Size, Size, Size

I rarely shopping, and ultra rarely shopping during Christamas shopping season as I really hate the shopping crowd.  But this time I was thinking about buying a pair of leather glove, and you can't just buy glove online since it may not fit as well as you expected.

Yep, after spending 8 hours (7 am to 3 pm) to shop as mostly Galleria area, this is the most important thing I learned: for leather glove, you HAVE to try it in person since size varies from brand to brand.

Case in point: I tried the size 7 from Coach and it fitted me perfectly.  But then I saw another using S M L system instead of number.  Nevertheless, Size M from Ann Taylor still fits me perfectly.  M from Michael Kors, on the other hand, didn't fit me well.   In fact, I even tried S, and found that the top of finger still being a bit loose.  I also went to Talbots, and like thier 3 Quarter Length glove, but they only have 7.5, which I tried and found it too big.  In fact, it makes me wonder if their 7 will fit me at all.

At the end, I brought Faux-Fur-Trimmed Leather Glove from Ralph Lauren.  First it's that I liked the style, and then when I went to the physical store at Galleria, and I found the exact same freaking glove priced at US$300+ !!!  This is just crazy.  And finally I found a online code that gave me additional discount.  And EVEN if the glove doesn't fit perfectly, I can still restore it to the local store.

So now I am waiting for my short glove, and in the meantime continue to research on getting opera length leather glove.

So after 8 hours of shopping, did my come home empty handed?  Of course not.  I just didn't buy as much as I expected.  I did buy a Jessica Simpson Hooded Faux-Fur-Collar Belted Puffer for $65.  I like the style, and it's super warm wearing it.  Now I am not worry about running around in super cold or even snowing weather.

I also brought a Apt. 9® Microfiber Opaque Control-Top Tights in Inca Gold color and M size, and Apt. 9® Plush Ribbed Control-Top Tights in M size.  Both fit well, but then the Inca Gold color one doesn't seem to fit anything I have.  Well, maybe in the future I will find some way to use  it.

Fake eyelash ... damn fake eyelash

I was doing some make up exercise yesterday, and continue to find it very frustrating to apply fake eyelash.  And on the top of that, I found that ones that I brought from Hong Kong was very hard to press and stay on my eye lids.  At least end, I still blame my lack of skill instead of the fake eyelashes.

Yeah, shopping!

To tell you the truth, I am never really enjoy shopping, and much prefer online shopping.  But then once in a while, I have to go to real store, try out real clothing and such, so that I can actually touch the fabric and understand what I am about to get when I order online.

Since I really want to buy a pair of nice leather glove, I head to the mall and went to COACH store.  I tried size 7, and found it tightly fit my hands very well.  Size 7.5 is a bit loosely comfy, but the finger tips are definitely has 5+mm too much room.  size 8 has even more room on the finger tips.   All 3 sizes covers my palm tightly, though.

I also tried man size just for fun.  Even S is too big for my hands.

I also checked around with some low cost (fake) leather clothing.  They were cheap, with price range from $15 - $30.  I can casual buy a few just for fun.  But somehow I am getting picky these days, realizing that these cheap fake leather clothing will self-destruct after a year after all.

New ipad camera : cons

Up until recently, I use my Canon camera to take self-portrait photos and videos.  The video and image quality seemed decent enough, and I was happy with it.  And then, I brought my iPad, it comes with a front facing camera and another camera at the back.  So recently I tried using it to take some self portrait, and found that I have serious problem using the high quality 5 Megapixel camera at the back to take photos.  So instead, I used the front facing camera.  And the problem was pretty lame.  That make sense, because the resolution is just 640 x 480, but at least I am see what photo or video would be like by looking at the iPad screen.

So at the end, I realized that for self portrait videos and photos, I should stick with using my Canon Powershot SD880 IS.  At least I can:

• Hook up to my TV and see what the photo or video will look like.
• High quality video and photo
• Has easy to use timer

TaoBao Shopping Experience, 2012 edition

Everytime I go to Hong Kong for workation (work + vacation), I also try to buy some costume or dress from TaoBao since they have huge variety of dress and accessories that you can't find at any local store.  Since I tend to go to Hong Kong once each year, that means I also shop at TaoBao once each year.

My last year's TaoBao shopping experience was, unfortunately, less than enjoyable.  I experienced quite some of the problems, including:

•  The cheap dress I brought was indeed cheap in quality, for that purple dye stinted my skin after wearing for less than 15 minutes.
• The experience of waiting for SFExpress (順豐速運) to come by was extremely annoying to me.  Plus I had to pay additional delivery charge since my home was considered "rural location"

This year's TaoBao shopping experience was relatively better, mostly because:

• I only brought item from TaoBao this time, and that item was basically a different color version of a pair shoes that I brought last year.
• I chose SF Express self-pickup service.  That way I can work the pickup into my schedule, and no extra charge I need to pay.

My only problem this time is that I picked "九龍旺角大南街164號地下"  as the pick up location, which is actually in the middle between Price Edward and Sham Shui Po MTR Station.  I really should have picked "九龍深水埗大南街40號地下" which is very close to Prince Edward MTR Station.  Other than that, I was pretty ok with the whole process.  In fact I am a bit regretted that I did not buy more stuff from TaoBao this time.  

That bloody wig

I realize that I am not a particularly energetic person, but what drains my energy even faster is a bad wig.  To be fair, a lot of times it's not really the wig itself has any flaw.  It's just the way how I use the wig causing me pain, literally.

Case in point: last weekend I crossplay as a Xinjiang dancer as AnimeOverload 2012.  In order to complete the look, I need a wig that has hair at the the forehead part that I can comb over so that it will look like I comb over some long hair from my hair line to the back and form a series of braids.  I couldn't found a short hair wig that did the job, so I used a hair hair wig.  Since the idea is to not showing long hair at the back and instead shows a bunch of braids (a job taken cared by a Xinjiang hat), I have to make to  turn those long hairs either into braids, or at least tide them as one chuck.  I chose the later, and here's the problem: that chuck of hair is actually quite heavy, and it constantly pull my head thanks to gravity.  Thus, I started to feel the hair-pulling pain after wearing it for an hour.  Eventually I wore it for more than 6 hours, and by the time I took the wig off, I had a serious headache, and had to at least rest for half an hour to slight ease the pain.

Ironically, I really like the look, so I'll probably do it again, but NOT during conference.  2 hours is that max I can handle the pain from that wig.

Contact lens and Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Don't get me wrong.  I still love the Samsung Galaxy Nexus I recently brought.  It does exactly the stuffs I need it to do, and done them quite nicely.  But it failed to serve me when I am in contact lens, cause when I am in contact lens (instead of wearing a pair of regular glasses), things get blurry.  I realized the problem when I was at AnimeOverload 2012.  I found myself kept having trouble posting Facebook status and sending messages because the text on the screen is just too darn tiny.  Granted, I probably will have the same problem if I got an iPhone instead.  So perhaps I should continue carrying my iPad around instead of just the Galaxy Nexus.