Lip Balm for super cheap!

i suppose you know the feeling when you fly - lips start to become dry or crack due to the dry cabin air and you desperately need that tube of lip balm to rescue them?

for years! the same tube of lip balm always follows me whenever I travel.  this time when I was packing, I suddenly wondered if it was a good idea to use the same old lip balm since it probably had zillions of bacteria from the years of slathering it directly on my lips!'

remembering I had a tub shea butter from iherb a couple of months ago, I decided I would use that instead.  so i went rummaging through my cabinets for a small container to hold the shea butter, simply transferred some over with a butter knife and voila! instant 'new' lip balm!

oh, call me shallow, but a nice container helps.  it's a joy to use the lip balm from a pretty pink translucent container with gold screw cap.  Morale of the story?  Keep the pretty containers! only the pretty ones though!  the not-so-nice ones?  I recycle them.

[caption id="attachment_1531" align="aligncenter" width="547"] Shea butter I bought from iherb. Transferred into uber cute estee lauder sampler container gifted to me from mum who received from her friend![/caption]

thing to note is that as it's 100% shea butter, it is fairly solid and harder to apply, but once its on your lips, it glides since the warm of your lips helps to soften it.  Best part - you can use it on any part of your body - your hands / body!   sis tried it and was impressed. ha.

so its good for your skin cos' it doesn't contain any additives, and doesn't cost much (USD 12.24 for 227g!).  I guess why the normal lip balms cost so much is from all the packaging.   You can consider this the next time you run down your lip balm!

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam!

Over the weekend, my sis, the hb and I flew to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam for a short holiday.

We didn't go for any city / historical / educational tour - so it was really a shopping and eating trip!  It was really relaxing and I had a good time - partly cos' it was all planned by my sister so all i did was to just follow (its wonderful when you can switch your brain off), got to actually shopped for clothes i needed (thanks to my sis - cos' if not for her, I probably would have been turned off by the squeeziness and the crowd! since I'm with her gotta follow right? ha.), bought some household items for the home for cheap (yes, I feel that I'm becoming an 'aunty'), and also cos' i realized I didn't have to worry about the business since I closed it! (I believe that everything happens for our best interests more and more each day!)

We stayed at a really nice hotel - Hotel Nikko Saigon.  There was a promotion and it was just USD 310 for 2 nights, including an extra bed!  a superb deal considering how great the rooms are!  check out the photos!  plus they had jacuzzi and spa facilities which you could use!

[caption id="attachment_1403" align="aligncenter" width="737"] lovely bed and comforter...though the pillows were a little too soft for my liking![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1405" align="aligncenter" width="717"] toilet was really nice! there is also a shower which i didn't take a pic of.[/caption]

I went Hanoi before and it was a lot smaller and easier to quickly navigate around.  Ho Chi Minh by contrast is huge! and despite usually preferring a quieter location for holidays - somehow I preferred HCM.  It was strangely cleaner than Hanoi.  Also, in Hanoi, the cars and motorbikes were ALWAYS honking and the noise level was quite unbearable.  Traffic in HCM is still busy and messy but way less honking and less noisy (maybe cos' space is also bigger).

Exactly cos HCM was way larger - you need to know before hand where you wanted to go for the specific things you wanted to get.  Clothes / laquer ware / paintings.  I just followed my sis and told her what I wanted to see.

My hauls?

• 8 tee shirts / SGD 6 each


• 4 tank tops / SGD 3 each


• 2 dresses / SGD 12 - 15.  my sis got more proper dresses about SGD30 or so)


• 1 leather pouch / SGD 24 and quality is really good!


• 50 tea towels (yes, 50.  I'm trying to reduce usage of paper towels to be more environmentally friendly...and tea towels in singapore are ridiculously priced!  I got the 50 pcs for only SGD 6!!  Here, I'll probably have to pay about four times more!)


• 2 bath mats (for the fun of it.  i could have got it at about the same price here at home).


• Laquer ware and plate / SGD 50 for 4 pcs.

Shopping was a lot of fun cos' it is crazy cheaper than back home and I think I got my casual clothes shopping done for the next 2 years!  Of course you need to know where to go and to check the prices at each stall if not the stall owners will naturally try to make a neat profit from you.

also got other stuff for the family (coffee, shawls)  here's a photo of only the clothes for four people (my sis, her friend, my mum and myself).  Naturally the shopaholic sis owns most of the clothes. She was one happy happy shopper!

[caption id="attachment_1410" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] shopping hauls! clothes for sis, her friend, my mum and myself![/caption]

holidays

the hb, sis and I are heading to Vietnam for a short weekend trip soon and my sis being the one pulling it all together - sent me some info on travel insurance, and on the places she had planned to visit....and it hit me that I was so darn laid back!

only a couple of years ago - when I was about to take a vacation - I would be thrilled!  once, I even started packing 3 weeks before the trip!  now?  probably the night before.   Over the years, the hb and I have become more relaxed when it comes to holidaying - more chilled, no more frantic planning on where to go, what to do, what to see.  after all, a holiday is supposed to be fun and relaxing.

One of the holiday I enjoyed the most - was one with some planning, and then allowing each day to evolve naturally.  Of course it helps that there were TONS of stuff to see.  Anyhow, I'm just SO happy my sis is pulling the trip together...and all I have to do is to turn up!:)  I admit, I'm a lazy bum. Maybe i shall take the dslr along to improve my photography skills!