Dunhuang, China Alive 2014

Hi guys!

Thank god finals are over, so right now, I have a little free time to blog about my recent school trip to Dunhuang, China.

I am not going to tell you how pissed off I was about not getting priority this year again so I am just going to jump right into the trip. Only Sophomores in Shanghai American School get this.

Day 1:

I got up at 4:45am to reach the Pudong airport at 6am. The meeting time is inhumane. During the airplane ride, I was just studying and sleeping for the most part. So that was good. Cookie is like the closest friend I had on the trip so we were just studying together and stuff for the APUSH exam which was a few days right after we came back from China Alive.

Gotta take ugly selfies right.

We got to Dunhuang at around 3pm and after putting down our luggages in the hotel, we went to do some farming work, which was basically just plowing out the weed. It was tiring. I can never imagine farming everyday.

Look at that desert land.

And then we climbed up a nearby sand dune! It was pretty damn tiring. I'm getting old. It's too unfortunate that I didn't bring my camera up the dune because the view on the top was so breathtaking. But there was so much sand blowing and it got into my mouth so that was really disgusting. Never get sand into your mouth. I felt like puking so bad.

After eating dinner, Cookie and I shared our life stories. It was pretty interesting. LOL I bet she is still rather traumatized by my life story.

Day 2:

We visited the Mogao Grottoes. It's really famous for their ancient caves with buddhism structures and paintings. Apparently, many of the caves will be closed a month after our visit so we were really lucky to be able to view 8 caves. There were 2 caves which we visited that were very special. One was the sleeping buddha which was lying to His side and sleeping. Another was a sitting buddha which was really gigantic. Photography was not allowed in the caves so I couldn't take any photos.

We actually saw the painter of the artworks in the store. LOVE HIS MUSTACHE.

Fortunately, we went to a nearby museum and I could "secretly" take some photos of the caves.

This is how they make the Buddha structures.

In the afternoon, we went to the Mingsha Mountain to ride camels. I think this is the best part of the trip! This was my first time riding a camel. They really stink. The sky color was disgusting though so I didn't get many good photos.

So while I was on the camel, the guy who owned the camels walked REALLY quickly. It was so damn annoying like are you in a rush or something and it was also very uncomfortable. All the others on the trip took a much longer time to reach the destination. Basically, I got less worth of my money spent on this camel ride and I hate this kind of feeling.

When we got to the top of the mountain, we rode a sledge down the mountain. It went pretty fast for the first few seconds but when you try to slow down, it just stops. So, I had to push myself down for the remaining of the ride. AND ONCE AGAIN, I got so much sand in my mouth. It was disgusting.

On the camel ride back down the mountain, I have no idea why my camel kept jumping and I was literally screaming because it's so FREAKING SCARY. 

Afterwards, we visited the Moon Lake. This is a very famous lake because it is in the middle of the desert and it's unique because the sand dunes surrounding the lake has not submerged it. It's actually not as huge as I expected but it was definitely worth seeing!

Day 3:

In the morning, we went biking on the peaceful and quiet highway for about 40 minutes. I felt that it was pretty fun apart from the fact that it was FREEZING. I never got to wear shorts during the whole trip and I was dumb enough to bring only one pair of jeans.

We then went to the Yadan National Geological Park. This is also a really famous tourist attraction in Dunhuang. The rocks look really unique and some of them are shaped in a way such that they resemble animals or other objects.

It seemed to have many different locations and we went to 3 of them. The first location we visited had a rock that looked like a lion!

The next location we went to had a rock shaped like a Sphinx. This was probably one of my favorite ones out of all the rocks! Nature is so beautiful.

I need a deep shot of me as always.

The 3rd location we went to had a rock shaped like a peacock. I also climbed up some rocks and got a really nice view of the landscape.

My signature pose.

The last place we went to had rocks that shaped like ships. It was pretty fascinating.

After eating lunch, we visited the Great Walls of the Han Dynasty. As you can see, it barely looks like a "wall" but this was not rebuilt like how the main parts of the Great Walls in Beijing are.

And this is the Han Dynasty Fort. Hey look there's a face.

We went to the night market after dinner. Dunhuang does not get dark until 8pm or later. I actually didn't get much and only got a couple of magnets to stick to the fridge because that's what my family always buys when we go on vacations. 

Day 4:

We went to a museum in the morning. Ugh I forgot the name of the museum but it's pretty cool because it had a mummy in a glass case. It wasn't scary for me because I have seen mummies like this  before but the other girls were like "ew omg............."

This is bowl made out of a person's skull... Why would someone even use that.

There was this huge fluffy dog guarding the bathrooms LOL.

We then went to the Guan City of Jia Yu Guan which is another famous tourist attraction.

 That translation.

We happened to catch a martial arts/ kung fu show.

 So much swag.

Even more swag.

The significance of this one brick by the ledge was to show that the architect of these structures actually measured the precise number of bricks needed to build them.

I think they used this wooden stand for Kung-fu.

We got to our 5-star hotel where we stayed at for the last night. 

After dinner, we went to Hero's Square and it's just an open area that people conduct their own activities. There were a lot of elderly dancing and we tried dancing with them too but it was actually pretty tough.

Day 5:

It was the last day of our trip! In the morning, we visited the Hanging Great Wall. It's another section of the Great Wall and I don't think it was rebuilt.

Apparently, there were people who drew some hearts on the rock mountains. Cute.

In a distance, you can see the snow mountains.

With my awesome freshies <3 Thank god they are not annoying.

And these are all the Sophomores who went on the trip. Yeah we are not very bonded lol.

Overall, I think it was a really good China Alive trip. I would have regretted staying in Shanghai to study for APUSH. The downside was that this trip was so expensive and it took so long to get to Dunhuang and back to Shanghai because we were always taking transit flights. Other than that, I really enjoyed it. I will really recommend my friends to go to Dunhuang in future! :)

Thank you for reading!

Review: Innisfree Green Tea Pure Body Lotion

Hi guys!

I'm going to do a short review for the Innisfree Green Tea Pure Body Lotion (with green tea and green complex). I bought this for 100RMB at Nanjing Road in Shanghai. In Korea, it costs 12000Won, which I can tell you is a really good deal. 12000Won converted to RMB is 73.50RMB, which shows that it is slightly overpriced here in China. I hate how China raises the price for foreign products because their products just do not compare to these products. Anyway, for 12000Won, I think this is worth it because the bottle is 300mL and to me, it's pretty big. But I have been using this almost every night for the past week and I've already used up a quater of it. I guess if you don't use this on a regular basis, it could last you a lot longer.

Firstly, this lotion smells AMAZING. It smells super fresh and if you like simple and fresh scents, this is for you. Plus, it's green tea and who does not like green tea. It's a very universal scent and I can be certain that many people will like this too. You really have to smell it to believe it. I have smelt a lot of lotions at stores and I have never been blown away by any right away but it's different with this one. I liked this so much which is why I bought it immediately without really thinking about the price.

The lotion is "watery" but in a good way because it does not feel greasy when applied. It also absorbs into the skin really quickly and when it does, my skin does not feel greasy at all! Before I bought this lotion, I have been using the Body Shop body butter but it was slightly too greasy for my own preference. I do like the body lotion I got during Christmas a while back much more than the body butter. You can view the body lotion I'm talking about here.

The lotion does keep my skin really soft and moisturized and overall, I just really like the texture and scent of this. I don't really have anything else to say about this product but you should really try this out! If I get to go to Korea again, I'm definitely picking up many more bottles of this and perhaps trying out the other scents too!

I hope you found this short review helpful and thank you for reading! :)

Review: SANA Nameraka Honpo Soy Milk Isoflavone Moisturizing Milky Lotion Emulsion and Moisturizing Lotion Toner

Hi guys!

I know I've been rather inactive and that's because my finals are coming up. So, this is going to be a really quick review for the SANA Nameraka Honpo Soy Milk Isoflavone Moisturizing Milky Lotion Emulsion and the SANA Nameraka Honpo Soy Milk Isoflavone Moisturizing Lotion Toner. Let's jump right in.

The lotion emulsion is basically a face moisturizer while the lotion toner is just a toner. I have used these two products for some time and I know that I'm already liking them a lot. I started using the toner a few days ago so that explains why there is less left in the moisturizer bottle. 

Firstly, the packaging is simple and nice. It's made out of plastic so I don't have to worry about dropping it on the ground or anything. Also, it is very easy to control the amount of product you want squeezed out of the bottle. At first glance, the opening may seem a little big but the product does not just spill out without control. I do wish that the packaging came in different colors because it is slightly difficult to tell which is which from afar. My mom didn't even realize that she bought the toner, thinking that it was the lotion that she picked up, so this shows that it can be confusing at times. Furthermore, I wished that it had the name of the product on the bottle (in English)! I actually had to google up the full name of these two products for you guys. 

The one on the left is the moisturizer and the one on the right is the toner.

I really, really like the moisturizing lotion emulsion. I think it aims to brighten your skin but that's not exactly what I am aiming for. I just need a good moisturizer that hydrates my skin without making it feel greasy, and this does the job nicely! I find it a little gross when moisturizers leave my face really sticky and greasy. I don't mind using moisturizers that do that when I go to bed at night but in the daytime when I apply my moisturizer before putting on my makeup, I just can't stand it. This SANA moisturizing milky lotion really does not give me that sticky feeling partly because of the thin consistency. 

It is very "watery" but I like this texture because I don't need a lot every time I put this on my face and it can be spread out to cover a large area easily. This also feels very light and it's a great summer moisturizer. I have not tried this during winter but my guess is that I would need to layer more of this so that it will keep my awfully dry skin hydrated. This is also unscented and since it has soy ingredients in this, it will be really mild on the skin. I did not get any major breakouts from this, which is always a good thing. 

Overall, I definitely recommend this product. This could be my new favorite moisturizer for some time. I got this in Japan and I don't think it's very expensive, so it's definitely worth a shot. 

As for the toner, I have not used much of it but I think that it is also aimed to brighten your skin. Again, I did not buy this seeking to brighten my skin. Honestly, I bought this because it seemed like it was highly raved on Youtube and I just wanted to give it a try. So far, I like this simply because there is no weird "smell" to it. My mom told me to use her SKII toner and I didn't really like it because there was always this weird smell to it. I'm not sure if it's just me or if that product really had a smell. Anyway, this is probably one of the first toners I have ever used in my life and I look forward to seeing if there will be any improvements to my skin, especially since I have some acne problems. Basically, a toner helps to restore your pH balance because sometimes after you use a facial cleanser, it can upset the pH balance, which isn't too good for your skin. I guess this is a new add to my skincare routine!

Also, I realized that this toner does not sting my face in any way when I have heard that some others do. This is probably alcohol free because it doesn't sting and it really just feels like water. The way I use this is: I hold the toner in my left hand over my face and just squeeze a drop or two from the bottle and dab it over an area of my face. Like I said before, the toner won't just flood out of the bottle even when it's held facing downwards.

I hope that this review is helpful in some way! If you are interested in my Japan haul post that has other Japanese products you can click here. 

Thank you for reading :)