A meme post, sincerely, about going to Hong Kong.

If you can’t see this post… it’s because you aren’t loading the images. Enjoy my first ever image post. Or well, majority image, anyway.

I’m quite excited because this is my first trip anywhere by myself which is outside of a 100km radius of my home, lol. I haven’t visited Hong Kong in almost 10 years (to be precise, about 8 years) and I’ve never used my passport ever since renewing it 5 years ago (I was excited to go to Melbourne thinking “FINALLY I CAN USE MY PASSPORT”… turns out all I needed was my driver’s licence). This entire trip has been entirely funded solely by myself… not that my other trips weren’t, but it’s a significant amount of money considering I’m a super cheapass when it comes to travelling. Tell me to spend money on a bag or something and I’d do it, but I wouldn’t spend it on a holiday. To me, holidays aren’t things I can actually physically grasp, which is why I find it hard to take money out towards it.

I’ll be away in the first half of May this year, so it’s quite a while away, but I hope that it’ll be worth the trip. I get to have my own hotel room (pretty expensive – should have bargained for a better price for a better room – but oh well, I’m only there for 9 nights and I was literally rushing since I was paranoid there would be no more rooms or tickets left and I did get an earlybird discount), which is pretty badass. I chose my hotel half on its price and 90% on its location. The MTR stop is literally just around the corner (and the hotel is like, ON the corner) – you’d be surprised how hard it is to find a hotel in Hong Kong that is within reasonable walking distance of a MTR station, isn’t overpriced, and is rated 4 stars or more.  Apart from hearing that the rooms are like shoeboxes (which doesn’t bother me, because again, I’m only there for just over a week) it sounds pretty good. The guy over the phone was pretty helpful and  they do speak good English. Though I was just trolling them because I can speak fluent Cantonese – touché.

For those who were wondering, I ended up paying less than the stupid Qantas package because for some reason, Cathay Pacific was cheaper AND they had direct flights. Hotel earlybird discount also helped. But guess what, today the air tickets went up $4. LOL. It was a good idea to book now… I had no idea they would get expensive so quickly. I’m too noob to know these things :\

Also, Cathay Pacific has no card charges… Qantas charged a $30 card fee. AND Qantas does have direct flights, but they force you to choose at least one way that is not direct. Sneaky.

For now I have a lot of saving up, and a lot of research to do. I really want to spend little to no time figuring out transport, so I need to know exactly which bus I can take, and how much it’ll cost – stuff like that, just like what I did for Melbourne. The reason why Melbourne was smooth was largely due to the fact that I knew where everything kind of was, and I planned it out so we didn’t waste any time. I don’t really mind wasting time in Hong Kong because there will be a point where I’ll sadly run out of money, but I do have plans which kind of get in the way – I have to visit relatives (even if it’s just an hour) and I need to get my hair done, which typically takes about half a day. One out of the two days of my only weekend there will be a day trip with le friend to Macau (I AM SO EXCITED, SHOULD I BOOK FERRY TICKETS NOW), and I will need to contact other elusive friend and see if any hello/bye contact is possible.

This time if I take my camera I promise I will take my battery with me. If not, I now have Instagram so I’ll be constantly uploading segments of my trip most likely to my Twitter – once I figure out how to get a prepaid mobile card over there. Worst comes to worst, I’ll document my entire trip with Fujifilm Instax Minis.

YAY! I’m excited!

My next blog post will be on Melbourne Day 3 (I promise – err, I mean, I’ll try). Sorry about the random posts inserted here and there – I felt gloomy and added in a rant post… then I had to write something for Gmarket because I cannot resist a potential 50,000W voucher *fingers crossed*. Then this came along because I’ve been so addicted to 9gag and wanted to do a meme post myself.

PS: All images were found on the net… I edited them using Photoshop. For rage faces the best site I’ve found is http://alltheragefaces.com

PPS: I spent literally over an hour editing those images… and it took me less than 1 minute to read through them all… I don’t think I’ll do meme posts again LOL

So, my ad made it into the magazines

So most likely I should be putting this onto my online portfolio, but I decided to do it here as well. (I said I’d update the design blog but I still haven’t for the flyers. Guess I need to just be bothered lol).

I bought the wrong issue of Wealth Creator a few weeks ago because I was under the impression that it was already “out”. I guess not, because it only came out just now :S

To learn more about the magazine, visit www.wealthcreator.com.au

This is the right issue! Sept/Oct 2010

Just look for the black and white issue with the gold $1 coin!

If I thought that the flyers were printed many many times (my final estimate is somewhere like 5000 flyers, 10 000 tops though I doubt it), Wealth Creator magazine has apparently a readership of 55 000 readers Australia-wide. I’m completely overwhelmed. I’m stoked! And if that’s not enough, it’s an entire page! Not a quarter, not half, but one entire page!

Luckily for me this time, I didn’t mistakenly buy the magazine, because this issue isn’t sealed in plastic. That means you can flick through it beforehand and actually have a look at what’s inside.

So that’s exactly what I did at the newsagency – picked up a copy and flicked through it – and BINGO. It really was smack bang in the centre of the magazine, where the staples are!

*sighs* <3

I can’t believe I bought the wrong magazine but it’s all good because I got it right this time lol.

So for interested readers who want to see the ad in the flesh, you don’t need to buy the magazine – just flick through it and find the centre and have a look <3 Haha – that’s only if you’re super bored or something. I’d be so happy if I actually went out with someone at the time – I would drag everyone to the newsagency be like to all my friends, “hey, I designed this!” Most likely they’d think I’m just pulling their leg, but I actually did design it. So if you guys just check it out or something, I’d be super grateful that my work is reaching you guys!

It’s so stupid that CS4 InDesign is incompatible with older versions. So so so stupid. Screenshot taken on my laptop.

It wasn’t really that easy because (I know I shouldn’t really be saying this but) I had to make the design in a very short period of time. By that I mean… an hour or two. It was mostly because the magazine had certain expectations of their ads, and they preferred something cleaner like that ad above. Originally I had the magazine ad corresponding to the flyer design because consistency is good, as it stirs up your memory upon seeing it. But it doesn’t matter, keep my life nice and simple and just keep it to a minimum as such

Here’s a closeup!

That image is actually large enough to read D: But anyway, the top two images are of Sydney’s Basket Brigade 2009 Packing Day. Magic Moments Foundation gets a warehouse or a large space donated and they dedicate a day to gather all their volunteers and they wrap up presents and even customise the Christmas cards. Hand written!

Here are the details again for anyone who’s interested in helping out:

For those who are interested (this wasn’t on the ad), there is an event hosted by MMF – it’s in Brisbane though, it might suit Queenlanders!

Leadership & Finance Summit for Today’s Youth

Leaders of Today, Life Investors of Tomorrow 

When: Mon 17th Jan to Fri 21st Jan 2011

Where: Brisbane, Queensland Australia

Who: 14 – 17 year olds who love to have fun while being inspired.

Contact:  youth@magicmoments.org.au

Magic Moments has an event called “Packing Day” which is where you help packaging presents for families in need. Be sure to email MMF at sbbpackingdayvolunteers@magicmoments.org.au for more information on Packing Day 2010.

If you’d like to help in any other way, you can make a donation with the following details:

Magic Moments Foundation Limited Sydney Basket Brigade
Bank:  National Australia Bank 
BSB: 082-140 | Account: 47-874-7437

Any donation over $2 is tax deductible. MMF also accepts pretty much anything from canned food to clothes, toys, anything to fill up someone’s Christmas hamper and brighten up their Christmas.

Thanks once again to MMF, Michelle and Nikki for giving me the opportunity to do the ad. It was a pleasure to do it!

Magic Moments Foundation 2010 Flyers

Magic Moments Foundation – yes, a charity snippet -

I think two months ago I was asked by C to help design a double sided A5 flyer for Magic Moments Foundation (MMF) - I was so excited to do it because I haven’t designed a flyer since I was about 17 years old and that didn’t really get printed to the degree I had expected it to be.

So about a few weeks ago, my flyer got printed! I did a lot of back and forth consultation trying to get the flyer right (keep the ‘client’ happy and all with what I was doing). If I remember correctly, there were meant to be about 5000 copies of my flyer to be printed! I’ll try to dig through my emails now to see if I can find the exact number (if it was even mentioned), but  I heard from C was that there were boxes and boxes! Yay! Couldn’t find the exact number :\ But these are the 2010 Magic Moments flyers! I designed them! Yay!

C generously included 10 flyers for me to slip into whatever I needed it for *teehee* – thanks so much! It was printed on semi-gloss coated paper – hmmm – love shiny paper.

Front and back of the flyer

I had to design both sides you know *laughs nervously* – but the only way to show it was to put one facing up and another facing down teehee.

And here’s a screenshot just to prove I did it lol.

I did the illustrations – actually, all of them minus the logos and the photographs. I had awesome fun making the flyers – a big shoutout and thanks to C, M, J and N for giving me this opportunity I still have a magazine ad to post, but the magazine seems to not be out yet – lol.

For those who are interested (this wasn’t on the ad), there is an event hosted by MMF – it’s in Brisbane though, it might suit Queenlanders!

Leadership & Finance Summit for Today’s Youth

Leaders of Today, Life Investors of Tomorrow 

When: Mon 17th Jan to Fri 21st Jan 2011

Where: Brisbane, Queensland Australia

Who: 14 – 17 year olds who love to have fun while being inspired.

Contact:  youth@magicmoments.org.au

Magic Moments has an event called “Packing Day” which is where you help packaging presents for families in need. Be sure to email MMF at sbbpackingdayvolunteers@magicmoments.org.au for more information on Packing Day 2010.

If you’d like to help in any other way, you can make a donation with the following details:

Magic Moments Foundation Limited Sydney Basket Brigade
Bank:  National Australia Bank 
BSB: 082-140 | Account: 47-874-7437

Any donation over $2 is tax deductible. MMF also accepts pretty much anything from canned food to clothes, toys, anything to fill up someone’s Christmas hamper and brighten up their Christmas.

Hope you guys enjoyed this post! If I ever get another chance to design flyers, it’d be awesome fun Thanks once again for letting me design them!