Pho in Melbourne // Thien Long Restaurant Bayswater

It didn't take long of me being in Australia to miss Vietnamese food, and while staying with my aunty in Ringwood last week, I decided to source some out.

Summer Stickers // Free Printables!

I am obsessed with planning and journaling. I have been keeping a bullet journal for a year now with no sign of slowing down. As well as this, I keep a poem journal, a blogging journal, multiple doodle journals, and scrapbooks. So many notebooks.

What's Pho Dinner? // Authentic Hanoian Pho Recipe

I've lived in Hanoi for over two years now and every time I come home to Australia, I like to have a crack at cooking authentic Vietnamese cuisine for my family. My partner and I have a dream of owning a Vietnamese Restaurant one day, and this is one step forward for me. Playing around with different ingredients and recipes to find the most authentic tasting dishes (without the MSG). 

Alternative Hanoi Bucket List // 20 Things to do After all Those Temples and Museums

People seem to think that Hanoi is one of the more boring cities of Vietnam.

The main tourist attractions in Hanoi are the Water Puppet Theatre, Hoan Kiem Lake, Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Temple of Literature, Ngoc Son Temple, Tran Quoc Pagoda, The Women's Museum, the Museum of Ethnology, the Fine Arts Museum. None of these things really take that long, and lets face it, temples and museums (as beautiful as they are) can get boring really quickly. 

Tourists come for a week and 'run out of things to do'. Friends of mine said "We planned to stay for a week but we've kinda done everything so I think we might head down to Hoi An early".

Expats say that they have nothing to do in their free time.

Well, whether you're on your own, in a group, rich, or poor, I hope that I have some alternative ideas for you to try out next time you're stuck with nothing to do!

Getting Waxed in Hanoi // Salon Van Nguyen

“She asked me to get on my knees and spread my cheeks… it was time for the crack” – A friend who definitely doesn’t want to be named.

HE STAPLED HIS FINGER // Storytime

Another Cultural Storytime

Today I was at work and a student stapled his finger... The way it was handled was oh-so-much different to the way it would've been handled anywhere I've ever seen. I'm going to try my best to talk about it without getting angry and offending the culture of this country I have adopted as my own.

Sunday Art Project // Week Four - A Poem

A Poem

"What the heck are all those notebooks for?"

How to Fill Your Notebooks / What I do With Mine

Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with notebooks and journals. I currently have so many on the go, and I've been getting questions lately as to what the heck I do with all of these notebooks. So here I am, and here's what I do!

I like to think of notebooks as folders on a desk top... you wouldn't keep everything you have in just one folder would you? No, so why (If you need to be writing a lot/taking lots of notes) would you do it with notebooks?

The Sunday Art Project // Week 3

A Weekend in Koh Samet

It’s a public holiday weekend for Vietnam, and my friend and I wanted to go somewhere new. Thailand is the easiest, cheapest, and closest to Hanoi, but Bangkok is overdone. We wanted to go to an island, but neither of us are that into drinking/partying. We really just wanted a relaxing beach weekend. After searching around for the best places, we settled on Koh Samet, a small island in the Gulf of Thailand, about 220 kms from Bangkok.

Some of the information of how to get around was a little hard to find online. So here I have made a comprehensive guide of what we did, where we stayed, how we got there, and how much it all cost. Enjoy!

The Sunday Art Project // Week Two - An Old Medium

Week Two // An Old Medium

This weeks piece.

April Monthly Recap

April Recap

April was a big month for me. A lot of great things happened, I turned 21, and I went on a trip with my best friend to Thailand!
I also lost a lot of classes due to public holidays, and earned a lot less than I usually do! But I'm great on a budget, so we should be good!

My favorite photo of the month:

I can't possibly choose this month, so have a few!

How I met the Love of my Life // Storytime

A while back I wrote about what it's like dating outside your own culture. A friend recently asked me if I had written about how I met Quang, and I realised that I hadn't, but I think it's a story worth sharing!

There are two sides to every story, and both Quang and I have two different experiences of how we met. Here you can read about both of them...

The Sunday Art Project. // Week One - The Beginning

An Introduction:

The Sunday Art Project is a project I have created in which one artwork will be posted each week based on a specific prompt. This week's prompt was simply 'The Beginning'. I will be posting one artwork, art piece, project, review, talk, challenge, interview, journal, medium etc here each week.

You can find the page with all the artworks here

Today's work:

Week One - The Beginning

I accidentally took this photo with the flash on and I kind of liked the way it made it look.. like a school girl's hidden journal in the dark. This is week one:

Tranquil Cafe // The Best Cafe in Hanoi

The Best Cafe in Hanoi

Tranquil cafe has been open since July 2015, and I believe that it has never once served a bad coffee. Well not to me anyway. In the two years that I have been exploring countless cafes in Hanoi, Tranquil Cafe is the one that I always come back to.

THEY PEE EVERYWHERE // Storytime

THEY PEE EVERYWHERE

I want to talk today about Vietnamese people and peeing. Particularly men and very young children. The number of penises I've seen since I've been living in Hanoi is unnecessarily higher than I'd like it to be.

Back at it Again - Again.

Oh Hey, it's me.

Hey, I bet it's been a while since you've seen a post from me! I know, I know, I've been out of touch. Way out of touch. But hey, I got my groove back. I've have purchased my own domain name and have designed the new blog that you're seeing now. Applause is welcome, it's taken me a long time!

March Monthly Recap

March Recap

I think it’s important to reflect on ourselves often, and I’ve been doing this personally for a few months now, but I decided to post it on my blog and hope that others take a chance to reflect on their lives also. We should always work toward bettering ourselves, and this is one simple way to look back on the last few weeks, see what we have done, and what we want to do next month.

My favorite photo of the month:

8 Simple Easy Tips to Help You get it Together // Organise Your Life Series

We all know someone (it's us) who needs a little help getting organised, getting it together, being on time to class or work, or finishing assignments before the last minute. I've been using all of these little tools to help me get my daily life more organised, maybe you can too!

My Custom Planner/Bullet Journal -UPDATED- // Organise Your Life Series

I’m a sucker for organisation hacks, and in a city as crazy as Hanoi, with my schedule constantly changing, I was really starting to fall behind and lose motivation without any sort of planner in reach.

Most planners that are on the market currently are very structured, and leave little room for creativity. I needed something that I could plan/take notes/gather my thoughts/ and do art in.

Drawing from inspiration from Erin Condron, and the Bullet Journal concept, I decided to create my own personalised planner. This way, I choose the layout, the format, the style, colours, everything!

13 Lessons I Have Learned in Hanoi

From motorbike riding, to customs, to families, friends, liars, and thieves, here is a collection of things that I have learned during my time in this country.