haha but do it!!! It's annoying when you have an essay to write that you haven't started and you have another project to do then you remember that you need certain types of credible sources for your essay and you explode.. not literally. But start early and space everything out for when to do them. eg. start looking for good sources one day, start the intro another, have a group meeting on Monday...

Basically that is all for my tips. I'm still in my first year 2014- semester 1... ugh only cause I changed courses but I will be officially a second year as of semester 2 yay!

And good luck to anyone starting uni/tafe/polytechnic/whatever this year~~

The Face Shop - CC Cream Smart Capsule Review

Hi all!

I'm going to review this product that I got a while ago from BeautyNetKorea. 

Here are some photos of the product before I go on to the actual review:

ingredients for anybody's curiosity

This is the actual product itself

this is where the product comes out of. It's different haha

So to get the product out you actually have to push on the whole top as it acts as a pump to get the product out through the circle thingy. So, the more you push the more comes out.

Now the actual review of the cc cream itself

The first time I tried the product in store it was amazed me. The concept of the way you get the product out and the fact that it says it would suit all skin colours drew me in right away!

So I tried a bit on the back of my hand and was instantly in love. I took a few samples home and used them until I was able to find somewhere that stocked it for cheaper than my local The Face Shop. There is was around $60 AUD but online I found it to be around $20 USD - which is an obvious bargain.

When I started to use the product I didn't notice how much I would actually grow to hate it and regret buying it. 

Now my skin is dry/combination and at the moment there are quite a few dry spots. I'm going to show you a few picture of what it looked like on my face but really the camera didn't do much justice for me.

Dry spots... dry spots everywhere!!

More disgusting dry spots..

The CC cream made the dry spots I saw look so horrible... It even showed dry spots that I didn't know existed :/ So a definite no go if you have dry skin!!

I exfoliated and tried it again and it just absolutely sucks if you have any dry spots at all! It has a sort of matte/powdery finish which is good for oily skin. That's the good thing about it, it has good oil control but I think if you have really oily just add some powder over the oily areas.

Another bad thing I did not like is the colour result. When I applied it my face was a whole lot lighter and whiter than my body. I tried to take a photo to show this but no matter under what lighting it just didn't look like what it did in real life.

for some reason it looks the same colour as my body in all the photos I tried to take..

Even after an hour it oxidized a bit but I still had that visible too-light-for-my-skin-tone look >.>

Although by the end of the day (wearing it from 9am - 5pm) the colour was matched to my skin tone... it did fade because I noticed my blush wasn't really there anymore but there was still some of it left on my skin when I tried to use a cleansing wipe.

Overall I would give the product 3/10 - or 1.5/5 but it sounds better out of 10 lol

Bonus points only because of the oil control... 

I wouldn't recommend this unless you have normal or oily skin. It's not even worth if you have any dry spots at all! Also for anyone who is out on the look for an Asian bb/cc cream that could work for darker skin tones, I wouldn't recommend this either unless your willing to apply it in the morning and go out after its oxidized because it takes a long freakin time!

Thanks for reading this review! :D