Photo Friday: Coastal Holiday, Santorini, Greece

On an island in the sun / We'll be playing and having fun / And it makes me feel so fine / I can't control my brain

Remember when I said that Santorini was the definition of a coastal holiday? Well, this is why.

I'm not usually one to 'go on holiday' - I'm more of the backpacker sort who travels on the cheap and tries to interact with local people and generally have fun that way. But this is Santorini, where it's impossible not to constantly feel like you're in resort-holiday mode. Everything is perfectly sculpted and crafted to the tiniest last little detail.

Could anything be any more picture perfect than this? White tables and chairs right by the seaside!

Let's start with the beautiful worn teal colour of these steps that led from a seaside restaurant down to the beach at Kamari. And as you guys know, turquoise/teal is absolutely my most favourite colour ever!

And let's also get a big shout-out for the classic blue and white colour of everything on this island.

I happened to stop by a small woodcarver's on the side of a street near Kamari beach. Look at these incredible 3D faces coming out of these wood blocks - I'm no fine art aficionado, but these were really cool!

If you have the chance, you should definitely check out the open air cinema in Kamari. It's a pretty amazing experience and adds a whole new level to any film you're watching! We watched Django Unchained, which was pretty awesome sitting under a bright starry night with the wind whistling through the trees.

Driving around Santorini is probably the best way to see it all - because then you get to see amazing views that you might miss if you were on a bus. Public transport in Santorini is fairly limited, so it makes sense to rent a car so that you can have the freest mode of transport available. I love driving and being able to stop for photos and take an extra bit of time wherever I like!

The only thing missing from all this is Oia's famous sunsets - white and blue and bathed in gold, but stay tuned for those pictures in a post coming right up :)

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Blue seas in Santorini, Greece

When you're on the ferry from Athens to Santorini, the water is blue - so blue that it's almost unreal, perfectly clean and the most beautiful shades of the ocean.

Santorini is the definition of a beach holiday - incredibly blue water, and a world-famous white and blue colour scheme that extends to pretty much everything on the island. That's a lot of whitewash that the residents of Santorini go through - and because the colour scheme is regulated, you're unlikely to see buildings in many colours other than white-and-blue.

Although Santorini is known for its beaches and coastal ambience, there are two things you should probably be aware of before you head to Santorini intending to have a day out of fun in the sun: first - that volcanic sand heats up really well, and second - that hot beaches don't always mean warm water.

Do not be fooled by how perfectly divine all this looks - the water was way too cold to swim in. There were probably fewer than 15 people in the sea, and I bet they were all Finnish ice swimmers!

Apart from Perissa beach, Santorini's other famous beach is Kamari beach, with its colourful beach chairs and incredibly awesome seafood. Quite unlike Perissa, it is possible to walk on the sand at Kamari without burning the soles of your feet!

Kamari beach is also a lot more of a tourist resort than Perissa, so there are a lot more options for shopping and dining there. There's a little stretch just next to the beach with a lot of shops selling everything from souvenirs to artwork, and lots of restaurants if you're feeling a bit hungry.

The best calamari ever!

Since Phyllis, Steven and I were pretty much starving by this point, the perfectly fresh and cooked seafood tasted a million times even better! The view wasn't too hard on the eyes either - a table right by the beach, looking out into the ocean makes for a great dining experience.

After we'd stuffed our bellies with food, we went out onto the beach and lazed on the deck chairs. It's the best feeling in the world, being fed and being able to just fall asleep basking in the warm Greek sun. Being around water always makes me feel so rejuvenated, and it's one of my favourite things in the world.

So when I hear waves rushing up on the shore and I go out to greet them, it feels like coming home.

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[SPONSORED] Beauty for the road

Girls, this one is for you!

How difficult is it for you to choose what beauty products to take with you for the road?

My answer - really difficult. Because I travel with carry-on luggage only, all my toiletries have to be under 100ml for airport security - which is a pain, to say the least!

When I look for toiletries to take with me when I travel, I'm generally looking for three things - size, efficacy, and multitasking ability. Size is an easy one to solve, since it's usually simple to transfer items from larger bottles into smaller, travel size ones. That means that multitasking ability and efficacy of beauty products then become my #1 concern.

What do I mean by multitasking ability? I mean a product performing more than one function. I'll want a moisturiser that comes with SPF so that I can take one product instead of two. But perhaps even more than that, I'll want products that actually do what they say they're going to do.

If your bathroom at home looks anything like mine, then you probably have more beauty products than you know what to do with. (I've actually had people come over and comment that it looks like a whole shop in there!)

There must have been a point in time I was trying to create the feeling of living in Boots.

Most people who travel once in a while can get away with leaving the majority of their beauty products at home and picking them up again once they get back from their travels. But because I'm on the road so much, I need to take these products with me or it feels like I'll barely be using them at all!

Recently, I've started moving toward using a bare minimum of hyper-potent products. I've got super duper temperamental skin - it's combination when I'm up north where the air is drier, but in the tropics where humidity is pretty darn near saturation my face looks oily as anything.

Bear in mind that everyone's skin is different, so what works for me might not necessarily work for you - but here's a short list of my favourite travel-friendly skincare products!

Kiehl's kiehls skin care, $38 / Face moisturizer, $31 / Carmex , $5.04 / L'Occitane , $34 / L Oréal Paris beauty product, $23

Among my favourites in this list are this eye cream by Kiehl's, and the wonderful hand and foot butters by L'Occitane (although to be honest, I absolutely love the smell of almost everything by L'Occitane!) Also, retinol creams are fantastic for keeping blackheads away - after all, you do want your travel photos to look good, don't you?

If you've got any products that are your travel favourites, remember to let me know!

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[SPONSORED] How do you dress?

Hey everyone!

First of all, I'm so so sorry for having neglected this space! It's been kind of hectic trying to move everywhere at once - I'm back in Singapore now, and I'm trying to catch up with a ton of things on top of editing photos and readying them to be uploaded here - and then I've got to write entries and school's starting and I'm expecting a new member of the family (more info to come soon! Squee!) and it's all rather chaotic and hectic right now.

But that's really no excuse to having not written anything for this long, so I'm going to shut up right now and get down to it.

Today's topic is on dressing while you're travelling. We know how difficult it is to dress stylishly while you're travelling - there's always so much going on and you have to balance a thousand different things at once - plane tickets, accommodation, language barriers, and really who's got any time to think about what's hot on the runways?

I know I don't.

But that doesn't mean it's impossible to look good while you're travelling. I find that it's easier to carry a few basic and staple items with you that you can mix and match rather than try to fit your entire walk-in-closet in one suitcase.

I like to match very simple basics with little pops of accessories.

mbyM white shirt, $39 / Tinseltown polka dot denim shorts / New Look Brown pumps, $28 / ALDO / Tory Burch patterned scarve / Helene Berman striped floppy hat, $44

I find that it's helpful to work either with a lot of neutrals or with a very definite one pop of colour. No prizes for guessing here - my colour is turquoise! It's my favourite colour, and one that looks good on me which is why I own a ton of turquoise accessories.

I like matching this white-and-turquoise combination with a pair of leopard print pumps - these fold flat and are super easy to take with you, and add a little bit of sassiness to pretty much any outfit!

So really, my secret is just to own a lot of basics and accessorise with what I have. That's how I keep my travel weight down while managing not to look like a crazy hobo while spending long periods of time on the road!

So tell me, everyone - how do you dress for the road?

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