A scent by Issey Miyake

I've got a new perfume and I absolutely love it. As soon as the alcohol evaporates, it leaves a fresh and light scent. I can only describe it as very Japanese... It doesn't last very long on the body, I think, but in my hair it's fantastic - just to wake up and still smell the scent makes me happy ^^

Outfit #3 and Make-up #2

So this is another outfit. I just bought the cardigan last Friday and I had to wear it as soon as it got colder ^^

The cardigan and the top are from H&M, the jeans from Amisu, the shoes from a cheap store and the belt from Basler.

My eye make-up is very simple. It's a lot of brown shades. I love my blush... it's from Alverde (Mineral Rouge - 02 Cherry)

Gogo Brothers

The today well-known Gogo Brothers are a duo, actually containing real brothers, called Yuu and Rei. Their father Tony was one of the pioneers in Locking and also one of the cofounders of the original Gogo Brothers. When he moved to Japan, he continued to teach and develop a new style of Locking called "Lock Fusion". Having trained his two greatly talented sons, the name Gogo Brothers continues to live in the second generation, making their Dad proud. They learned from the best not only their father but also from Greg Cambellock jr. and the Electric Boogaloos.

Gion Tsujiri in Kyoto

My very lovely Japanese friends Yoko and Mirika told me to eat at this great tea shop when being in Kyoto. As a German, I would rather call it a café but anyway... Mirika went with me and we had a lovely dessert at Gion Tsujiri which specialized in green tea sweets - there is the famous icecream, small waffle rolls, cream, jelly, soft rice balls, cakes, muffins... really anthing you could imagine that could be made of green tea powder. It's fantastic, but be careful, you have to stand in line for quite awhile and it is very crowded.

It is also possible to buy a lot of those sweets from the restaurant in the integrated little shop nearby.

As the name already implies, the café is in the Gion District of Kyoto, where the famous Geishas once paced in ancient times...

Gion Tsujiri (Kyoto City, Gionmachi-Minamigawa 573-3)

Baby Talk

I watched "How I met your mother" recently and it made me think... Do women really get more attention when acting like a little girl? (Which according to Ted is because men want to be needed.)

And I must say, I've seen quite a lot of women who get along well with being girly but I haven't seen a lot of guys trying to hit on girls or women acting like a little boy as Barney did in that episode (soooo hilarious ^-^), though we all know that's how they sometimes are when we know them better ;)

But anyway, is it good or bad that some women play this role sometimes? I don't know... Acting like a bimbo and being one are two pairs of shoes, right? Of course it's not for everyone or any situation... but sometimes it makes life easier asking for help...

Lesson learned

Don't procrastinate!

Yesterday, when the weather couldn't have been any better, my friends and me made the plan to go swimming in a lake nearby today because the weather was supposed to be just great for the whole week-end (sunshine, 32°C). But the weather forecast couldn't have been more wrong.

Sheldon: More wrong? Wrong is an absolute state and not subject to degradation.
Stuart: Of course it is. It's a little wrong to say a tomato is a vegetable, it's very wrong to say it's a suspension bridge (Big Band Theory - S2E20)

As it turned out this morning it was cloudy and when we were sitting in the car, it started to rain. So we went to a café to wait until it cleared off. When we made it to the lake, it was freezing and it started to rain. Oh great, we thought and went to the car when it poured with rain like crazy... My roommate's brother told us on the phone that the weather was supposed to become even worse. But again, the new forecast was wrong. It stopped and sunshine came out as soon as we were back. So yeah, we went swimming after all.

But still, it made us promise to each other to be more spontaneous, instead of procrastinating. Of course that can be applied for more than only swimming... but that sure is a serious issue during this crappy summer ;)

Matcha Latte

This is my favorite drink in the world. I still can't believe, I can't buy this in Germany...

It is called Matcha Latte and it's a Japanese version of Iced Latte. Instead of coffee and cream it contains green tea and green tea icecream which is also my favorite icecream in the world. Probably also one more thing that belongs to "I want what I can't have". I suppose it's also healthier, i.e. less calories and tea instead of coffee.

I bought instant matcha latte powder to make it at home and I still have a tiny bit left... 

Matcha Latte ♥

Even Starbucks Japan sells it - I'm mad at you Starbucks for not selling it world-wide!!!

Eye Make-Up #1

Here is my first eye make-up. It's not exactly the same eye make-up as for Outfit #2 because it's not as dark but it's close and of course there's always room to make this stronger and darker for the nighttime ^^

The products that I used were:

1. Jade - cover stick #24 (green corrects redness)
2. Maybelline - pure. cover mineral concealer #1 (nude beige)
3. P2 - feel good mineral powder #030 (beige desert) to set the concealer
4. ELF - mineral eyeshadow primer
5. Essence - eyebrow pencil #02 (brown)
6. P2 - matte dream eyeshadow #050 (rose charm) for the whole lid
7. u.m.a - blue eyeliner pencil #3 as a base for #8b in the outer corner
8. Catrice - eyeshadow duo #050 (I wanna be a royal) - a=light, b=dark
9. Essence - eyeliner pencil #13 (nightfever)
10. Essence - eyeshadow #11 (wild at heart) to set the eyeliner and avoid smearing
11. P2 - matte dream eyeshadow #040 (White Connection)
12. Maybelline - lash expansion waterproof (black)

Outfit #2

That's what I wore to a recent salsa party...

The top was a present from my boyfriend's family, when we came to visit last year. The skirt is from Pimky, the shoes from H&M and the earrings from Six.

My Make-up is captured in this post: Make-up #1

Hilty & Bosch

After so many new style artists, I would like to introduce some of the oldschool dancers as well. These wonderful young men are Hilty and Bosch. Jin and Yu are from Japan. They quite look alike, although they are not brothers. But they dance very similar using the same technique because they have been locking together since the age of 15.

In this video, they start of with popping and continue with locking.

Oldschool Hip Hop Dance Styles

The styles of oldschool hip hop dance are Popping, Locking and Electric Boogaloo.

Locking is traditionally danced to funk music such as James Brown. The inventor of locking is Don Campbell who did it by accident when pausing during the funky chicken and not performing fluently because he forgot the next steps. Since his audience enjoyed his performance, he started to incorporate it into his further shows. Locking is a comical dance, which is also shown in the names of several moves such as "Scoo B Doo", "Skeeter Rabbit" or "Stomp the Cockroach".

Popping was also created at about the same time (1960-70s). The technique is based on quick muscle contractions and relaxations.

Electric Boogaloo is a fluid leg-oriented style which is closely connected to Popping.

Hot and Spicy King Prawns

I love scampi and prawns, especially when fried hot and spicy with garlic and chili. Best tapas ever...

People always want what they can't have...

As I talked about this earlier, unlike Europeans or North Americans Asian women try to maintain white and pure looking skin. I was looking at a couple commercials to show you...



Mostly, I just find it amusing how some parts of the world have so much sunshine and all the people do is try to become as pale as possible, while especially here in Germany (as well as in other "white" countries) everybody tries to get a nice tan to avoid looking sick and pale - like the teenagers who would go to the swimming pool and the beach without sun protection or even use oil to increase the tanning process, when it would be so much easier to stay white. 

What I first thought to be a mere cosmetic issue turned out to be partly rassistic, as I found some disturbing commercials and facts...
On the one hand, I didn't know that black people use whitening creme as well... I watched Tyra Banks on youtube, where a couple Afroamerican women told her about using whitening cremes. One even put bleach on a towel to her face to make it lighter (but it just made her darker). They think lighter-skinned people have a better life, have more dates and are more successful in their professional lifes. What irritates me, is that they discriminate against their own skin color...
On the other hand, there was an Indian commercial which states that a woman with whiter skin gets a better job. I didn't know that rassistic commercials like this exist. I only linked it for reference, I don't want to advertise the commercial and clearly set myself apart from that message. In other countries, you can sue the company for not giving you the job because of racism against color, race and religion and that commercial just shows racism at the highest... I'm appaled!

So I started looking at the effects of whitening or bleaching creme and I found this. Just click if you are capable of seeing burned skin. Some Tanzanian women burned their skin with bleaching creme from the black market. It is quite horrifying...

Skin whitening cremes contain similar ingrediences to the cremes against acne-scars and skin discoloration which makes the skin more sensitive to UV radiation. Taking away the naturally given protection by the skin, skin cancer is more likely to develop. Sometimes, even mercury is used as an ingredient. Some women died because of the resulting kidney failure.

For myself, I've never used any of these products (neither whitening nor tanning cremes) and I won't ever do that. As I was born and raised in Germany, I'm a victim of German beauty standards. I'm quite thankful for that... I don't use sun protection in Germany because I never get sunburned. It would be so much more high maintenance to stay white instead and though I don't take any effort, I'm always darker than my surrounding except of my boyfriend because he's black... so obviously... ^^

S**t Kingz

The S**t Kingz are a Japanese dance crew consisting of four male dancers (Shoji, Kazuki, Noppo, Oguri). They are very famous for dancing Hip Hop New Style, especially since winning Body Rock twice in a row (2010 and 2011). Body Rock is a very prestigious hip hop dance competition in San Diego existing since 2000, originally called Bustagroove. The S**t Kingz were actually the first international dance crew to ever win it. I was quite surprised to see them participate because I find it difficult to compare these four dancers with the other crews of 20+ dancers. I think Hip Hop Internationals made a better job, dividing Megacrews (14+ dancers) and normal groups (up to 8 dancers). But still, I love them and their style...

Outfit #1

So well. I made up my mind and I decided I wanted to show outfits and make-up as well. And here is my first outfit... It's actually not from today, that's why I'm not calling it OOTD.

The skirt is from New Yorker. The top is from H&M as well as the necklace. The belt is from the Domincan Republic, a gift from my boyfriend. It's made of coconut. I wanted to wear brown flats with this but I hurt my foot, so I ended up with these Ipanema flipflops. The side effect is, you can actually see my nailpolish...

I wasn't able to take any good pictures from my makeup... so maybe next time... I'll practice, I promise ^^

Taiwanese Woman at the Beach

As much as people from the west like to tan, Asian women mostly want to be fairy white and luminescent. So either way, there is a lot of effort and sometimes suffering... here there are sunburns, tanning studios, tanning lotions and early skin ageing and there are umbrellas, whitening creams, long sleeves and masks for the face and body at the highest temperature and humidity...
So for example here you might think, it was a cold day at the beach but not at all... this was in Taiwan at about 35˚C in the shadow and about 100% humidity. Just an hour earlier there was sunshine and no clouds but that's during the wet season... but don't be fooled, rain after a humid day doesn't freshen the air in tropical countries, neither does the night.

in Taiwan at the beach (2005)

Some even wear these masks and visors:


Long sleeves can also be added

Mini Laundry Rack

I bought this mini laundry rack on Ebay for 9.99 EUR because my last one was made of plastic and fell apart. There's nothing better for socks and underwear and I can also put it inside my room! Since I'm sharing this apartment with two others, I think this is especially convenient. So hopefully, it will last longer than my old one.

Ebay (www_benedikter_org)

You are my sunshine [Award]

This is my first award that I got from Miss Winkelmann. Thank you so much! This time, I'll continue in English because this time there are only 10 questions.

1. Favorite Color: Red
2. Favorite Animal: Panda
3. Favorite Number: 8
4. Favorite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Apple-cider
5. Facebook or Twitter: Facebook
6. What do you do passionately? Dance
7. Do you rather receive or give presents? Both
8. Favorite Pattern: Leo
9. Favorite Day of the Week: Saturday
   
10. Favorite Flower: Hibiscus

Since I have just started blogging, I don't have many readers and I'm not following many blogs either, I won't be able to make #3 but anyway, here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who gave you the award.
2. Answer the 10 questions above.
3. Give the award to 10 other bloggers and let them know.

Jabbawockeez

The Jabbawockeez are an all-male hip hop dancecrew from California, founded in 2003. They are the first dancecrew that has ever won America's Best Dance Crew. Not only made they history in 2008, with ABDC on national television they changed the dimension of the dance community. There is so much more awareness for dance as a form of art and entertainment now - thanks to ABDC. The Jabbawockeez also have a show in Las Vegas at the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino.

The white masks are their signature accessory, chosen because one of their members (Gary Kendell) died and by the audience not being able to distinguish between the dancers, they felt his presence on stage. They have their own distinctive style of hip hop dance, great robotic isolations and entertainment. If I were to go to Las Vegas, I would definitely watch their show.

[Tagged] Momentaufnahme

getagged von Miss Winkelmann

1.) Wo ist dein Handy? Neben mir
2.) Dein Partner? Mein Freund arbeitet noch.
3.) Deine Haare? Frisch gewaschen.
4.) Deine Mama? Hatte gerade eine Augen-OP...
5.) Dein Papa? Ist zu Hause bei meiner Mama.
6.) Lieblingsgegenstand? Mein iMac
7.) Dein Traum von letzter Nacht? Keine Erinnerung.
8.) Dein Lieblingsgetränk?Apfelsaftschorle.
9.) Dein Traumauto? Hab ich nicht...
10.) Der Raum in dem du dich befindest? In meinem WG Zimmer.
11.) Dein Ex? Wir sind noch befreundet.
12.) Deine Angst? Was ich nach der Doktorarbeit mache.
13.) Was möchtest du in 10 Jahren sein? Glücklich.
14.) Mit wem verbrachtest du den gestrigen Abend? Mit meinem Freund.
15.) Was bist du nicht? Perfekt.
16.) Das letzte was du getan hast? Gegessen.
17.) Was trägst du? Schlafsachen.
18.) Dein Lieblingsbuch? Im Moment "Journey to the West", ein Stück chinesische Kultur nachholen.
19.) Das letzte was du gegessen hast? Ein Stückchen Kuchen von meiner Mitbewohnerin.
20.) Dein Leben? Schön
21.) Deine Stimmung? Erschöpft und müde.
22.) Deine Freunde? Denen geht es gut.
23.) Woran denkst du gerade? Bin müde...
24.) Was machst du gerade? Bloggen
25.) Dein Sommer? War nicht so besonders bisher...
26.) Was läuft in deinem Tv? Ich habe keinen.
27.) Wann hast du das letzte Mal gelacht? Heute.
28.) Geweint? Vor Lachen (letzte Woche im Kino).
29.) Schule? Schon lange her...
30.) Was hörst du gerade? Freeze von T-Pain und Chris Brown.
31.) Liebste Wochenendbeschäftigung? Tanzen.
32.) Traumjob? Meine Doktorarbeit ist ziemlich toll, nur die Bezahlung ist solala...
33.) Dein Computer? iMac.
34.) Außerhalb deines Fensters? Dunkelheit.
35.) Bier? Nur gemixt, sonst lieber nicht. Und sowieso nur eins wg. meiner asiatischen Gene...
36.) Mexikanisches Essen? Gerne :) Freu mich auf San Diego.
37.) Winter? Mag ich nicht... zu kalt.
38.) Religion? Nicht mehr...
39.) Urlaub? Dom. Rep.
40.) Auf deinem Bett? Wäsche.
41.) Liebe? Ja.

San Diego 2007

After my exchange year (2006/07) in the US, I went to California for three weeks. I spent a couple days in San Diego with a friend whom I've known from a Chinese summer school in Taiwan. It was so fun to walk over his campus in La Jolla. Somehow, I just can't get over the fact that the beach belongs to the university. UCSD seems perfect... From all the cities in California, I liked San Diego the most and LA the least, although San Francisco has its own charm as well. But what I liked most in San Diego is the obvious Mexican heritage... the houses are a hint more colorful, more sunshine, the better beach ;)

 In the city, having delicious lunch.

Btw, the dining hall at the right upper corner was the spaceship in "Attack of the killer tomatoes", my friend told me.

UCSD

The famous San Diego Zoo.

The Zoo with a beautiful green landscape.

Excited...

Not only will I travel to the Dominican Republic in October, I just found out that I'll probably be going to a conference in San Diego next February... I'm so excited. I love travelling and I love San Diego. Maybe, I'll show you a couple of my pictures from 2007.

I'm also excited about going to the Dominican Republic because maybe this year, I'll understand what people say. It won't be an all-inclusive vacation! My boyfriend is Dominican and we went to see his family last year and we'll do that this year as well. I've been learning Spanish for three semesters now and I really hope, I'll get along. Especially because I passed the B1 level which is also required for German if you want to become a German citizen. So we'll see...

Boca Chica 2010

But anyway... Who doesn't like the Caribbean???

Hip Hop International 2011

The world-renowned competition Hip Hop International is over now. Although the videos on youtube are still of very low quality, I can't stop watching them... I have been ruling for my favorite all-girl-dancecrew Request. Parris Goebel, their head and choreographer, has proved to be out of this world. She definitely was crowned the queen of the night, leading three different dancecrews - Bubblegum (Junior), Sorority (Varsity) and Royal Family (Megacrew) to gold. If Request placed first at the adult division instead of second, it would have been a perfect strike. But anyway... I love them.



Unfortunately for the Germans, they didn't even make the semi-finals (top 30). I haven't seen their videos but I might talk about them lateron anyway because the Germans have their own particular style.

PS: The winners of the adult division were Plague from the UK.

Edit: I changed the video and the links to better quality.