A cute coin purse by Hermes

This is the Bastia in black. A bit boring for me. If I could pick I would like a dark green or maybe a dark blue. Something striking like candy pink would be nice too. I saw this on "Mel in melbourne"'s blog on youtube. So yesterday while browsing for twillys.( Didn't buy....they didn't have the colour I liked)



This is the Bastia in beige. You can see it opened up. I like the slot on the top as well. Different design with a subtle difference.  The sales associate was nice. He tried to help me find a nice pink twilly but apparently they move fast. Every time someone buys a bag, they would almost always buy a twilly to go. Hmmm and I only found out about twillys three weeks back.

Hermes

Late to the party. I've only just found out about twirly. A smaller scarf which is used amongst other ways to twirl around the handle of your bag. Cute!

We popped into Hermes in the Gardens to window shop with an intention of buying one. The sales assistant was a snob. She was reluctant to serve and did not smile and didn't other any additional suggestions. Merely showed this stood back and sulked. 

So I didn't buy it that day. 

Tory Burch

This is called the Chelsea convertible shoulder bag. In a lovely burnt orange. The intricate strap comes separately. Yes I know....The shop assistant knows how to lure us to get this bag.  The website calls this shade "kola" which is nice. The texture is not smooth and it's officially called pebbled leather which suits the texture well. The shop in KLCC was having a sale, this however is a new arrival and was not on sale. 

Here is the link. Tory Burch

Bottega Venetta

Bottega Venetta Small Shoulder bag

I first saw this brand in Milan a few years back. ( That sounds like I go places, which isn't true, it was for a conference and I was over the moon with the opportunity to visit the fashion capital of the world) It looks like a "tikar" doesn't it? Didn't like it initially at all. But my mistake was not entering the shop to try it on and feel it.The bag above is soft, and box shape and the leather strap has a nice detail on it. Unfortunately it doesn't show up in this picture but you may check it out on their website. I tried looking for this bag to look for its name but I couldn't find it.The leather is soft and light. The shop assistant told me it has three layers of leather.

 I think I may get a small purse small enough to fit into my current bag. Only because it's sale season now and yes the electric blue one I touched is still playing on the mind one week later.( picture below)

Fendi

The traditional double F logo for fendi isn't as apparent as before. When I asked the shop assistant, he said they do carry this logo but its currently out of stock. So what we have to showcase today is the fendi peekaboo collection. I was tempted but eventually decided on a another bag.

The fendi peekaboo collection turns ten this year. There are many types available; large, regular, mini, micro and essentially.This is the most expensive line for Fendi. I am guessing its because of the craftsmanship that goes into making this particular bag.

I tried it on for size. And I liked it very much. I was however looking for a bag which looked good as a crossbody and the strap and length for this peekaboo didn't suit me. That didn't stop me from trying on peekaboos in different colours.  The shape is gorgeous. The feel of the leather was very nice although I thought I saw a potential crease coming along in one of the bags,

Peekaboo Essentially 

I tried this one for size. Leather was smooth and had a nice texture. The colour was a unique shade of blue which I liked. Worn as a crossbody the proportion was all wrong. So you would have to hold it for the best style. 

Peekaboo Mini ( with a pineapple)

This mini version was a good size. And the blush pink was a very nice shade. The pineapple I leave it to you to comment as best you think. This was tempting. 

The shop I went to was Fendi at Pavillion. The salesperson Regan was lovely. Attentive and patient and if you do go there, you should seek him out.

Kate Spade and Anya Hindmarch

A deviation from USA trip post to talk about handbags. Now that the GST has been lifted, it's created a happy feeling. Or rather a warm feeling in our hearts and loosened the purse strings a bit. I went window shopping yesterday and this here is my take on the handbags available...and worthy for purchase should you have the money.

The first on the list shall be Kate Spade. She hit the headlines this week for her suicide. A tragedy as it highlights mental health is precious and the rich and famous are not any less likely to succumb to this any more than us normal people. My condolences to her daughter especially, and her family. May her memory live on and that she be remembered for her visionary handbags rather than how she died.

Kate Spade Pavillion KL

The Alligator series features this lovely bag. Sartorial Design

This epitomises Kate Spade. Daring to be different and making bags people would be drawn to and be brave enough to buy at a affordable price tag. I confess not owning a Kate spade Bag. I regret not buying the porcupine themed bag she had last year. Its now out of season and no longer available to purchase from the shops. I do have a card holder from Kate Spade and the mummy has a purse from Kate spade. So we do have at least one little thing from this shop.

Next stop, was Anya Hindmarch, Another person with a quirky style. The latest season is called chubby where the bags are puffy but surprisingly light and of course comfortable to wear.

Eyes cross body in burnt Sienna ( Orange to me and you)

This is a lovely bag to own. The embossed eye sticker makes me smile whenever I see it. the shape is youngish but I not that keen on the chain strap. I already owned one like this so I wanted something different. Anya Hindmarch is having a sake currently, and this particularly piece is on discount. A good time to consider buying.

Build a Bag collection ( Anya Hindmarch)

This is from the build a bag collection. In a lovely pink. Gucci has exactly the same shade of fruschia and this colour takes lovely pictures. Trust me. The handle is from the chubby collection. It looks awful but is comfortable to wear. Rather like wearing a snug seatbelt. I tried it and decided yes this isn't too bad at all. You can put a lot of things inside it looks funky and not like an aunty-bag 9 my worst fear) and there is something young-ish about that inflatable chubby strap.

Coronado Bridge

We stayed at the Manchester  Grand Hyatt and I got a room with a view.Woot Woot. This was taken at 7:00am. A bit late in getting up because the bed was so comfortable and I did walk many steps both at the airports and around Little Italy the night before.

View from level 26.

Its true what the internet search engines led me to believe, that May is known as a gloomy month in San Diego due to the overcast clouds. I like weather like this. Reminds me of Galway days. ( hah)

Spotted at Gaslamp quarter

Managed to take some shots as the trolley took us through the Gaslamp quarter area on the tour. Here is an Irish pub I spotted along the way. Cute architecture which you can see all around this area. It's meant to be teeming with night life. I didn't get a chance to sample this but I did walk around the area ie boasting 16 walkable blocks. ( I don't think I covered them all on foot)

And then after passing the convention centre and just before we headed over Coronado Bridge, we drove pass this lovely mural with a history.

Kelco Historical Community Mural

This mural was drawn by Salvador Roberto Torres and his wife Gloria Robolledo Torres  and completed tin 1993. The city of San Diego required that this mural be preserved. As a result, the present company Oltmans had to work together with Restaurant depot for this to happen. The wall was extracted during demolition and construction And subsequently braced with steel earth-quake proof structure.

Our first meal in San Diego

Thanks to a bird getting stuck in the engine, our flight to San Diego was delayed by an hour. So we were stuck for a bit longer at Los Angeles airport where I listened to BFM re news of the election aftermath. We arrived around 8pm . It was a good thing the hotel was around 15 minutes away from the airport with traffic. After dumping the bags I was all ready to head out to explore the city.  We saw the cheese factory but decide we would ignore that because it was so near the hotel and explore beyond. We walked towards the bay but the restaurant was closing by the time we arrived. So a big loop and we headed towards town. we walked through Little Italy ( without knowing anything about it ) in searched for a kebab shop. We found it by the glorious smell. Sadly it was also closed.

The selection 

We retraced our steps and found this happening pizza place called "Landini's Pizzeria". Friendly staff, good selection of pizza and cosy place to eat. A slice of pizza each and we were satisfied. Enough energy for the walk back to the hotel. 12 thousand steps for that day. Woot Woot.

Landini's Pizzeria

1827 India Street
San Diego, CA 92101

All Nippon Airways (ANA) airlines

I wonder whether anyone else who has flown with ANA would agree with my review.  I'll start with the service. Japanese people are polite and that isn't a myth. Deep bows before the flight took off and little bows when they asked us what we wanted to eat. Their uniforms are cute and chic, the skirts had little trimmings down the back at the centre of the skirt, and the jackets had a line of trimming down the elbows. The overall effect brightened the grey uniforms.

The little flowery aprons

They took the jackets off and wore little flowery aprons when serving food.And now we come to the food which was meh. The selection of snacks were limited. I chose Japanese rather than European meals. The  servings were placed with great care and detail but the taste wasn't satisfying. I'm not sure how else to put it. When I asked for tea, I got Japanese green tea. When I actually wanted black tea with milk.They offered a limited selection of snacks which included ippudo noodles ie instant noodles, rice crackers and mixed nuts.

I managed to catch at least three movies on the flight; " I Tonya" which was about Tonya Harding's life leading to her fall following the fiasco about Nancy Kerrigan's bashing of the knee, followed by "All the money in the word" about Getty refusing to pay the ransom for the release of his grandson and the last was " Downsizing" a movie about going smaller to be able to afford a bigger house and a better lifestyle.

On the trip back to Malaysia, I slept a little bit more but I watched "Coco" inspired by my trip to Tijuana Mexico on the second last day in San Diego ( a separate couple of posts will be dedicated to this amazing adventure) and the very nice sitcom " This is us" where I cried and cried and cried.

I do have to add that the inflight entertainment section wasn't as vast as the emirates or Qatar airlines. In a sense it forced me to watch more movies than sitcoms.

Flatbed and personal space with duvet which trapped heat

The seats were nice. And they reclined to a flatbed. ( very important) their blankets were puffed up nine duvets which were light and trapped the heat nicely. Pillow was a little soft but if you fold it into two its a decent height for sleeping. I love their slippers a deep dark blue and just the right spring. Sadly unlike emirates and Qatar airlines, they didn't give us jammies. Their amenities was in a small dark blue pouch.

Coronado Beach

A sand sculpture sign

The trolley tour brought us over the Coronado bridge and into Coronado which is just a perfect township with cute little houses painted in soft pastel colours, and with the perfect weather it created a perfect morning for us to explore Hotel Bel and the beach. A pet peeve some San Diego people may have is for these local Coronado folks to call themselves islanders. The guide was quick to point out that it is a peninsular and not an island. Hah a new fact to add to my knowledge of Coronado.

The gorgeous beach

The sand was velvety soft and it was lovely walking along the beach barefooted while the wind creates havoc with the hair. The colours appear muted as in this picture. Gloomy weather which I prefer don't ask me why because I can't give you a good reason.

Perfect weather for cycling

Seen in San Diego

Aren't these bicycles cute? Its to chain your bicycles to and I've not seen these types before. Let me start off by saying San Diego is the place I would like to spend a whole lot more time in. Possible to retire here. The weather is perfect. All year round. The person who picked us from the airport and drove us to the hotel said their highest temperature was 24 degrees Celsius. Woot! Rain fall is only a couple of inches per year. So yes water can be a problem but they've circumvented this by constructing a recycling system to use such water for irrigation of plants around the city. This is the furthest I've walked in any city a whopping 19.4km. I got a small blister on my second left toe to prove that I walked that much. 

Trolley Tour around San Diego.

The trolley tour signage

I would recommend doing this  hop on, hop off tour. I learnt a lot about San Diego buildings with a short description of each place we passed. the guides are slightly different in character. My favourite was our first one he had a nice way of describing things and a dry sense of humour. He even made us turn with a wonderful description of what turned out to be a simple McDonalds. haha!

The picture above is the official logo, just before you get on the trolley, you're given a round sticker of the tour symbol to stick on your jacket or blouse, after which you're good to go.

my favourite guide of the day.

Here is the picture from where I sat. Its an antique looking trolley with heated floorboards and he plays appropriate music along the way intermittently to get the mood going before imparting some gem of knowledge.

Horton Plaza

The next building of significance that we passed was Horton Plaza. The statue that you see is of Earnest W. Hahn the developer of Horton Plaza. And what a buzz it was when it opened on August 9 1985. It had 51 stores and four department stores, Robinsons, the Broadway Mervyns and Nordstrorm.We passed Horton Plaza which I found later to be a bit of a has been. The anchor tenant moved out a few years ago and not many stores remain. Additional negative information was the weird escalators you may find. I saw one or two homeless people outside the plaza. So no, with the limited time I had on my hands, I chose to opt out of this place.

The end of part one of the tour.

Cheesecake Factory

Cheesecake Factory San Diego

We arrived in San Diego a little after 9pm. The flight from Los Angeles to San Diego was delayed due to an accident when our plane chewed up a bird leading to some cleaning up presumably. It's common so the driver told us. We walked about looking for food. And we found the Cheesecake Factory. Thanks to Penny working here, we promised we would get a meal and cheesecake once before flying out. ( which we did) 

Our first meal in San Diego was in Little Italy. We had pizza and then we walked a lot around little Italy looking for a kebab shop and when we did find out, it was closed. the weather was chilly with a little wind and dry. 

San Diego

Lovely afternoon in San Diego overlooking the bay

Hello from San Diego. Well I'm back to KL now so all this blogging is retrospectively capturing the emotions of that day.  This was my first trip to the States. A long journey which started with applying for a visa. A tip for first timers, it is not difficult but it does take time. (I'll blog separately on the experience) 

In the meantime, please admire the gorgeous view I had for a week when I stayed at Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego, level 26. Wow! A special thank you to the lady at the counter when I checked in, she asked whether I would sacrifice a king size bed for a smaller room with a view. Of course I would. And this was what I got.

I read that May is meant to be dull and gloomy. So this picture doesn't represent what most of the days were like for me. But as I like gloomy weather I enjoyed the gloom quite a lot. 

To the left of the picture is a row of hotels, Manchester Grand Hyatt, Mariott, The convention centre and finally Hotel Hilton. To the right of the picture is Coronado. And the bridge linking this is Coronado Bridge. ( just to clarify, Coronado is a peninsular and not and island)

The reason why the bridge is shaped like a dome, is to accommodate the height of the naval ships as San Diego is a naval base.

9th May 2018

My voting centre is Raub.

Malaysians came out to vote midweek on the 9th of May 2018. And as you know, we have a new government and the spirit of optimism has spread far and wide. Its a good feeling. And we pray for many more good things for our country. 

Launch of the Malaysian Asthma CPG

The whole team together with the DG.

The 3rd of May 2018. Venue: Main Auditorium, Hospital Serdang. What a great day this was. The culmination of 3 years of hard work under the guidance of Dr Amin and with the support of the Malaysian Thoracic Society ( thank you for the travel grants as well as the printing of the CPGs) and to MABIP ( for the  props used for the gimmick). 

I would like to thank every single one of the team who have travelled long and far even during the fasting month for meetings in Putra Jaya to do the literature review as well as the writing process. I know some of you travelled and couldn't claim for all trips and yet you did not complain. One of you travelled by bus all the way from up north to contribute while others drove from Penang, flew in from KB, Muar, Klang ( and later Ipoh) Banting and also prioritize meetings so you could attend at least one out of the 2-day meeting dates on a monthly basis. Most of you hold more than one post and yet sacrificed your time. 

I am grateful for the time we spent together, it gave me the opportunity to get to know you all better and it reminded me what a good team can achieve when we have a common goal and with the right guidance. And here this leads me to a special mention of Dr Amin, our true mentor throughout the entire process without whom this CPG would not be possible. Truly, he is a humble man who allows others to take the glory of his hard work. He supports and pushes quietly with great tact and always polite. He is an inspiration to us all.