Travel Read: Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of The World)

Friday, March 30, 2018

I finally finished reading the book when I went back to Terengganu. Haaa.. It was a long read.


Murakami tend to write complex world in his book. He did it in Kafka on The Shore but that got nothing on the world he built for Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End of The World. I went back and forth between two settings and throughout the majority of the read I was waiting for the two worlds to collide.

There was a collision and true to its nature, the collision was brief. Almost too brief even.

The story followed an unnamed man. A calcutec, someone who worked like a keygen or something. His storyline was a science fiction with made up career and monsters and bad guys. It's hard not to get invested in his story where most of the action took part. As long as you get your mind around the whole made up technology and terminologies, you'd be down for it.

The other narrative followed another man with different discovery of a new occurrence. Something rather magical than scientific. At the beginning I loved this world more that the other one. In my head it was a sephia world. The other world was mostly grey in my head except for one of the characters who would always be visualized as lively pink, pumped and youthful.

The stories progressed in parallel without a sign of them ever meeting in the middle. But when they did, it felt like the story ended way too quickly. Well, that is Murakami's style of writing. But unlike his other book, this one actually ends. There was this sense of closure. Rather different from his other works I'd say. For that, I was pleased.

So that's it.

Adieu

My Latest Obsession With Hijab

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Ahh bawal chiffon..

So chiffon is an amazing fabric for a long shawl. It places beautifully with perfect creases and comfortable balance between being lightweight and not see through. But wearing long shawl sometimes takes longer time and requires delicate care through out the day.

I love bawal. It's simple. It's elegant. And it's dirt cheap. The problem with cotton bawal is that you either get the soft ones which feel good on your head but too thin and hard to place or you'd get the stiff ones which are rarely comfy. There is a good range of cotton bawal in the market but let's go to bawal chiffon. To be more precise, the heavy bawal chiffon.

Some of the good things about bawal chiffon are:

  • It's not see through: This is super important. Unlike cotton bawal, the heavy chiffon does more than covering your hair. It covers the neck. No more tracing of skins when you're standing with the backlight on. It is also pretty breezy.
  • It stays in shape for a long time. Depends on your initial placing, heavy chiffon really stays that way through the day provided that you pin it in place.
  • It's less wrinkly than cotton. When you are rough with your cotton bawal, it tends to crease and stays wrinkly afterwards. Heavy chiffon is more durable to wrinkle. It's harder to crease.

When there are good, there are bad too. So these are what I find annoying with bawal chiffon
  • Although it stays in shape through the day, the initial placing can be hellish. No matter how hard it is to place the fabric, do not use ironing starch. I might be an advocate to using starch on bawal cotton but with chiffon, it's a no-no. You'll ruin it's natural folds forever. So be very patient with placing your bawal. Once it is set, it will behave for the whole day. The peak won't ever fall flat.

  • Chiffon is hard to crease but it is also hard to iron! Ironing bawal chiffon can be hellish. This is why choosing the correct type of chiffon for bawal is essential. Invest some time in getting the perfect-no-crease finishing by using steam ironing or be very attentive when using water spray.
  • Chiffon stained easily especially with oil. When you stain your bawal cotton, you can rinse it off with water and soap. If you do that on chiffon, the stain mark would only get bigger until you wash the whole thing. And chiffon is sensitive even to the tinniest amount of oil like the sebum coming from your sweat. Once the sweat evaporated, the damp mark stays unlike on bawal cotton where it dries to an even colour.

So that's it... For what it's worth, bawal chiffon is amazing. It's not surprising though because chiffon is commonly used when making jilbab. So fabric is not really new to hijab scene. I'm just glad that there is a comfortable and stylish alternative to the comfy but see-through bawal cotton. I'm looking forward to having more bawal chiffon in my wardrobe.

This is not a product placement post. I'm just appreciating hijab and its diversity.

We're both wearing heavy bawal chiffon.

Adieu

Wish Crossed #1

Tuesday, March 06, 2018


Earlier this year I managed to cross one of wish from my wishlist.

I bought a bed. Wow, finally. After so many years. It's a beautiful wooden bed with white painting finishing. My parents bought the mattress years earlier and it doesn't exactly fit the new bed. As you can see, the mattress is a bit too thick for the bed. The headboard basically sinks behind the mattress. No biggie. I still enjoy it nonetheless. Plus, the bed is a great addition to my all white assemble. My kind of aesthetic.



Hmm.. pretty.

Adieu

Day,


Part time normal, most of the time comic enthusiast. Almost always borderline crazy. Still experimenting with comic blogging. An engineer with a vision to not be taken seriously. Everything you read on this blog doesn't represent my gender, religion or profession as a whole. Other name you might associate with me are Deaday, DayGoon, JaeminGoon and *cough* Mona *cough*