Oh the food in Hong Kong. I must admit I’ve had some amazing food adventures in Hong Kong so far from Michelin-star restaurants to hawker-style establishments. Perhaps I will blog about some of them in the future but for now, I wanted to share the crazy-good desserts I’ve had because at the end of the day I am one, giant, walking, sweet tooth.

There are so many shops here that are purely serving dessert menus. Here are my favourites:

• If I’m looking for a ‘healthy’ dessert (meaning that there’s actually some fruit instead of just pure sugary goodness), I quickly duck into the nearest Hui Lau Shan. They do a lot of desserts and drinks around mango – so I’m a sucker for their mango mochi, mango pudding and anything with mango and glutinous rice balls! Follow Me Foodie has a really good review of some of the mango dishes here.

• Honeymoon Dessert is another dessert chain. As a family we’ve enjoyed a few of the dishes here. My fave are the glutinous rice balls in sesame seeds and crushed peanuts, with a little bit of sweet syrup.

• Chung Kee Dessert is yet another dessert chain – I told you we were quite spoiled for choice here :-) This chain is a little different in that they serve a range of shaved ice desserts but also serve many fruit-based desserts. My fave without a doubt is ‘Six Fortune Rice Dumplings‘: glutinous rice balls in ginger soup, with fillings such as egg custard, green tea, red bean, sesame, peanut paste and purple sticky rice. A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. I even instagram’d it!

• One dessert that I wish I could have again and again is the super indulgent “Oreo” that I had from the Mandarin Grill + Bar. They make this right in front of you and basically it’s made up of ice-cream; a thick, rich chocolate cream; and crushed chocolate cookies. I know it sounds really simple but it is SO, SO GOOD! I will add that the dinner I had at the Mandarin Grill and Bar was also unbelievable – a visual and gastronomical delight. You can see photos of what we enjoyed over here: Dinner at Mandarin Grill + Bar by MrGadget.

P.S. Freya up there says hi! :-)

She is an SBL-07 Takara French Trench originally released in 2004. I’ve renamed her Freya :-)

A while ago I shared about two Pullips (Magnolia and Poppy) that came over to live at my house – you can find photos and details here. I adore Pullips but I’ve always wanted to own a Blythe also – I just couldn’t decided which one I liked best and was within my budget!

I caught a tweet by Janelle over the weekend about a Blythe and followed the link to a Blythe shop, CC Toys – and lo and behold, I found out that the shop is just down the street, a few train stops away from my home! So I took a chance on Sunday afternoon and went to visit the shop – unfortunately it was closed!! But I did get to snap this photo of the Blythes on display in their window:

A quick google search in the area brought me to JR Toys. I had a number of Blythes scribbled on a piece of paper as my shortlist. I was ecstatic to find that JR Toys had a Blythe that WAS on my list (and a Blythe which I had not seen as being stocked in other Blythe shops around HK).

This is Freya in her stock outfit (sans trench coat):

And in a sweet outfit I picked up at the shop:

I’m starting to wish I had brought my Pullips (and all of their Blythe clothes!) over to HK as well! I must admit it is pretty cool to be able to walk into a shop and see Blythes and Pullips in the flesh (rather than scrolling through pages of a website).

Oh, and did you catch Danielle Thompson’s Office Corner/Doll House?! Too awesome!! When we finally have our own home again (not a rented apartment), I’m doing this!!

I received my second Pullip the other day – Pullip Celsiy circa 2008.

I’ve named her Magnolia after my favourite brand of ice-cream from the Philippines because that’s what she reminded me of when I first saw her – ice cream :-) Again, I was so impressed by the detail on the tiny clothes! She came with two outfits, over-sized glasses and stand. Her face seems a little warmer in character than Poppy’s.

Although I thought the purple hair (with blue highlights) was pretty cool, I thought she might look better in a brownish bob. So I re-wigged her and put her in a new outfit:

Heehee! I like her a lot ♥

I heart Poppy a lot too since I re-wigged her with a gorgeous curly wig and new outfit (here’s what she looked like before):

To re-wig the dolls, I followed this excellent tutorial specifically for Pullips:

Wigs are from Goody Blthye on Etsy
Outfits are SugarMag
Shoes are from Pocowai on eBay
All highly recommended!

Thank you for the Patience-love :-)

Been working on another doll – same basic shape/construction as Patience but with minor changes:

Hopefully she’ll been done by the weekend. I’m back at work and I’ve forgotten how drained you can feel at the end of the day, meaning little to zero motivation to sew anything by the time the kiddies are in bed :-) Perhaps my mind and body are still on vacation mode – hope to shake it off by next week!

I mentioned in another post that I had become very smitten with a range of dolls (which were the inspiration for my new dolls like Patience). When I was a kid I had a motley collection of Barbie dolls. I did love dressing them up (and making my own clothes using paper, tissues, sticky tape and string!), chopping off their hair and colouring it in with my markers/textas, and making houses and furniture for them out of boxes of all sizes. Hours of endless fun :-) When we moved overseas, I had to sell them all.

If you surf through Flickr, it is next to impossible not to come across Blythes and Pullips. I resisted for the longest time but have caved since seeing all the amazing outfits, miniatures, and accessories that are now available. So here is my first Pullip – a Brand New Purezza (BNP) circa 2006. I’ve named her Poppy:

Isn’t her face gorgeous?! And her outfit has so much detail. She also comes with over-sized sunglasses, handbag, and table and chairs :-) As much as I love her bright orange hair, I am thinking of re-wigging her with some blonde curls (just have to figure out how to do it!). You can see more photos of BNP Pullips (original and customised) here. I am excitedly waiting for a few clothes to arrive. Oh, and one more Pullip.

Also, hubby set-up a Twitter account for me a month or so ago and I’ve finally started using it. Kinda fun. I was posting up trivial things (like what I’ve been doing, thinking, etc) but have started to post up more good finds and links as I come across them (instead of bookmarking them and then completely forgetting to post about them on the blog!). My “Tweets” are now published in my sidebar – if you have a Twitter account, you’re more than welcome to follow me too :-)

Okay, enough babbling. I need to stop being distracted so easily. Off to work on that doll!