vintage festival 2014

Hello! I am so glad to be back here, the blogsphere... There is a quite bit of catching up to do. Last month, I was in Malaysia for a short holiday. It was great to be back; catching up with family and friends and not forgetting eating all the yummy Malaysian food. I was in luck as I had the opportunity to attend Vintage Festival, few days before my departure. And course of, I did not miss out any chance grabbing nice vintage clothes!

I went on the first day of the festival and arrived after 11-ish AM, thinking that most of the stalls would be opened. However, sadly, I was wrong. Almost half of the stalls have yet to be opened; some empty stalls and some were still in the process of setting up. Looking on the bright side of this, the lesser stalls opened, the lesser I could shop. The outcome of this visit was two tops and a pair of slacks and total amount spent was RM25. 

This was the stall where I bought my vintage tops and slacks for RM25

Vintage books and knick knacks

Vintage hand crank Singer sewing machines

Old or vintage sewing machine legs (to add a wooden or glass top to make a table with sewing machine legs; awesome, no?)

By visiting this vintage festival, my thirst for vintage (at a bargain) or shopping in a flea market has been quenched, at least for now. So glad that I managed to squeeze this into my busy holiday schedule.

Hope you had have a great Christmas celebrations for those who celebrate the festivity and happy holidays!

Have a great weekend ahead and stay chic!

wanderlust: vientiane and luang prabang, laos

Sabaidee! This is means hello in Lao language. My friends and I visited Vientiane and Luang Prabang, Laos during Easter break recently. Laos has similar culture or has influence of Thai, Vietnamese cultures and not forgetting tiny bit of French influence as it was under French rule. Luang Prabang is one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in Laos, so it is worth visiting place. Here are some photos from my trip. Enjoy!

Buddha park - 24 km south of Vientiane, is near the Mekong River. The park is filled with religious sculptures and was built in 1958 by the philosopher Bunleua Sulilat.

Phat That Luang - a symbol of Lao's nationhood and the country's most sacred Buddhist momument. It was built in the 16th century under the rule of King Setthathirat.

Patuxai - Gate of Triumph, is situated in the centre of Vientiane and was built between 1962 to 1968.

Wat Ho Phakeo - was built in 1565 as a royal chapel and repository for the celebrated statue of the Emerald Buddha which was seized from Northern Thailand in 1551. However, in 1778, the Siamese (Thais) invaded and recaptured it, taking it to Bangkok. The temple was destroyed in 1828 to 1829 during the Thai sacking of Vientiane. It was rebuilt in 1936 and restored again in 1993.

Wat Sisaket - the only temple in Vientiane to survive the sacking of the city theSiamese in 1828. It is the oldest and considered by many to be most interesting of the Laotian temples.

Kuang Si waterfalls - A three tier waterfall about 29 km south of Luang Prang. This is one of the favourite trips for tourists in Luang Prabang. Local tours often offer tours to this waterfall.

Royal Palace Museum - It was closed during our visit. It houses royal portraits and busts, religious artifacts and gifts from foreign states. 
 

Whet your appetite with local food!

Khao Soy soup - Laotian breakfast; a bowl of noodle soup with pork meat and vegetables flavoured with special fermented bean paste. The soup it is not spicy as all the condiments are served separately.

Lao style sandwich - this can be bought at any fruit juice or shake stalls by the road.French bread + scramble egg + shreds of bean curd + meat floss + tomato slice + cucumber slice + lettuce = Lao style sandwich for 15,000 kip; less than US$2 (I think).

Click here to see more photos. 

Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Until the next post, stay chic and stylish!

a brief shopping experience in hanoi

When I was in Hanoi, I did not make any effort look for any thrift store, flea market or as such. It was purely sight seeing trip.However, I came across few of Made in Vietnam shops. These shops are more or less like outlet shops, whereby excess street fashion and some designers stocks are sold. Whether these are original stocks or not, I am unable to tell.

ben's vintage toy museum and thrift finds

I picked up Ben's Vintage Toy Museum's flyer whilst I was thrifting in Amcorp Mall weeks ago. During the recent trip to Penang, I have decided to check it out. The museum houses a large collection of toys such as robots, dolls, trains, aircrafts, guns, space toys, paddle cars and other toys. The staff was kind enough to show some good condition toys, for example the toy girl playing a music instrumental in the third photo. It works fine like it has not worn out. The toys were made in Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States, Russia and other countries. Do check out this place if you love toys or vintage toys.

Details:
Ben's Vintage Toy Museum
No. 55, Lebuh Acheh, 10200 Georgetown, Penang
Opening hours: daily including public holidays from 10 AM to 7 PM
Admissions (at the time of writing): adult RM10 per person, children 2 to 11 years old RM6 per person
 

On another note, my holiday would not be complete without any thrifting. I was pretty lucky at SA thrift store and have scored three pieces. I think the apple green top with lace is a pyjama top. Maybe I should sew a pair of shorts to pair with the top. As for the blue top, I think it needs a bit of colours to give it a fresh look. Good idea for fashion project, no?

penang revisited

Georgetown is the capital Penang Island and it is located on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia. In 2008, Georgetown was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Recently I revisited Penang as a tourist; went for sight seeing and snapping photos of interesting buildings around Georgetown.

I did not follow any heritage trail map but I used the route of hop on free Central Area Transit (CAT) as a guide. There are 19 stops in between all the well-known heritage landmarks and it runs from 6 AM to 12 midnight. Thanks to CAT, my sight seeing was very convenient (although I left out some heritage spots).

Here are photos of some the heritage landmarks based on CAT station names:

2 Feri / Ferry

Wisma Yeap Chor Ee

Wisma Kastam

4 Imigresen / Immigration

Standard Chartered Building

HSBC Building

Royal Bank of Scotland

Logan's building

5 Bank Negara / National Bank

City Hall

Town Hall

War Memorial

6 Muzium / Museum

St. George's Church

Church of the Assumption

Convent Light Street

 

Court Building

St. Xavier's Institution

8 Lebuh Campbell / Campbell Street

Benggali Mosque

14 Lebuh Carnarvon / Carnarvon Street

Penang Islamic Museum

Sun Yat Sen Penang base 

15 Kampong Kolam

Acheen Street Mosque

Kapitan Keling Mosque

17 Dewan Sri Penang / Sri Penang Hall

Dewan Sri Penang

Logan Memorial and High Court building

18 Kota Cornwallis / Fort Cornwallis

Fort Cornwallis

State Assembly Building

19 Lebuh Downing / Downing Street

Islamic Council Building

This took me almost whole day from 10 AM onwards to 4 PM and I have missed out some landmarks. So, to complete the route, I think one may need to start from 8 or 9 AM. Due to current hot and dry weather, one may consider to stop for a break either at Prangin Mall or Komtar especially between 12 noon to 2 PM, the hottest period of the day.

Do you know that there is a vintage toy museum in Penang? Yup, there is one located at Lebuh Acheh. Stay tuned as I will share my visit to the vintage toy museum and my thrift finds at Penang Salvation Army's thrift store. 

Happy Monday and have a great week ahead!