Curiously Carmen

Gift Ideas for Friends Under $20

December 19, 2016

Well, it’s that time of the year again… PRESENTS! But I love posts like this and coming up with gift ideas. I decided that this post will be gift ideas under $20 for friends.

1. Lush bath bombs, $5-$9: Lush bath bombs are quite popular presents to give and receive, and for a good reason too. They smell nice, they look pretty, and make you feel good! They also make good stocking stuffers. Bath bombs start at $5 and go up to $9 for the really fancy ones. I don’t think I would ever purchase a $9 for myself, but I wouldn’t mind buying that for someone.

On another note, you could check out other companies that make bath bombs as well. I picked up some on my recent weekend trip to Victoria, from a local company based in Saltspring Island named Saltpring Soapworks. Compared to Lush, the prices were cheaper there! Some other stores that sell bath bombs are the Rocky Mountain Soap Company, The Body Shop, and Amazon.

2. Macarons, $1-$20: Macarons are sweet, colourful, and so cute! They also act as great decor because they brighten up a room. How can you not love macarons? Depending on your budget, you could buy a couple, or a box of them. Some delicious places for macarons in Vancouver are Bon Macaron (read my review here), Theirry, Faubourg, Lauduree, and Soirette.

3. Tsum tsums, $5-$15: OMG, I am in love with tsum tsums. They are so adorable and I want them all! I normally HATE plushies because they just take up room and collect dust, but I am willing to make an exception for tsum tsums. There are so many different Disney tsum tsum characters to choose from. You’ll be sure to find one for someone!

4. Funko figurines, $10-$20: Funkos are another cool gift idea for that friend who loves fictional characters. Funko has so many different kinds of characters from so many different TV shows, games, and movies! If i had the space and money, I would definitely buy a collectors shelf and just collect them all!

5. Board games, $5-$20: If your friend is a fan of board games, consider buying them a new board game! Many of my board games are under $20 and are really fun. Take a look at your local board game store and check out the clearance section or the area near the cashier, that is usually where the cheaper games are. I recently bought a card game named Poo for $10 and it’s hilarious!

Check out my holiday gift idea posts from previous years as well!

Intangible Holiday Gift Ideas

Holiday Gift Ideas for the Boyfriend (Post 2)

Holiday Gift Ideas for Parents

Holiday Gift Ideas for the Boyfriend (Post 1)

Tried & Tested Gift Ideas Under $20 (For girls)

Christmas Gift Ideas for Friends, Under $15

Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort Review

December 14, 2016

To celebrate the end of my university career, and to just have a quick vacation since we haven’t travelled together since our Mexico trip we took over 1.5 years ago, the boyfriend and I decided to head over to Victoria, BC this past weekend!

We have both been to Victoria before, I went with my high school years ago and him with his family. Victoria is the capital city of our province, and located on Vancouver Island, which is about a 2 hours ferry ride from the Vancouver.

I will be writing a few posts about our weekend to Victoria. Today, I am starting off with a review on the hotel we stayed at, the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe Resort!

When looking for a place to stay, we both wanted something centrally located in downtown or within walking distance. The Delta Victoria is located across the small bridge, less than a 5 minute walk to downtown and Chinatown. It has also just been recently renovated!

One of my favourite parts about the trip was the hotel room.The room we stayed at was the Deluxe Water View Guest Room w/ King Bed. It is not everyday that I am treated to such a beautiful view whenever I look out the window.
At night, it was such a breathtaking sight seeing the parliament building and Empress Hotel lit up.
I also caught this sunrise by accident. The boyfriend had wanted to wake up early to avoid the lineup at Blue Fox Cafe, and I reluctantly agreed. Funnily enough, I ended up waking up earlier than him. When I opened the blinds, I was completely caught off guard to the beautiful sunset.

I sat at the chair for a good 15 minutes watching the sunrise, appreciating the beauty of it and reflecting on how lucky I was to have caught it.

Here are pictures of the hotel room that I took:
Once you walk in, the washroom is located on the side. As mentioned earlier, everything had been recently renovated so it was quite nice. The washroom does not have a bath tub, but a large glass door shower which felt very modern. Half of the rooms are equipped with a tub, so if this is something you would like, make a note on it with the staff!
The bed was insanely comfortable, making it hard for me to get up each day! The pillows were also very soft and deep, and I found myself getting lost in them.

There is also a sitting area for guests to enjoy the view, should they choose the Water View suites. We found ourselves sitting here quite often, just watching the city.

We also took advantage of the cable and TV, and enjoyed many Christmas movies! There are also adapter plugs that you can use to plug in your laptop. Speaking of technology, each room comes with free wifi. It was very reliable and fast, with no connectivity issues at all so yay!

The Delta also has an indoor swimming pool with floor to ceiling windows that face the inner harbour. We didn’t bring our swim gear, but it looked like a great place to have fun and soak!

There is also a restaurant on the main floor! We didn’t get a chance to try it, but the restaurant was buzzing with activity on both the Friday and Saturday nights we stayed. It definitely looked like the place to be. Plus, there is a beautiful view of the water in the restaurant as well.
Want to relax and pamper yourself? The Delta Victoria also has a spa!

We really enjoyed our stay at the Delta Victoria. All the staff were really accommodating and nice, from the doorman, to front desk, to the cleaners. With the snowstorm, I had just purchased some new winter boots and was getting blisters while breaking into them (ouch). They gave me a bunch of bandaids to prevent them from getting worse and even a mini sewing kit to pop the blisters (I was too afraid to do that hahaha).

If you are planning on heading to Victoria, I highly recommend staying at the Delta Victoria. Rates begin around $160~ a night, depending on the type of room. For more information, visit the Delta Victoria Ocean Pointe website!

Keep an eye out for a couple more posts on Victoria!

Yay!

Disclaimer: This suite was offered to me at a discounted media rate. Opinions are my own.

Peaceful Restaurant – Downtown Seymour Street Location

December 11, 2016

Peaceful Restaurant is quite popular and well known in the Vancouver restaurant scene, a large part due to it being on Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. The restaurant serves up Northern Chinese cuisine, which is characterized by foods that have a bit more spice. I love Northern Chinese food and find it really comforting!
They have a number of locations in Vancouver. This review is for the location in downtown on Seymour Street, a few steps from BCIT Downtown and Granville Skytrain Station. I think this location is somewhat new because when I used to work in this area, it used to be a Taiwanese restaurant.

My cousin and I went during the lunch rush, where the restaurant was completely full. We waited about ten minutes in line.
Lanzhou beef noodle, $9.95: I have been craving Lanzhou noodles ever since I went to Tasty Handpulled Noodle in New York City. So, I decided to order something nice and comforting!

The bowl of noodles comes with a very generous portion of thinly sliced beef, although I did get lots of the tendon part. Above the noodles is a pile of glass noodles (fun see), cooked spinach, and cilantro. I felt like I was getting a bonus portion of noodles with the fun see!

The broth was very clean, non-oily, and very rich in flavour. It reminded me of homemade broth. There was also a really strong garlic taste too!

As for the noodles, they were excellent. It was cooked al dente (seems kinda strange describing Chinese food in Italian terms), and nice and chewy as Lanzhou noodles should be. I loved this and would order it again in a heartbeat!
Peaceful Beef Rolls, $7.95: There was actually another piece in here, but we forgot to take a photo until after my cousin ate it.

The beef roll was so delicious! The dough was slightly thick and chewy, but with a nice flaky and fresh exterior. There was a very generous amount of beef slices inside, coupled with hoisin sauce. I don’t order beef rolls often at other places, so I’m not sure how this compares.

But, I really loved it and would order it again!
Xiao long bao, $7.95: This was the one dish that I didn’t enjoy that day. The noodle soup and beef rolls were amazing, but this was quite lacking. It tasted like those frozen ones from TNT, which I mean is okay if you’re steaming it at home.. but not at a restaurant for almost $8!

All in all, we really enjoyed Peaceful Restaurant and have another place to go to when I’m craving soup noodles. I went back to their other location on East 5th, which is by Olympic Village/Earnest Ice Cream.

Compared to the East 5th location, the Seymour location had more fun see noodles and had spinach. The beef rolls at the Seymour location were also bigger and had more filling. But, I would still go back to the East 5th location because it’s more convenient for us and the noodles & broth tasted the same!

Yay!

Anastasia Beverly Hills Tinted Brow Gel

December 7, 2016

This product is one of those where I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about it yet! I’ve been using and repurchased the Anastasia Beverly Hills tinted brow gel for over two years now.

Anastasia Beverly Hills is definitely one of the top products, if not THE product, the beauty world absolutely SWEARS by.

For this post, I will be focusing on their brow gel! I have the shade chocolate.

What it says (Taken from Sephora):

For those with thin, sparse brows, this unique, botanical formula gives the appearance of fuller, thicker brows.
The combination of cream and gel effortlessly defines and fills in the look of brows while controlling and shaping without flaking or fading.

Application: The application process is pretty standard. The product comes in a sturdy tube and your typical brow brush.

You can use the brush to apply a more rounded, curved shape or you can make it more angled and sharp. But,the brush also causes some slight problems as I’ll mention below.

Wear: On top of the great colour and beautiful, full shape, this brow gel is very long lasting. It does not smudge and will easily survive a 12+ hour day without retouches. With that said, it is also easy to remove with makeup remover.
Here is a picture of my eyebrows without the brow gel. Although I do like my eyebrows without filling them in, I like to enhance them and make them look even better.
Here are my eyebrows after! As you can tell, there is a big difference. My brows are thicker and fuller now.

First, I make sure the brush is completely straight and parallel to my brow. When your brush is slightly slanted, your brows will arch too soon. That is something you do not want because that is how you get rounded rainbow/sperm brows and those ain’t cute.

As you can see from the pic below, the brush is slightly rounded instead of straight & skinny, making it harder for a precise look and easier for sperm brows.

I would prefer a thinner brush because this brow gel is only good if you want thick and full brows. It is hard to achieve a thin brow shape with this because of how big the brush is.

Then, I like to extend the shape of my eyebrows a bit past my natural hairs, because I think my face is quite round and having shorter brows make it look even rounder.

While extending, this part can sometimes be tricky depending on how much product is on the brush. Much like nail polish, sometimes there is too much product on the tip of the brow brush and the colour becomes uneven.

In this case, I will take my brow pencil and fill in the uneven parts and it’s all good.

Makes your brows look AMAZING!
Does an AMAZING job at filling in your brows, and giving them definition
Long lasting
Does not flake or fade

Brush is thicker than most spoolie brushes, which means you can only create thicker brow looks and it’s hard to be precise
Can be tricky if you have too little/too much product on the brush, leading to uneven colour

Overall, the pros outweigh the cons. Once I run out of this, I don’t think I will repurchase only because I want to try the other ABH products, mainly the dip brow or the brow wiz! I’ve repurchased this once already =P

The dip brow and brow wiz are their most popular items, and they seem to solve the problem with the brow gel, which is that it can only create thick brow looks.

Yay!

Gojiro Ramen

December 4, 2016

Most of the time, I am the one that finds new places for us to try out because I am more connected with food bloggers/influencers! However, occasionally, the boyfriend will come across places he wants to try. Gojiro Ramen was one of these places!

Once he saw the chicken karaage ramen on Facebook, he was sold. On top of that, it has a Godzilla theme! After a couple months, we found ourselves conveniently close to Gojiro Ramen and decided to try it.
Although we came on a Thursday evening around 8 pm, the place was still full! Luckily, we were the first in line so the wait was less than 10 minutes.

One thing I liked about Gojiro was how spacious it was, compared to other ramen joints. Although the ramen is amazing at Santouka and Kintaro, we all know how cramped the seating is. Gojiro is bigger, and not as cramped.

I also really liked the interior design, it was very simplistic, clean, and modern with some Godzilla-themed decor here and there.
Gojiro focuses on jiro-style ramen, which is ramen that features a mountain of toppings.
Basic bakamori w/ karaage,$13.55: DAMN. LOOK AT IT! There was a generous amount of chicken karaage, loaded with a mountain of cooked beansprouts.

All the Yelp reviews previously mentioned how delicious the karaage was, so I was really looking forward to trying it for myself. AND MAN, WAS IT DELICIOUS. The chicken was crispy, juicy, and super flavourful. 10/10 would recommend!

I wish I ordered the karaage as well, but the boyfriend was generous enough to give me a couple pieces. =D I have digestive issues anyways so I shouldn’t be eating all that fried food myself, unless I want to get sick.
Basic w/ chashu, $9.95: My bowl does not look as impressive as the boyfriend’s, but it was still really delicious. We both requested the thick broth because why eat ramen otherwise?

Due to my dairy restriction, I asked if the broth contained any butter/dairy products/etc and I was happy to hear it didn’t! Even without dairy, the broth was thick, creamy, and fatty. Definitely not something you should eat everyday.

As for the chashu, it was no where as good as the karaage. The chashu was dry and bland. Definitely stick to the karaage, or soak the chashu in the fatty broth and eat it last.
The noodles were cooked perfectly, with a nice bounce to it. They were a bit thicker than I was used to, but still super delicious nonetheless.

I also like how the restaurant is located in the downtown core, and not all the way at the end of Robson Street like the other ramen joints. It is definitely more convenient for me to come here!

In conclusion, we left Gojiro with extremely happy and satisfied tummies. The chicken karaage is a must order, and their broths are amazing as well! I will definitely be coming back.

Yay!