I have been looking at this collectible series for a while and series one is already out of stock. Then again I liked the designs of series 2 more and since I wanted the entire series, and didn’t want to try my chances with blind boxes, I over did it a little and ordered a full case of 16! There will definitely be 4 repeated figure but you will have almost all of the designs and 1 confirmed rare type. I do like the Android mascot, but I am not using an android phone. And I think I should buy the standard green android since it is the main version of the icon.

This is my second purchase from Ebay (they don’t sell the whole box in my country anymore) and I was really worried when I read reviews about people telling me how their package from USA gets lost easily and how unreliable First Class International mail by USPS is. I was worried that I wouldn’t receive my package at all.

But I was super surprised when on the 8th day the mail man came and delivered it. I was super surprised as I thought it would take 14 days. The box had a small hole in it and I think the reason when it was so fast was probably because of it’s size. It’s kind of small in size compared to my other shipments. Below are some of the photos that I took.

The box’s outer appearance.

Inside the big box, contains 16 blind boxes.

What the blind box looks like.

The bag inside of the blind box. It doesn’t allow you to see through it, hence making it blind as you don’t know what you will get.

This is all the android minis that I have.

In order of left to right,
Third and Fourth row(at the back): Hexcode, Bluebot, Iceberg, Greeneon
Second row: Bernard, GD - 927, Rupture, Blackbeard
First row(at the front): Noogler, Cupcake, Chocolate Cupcake, Racer

I was a little surprised when I got Chocolate Cupcake as my rare one. I actually wanted the cyan one, but I’m okay with chocolate cupcake. It smells like chocolate and it looks great next to Cupcake. 

Hmm, I do wonder what I should do with my extra four android minis. Anyway it was fun opening all 16 boxes at once. I kept everything back in its original packaging as I don’t have place to display it. Nevertheless they are so cute and their arms can move, their heads can turn. Just a gentle note: Be careful with them, these things’ antenna is really fragile.Some of their heads can be removed and you can put small objects in them.

I really like Iceberg, Bernard, Cupcake, Chocolate Cupcake and Noogler more.

Android mini series 3 is coming out soon, I think. I am not sure if I will buy them, it depends on the designs of the third series. The other two more series that I want to collect is Lunartik Mini Tea Series 2 and Shawnimals Pork Dumpling series 1. Both of them are coming out this year, =( need to save more money. And the Junko Mizuno Purple Soda Hair from Dunny Figure Series 2012 has caught my eye, but sadly it’s a rare figure. And with the Singapore Toys Games and Comic Convention coming in September, it’s not looking too good for my wallet. 

I have been wanting to try neru neru for a while now. It is one of those that people tell me that it tastes great, so I decided to try it out. The one I am doing is Grape flavour. I did this on my coffee table, hence the background looks so colourful.

This is everything inside the kit. 3 bags labelled 1, 2, 3. 1 tray, 1 spoon.

First step, bend the small compartment at the top right hand of the tray. This will be the measuring cup. Open bag labelled 1 (silver one) and pour it into the circle part of the tray. Fill the measuring cup to full and pour in 1 cup of water. Start to stir and mix it until smooth, like the blue mixture as shown in photo above.

Then open bag labelled 2 (blue one) and pour into the blue liquid mixture. Keep stirring the mixture and soon the mixture will thicken and rise up. It will also change colour to purple in colour. 

This is what it looks like when completed. Just keep mixing until you think that this thick mixture is even.

Open bag labelled 3, the green one, and pour it into the Neru figure. These are actually hard candy. I like this photo, makes it look as if the hard candy are shining in the sunlight.

This is what it looks like and it is now complete. To eat it, take up a small amount of purple mixture and dip it into the hard candy. Then eat the whole spoonful.

Taste: This actually tastes really good and you can chew the hard candy. It really tastes like grape flavouring. It doesn’t look like much but when you combine both things above they taste really well together.

Gentle note: The thick mixture might be quite hard to mix as it rises up. The hard candy stick together quite easily.

This is really fun to make and it tastes great so you don’t have to worry about it being weird or disgusting. The instructions are pretty straight forward, even if they are written in Japanese. It’s understandable from the picture shown.Or you can just watch videos of people making them on youtube.

So enjoy your sweet, and this is definitely a must try if you like popin cookin or happy kitchen, candy kits.

This is everything inside the kit. A transparent plastic tray, a fork, a dropper, A card with dinosaur picture, three bags of powder. From what I noticed, there is a difference in the dinosaur mold given. You may not get the same shape as mine, you might have more dinosaurs or your dinosaur might be in a different pose.

Process photo. First step, fill the tray with water till the line. Pour the powder from the blue bag into the water. Dissolve the powder well. Then open up the brown and green bag. Fill up the dinosaur mold with powder. Use fork to level the powder and make sure you fill the mold completely or your gummy will be very thin.

Next step, use the dropper to take the blue clear solution in the tray. Slowly drip the solution into the mold. Make sure that the solution covers all of the powder in the mold, like the picture above. You can lift the tray up and look below to see if you have added enough solution. Wait for 3 minutes, then slowly use the fork and lift the gummy out of the mold. Trick is to do this from the sides or you might ruin the gummy as it is really soft.

This is what the gummy looks like. It kinds of feels wet and a little sticky when you touch it.

So repeat the steps above and use up all the powder in the brown and green bag. You should have enough solution and powder to do this 3 times or maybe more depending. However, in my case, the third time becomes a mix of green and brown powder.

So this is all the gummy that I have made.

This is really fun to do. It was fun dripping the solution into the mold. The only problem I faced was that I was doing it on a windy day and the powder literally flew all over the table, which is why my tray is so messy and filled with so much powder. This is a fun process while making gummy.

Taste: I initially thought that the brown powder was chocolate, but nope, it’s cola flavour. Green powder is melon flavour. If you ask me I like the cola flavour one, melon flavour tasted a little odd. The gummy was a little wet but it is stretchable. Texture wise it is not smooth like the normal gummy that you eat (eg: gummy bear) It’s kind of slimy.

I think these things are not really about the taste, is more about the process and having fun while making them. I think there’s also some chemistry involved, etc. Of course to me is like powder and powder with solution equals to gummy. Hahas.

What is inside of the candy kit. A toothpick, A pack of chocolate, A pack of Sprinkles and 5 Banana Candy.

This is pretty straight forward. Squeeze the chocolate out, dip the banana candy in chocolate followed by sprinkles. The banana flavour of the candy was rather strong but rather chewy. If you look at the banana candy closely, they actually have some pattern on it so that it looks like an actual banana.

Truffle from Tokidoki Cactus Friends.

I was looking around the internet and these unicorns caught my attention. They are from Tokidoki and are called Unicorno. They are designer art vinyl toys, Or rather they are not meant to be toys, they are pieces of art. Quite honestly, I have never been into designer vinyl art, but this has definitely opened my eyes. I bought these Unicorno locally. Honestly, they are not cheap and I could have saved some money if I bought the entire set of 8 Unicorno from Ebay, but the only thing that I saved was waiting time. Anyway, I got Fumo at a rather cheap price, hence I’m happy with that. I don’t have Prima Donna as she is super rare.

They are supposed to be blind boxes whereby you have no idea what is inside and you open them to see what you get. Initially I wanted to buy the blind boxes, but there is always a possibility of repeats and you might not get the full set, it’s all based on luck. Hence I bought the complete set instead, each box has already been opened to determine what is inside. They are super cute and the designs on the unicorns are cool.

Top row, Left to right: Bellina, Stellina, Fumo, Mooka, Dolce
Bottom Row: Metallo, Pogo, Peperion, Ritmo

They have really nice names. I liked all of them, hence I wanted the full set.

So this opened my eyes to blind boxes, designer art and vinyl toys. It made me want to buy more Tokidoki stuff. I am also interested in Lunartik, Android Mini Collectible and Shawnimals. So maybe I will be buying things from those three brands. That aside, there is a Toy, Comic and Games convention in Singapore in September 2012. I’m definitely going, I have never gone to any of it these past few years, but things have changed. Or rather, I’m interested in these things now. To top it off, Simone Legno, Designer of Tokidoki is coming to Singapore for the convention! Hope I can find good deals at the convention.

I am a big anime fan and I really like Full Metal Alchemist, especially Edward Elric’s State Alchemist Pocket Watch. I have always wanted to have a pocket watch and it would be even better to have one that looked exactly like Edward’s. So I looked around on eBay and found a seller. I read the reviews online about the watch and watched videos of people who bought the watch on youtube. I decided to buy the watch, I bought the pocket watch with shining plating. I know that a lot of people bought the antique one but I wanted a watch that’s shiny. This was my first eBay purchase hence I was a little nervous about it.

The watch was shipped via EMS from Korea Post. This is the first time that I noticed that Tracking of our packages can be so fun! I have tracked packages from Japan Post and Hong Kong post but I have never seen an tracking service that detailed! It is truly amazing. The tracking starts from posting/collection to arrival and departure from outward office of exchange. Usually at this point I thought it had already left Korea, but no, it has to be handled to the air carrier and it even tells me when it departs from Korea’s airport. (Flight number and Flight time is even included) Then it arrives at Destination airport and then it was delivered to my country’s post office HQ. I assume that it goes through customs at my Post Office HQ. Then it is finally delivered to me. This is by far one of the fastest delivery I have ever had, I received the item in 2 days!

Anyway I was super excited when opening the parcel and I was super surprised. It totally exceeded my expectations. There was a free pen and a free mouse pad from Korea, I think it’s from Korea Post. That aside, everything was very well packed and nothing was damaged, everything was totally brand new and shiny! I even received a free FMA keychain as well as 3 FMA stickers, which weren’t stated in the product info when I bought the item. So I was super happy, who doesn’t like freebies?

The watch was really shiny and I love looking at it! It has a real second hand and it was fun watching the second hand move. Honestly this is my first pocket watch hence I am a little fascinated with it. The words on the back of the cover were carved by laser. I think the year (10 or 11) didn’t really matter to me, it was more of the reason as to why Edward carved that date onto the back of the pocket watch’s cover. I was super happy as it was almost like an actual replica of the watch that Edward has and it is the version that is almost identical to the watch in the anime.

Anyway, here are the photos:

The free key-chain that is the transmutation circle.

The free sticker and the book of operations, although it doesn’t tell me how to change the pocket watch’s battery should it ever run out.

Front of pocket watch.

Back of Pocket watch. Sorry that it’s so shiny that you can see my hands and the back of my iphone.

Inside of the pocket watch. The small second hand actually moves. Pardon me as you can see the shadow of me taking photo.

This is what the entire thing looks like in the metal tin case. There are actually two chains inside the brown pouch. 

Overall this is a very high quality product and definitely worth the money. Super fast shipping as well. This is a very successful first purchase from eBay, hopefully the rest of my eBay purchases can continue to be so successful. So if you are a major Full Metal Alchemist fan and want to collect Edward’s watch, I recommend you to buy this watch. Just search anishop4you or FMA pocket watch on eBay and you should see it. I bought the #500 model, if you want to know. There are three types of plating, Antique, Matte or Shining. Mine is the Shining plating.

By the way, as a reminder, NEVER snap the pocket watch shut. It’s really bad for the watch and you might damage the cover. I snapped it close even though gently but it left a mark on the cover of the pocket watch. Then I learnt to close it silently. So do not snap it shut! 

Anyway, I was randomly watching videos on Youtube and I saw videos of people making candies from the kits that they buy. These candies are from Japan and they are super cool. They are fun to play, make and they are all edible! Most common types are from Kracie, Happy Kitchen, Popin Cookin etc.

It’s super cool when you watch videos of people making these candies. It can be quite addicting, whereby you will keep watching the different videos of different candies. Anyway I wanted to try them and so I did a little research. There are some sellers in Singapore that sell them, but they can be a little expensive. Honestly, these candies are not cheap when you import them over. But in actual fact they do not cost a lot in Japan.

Anyway, there are quite a lot of online websites that sell them, I will post the links here at the end of the post. Then I found a store called Marimo Marshmallow. They have really interesting and cute videos on youtube, but they have their own store. They were currently having a Spring Sale whereby all items were 20% off. Because of the 20% off all items, the items are cheaper than most stores. Hence I decided to buy candies from Marimo.

So I ordered 8 different types of Candies and even when shipping is included and divided out, all of them were still cheaper than me buying it locally in Singapore. (I am a rather calculative person) They were sent out by Japan Post’s airmail. It’s the first time I have bought anything via airmail, seriously cause I only trusted EMS as it can be tracked and is faster than other shipping methods. But I thought I would give it a try.

I received them on the 10th day from the shipping date. I was getting a little worried as to if it has been lost during shipping. The box was well packaged and nothing was damaged, the boxes weren’t dented. So I was really happy with them. They have an expiry date in 2013, hence I can take my time to slowly eat them. 

These is the photo of the Candies that I bought from Marimo.

Anyway, these things are really fun to make and they are all edible. Hence you don’t have to throw them away after making them, but these are all made from powder hence it might not be very healthy.

You can buy them from the websites below:

Marimo Marshmallow:   http://wanwan.fm/store/

NapaJapan: http://www.napajapan.com/Products.asp?type=44

Jbox: http://www.jbox.com/category/822

These few posts are a little overdue, should have written them earlier.

I am a big fan of Macarons and I was still on my Macaron hunt. I was meeting my friend in Orchard and we went to Paragon for dinner before going to Canele for dessert. We were able to sit at the tables with the super posh looking chair. The chair, the cake and the atmosphere was great. Anyway I really wanted to try the Macarons from Canele as they have been rated really high by many people.

They have 10 flavours and I wanted to try them all so I bought a box of 12 Macarons for $21.50 which is about $1.80 per Macaron, considered quite cheap. So here are some photos and the review of them. I ate them separately as eating 12 Macarons at once can also be rather sickening. I bought all 10 flavours and one more hazelnut and one more salted caramel.

Here are the photos:

Top Row, left to right: Hazelnut, Chocolate, Rose, Mango, Blueberry, Chocolate Banana
Bottom Row, left to right: Salted Caramel, Salted Caramel, Hazelnut, Dark Chocolate, Oreo, ???? (I have no idea what the green and pink shell one is.)

Review:

Blueberry (Purple) - Tasted great, would be better if have jam or real filling inside.
Choc Banana - Excellent, It has real Banana inside! Plus point!
Salted Caramel - Honestly, I didn’t like it. I prefer sweet caramel. So maybe other  people would like this flavour more.
Hazelnut - This was excellent, there was a ferrero rocher after taste. The best thing was that there was an actual hazelnut inside! Plus point!
Oreo -It tastes like cookies and cream, has a bit of oreo after taste
Pink and Green Macaron - I have no idea what this is and I cannot tell what it is. It tastes a little odd.
Rose - This Macaron is really fragrant, the rose taste is not too strong that it was overpowering
Chocolate - Excellent!
Mango, yellow - Excellent! It has with real mango filling inside or is it mango jam? Anyway the mango tasted great!
Dark chocolate - Great, the chocolate is a little bitter as it is 77% dark chocolate.

Other notes:

One of the chocolate Macaron have a bit of liquor taste, but it is rather faint. I cannot remember if it is from the chocolate or the dark chocolate macaron.

They have a lot more fillings (the thing in between the two macaron shells) than other macarons that I have tasted. You can tell just by holding them up. They are thicker than the other macarons that I have eaten.

Real fillings or rather jam fillings in the center of the macaron is definitely a plus point. I do not think that they are too sweet. Also anther point to note, the macarons are rather fragile. Meaning that they crumble too easily. They kind of come apart as I was holding them in my hands and taking photos. I guess this is good as a good macaron crumbles. It is cheaper to buy them in a box as it is more expensive if you buy it by one piece.

I will definitely recommend hazelnut, choc banana, mango, chocolate. Honestly I’m more of a fruit and chocolate person when it come to flavours. To me, I think that they are definitely one of the best macarons around.

Side note: I think I will stop hunting for Macarons for a while, not sure when I will be able to eat them again.

4th online shipment, bought these with Treasure Japan Shopping service. This post is on the other stuff that I bought.

This is an All Purpose Rabbit, or a General Purpose Rabbit. It’s from GP, the same company that created Gloomy Bear. Sadly I don’t like Gloomy Bear, but this rabbit it really cute with it’s long ears. You can tie its ears up. This is the 6th Anniversary version, whereby the All Purpose Rabbit will dress as the Gloomy Bear and the Gloomy bear will dress like the all purpose rabbit. It is almost like the rabbit is cosplaying as the bear. The head portion of the bear skin so as to speak can be brought down like the second photo above. This is about 28cm in height, not including the ear’s length.

I realised that not many people like this rabbit, Gloomy Bear is more popular instead. Oh well, guess people have different views and likes. I hope they continue to produce more rabbits of this size as it makes it huggable.

This is the other item that I bought. It’s a Nyanpire plush. It’s 12cm in height and it talks when you press its tummy. It’s speaking in japanese, so I dunno what it’s saying. But I think it has something to do with Nyanpire asking about wanting to drink your blood. I love the emotion in its eyes, you only see that in cartoons, hahas. But Nyanpire is really cute, sadly they have such a short anime series. 

That about concludes it, but just to show you my total plush collection,

This is everything that I have from my first shipment to my fourth. Yup most of them are Arpakasso, but I might buy plush of other characters now that I use a shopping service site. Thank you all for reading my post.