2nd Chinese New Year

My second Chinese New Year away from family. Spent the day before it with friends. We hung out in this comfortable place with super adorable cats all around the place. It is a hidden cafe in Julu Road (French Concession, my favorite area!) called Life Cafe. You even have to pass a small alley with Shanghainese houses (where they hang their clothes like directly above your head) and some street dogs around.. I kinda like it though. Kinda took my mind off for a while from the Shanghai's busy, hectic life. :) 

We actually wanted to go to Amokka cafe, since my friend said that the place is quite nice, but it was closed. I tried to find other places that are open, and I found this one article about Lifecafe. I thought, hey, that's quite a cool place to spend the afternoon! Therefore we went there, the place turned out to be beautifully quiet and comfortable. We were the only customer there, maybe because it was holiday and everyone here have mostly gone back to their hometown/home country. Though the heater was not really warm so we had to change our table to be directly in front of the AC to warm ourselves.. Rather than that, the place was filled with bunch of cute stuffs, like drawings on the walls, vintage and ethnic postcards, and ADORABLE cats! 

I have this kind of love and hate feelings with cats. They can be super cute I wanna squeeze and hug them, but at some point they can be scary too..... Anyway, I had a great time with the cats there! They are so lovely. If you want to find a quiet place to just read your book or get free wifi and play with some cats and take some pictures, this is def the place. The food is totally not recommended though. We ordered pastas and they were all just disasters. 

Lemon cake that I ordered that day, since they only had that for the cake menu...

In every table, you can find a sketchbook with some pencils that you could use for doodling, writing, or even to just look at what people have done there. Mostly chinese words that I wish I could understand. some cute drawings of cats, etc etc... My housemate decided to draw our faces inside of the book, so here is her drawing above :)

We left there at 3.30PM I guess, then my friends went shopping but I had to go home and wait for my father's Chinese close friend and have CNY eve's dinner with his family. I ate quite a lot, well maybe because there were a lot of dish... I went home at 8PM and just watched Big Bang Theory and 2 episodes of Haven, while listening to the enormous amounts of fireworks.

In the end, I want to say Happy Chinese New Year to you guys who celebrate! I hope you had a great time with family and relatives :) 

xx

Alviana

Late Christmas Post!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year guys! How were the celebrations? Did you spend it with your loved ones? I did! Well not all of them, I couldn't spend them with my family, only with my bf and his sister. She came here for 2 weeks and stayed at my place. She just came back to Jakarta on Thursday. We took like BUNCH of pictures! But I managed to sort them out together with my bf and successfully uploaded half of them to Facebook. Therefore, if you are a friend of mine in Facebook, you can check our narcissism there ;)))

We took her to great places here in SH. Mostly to eat! I mean seriously, if you go to SH, don't expect too much for the tourist places, you're gonna EAT EAT and EAT, like A  LOT! Cause SH has great different varieties of food. From traditional Chinese (Yunnan, Hunnan, Sichuan, etcetc..), Cantonese, Western (Italian, American, Russian, France, etcetc..), Mediterranean, until Asian.

When she came here, the christmas spirit has already been all over here. That is why we took bunch of pictures in front of different christmas trees. lol.

Inside a building in Sinan Mansion to warm up our bodies for a while, because outside was too damn cold.. anyway, this is my current favorite grey outerwear!  

 my favorite place to eat Spring Roll at Grumpy Pig! This was my first time there for dinner. I mostly went there for lunch, and decided to try for dinner as the vibe and atmosphere will be different too, and when we arrived there, I just fell in love! Love the vintage retro vibe with the bulbs and lovely retro paintings. 

People in Shanghai loveeee dogs! You can easily find gorgeous dogs everywhere everyday. In the above picture are the random dogs that I found in West Nanjing Road (the road where you can find Dairy Queen, Papa John's, etc). You could try to go there in the afternoon til evening to find cute dogs just strolling around and playing with each other. Cuteness overload! 

So that's it for this post, Monday's gonna be my first day back to school, starting my new term. It's gonna be HECTIC I bet. Wish me luck!!! 

xx,

Alviana

BC F/W '12

I was the model of Bella Carmenia's collection. Her collection is far more different than the last collection that I did for Jessica Kwandy evening gowns. Her collection is more futuristic and casual. I like the cutting in each pieces. Scroll down to find out which one is my favorite! :) 

I have to admit that being a model is NOT easy by just making you face pretty on camera. However, you also have to make yourself feel comfortable within the environment. In this shoot, the weather was obviously not friendly. Sometimes, the wind was just blowing CRAZYYY! And the weather kept getting colder and colder. Like in this particular shot above, the wind was blowing hard, that I was quite freezing but at the same time I had to pose and made the skirt work in the camera. Cause if I didn't, the skirt would just blow away around and exposed my whole legs until thighs. Wouldn't want that! That is why I had to remind myself that the photographer did not only shoot ME but also the clothes, because that's the first reason they did the photoshoot anyway. To sell the clothes. Therefore, I have to make the clothes work too! Such an experience! 

As promised, I'm gonna tell you my favorite piece of the collection. And the winner is this dress! I love the cutting so much. But too bad my body does not really suit the dress. It's a bit too big for me, that the designer had to work on it last minute. 

photographer: Bella Carmenia

talent: Alviana Kalin

accecorries: Sthefanny Soesanto

editing: Alviana Kalin

I personally like this collection because of how the designer did with the cutting and layering, and because it has personality. What do you think guys? Which one is your fav? :) Anyway, if this is not your thing, maybe you are looking for beautiful dresses and gowns? Check out the beautiful Prom Dresses 2013 from Misses Dressy! They are OH SO BEAUTIFUL dresses that I just wanna buy them all!

x,

Alviana