Selasa, 25 Mei 2010

Socializing Online Shopping

Weee!! The whole blogosphere has been abuzz with one thing recently: The launch of






Super exciting!!

I know right the name is super hilarious. 'Ji pa ban' is hokkien for 1 million bucks or something. Hao xiao!!

And Jipaban is brought to you by the same folks who gave us Nuffnang. Since Ming is one of them and it was his birthday and also coz Jipaban is awesome, I'm gonna tell ya all more about it!!

We all know that Singapore has A LOT of blogshops. Now I know I stated before that I disliked blogshops coz all their clothes are similar + low quality. But times have changed and as more and more blogshops came along, the worst ones get sieved out and the quality has improved by leaps and bounds. I mean of course there are still shitty ones lah but cannot just discount the good ones coz of them. :)

Now the problem with surfing blogshops... We have to click on so many pages to find out if new collections are launched... Sometimes I just want to see all my favourite blogshops at once, buy 3 dresses from 3 different stores, add them to ONE shopping cart, and pay at one go.

AND NOW I CAN WITH JIPABAN!!

Jipaban is basically an online shopping mall with (currently) 50 blogshops participating in it, including the famous ones like Bonito Chico and Ohsofickle etc, and some are even launching exclusive collections for Jipaban!

Perhaps it's a biz idea that we all hoped will happen one day and now it has. Awesome.



Jipaban Universe with 50 blogshops


It's not as simple as just asking a bunch of blogshops to put stuff into one website. I just began surfing Jipaban today and it's chockful of other features to make your shopping experience SO MUCH MORE FUN!!

Sorry I know I sound damn hyper but I'm really very impressed with the website lah! The last time I was so excited about a website other than my own is when I realised you can snoop on people's scandals with facebook. *gossipy


1) Building your own goddamn mall



My mall with super a lot of shops coz I'm greedy lol

Don't wanna see some blogshops coz their items are not up your alley? You can choose all the blogshops you like and put them into your own personalized mall!

Your mall can have different levels (machiam I really own a mall with 3 floors) for different genres somemore *faints*

Mad awesome now at one glance you can check out all the thumbnails of the blogshops to see if they have new items! Somemore you can shift the thumbnails around to arrange them in the most pleasing way *faints again*


2) Can have profile + friends + updates
ala facebook one wtf




My profile

Why so amazing one?? I don't know when shopping started to be so fun - you can add all your friends and kpo what they buying or like... Can even have wishlist to hint hint what you want for your birthday!!

And you can buy what I bought to copy my style!! On hindsight please don't do that. -_-

But if you are the irritating private sort of person you can choose to only show your profile to friends, or no one at all.


3) Egg on or smash



My egg-on list


This feature is damn fun lah!

If you are undecided on whether you want to buy something, you can put it on your egg-on list and friends can vote on whether you should buy!! Click Egg-on for yes and Smash for no!



4) No more writing nasty long
comments to pay




Easy payment - don't ask me why my cart for $571.45 worth of things.
Too many chio items to buy!


The thing I hate about blogshops is paying. If you bought clothes from them before you'd know you have to leave a comment with loads of details. Don't need to fuss with that anymore!

Address is stored and payment methods/delivery method are chosen from dropdown menus. Only left transaction details to be filled in!



Easy peasy!!


Gotta love Jipaban!!

Here are the items that I bought:






Happy boh? I've been looking for that dress with the heart-shaped cut out at the back for ages now! (New Look got but my size is sold out)

Jipaban’s anchor tenants are BonitoChico, Ohsofickle, Ohmymuffins, Access-ed and Singtel.

Wanna know more? Confused by what I'm yabbering about? Well you can watch videos:


FOR SHOPPERS:



FOR RETAILERS:







Jipaban on Twitter!
Jipaban on Facebook!


p/s: Besides being for shoppers, Jipaban is also an awesome invention for wannabe retailers! Dreaming of having your own blogshop but don't know where to start? Opening a blogshop has never been so easy - no need to buy domain, design blogskin etc. All done for you!

"Rent" is only $100 per month (for bronze category) and you get all the hits you need from shoppers from Jipaban!! Honestly I'm thinking of opening one except I'm too lazy.

OK bye I'm going shopping now.

Jumat, 21 Mei 2010

Passport chop: Bintan + Georgia

UPDATE: Essential contest ends 25th May (which is tomorrow as I write this) so hurry up and submit! Click "older posts" to see the post.

Here are pictures from 2 of my 5 overseas trips done in April!!

First it was Gillian's 30th bdae so she invited Mike and I and a buncha her friends to go to Bintan for the weekend. Awesome company! It was super fun hanging out with them and having a shiok villa with its own pool :)

I didn't take much pictures though coz I didn't feel like "working". Also coz I didn't bother to put make up. Fucking lazy when you go to beach resorts. And Gillian also didn't film anything for the same reason! LOL WTH hobby become work.


Here's our food at Rin, the Japanese restaurant. The food was a-ok but nothing fantastic and a bit too overpriced.



Awesome view but no aircon.


From left: G, with her newly bought LX3 (I almost went to buy for her for her birthday luckily I didn't yet), G's hubby Bryan, waiter, G's best friend Ying and Pat with her super tall hair.



G discovering how to take artsy photos thanks to moi



Cheesie must love this place



Mike's prawn thingy



My cod fish. Yums!

Our resort (Indra Maya) actually has a MINI ZOO in it! *shocked max*




Colourful headed bird



CROCODILES!!!!!!!! I'd love to toss people I don't like inside



Would make a great bag



Bryan, G and Pat in their buggy.

Fucking joker lah this Bryan kept refusing to charge their buggy, saying won't run out of battery one lah and in the end it did so everyone (non inclusive of me coz I was doing a hair spa HENG AH) had to push the buggy up a hill.

G was sitting in the back seat while Mike was pushing (and Bryan comically putting on foot on the accelerator and other food pedalling) so G felt really bad seeing Mike do the all pushing while she was extra weight.

And she made the decision to hop down of the buggy to help but it was moving faster than she thought it was and she fell, face down, sprawled starfish style, on the ground. For a while everyone was like "What?" while she was left behind on the ground yelling "I'm ok!"

AHAHAHAHA She bruised her hip a bit but it's great entertainment! Even though I wasn't there to see it's still funny. Sorry G.

And the Ah kuas wanted to do Banana Boat, which I have never tried before in my life. I had lash extensions on and didn't wanna fall into the sea so I didn't wanna do it, but they all assured me that banana boats are very secure and would never capsize so I agreed.

IT IS A LIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Banana boats capsize ALL THE TIME and it is the highlight of the activity!!! Yes I never knew this until the trip! CCB the locals pulling our banana with their speedboat even asked, "Capsize?" and stupid Bryan said yes!!

I broke like 25 fingernails, drank 2 gallons of sea water through my nose and had my lashes soaked with sea water. Thanks ah guys, never believing you all again!!

But ok lah still quite fun I guess. Next time I'd hold my breath falling in and wear goggles. Although I don't really see the fun in the capsizing!

Rozzie joined us the second day. She knows Bintan damn well lor wtf



Over photoshopped photo of me



Rozz.

And that concludes the Bintan trip!!!!


Next G and I go to Georgia to attend a conference where we gave a talk to the local Georgians about Internet TV!

This is the Georgia in Europe and not USA btw. It is not that tainted by tourism especially from Asia so I'd say it's a real eye opener!! Also confirm very few people in Singapore have the Georgian stamp on the passport. This means I am very worldly!! HAHAHA

Thanks to Mari and Singular Group who organised this awesome trip for G and I and the amount of care taken to accommodate our every need. :)

We had to transit at Istanbul's airport for 7 hours...



Here's G trying to order Kebabs coz she said must try local food...



Awww chicken is sold out and she doesn't want lamb...

And I had Burger King. Check it out:



Nothing special? Look again:


A TRIPLE WHOPPER WITH A MEAL IS 28 Lira!!! You know how much this is in SGD?

$24!

$24 can buy a plate of awesome crabmeat linguine (almost it's $26)!

Fucking hell! Their cow made of gold ah so expensive!!

Mad cheated I ordered a hashbrown (medium) and chicken drumlets (six) and a small coke for $16 sgd!

I didn't know it was so expensive lor. Worst fast food meal ever.

Mari and Mamuka picked us up from the airport and we arrived at our hotel in Tbilisi, Georgia.





G snapping pics



Weather was perfect, like aircon temperature but bathed in golden sunshine.



Staircase to our rooms


Here's Gillian giving her very, very detailed talk before me. She had like a zillion slides and super a lot of statistics and sounded mad pro. I'm angry with her. She only did her slides the day before (or so she said) and why so pro one????? She's like those irritating classmates in school last time who always say they never study but secretly they studied damn a lot of score damn high.

In constrast I had, erm, 7 slides and yabbered only opinions with no basis and filled up most of my talk by showing the Georgians the best Youtube videos.

Still. I think they enjoyed it and hopefully learnt stuff. *embarrassed face* Next time I'd work harder on speeches!

BTW I wasn't afraid at all to talk in front of so many people like I used to be so I think I conquered stage fright. Or it could be that I didn't know the Georgians I guess.



Here's the audience, looking pretty serious.

They lightened up a lot towards the end when we showed them Hutch kissing a grandma in Numbnuts HAHAHAHA


Mari giving her speech. I had no idea what she spoke about how it was in Georgian (it is a language unique to Georgia and one of the 14 alphabets systems in the world or something so the Georgians are major proud of it).

Actually I heard some of her speech coz there was this AWESOME TRANSLATOR who amazingly translated Georgian to English and vice versa WHILE the speakers were speaking. I don't know how the hell she does that.



Camwhoring while listening to Mari's speech in English

After Mari was my turn but first lunch!


Gillian mad loves Georgian food and the Georgians themselves are super passionate about their food too!

It's super weird coz their food is either very unhealthy or very healthy.


Me with Georgian fries and fried chicken fillets. OMG I purposely chose a seat next to the fries coz it is SO FUCKING AWESOME and I don't know how the hell they do it!! Very yellow and super duper yummeh!! I think it's coz it's fried fresh and not frozen.

Behind the fries are salads (Very healthy) and Khachapuri (pizza-looking thing, very unhealthy).

Now the Georgians LOVE AND ADORE the khachapuri. It is like our rice is to them. Every single meal G and I hear the Georgians discussing in Georgian what to order and they always excitedly talk about khachapuri!

It is kinda like a mixture of cheese prata and cheese pizza... The most commonly eaten khachapuri I've seen has cheese stuffed on the inside, cheese on the top and is glazed with butter. Very yums but sinful!


Gillian is a big fan of all the salads. Not me I don't like my food cold!

The favourite thing I ate in Georgia was this creamy chicken thing where they cook their chicken in this fucking delicious garlic cream sauce omg yums. And their fries.




My damn cute stockings. From topshop!



Empty conference hall during lunch... I sneaked back to prepare my presentation.



G working hard



Mari and I!! xoxoxo

She is damn cute she is super excitable about everything and would camwhore non-stop even worse than me!!



There I am, frilly little thing in the distance giving a serious talk -_-


This is the clearest photo G took of me. The rest all blur. So lousy out check out the photos I took of HER:





SEE SO ARTSY!

Granted she is gesticulating in a very weird manner but that's beyond my photography skills if she wants to look funny.



Menu in Georgian


Here's the director of Singular (left, I forgot his name sorry Georgian names are confusing to me!!) and Mamuka.



Cute photo coz Mamuka is normally quite serious lol

And btw the director is only freaking 21 or something. These Georgians are a really smart bunch!



Me posing with the toilet sign


Look at their trademark tomato + cucumber salad! SO MUCH CILANTRO/CHINESE PARSLEY ON IT MAKES ME WANNA DIEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

When I told a sadfaced Mari that I am sorry I can't eat the salad (which she was hoping that I liked) coz I don't eat parsley, she was so confused and was like, "You mean the stuff on top?" coz the Georgians don't call it parsley.

They call it "Greens". -_- And quizzically Mari told me that she has never encountered anyone who doesn't like "greens" and that everyone loves it. HOW CAN IT BE THEY ARE SO HORRIBLE MAX!!!!!!


Turkish kebab in front (special order no "greens" in it for me) and Khinkali (dumplings) at the back.

The Georgians also really love their Khinkali which is almost exactly like a giant xiao long bao!

The skin is thicker than xlbs and the inside consists of pork + beef and also oozes soup! And it's so cute coz the top of the khinkali is too thick to be eaten so you can count the stumps on everyone's plate to see how many they ate!

Unfortunately this also consists parsley so I had only half before I gave up.


Georgian fries mad awesome. OK I googled. This variety of fries is called "Fresh-cut fries" and are fried using fresh potatoes. And it's very hard to get right!



Inside of a Khinkali



Twilight in Georgian! Now terrorizing tweens in 37 languages.


This is a bookstore cafe and it looks like something straight out of a storybook. Most of Georgia is very quaint and beautiful like that. :)





Put yellow flowers into G's otherwise boring camera bag...

We drove up a hill to a gorgeous church and it was so breathtaking up there...





Camwhoring attempt one: Fail coz got dustbin behind



Camwhoring attempt two: Slight win got scenery behind



Camwhoring attempt three: Super win got castle behind!!!!!



G and Mari



Tbilisi






You may think these 3 photos are the same and therefore pointless but they chronicalize Gillian's precarious descent down the slope while filming at the same time.



Ancient church. Super a lot of weddings here!



Mari



Gorgeous tree with pink flowers







Mari camwhores with it



Another church





Even the non religious can appreciate the beauty :)

And food again! It was the birthday of two of Singular's members


Woah a real old school bakery! I've never seen this before... It's like a well that goes deep into the ground and the bottom is filled with burning coals.

The baker, using 2 long prongs, slap the raw dough onto the SIDE of the walls of that well-like thingy (I'm sure it has a name wtf) and it is supposed to STICK there and turn golden brown.

The smells are amazing.

Mari says if your bread falls into the depths onto the coals below you are considered a lousy baker.



Mari and birthday boy 1 who is the designer in Singular.




Birthday boy 2 (director celebrating his 21st birthday fml I'm so mad old there) with his fiancee (18 or 19 fml x 2) sitting next to him. They look like Adrian Brody and Heather Graham respectively I swear.



One more pic



Me and G who always looks so chio despite not wearing make up the world is not fair FML X 3.



Mari captioned this on facebook as "Brunette. Blonde. Redhead."


Very popular drink in Georgia... Like a sweet soda that comes in Pear (my favourite), lemon (not bad) and Terragon (!!! Like mouthwash).

They are all called "Lemonade".


Ornament carrying the bread that's freshly baked and a glimpse of the terragon flavoured lemonade, which is a poisonous green.

This is apparently the least popular flavour so if you don't specify which flavour of lemonade you want they will confirm give you terragon.



More parsley fml X 5

The night before our flight home, Tbilisi had FIREWORKS!! Unfuck my life



Beautiful. It was like the world was trying to please us or something. :)

Georgia was fun. It was NOTHING like I've ever seen before and their country has so much history and unique culture! The people were friendly and generous with their hospitality too. I only don't like the "greens"!

Didn't take that much pics in Georgia either coz most of the interesting stuff will be coming out in the next episode of Guide to Life so be sure to stay tuned to CLICKNETWORK!

One day after we got home Istanbul airport was closed down due to the volcano. UFML X 100,000,000