My Favorite Jewelry

I realized that I am wearing the same jewelery everyday, or rotating these every few days...


The pearls are of various qualities from Mikimoto to Chinese market and Indonesian farmed ones that I tend to unnecessarily hard-bargain the price down from a whole $9 to $8. The stones are from non-exotic Banana Republic.

By the way obviously, this posting is for the purpose of testing out Bokeh or the blurry background effect with my camera. I wonder if anyone regularly uses this word, as even I only learned how to say this originally from Japan, English word today.

Yellow Tiger Orchids

My friends planned a farewell dinner for me. It was very sweet of them! They gave me a little box that is made out of the original stamps for batik printing and these yellow orchids.


It will give my room a nice boost for another two weeks until I leave Indonesia...

Licca chan

My mom still thinks I am 6. She got me this funky Birthday Licca-chan and a Romantic Licca-chan. These are the latest models, so I am really ahead!


As it was back then, playing with it and my new camera was a lot of fun...

The Housekeeper and the Professor

I read this book in two days which is almost my record for finishing so quickly (almost like After Drakness by Haruki Murakami which is similar in lightness). It was short, easy going, and sentimental. It also combined artistry with mathematics.

The story is about a mathematician (the Professor) who gets into an accident and cannot remember anything for more than 80 minutes since that day in 1975. The housekeeper has a son who everyday, introduces herself and her son and diligently works at his house. It is an extremely heart warming book but without being too heavy.

The Professor sticks mini memos onto his suit to remember things, thus I can imagine how disheveled he must've looked.

What was funny was that as I was reading the book, many mini memos fell onto my lap from between the pages. It was probably my mom who read before me and sent me this book.

It must've been marking such important formulas. She had even marked the page with the Euler's formula (in the book it is referred to as e^iπ + 10)!

I was really struck by one thing that the Professor said. That humans invented the number 0, which is too well known to have come from India. But that non-zero numbers are not known when and how they were formulated that it is us humans that have to decipher them, not the other way around. Alas that was what mathematicians were/are doing!

Tokyo shopping

I am always asked where one should go for shopping when in Tokyo.

Rather than the small streets of Harajuku to Omotesando where they do have the best boutiques in the world, I always resort to the department stores. I never have time to go to the small streets as I always MUST get my hair cut and eye lashes permed within the three days that I'm usually in Tokyo, so the convenience really helps. On top of that, there's nobody shopping these days anyway, so you get the entire place to yourself, even in dead center Tokyo!

My favorite these days are Marubiru (Marunouchi Building) and Shinmaru (New Marunouchi Building) in Tokyo Station (the convenience!). FYI, if you face the two buildings with Tokyo Station on your back, the one on the left is more affordable.

I bought the shoes from the previous post, as well as these brown shoes that are from an all made in Japan shoe store called Barclay. I also picked up this blue Paul & Joe skirt and two casual jackets, all in Marunouchi.


Another favorite is Ebisu's Atre. Pricing is completely reasonable and it is best for picking up small items like bags and hair pieces.

Other nice places are Mitsukoshi and Matsuya in Ginza (Mitsukoshi is crowded), Seibu in Shibuya, and and for men the best place is probably Isetan in Shinjuku.

If you want something more high end, Roppongi Hills is always nice. If you want to go cheaper, Marui department stores are everywhere.

I must say, deflation has done so well for shopping in Tokyo that now is absolutely the time to visit! It's literally less than half the price when I used to live there until 5 years ago.

Elvi's Tailor + New Shoes from Tokyo

My friend Elvi made a few beautiful dresses for me while I was away for a few weeks. I came home and she had just gone ahead and hung these new clothes in my dresser... awww why are some people so sweet!


This silver dress is an exact copy from Elvi's wardrobe. I borrowed it before and loved it so much that now she made me one!


Below pair is my latest purchase from Tokyo, taken with with my very first big camera Canon X4. I love it, because it looks like ballerina shoes but comes with small heels.