Updates + Reflecting on a month of travel

Hello friends! I am back from a month of traveling + whatever amount of time it has taken me to settle in to my new home for the next two years! My hiatus is over, and I am revving up to get back into writing and the blogosphere in general! My goal is to be able to stick to posting at least once a week - Fun Fact Fridays may be happening less routinely, sadly :( - but we shall see how grad school life treats me as I ease into it more.

I just wanted to take a quick minute to reflect on my past month or so, from the items I packed and whether they were sufficient, to traveling alone (mostly). I promise it won't take too long!

What's in my carry-on? Summer 2015 edition

Ready to roll (literally hehehe...)!

I am totally nosey (no shame), and love when bloggers/vloggers do a "What's in/on my [noun]?" series. I've always wanted to do one myself, so I figured that with my upcoming month-long trip, I'd do a What's in my carry on? for you!

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I also hope that you find this helpful and sort of inspirational, because it's not everyday you see bloggers/vloggers talk about the things they bring in their carry-on for a 2+ [summer] week trip! Once I get to the US, I'm shipping my bags to my final destination to save money on baggage costs and time spent waiting for my bags otherwise, so I'll be primarily be living out of my carry-on for a month. I've been planning how to pack this carry on for months (me? A compulsive planner? What are you talking about...), so hopefully I have most of my bases covered!

This post will be broken up into the following sections:

1. Liquids (in the 1L clear plastic bag)
2. Skincare + other toiletries
3. Makeup
4. Clothes
5. Other items

Guide: Asian Beauty shopping in Thailand

This post was supposed to go up earlier, but 80% of my post failed to properly save when I wrote it over the weekend.

You might have seen this on my Instagram | Source

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Nonetheless, I finally found the motivation to finish it up, so here it is! The guide to Asian Beauty (AB) shopping in Thailand :)

First of all, I am by no means an expert, but having spent the past two years back in Thailand since undergrad hunting down Asian branded skincare and makeup, I feel like I have a better knowledge of where to go to test, swatch, and browse for AB items. This list is by not comprehensive by any means, but I hope you find this helpful if you ever have the chance to visit Bangkok!

In this guide, I'll be mentioning Korean/Taiwanese/Japanese beauty brands, but also some Thai brands you might be interested in trying and buying.

I want to preface this guide saying that nearly all the brands listed here are quite marked up in Thailand. I suppose that is to be expected since all these items are imports, but just keep that in mind when shopping around here. It might be in your best interest to simply swatch items at the physical counters, and then buy it later online.

With that said, let's get to it!