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Just over a month ago, I took 3 weeks off from work and took the All Asia Pass offered by Cathay Pacific to travel around Asia. With the Pass, you get to fly to up to 23 cities in Asia within 21 days. You have to arrange your own hotel and so on though. I went with a friend to Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong, and I had the most amazing time. Other than Hong Kong, I’d never been to any of those countries before. It was much more fun going around by ourselves instead of following a tour (most trips I’ve taken before this was by joining a tour).

In Thailand, I decided to send a postcard to myself, and it arrived here (finally) today:

I’m still in the process of uploading pics … they should be up in my LJ scrapbook once I’m done.

Next year I’m seriously thinking of taking the All Asia Pass again and seeing more countries like the Phillipines, Singapore and Indonesia.

I got this lovely smelling package in the mail today – my order from Lush! It’s the first time I’ve ordered online from them. Here’s a picture of the package contents:

You are looking at (going clockwise from the top left) the Blossom and Olive Grove gift sets, a huge tub of Mask of Magnaminty, Helping Hands, Glam Rock Hair Glitter, Happy Soap and Alkmaar soap.

The two gift sets were free using a coupon, and then I got the Happy Soap and hair glitter as free samples.

It’s so exciting! I can’t wait to use all of these. I feel as if I should save the gift sets to give to other people, but on the other hand I want to rip open that gorgeous packaging and squee at all of the stuff inside.

You can view other people’s stashes (much bigger than mine) at the Lush LJ community.

More Lush Talk

The labelling is different. If you go to the retail store, all of the labels have the product name in English and French, the ones I got today are in English only.

Prices have risen recently – here’s a list of items that didn’t change.

I found out just now while looking up all of the above links that one of my favourite soaps from Lush, 17 Cherry Tree Lane, has been discontinued. That really sucks. I’m using a bar of it right now and I’m going to put it away to keep it as long as possible.

I’ve mentioned Lush on my blog before, and still haven’t used that massage bar I got yet.

There’s this place near where I work that makes these gorgeous looking turtle shaped pastries. They’re filled inside with chocolate. I bought two of them to show to my mom (who loves turtles) and here’s some shots of them:

Unfortunately they didn’t taste as good as they look.

It’s the Victoria Day Long Weekend. I didn’t have anything specific planned, until just now when I saw that ExpressionEngine 1.4.2 was released! It comes with a brand new wiki module and some updates to the forum module. So now I’m going to spend some time this weekend playing with it. It’s going to be fun!

I tried to go see The DaVinci Code earlier this evening. The showtimes were 7:00, 7:30, 8:00, 8:30 and 11:30pm. I got there at around 7:00 hoping to catch either the 7:30, the 8:00, or the 8:30 but all of the shows for the evening were sold out already. Looks like the lukewarm reviews aren’t stopping people from wanting to see it!

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

I haven’t written in here in a while, have I? I’ve been updating, but they’re mostly private posts.

See what I mean? Here’s a look at the status of my last 7 posts:

Two weeks ago I got the 6th season DVD of Dawson’s Creek. I loved it. There were 7 episodes that I hadn’t even watched yet – I’d only read the recaps for them! So it was a treat to watch those. There was an “Exclusive Scrapbook” too – which had a couple of typos in it!

Last week I was sick – first I got a sore throat, then the fever, cold, cough and headache. I was stubborn and refused to take time off from work. I made it through the days by coming home, eating something, and then going straight to bed.

On Friday, I went to see the Stars on Ice. It was a really enjoyable show.

And that’s about it. I spent some time today catching up on all of the sites I read. It doesn’t help that LiveJournal/Typepad seems to be down right now.

It’s the Chinese New Year today. It’s the Year of the Dog, and it’s special for me as I was born in the Year of the Dog. Kung Hei Fat Choi! Gong Xi Fa Cai!

I was on the phone earlier today with a customer service rep and she had to give me a temporary password. She spelled out the letters in the password to me – A as in Apple, E as in Elephant, etc. Then I heard her say “B as in Dog”. I paused, wondering if she meant “D as in Dog” or “B as in Bog”. I asked her to repeat it, and she said in a clearer voice – “B for Bog”.

I found it strange that for all of the words that start with the letter B, she would choose the word Bog. It could be easily mistaken for the word Dog. Why not choose Bear, Bravo, or even Boy??

Advantages of being nervous:

• I don’t feel hungry

Disadvantages of being nervous

• Anything that I do eat, I feel like throwing up
• When I’m not eating or digesting food, my stomach is in knots
• I can’t sleep
• If I do fall asleep, I wake up every few hours
• I feel cold all the time
• Hands (and body) sometimes shakes

Sigh…. I can’t wait until Sunday is over. I’d like to get it over with sooner rather than later.

I went shopping at Lush today. I loooove going in the store and smelling all of the products. Usually I browse around and leave without buying anything. But today, the store had this promotion where if you spent $30 or more, you got a chance to throw a dart at a dartboard and win prizes. I splurged and spent the $30 (on Dream Cream and Aqua Mirabilis) and then threw the dart. The first try, I completely missed the board, but they let me try again. On the second try I got 80 points (100 being bullseye)!

There were a bunch of prizes with different points. The 80 point prize was a bar of Snowcake soap, but I didn’t want that. The salesperson said I could pick some of the other prizes so that the points added up to 80. In the end, I chose:

• Each Peach massage bar
• Hollywood bubble bar
• Mr Butterball bath bomb

I’m really happy with what I chose. Two of them are bath products, and I’d never tried their bath products before (I’m a shower person). It’s a great chance to try ‘em, especially since there are so many bath products at Lush!

• I saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last week. Great movie. I thought it was strange that Hermione said the word “Auror” differently than I did. She stressed the first syllable, the “Au” part, so when I heard her say it, it sounded like “Aura”. I’d always pronounced it by stressing the second syllable, so that it sounds like the name “Aurora”. But then, I thought Hermione was pronounced “Hermy-own” until The Goblet of Fire (the book) came out.

• I’ve tried pronouncing Auror the correct way several times, but I can’t get the hang of it!

• Every time I install Quicktime (which I have to do whenever I upgrade iTunes), I have to disable the Quicktime icon on the system tray. It is so annoying. Why can’t it remember past preferences and stay away from the system tray??

• Alias is going to be cancelled after the end of this season. I’ll be sad to see it end, althought maybe it’s for the best. They’ll have a lot of things to explain by the end of this season!

I used some nail polish remover on my nails this morning, and it caused my the skin on my fingers to start peeling. It looks really gross right now, like I’ve been playing with glue. This has never happened to me before, but I think it may be because the nail polish remover is over 3 years old.

Most of the time I don’t remember my dreams. When I wake up, I think to myself, “don’t forget this part of the dream where….”, and then the next second, I forget what I told myself to remember. If I do remember something, I usually lose a lot of the details of the dream within 10 minutes.

In the dreams that I do remember, I have noticed a couple of recurring themes.

• Colours/Light and Dark – I can recall the colour of buildings, walls, clothing, etc. If a room is dark or it’s bright I’ll notice it. This is a detail I can remember more often than say, faces of people. For example, in the last dream that I can remember, I was walking from the parking lot into a plaza. I passed by a shop with a green awning and yellow letters on it. I don’t know what kind of shop it was, and I didn’t even go inside that shop – I went into the store next to it.

• Racing – I can remember at least 4 dreams where I’m in a race. This started around the time I started watching The Amazing Race (a reality TV show where teams race around the world) last season. Sometimes I’m in a hurry and panicking, and sometimes I’m relaxed and taking my time. I’m always matched up with a partner to race with in these dreams.

• Math Class – I have had several dreams where I’m taking a math class. They were all in different classrooms, with different teachers. I skipped 99% of the lessons. In one dream, I looked in my calendar and noticed that I had a math paper due for that class, and I didn’t even care about writing it and handing it in. In another dream, the classroom was at the top of a building, and I had to climb a long flight of stairs (in a dark, narrow staircase) to get to it. I started climbing the stairs, and then decided it wasn’t worth it, and then went to another class! (I think it was art class.)

• Taking a bus and getting off at the wrong stop – I have dreamed this happening a couple of times, and near places I’ve lived in. I’d get off at a stop before or after the one I was supposed to get off and then walk back. In another one, I was in a race! I got off, and the bus driver told me to take another bus, so I walked a block or two in some downtown area.

Strange hmmm? All of my dreams are strange really. I can’t get any meaning from them.

Lately I have been drooling over:

• The Complete Calvin and Hobbes. This limited edition contains all of the Calvin and Hobbes strips ever made. I saw this when I went to Chapters today. It is really heavy, and I had trouble getting it down from the top shelf to look at it. I’d love to get it, but I already own most of the Calvin and Hobbes books..
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Chosen Collection. It’s a DVD set of seasons 1-7.
• Alias – The Complete Fourth Season. Overall I enjoyed this season, although I didn’t really like the standalone episodes. I want to see the extra features.

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I have had very little sleep these past few days, and a whole lot of food.

One of the gifts that I got was a reindeer waterball/snow globe ornament. When I opened the box that it came in, though, and took out the ornament, everything was sopping wet. The glass from the waterball had cracked and there was this huge clump of ice that was melting.

What happened probably was the water inside the waterball froze, and since ice expands, it shattered the glass. The friend who gave it to me was from out of town, and it took several hours for her to drive to Toronto in below-zero weather. The glass must have broken then. This shows how cold it is right now.

There is a lovely picture of the ornament on the box, so I can always admire that.

Ray Charles and Betty Carter - Baby, It's Cold Outside

In my dream this morning, I am studying for an exam. Somehow though I go from studying to writing a paper. It isn’t easy. I start sweating. I have no idea what I’m writing about.

After a while I decide to go for lunch. There’s a long lineup at a fast food place. The walls of the fast food plate are yellow. I plan on ordering a burger, fries, and a coke. When I get to the front of the line I change my order to a burger, a coke, and a salad.

I take my tray of food and find a table next to the wall. I sit down, but I don’t eat the food. Soon I’m joined by Cindy, who sits across from me. She asks me how my essay is going. I reach into my bag (where’d my bag come from? I don’t know) and hand her the essay. The essay is crumpled up and wrapped around a red umbrella.

In another part of my dream, I’m in a store (I’m thinking the Gap). All the clothes are in flourescent colours, colours that I don’t like. There are rows and rows of bright yellow (think highlighter colour) cordoroy jackets with matching pants. The other colours in that store are blue and pink.