Special Edition Laduree Sonny Angel Dolls

Photo from Sonny Angel Doll Website.

Back when I was in Korea I shared my love of Sonny Angel Dolls, the cute naked, angel, mini figures with funny, little head dresses.

Imagine how excited I was when I started to see macaron topped Sonny Angel Dolls all over Instagram. After doing a bit of digging I discovered it was all because the little fellas are turning 10 this year, and to celebrate they have done a collaboration with Laduree, the patisserie. Cakes and little naked dolls rolled into one is like a daydream come true!

They were released on Tuesday. Looks like I'm going to have to take a trip to the nearest Laduree to see if I can buy myself one. Or even better, if anyone fancies sending me a sweet treat that would be even better!

Photos from Sonny Angel Doll Website.

Photo from Sonny Angel Doll Malaysia Instagram account

For more information check out the Sonny Angel Doll website!


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CLOSED! Goodbye Korea Giveaway

It's just over a week before I leave Korea, which means only a week for me to buy as much Korean cuteness that I can fit in my suitcase. Because of this I'm doing my second giveaway.

The prize is a mystery hamper stuffed with some of my favourite Korean gifts. You can see some of them in my post on Tiara's blog here.

There are lots of ways that you can join in with the giveaway, just take a peek in the box below!

Entry closes at midnight in Korea on the 25th if November. The winner will be selected at random and contacted via email.

Good Luck everyone!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



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August

Whhaaaat? It's September already? August whizzed by, and took the blooming hot weather with it too. Finally I can stand outside for more than 30 seconds without standing in a puddle of sweat. September also means the imminent arrival of my Mum. She loved Korea so much last year that she's coming again on the 13th of September. Exciting! But while I count down the days, here is what I got up to in the month of August.


For the first three weeks of August we were helping out at the school's English Summer Camp. This meant half days packed with chaotic lessons that resulted in a play that we had to perform to the school.


Big News! I went to my first noraebang after a year and a half in Korea. Noraebangs are private karaoke rooms that Koreans love.




Trash, Treat or Stash, my bi-weekly beauty review feature continued by looking at Skin Food's Argan Oil Hair Mask and Tony Moly's Hello Bunny Perfume Stick. What do you think?



Nick and I celebrated one year of being-togetherness by going to watch a Lotte Giants Baseball game, where I got to see my first home run! Go Lotte!


With an extra day off in the middle of camp we went to explore one of Busan's secret beaches.


I shared some of Joe's photos from the Beijing trip at the end of July. They brought back lots of funny memories that I had already forgotten.


I also couldn't help but show you all what I bought myself when I was in Beijing and KL and had summoned up the courage to haggle.


I spent my second week off in and around Busan, at the beach, being a tour guide for Nick's friend, Dave, who was visiting from the UK, and I spent the afternoon in my favourite cafe.

So Summer's on its way out, and Autumn is coming! My favourite time of year in Korea. I'm currently trying to plan what to do when I have my visitors here in less than two weeks. Also, Nick and I are going shark diving next weekend, so hopefully I will still have all limbs in tact for the rest of September! Eeek!

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Our Weekend: Summer Holidays Round 2

After all the excitement of the weekend, I am spending my first day of my holiday relaxing. I'm currently in my favourite coffee shop in Nampo, The Vintage Cafe, with a berry smoothie. The lady who owns the cafe is so cute and gave me a banana and Nutella sandwich too. I went for a wander into Nampo and walked down the art street for the first time since I've been here. Also trying the matching lipstick and dress look. Not sure if it's orange overload.

Friday was the last day of our Summer camp, which means we get another week off to relax before it's back to the mayhem of real teaching. Nick has a friend, Dave, visiting from England so on Friday night we went for a BBQ and a few drinks in Seomyeon, before taking him to Gwangan to see the bridge at night. The boys also managed a midnight dip in the sea, but I gave it a miss!

On Saturday the heavens opened and it was rainy and gloomy all day so I did a few things around my apartment, went for pizza with Natasha and then watched Gossip Girl all night.

Sunday was a lot cooler than recently, but still lovely and sunny, so we all went to Songdo beach as they have a diving board set up at the moment. I didn't realise how wussy i was and it took me the best part of an hour to summon up the courage to dive off the smallest diving board, with a group of Koreans who had watched me keep trying to throw myself off the side shouting 'FIGHTING!' at me! Oh the shame! One tip would be not to scream on your way down as you only get a mouth full of water at the end!

I hope that you all had a great weekend!


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Korean Make up Trash, Treat or Stash: Hello Bunny Perfume Bar, Bebe Powder

Trash, Treat or Stash. The Korean make-up products I've discovered are better off in the bin, the ones you should treat yourself to every now and again, and the ones that are so good that you should definitely make sure you have a stash of them.


This was an impulse buy I made at the airport before going to Beijing. I only took hand luggage with me, so I wasn't able to take any perfume. The airport was really impressively fast at checking me in and getting me to the gate, so with lots of time to kill I decided to go and look for something to make me smell better after lots of travelling. This product seemed like the perfect option...

Cost: This cost me ₩7,000 at the airport for a 9g bar. That's just over £3.50 which I thought was reasonable compared to some of the other products I had been looking at in Etude House.
Prettiness: I loved the packaging of the product. It's shaped like a cute bunny wearing a bow tie, what's not to love? I have to admit it was the packaging that drew me to the product.
Scent: I spent a long time trying to decide which one in the range that I liked the best. I don't really like heavy, or sickly smelling perfumes so I managed to narrow it down to 2 out of the 5 pretty quickly. The purple bunny smelled a lot like Etude House's Miss.Twinkle Perfume which I already have so I decided to go with number 1 Bebe Powder.
Usability: The stick itself is teeny. It's just a little bigger than a lipstick tube, so it's perfect to carry with you wherever you go. It's also really easy to apply, it's a creamy bar, almost the consistency of soap that you can rub on your skin to apply the scent. I was wearing it in the hot sun in Beijing and I could still smell it up to 3 or 4 hours later so it lasts a looong time.



Overall: This is a really hard verdict to give. The Hello Bunny bar fit all the criteria that I was looking for. It was small enough to use as a travel perfume and lasted a long time, but after the first day I grew to really dislike the scent and that was the one I had considered the best out of the whole bunch. Looking on the website it's described as a citrusy smell with vanilla undertones, but all I can smell now is baby powder. Maybe the hint was in the name! If you like the scent, then this would be perfect, if you don't then it's probably worth saving your cash and buying something else!

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Korean Make Up Trash, Treat or Stash: Innisfree VS Etude House Sparkly Nail Varnish

Trash, Treat or Stash. The Korean make-up products I've discovered are better off in the bin, the ones you should treat yourself to every now and again, and the ones that are so good that you should definitely make sure you have a stash of them.

I'm like a magpie when it comes to shiny things. Nick's noticed how I slow down as soon as we walk past the small stalls that line the busy streets in Korea, browsing all the shiny bits and bibs. I'm a huge fan of sparkly nail varnishes. My favourite back home was the red glitter nail varnish by Barry M. In Korea they love glittery nails, so I have been fighting the temptation to try all the colors from every shop since I got here. Luckily a couple of people have bought me various shades of Innisfree's glittery nail varnish as gifts. I recently forgot that I had this multicoloured one, and bought a similar one from Etude House, so here is how they compare...

Cost: A bottle of Innisfree nail varnish costs ₩2,500, which is around £1.50. Not bad compared to the Barry M one I would buy back at home which was £2.99. The Etude House 'Dear My Party' glitter range is a little more at ₩3,000, which is still under £2.
Prettiness: Even in the bottle, I think that the Innisfree polish is more reflective and shinier. The little glittery pieces are cut smaller and in different shapes, making it sparkle more, leaving the Etude House one looking a little dull. They both have flecks of gold, silver, green, blue, pink and purple, and both look super shiny disco-esque.
Usability: In my opinion, the Innisfree varnish seems to dry a lot quicker. It doesn't take so many layers to make the glitter look like a solid coat, rather than a clear glittery nail coat over the top of the dominant layer. It's saved hours of painstaking sitting and repainting as I wait for the Etude House product to dry, which will then stay soft for hours and by the end of the day looks awful. I'm really impatient when it comes to my nails drying, so the quicker it dries, the better for me!


Overall: Treat yourself to a bottle of the Innisfree glitter. If you're feeling wild, buy all of the colours and dodge the magpies you'll attract. I wouldn't say completely avoid the Etude House ones, they do have some unusual glitters I haven't seen anywhere else, but be prepared for a long wait for them to dry.

Last time I reviewed Etude House's Oh M'Eye Lash Mascara. See the review here!

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Weekend Wishlist: Hello Kitty Moxi Roller Skates

I remember when I first started roller derby, I was signing up to every single roller derby boot camp that I could. My favourite by far was one held in Birmingham with both Estro Jen and Bonnie D. Stroir in 2009. Ever since that weekend I have loved both skaters, particularly Estro Jen.

She could do things on skates that I wouldn't even attempt when both my feet were planted fimrly on the ground. I never really take the time to think about people who I think are good role models but she is someone who I really admire and respect.

Not only is she an incredibly talented skater, but a brilliant business woman, and shows a great attitude towards life too. She owns the company Moxi who has recently collaborated with Hello Kitty and they have come up with these beautiful skates. That definitely makes a great role model in my eyes! If anyone is feeling flash with their money then I definitely wouldn't turn a pair of these down!

Photo belongs to: http://www.presstelegram.com

Photo belongs to: http://welcometomycandyland.tumblr.com



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♥ Cute Korea: Cake Decorating Cafe

I'd read about I Make Cake Cafe on Busan Awesome. As soon as I saw it I decided to take Nick for his birthday. The directions on the original article are perfect so we found it really quickly.

We walked in a little apprehensively, especially as I'd made Nick close his eyes and had dragged him up three flights of stairs. The walls were covered in pictures of amazingly decorated cakes, which made me think that it must be pretty easy. How wrong could I be?! It was Nick's birthday so I decided not to really have much input and see what his creative juices would produce.

Once you're sat down, you're given a menu of lots of blank cakes. There were mousse cakes, tiramasu, sweet potato cakes, we decided to go for a cream cheese cake as this was most like a sponge. After that, you have to pick the flavor of icing and the shape of the decorative icing. The final choice was if we wanted a message on top of the cake, and what colour powder to use. Nick decided to go for chocolate icing and purple powder. Interesting combination!

While the guy prepared our cake, the girl gave us a whirlwind masterclass in how to use the icing pipe. Then the cake was brought over and left to our mercy!

There were hundreds of different toppings for the cake, ranging from fresh fruit, to delicately crafted leaves and petals made of icing. The first thing Nick picked was a face of a boy and a girl, followed by a brown and purple rose made of icing and some strawberries.

We went back to the table, and started sticking the roses into the cake. The man ran over instantly, as if we were savaging the cake, and told us that we should use the chocolate icing to stick things on top of the cake, rather than just shove them into the sponge. Oooops!

Feeling a little more creative after this we went and got some hundreds and thousands and lots of chocolate sticks and shapes. Nick said by the end he felt like he'd over done it a little bit, but condoled himself by squirting the rest of the chocolate icing directly into his mouth from the pipe. Something which apparently had been a life long dream of his.

He definitely looks like he's living the dream more this birthday than last birthday! Yet I doubt that Martha Stewart will be in touch with either of us.

The cake came to ₩28,000 in total, including the cake and all of the decorations on top. That's about £17, definitely worth it for a massive birthday cake and an evening of laughs! On the way home I got into trouble as Nick was swinging the carry box around I would say 'Be careful with my cake!' and then he had to remind me whose cake it was...Ooops.














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