Recent Favorites

Since the Spring Breaks have begun, I have recently been trying, watching and eating a lot of different things. The thing that I've been super obsessed with lately is a Japanese animation (anime) called "Hataraku Maou Sama" which literally means "The Demon Lord is Working (Part-Time)" in English. It's an action-comedy-fantasy anime with a touch of romance. Definitely my cup of tea. Basically, it's a story about a demon lord named "Maou Sadaou" and his subordinate named "Ashiya Shirou" who had to retreat to Earth, specifically Japan, because they lost a battle against the Hero, Emilia "Yusa Emi" back in their own world Ente Isla. Without any money or knowledge of our world, Maou and Ashiya stumbled around in Tokyo and were finally taken to a police station, as the policemen wanted to assist the "Foreigners". In the end, they finally got an idea of what was going on and decided to live in a 1K (one room, one kitchen, one bathroom) apartment, and Maou tries to earn money for their living expenses by working at MagRonald (if you didn't realize, it's McDonald's without copyright infringement). It's hilarious to see the ruler of the netherworld trying earn money and live in a small apartment in Japan (just like me!). If you're a college student, living alone in another country, you'd definitely relate to this fun, 13 episodes anime! 

As far as beauty routines go, I still stick with my usual products, but I have been obsessed with the new Maybelline Dream Whip foundation (which is something that might only be available in Japan). It feels moisturizing at first, but it turns matte after a few minutes. The cover power is pretty good and it's available in 6 different colors (which is rare in Japan, because the Japanese rarely have tanned skin).

My last favorite is the Royce Chocolate Ice Cream! It's absolutely perfect! I love how it's not so sweet and that there's an unexpected chocolate sauce inside! Originally, I thought that it's way too overrated - I mean, it's just an ice cream right? - but it's probably one of the best ice creams (that is available in the convenience stores) ever!

Fairy Drops

Mascara is that one thing that never works for me. My eyelashes grow straight down and despite using eyelash curlers and expensive mascaras, they still won't be as curled or long as I want them to be. One day last month, I went to a random drugstore in Beppu Station and discovered mascara called "Fairy Drops" and the girl in the picture had mile long, high volume, super awesome lashes. At first, I thought that this is just another one of those marketing scams, but being the curious girl that I am, I just decided to try it out. 

When I opened the tester mascara, I was shocked to see the wand. There are three "balls" on a "curve" (I guess that's the best way to describe it) and it looks like it could just torture your eyes when you accidentally sneeze and poke your eyes with that thing. I tried it anyway and I was very, very pleasantly surprised with the result! My lashes became much more voluminous, long and visible without any eyelash curlers! This is definitely going to be my holy grail mascara and I totally recommend it to everyone who needs a lot more help with their lashes. The price isn't cheap, but it isn't expensive either, so it's definitely still affordable, even with my waitress part time job money. It was around 2,500 yen (or USD 25) in Beppu Station's drugstore.

Please ignore my under eye circles as I haven't had enough sleep for 2 weeks. Preparations for the business competition and exams really take a lot out of you. 

Dreaming of Arabian Nights

My friends and I decided to join a business competition that's being held on our campus. The theme of this year's business competition is "Business in Beppu", which means that we had to create a new business that will really help Beppu city to flourish. Our professor showed us a video of Jack Ma (the entrepreneur who created Alibaba in China from basically nothing) and he said, "Look for opportunities in the troubles of others." We thought about it for a while and decided that Beppu's tourist center in Beppu Station, wasn't as helpful as we expected it to be. So, we decided to create a new, multi-langual tour and travel agency called "Genie Travel" (hence the title of this post). 

Long story short, we created our basic business proposal, submitted it, passed the first selection, got some votes, passed the second selection and got into the final round. We created our own business plan presentation with all our might. Alas, we are still in college and we still lack a lot of knowledge and experience to create the perfect business plan. I'm in the Accounting and Finance major, which means that I understood most of the Financial Plan part. However, I really couldn't come up with tourism ideas. In the end, my group won third place for the competition. We weren't upset. In fact, the three of us felt very accomplished. Here's a photo of us from the event!