• Got my N3 Certificate! I had finished my 1 year language school finally and passed by JLPT N3 Test in Summer. I never made JLPT as the goal but I just wanted to take it out of curiousity and turned out my 1 year school money didn't go for a waste. Now I can handle daily life conversation pretty okay, I guess lol

• Received my beginner's certificate for Japanese Tea Ceremony. I have still been doing my Japanese Tea Ceremony and I have passed the beginner's course! 

• I got ENTERTAINER VISA! It's the visa that I had always wanted to have but it's probably the most difficult to obtain due to many reasons, but I am so lucky that I got it! I got my Visa in 2019 Autumn and that allows me to keep living in here

• GLOBAL SOCIAL AWARDS in PRAGUE, CZECH! I was flown over to one of my favorite cities in the world, Prague, by the Czech Tourism and Global Social Awards as I was Indonesia's influencer representative for Rising Star Category. I even got the Runner Up position thanks to EVERYONE who supported and voted for me. Thank you, thank YOU!

• Traveled all over Czech thanks to Czech Tourism, and also I traveled to Poland for the first time! I visited Auschwitz and Krakow during my visit in Poland. It was short as I was still studying, otherwise I would stay a little bit longer! But I am happy this year I am able to travel to Europe again because I miss it!

• Summer in Jakarta. Finally after a year, I had a summer break and went back to Jakarta for a few months. Jakarta was really different than the last time I remembered. It was crazy to think about as I only left Jakarta for a year but so many changes had happened to this city. It was much more modern, the cashless payment was all over the country even to the traditional market, and basically, it's just becoming more beautiful with the new infrastructures

• Got My First Birkin. Turned 27, and I had an early birthday present for myself. I got my first Birkin and it just had to be RED of course. I had worked and saved hard to get this one. Unfortunately I can't get it in Paris, so I only could get it from Jakarta's seller. One day, I'll buy it directly there but for now, I am satisfied!

• Birthday in Bali. I spent 2 weeks all over luxury hotels in Bali from Hoshinoya Bali, Kempinski Apurva, etc. It was really a nice getaway and I miss Bali a lot. There's no place like Bali in Japan, or anywhere else. I am so lucky to be able spending my birthday in this beautiful island

• Released MAGIC PRESET. After a year of making the presets that is /approved by Stella Lee/, and through all of your supports! Within 3.5 months of the launch, we have 13.7k followers!! WOW!! Though of course not everyone who followed us have purchased from us, as it's only small percentage, but I am so glad that a lot of people have recognized our services and hopefully they will buy in the future. I am SO SO HAPPY to see the feedback, reviews, and the before after transformations. I received a lot of supports as well from my content creator friends who use and recommend Magic Preset. Thank you so much!

• Still doing Hairbeauron. Yes, my other business, Hairbeauron is still going on thanks to your support. I am happy that it still receives amazing feedback day after day by our customers

• Expanded my Working Team. It's so crazy to think of how many staffs I had hired for a lot of divisions for my businesses in one year. For Hairbeauron we have these staffs, For Magic Preset, it's different staffs! And I am expanding to youtube as well so I hired a few additional staffs to help me as well. In total I have more than 10 people working under me now and I am so shocked of how far I have gone to this point. I cant even believe that when I receive blessings, I can give it back again by giving job opportunities to other people. These people have helped me a lot the past year and I am so lucky that my teams is pretty good! Hopefully one day I can expand more!

• My best friend, Julian Tanoto, was married in AYANA KOMODO and I became the bridesmaid. I had to fly back from Tokyo all the way to this far far away island for the sake of my little girl who got married to her high school sweetheart. It was the most beautiful wedding I have ever attended, and I am so lucky to be able to witness that day!

• Traveled A LOT, all over Japan. Whether it's personal or for work. I am so grateful that I am able to travel a lot. I visited Hokkaido even 3 times this year, from Rusutsu, Sapporo, and Hakodate. I also visited Aomori, Niigata, Sendai, Miyagi, Nikko, Iwate, Akita, Nikko, Shin Fujinomiya, Kyoto, Osaka, Hakone, Kamakura, Enoshima, and maybe other areas that I forget to mention, but I traveled a lot and I am so grateful!

• Made so many new influencer friends thanks to FAM TRIPS. I went to 1 FAM Trip in Bali where I made friends with Foodirectory, Foodioz, and Sihan! It was a week full of laughter, tons of foods, instagenic places, and basically, everyone is just so chill and nice! I also had another 1 Fam Trip to Kansai where I made friends with AnakJajan, who turned out to be the best travel buddy I have ever made, and this year alone I met up with them too much and traveled so much. On that amazing trip which turned out to be the best Japanese FAM Trip in my life, I made friends with Kimdao! And though she's not living in Japan but she visited Japan so often and we hang out a lot! On the last FAM Trip to Kansai, I made friends with Genki and Arisa

• Moved to Japan! And that's probably my number 1 topic of the year. I finally left my comfort zone and moved to Japan. With that > 100kg's of stuff, don't expect that I will come back to Indonesia for good anytime soon. I wrote a separate blog post about it

• Started studying Japanese at language school. I have always wanted to study abroad, and always wanna master Japanese due to my love for Japan. It took me a while to finally realize this dream because it needs courage, money, time, and a lot of problems lol But after all, I'm here!

• Met and made a lot of new friends in Tokyo! I was always an indoor person and didn't wanna hang out or made new friends simply because I was in my comfort zone in Jakarta. Moving to Japan means I have to start finding friends again from zero, and it wasn't easy, but I managed to finally have a lot of friends in Tokyo that I can call 'friends'. Though I am still looking to expand more connections in here, but I am happy that I really started to be friends with new people again!

• Started new businesses! I started accepting Travel Photography Work for travelers in Tokyo through #StellaLeePhotoworks, and it's one of the best and most fun jobs I have ever had because not only it allows me to meet people, but also I love taking pictures. I have also started 2 online business which is HairBeauronID and TitipTella

• Become a much more positive, confident, independent, and of course stronger woman. I am so proud of becoming a better version of myself and in fact, tons of my closest friends have mentioned that the change is blatantly obvious. Not just that, people can tell that I am much much happier ever since I moved. It's not because Japan is amazing, but simply because going out of my comfort zone, challenging myself, and trying a lot of new things simply give me another purpose in life

• Watched L'Arc~en~Ciel concert again, and in TOKYO! Finally after 7 years, I watched it again. The last time was January 2012, and it's December 2018. And best, with my Indo girls

• One of my best friends in Japan has passed away. It crushed me, and it was really unexpected. I learned so much through this experience, and though she's not the first friend of mine that has passed away, hers hit me the most. I gave another deep thought regarding life, purpose, and everything. My whole year that's full of happiness and dreams were turned back again to the reality because of this accident, and I realized that happiness shall be treasured because after all it will never last. And because I know it's limited, I realized that it makes me appreciate a single bless in my life no matter how small it is

After the first 3/4 songs (I forget the exact time), HYDE suddenly had a cross drawn under his eyes and also did crossing symbol as if a Catholic's praying  lol
On another note, though I have been studying for 6 months but it seems my Japanese is still mada mada dane, since I could only understand 50% of the whole MC part

I havent updated much ever since I moved to Tokyo 3 months ago. But anyway, I have just turned 26. It's beyond my imagination to reach this certain age because I always feel that I am forever stuck in early 20's. It feels like it's just yesterday I had my 20th year old birthday, but now I have for real reached adulthood, an age where I can no longer have youth discount lol

It's not like I am unhappy with this age, in fact, I feel really content and grateful for this day to come. I had been feeling really depressed for the last 3 birthdays that I had. Ever since I hit my 23rd birthday, for around 1-2 months around September I would ALWAYS have anxiety. I am not sure that if even my closest friends realize about it, but if you dig my old blog posts, you would know that I thought too much to the point I might turn paranoid lol I was just, unhappy... For no good reason

So many people had asked me how is it to move to Japan which I can only answer

'it is normal. But normal is good. Normal is something that I crave to have. And in fact, a normal life is something that is not normal in this era, to the point everyone trying to be normal and lead a normal life but it's never normal'

And that's how I realize my english has turned a little bit better because I can use so many 'normal' words in a sentence without sounding dumb


What's my daily schedule looks like?
It's never the same on each day but my school is from Monday to Friday, from 9.30 to 13.30
And after that usually, I would meet some friends or clients, do some beauty treatments like going to Hair Salon, do a little bit of photo spot hunting in Tokyo, go to supermarket to buy groceries and cook meals, have meals at home while watching Netflix and Doraemon, review lessons and do homework, clean houses and do laundry, do some work for @titiptella and @hairbeauronid, and that's all

I never knew that doing repetitive boring lifestyle for some people can be this peaceful for me
I had been living a roller coaster life (and honestly it's so fun, my job is too fun) for YEARS, and having a little bit of normality into my life is not bad at all

I have time to pursue study and though it's not always rainbow filtered, I have finally had an international class that I had always dreamed of. An experience that I can share with people whenever I meet them. And my Japanese skill is getting better! I was in fact pretty much could survive for basic daily life in Japan with my broken Japanese even before I started studying, but now as I am studying, I realize that there are so many things that I should and could study more

Time flies so fast and my summer term will be finished in 2 weeks. I don't know if I have changed or not but in fact there are so many interesting stories and experiences for the last 3 months to the point I could probably make a book or two out of it. So far it's been great, but I am sorry my life is too normal. I knew some people would expect me to visit kawaii cafes or have fun every day, but I am just an average student here haha


So what did I do for my birthday?
I was simply going to school, and in fact I had a work event at Omotesando Hills. So my schedule was finished around 7.30pm and I just headed for a good meal near Ginza area with my bestie Anggy. Anggy flew to Japan for a week during my birthday to spend it with me. So thoughtful!

Though I was expecting a lonely birthday (which in fact I am pretty content with myself so doing it alone is fine), but a simple dinner on my birthday is always appreciated
In fact the night before, we went to the nearest konbini from my apartment and got a 200 yen cheesecake, candle, and lighter, to just have a little ceremony between us. I asked her to sing happy birthday to me so I could record it on Instagram story and we were laughing about how vain and fake we were

But we've been together for around 13 years, which means half of my life's well spent with her presence. So this 'fake friendship goal' persona on instagram is in fact for real, a genuine friendship :">
In fact the best birthday present that she gave me to me was she was cleaning my apartment when I was at school HAHA. Not everyday that you got to have your apartment cleaned by your friend right


So I brought her to Ginza to enjoy a good dinner at a local restaurant. We had 8-courses meal but we ordered more because we were so hungry. Someone went to school and work, and the other cleaned the house. We deserved a good meal lol

And in fact, we kinda got a karma
Both of us never liked tuna and when the tuna moriawase came to our table, we were sighing and said 'I really like salmon compared to Tuna. I never understand the charm of it'
And we took a bite of it
We blinked
And we cursed

'this is freaking good'

The tuna melted in our mouth and the hint of freshly grated wasabi really enhanced the flavor. We all agreed it was probably the best tuna we have ever had in our entire life despite both of us visiting Japan too many times. So I shamelessly asked the chef whether we could order just another plate of tuna and we happily savored additional plate! :D



I have so many things to be grateful about but I really wanna say even without all the blessings that I have on my birthday, I am genuinely happy from the bottom of my heart, and content, to the point I dont need people or things to make me happy


I am happy in Japan
And I am facing my 26th year old positively :) 

Yes, you heard right. I am finally moving out of Indonesia
That's the reason why I have been selling a lot of items, and that's why I was so preoccupied with life for the past 2 years because I was trying to move
And as some of you did guess, I move to my favorite country ever, Japan, in Tokyo
So what's the reason? Let me be a little bit honest with you on this post


I have never had a chance to study abroad, and I always wanted to study in Japan for as long as I could remember. However, due to some sudden personal circumstances, my parents couldn't afford my overseas university back then. And we all know, overseas study especially Japan are really expensive
I was devastated
I blamed my life
I hated my fate
And I didn't prepare my life for a scholarship either when the time came
That's why I studied at uni in Jakarta though it's still one of the top private universities in Indonesia. Most of my friends asked me back then why someone like me didn't study abroad and it was hard to tell people when your life was down. I could only tell a few closest friends of mine after years and now I have no shame to tell it when people ask about it. I am perfectly healed

However, because I was busy with my life, I lost the sight of myself and buried deep down one of my deepest wish. Every time my friends came back from overseas for either working or studying matter, I had to gulp down the jealousy. I knew I traveled a lot, but travel is not the same as living there for real
I had things to do in Jakarta, I had responsibilities, and I had my work

Blogging work became my comfort zone and I am blessed to say that my work is doing so well. I have been in this industry for more than 5 years, and I have most of the things in my life thanks to blogging. I can afford things I couldn't buy, I can go to places I wanted to be, I could try any beauty products I wish to have. Such a great life isn't it?
And in fact, living in Jakarta at the moment is not bad
But after years of being pampered with a comfort zone, I was curious about what else I should do in life. I thought to myself :

"Wait, is that it? Will I just work when I have jobs, travel when I have nothing to do, do beauty routine regularly, accumulate my savings, get married when meeting the right person, and buy properties + settle down?"

I know I craved for a normal life, and it sounded so normal, and it doesn't sound so bad, but is that it?
Will I grow old later and realize that I have not done things that I wanted to do?
Will I say to my children later in the future 'you should be grateful I could afford your overseas study because my parents couldn't do the same to me' in jealousy?
Will I have this dark envy and regret everytime people say they've been to places?



And so I questioned myself. What holds me here?

All the excuses like family, friends, responsibilities, and not enough money are after all just excuse. I said I couldn't leave my parents alone. I couldn't afford it yet. I had to pay this and that first. And bla bla bla. I realize it's an excuse for me to not go. If I truly want to, I will do whatever it takes to go, right?

What I was afraid the most is after I have worked so hard to build my career in Jakarta, I won't be able to provide the same lifestyle and income in other countries
I was afraid to lose savings that I had accumulated over the past few years. Because I wanted an instant money from parents or anyone to provide for me. I don't want to pay by myself because I am stingy and I know I worked hard for that

'Others get their school paid by their parents, why do I have to pay by myself? Why do I have to work harder than the rest?'


I was afraid I won't be able to work as a blogger after that, I might use all of the savings, go penniless after that, and start work again from the scratch, from a basic salary that will never be enough to cover my lifestyle
I was afraid to lose all of it


That's why I delayed, and delayed, and delayed
But as I delayed, I realized how time flew so fast and I spent years of just rambling alone and wish for something that I never dared to do. Until one day I just say, fuck it. I paid the school, applying for Student Visa, and even gave my dog for adoption because I couldn't take care of him in Japan. I went to Japan a few times after that to check schools, found an apartment, purchased some furniture, moved away my clothes and cosmetics, and did other stuff. Though I had given away A LOT, I still had more than 100kgs items shipped lol



As I am typing this, I finally have finished cleaning and sorting out my items in the right order.
I have prepared all the money to support my school and living expenses so in case the worst thing happens, which I won't be able to have jobs as much as I did in Jakarta, I still could survive for a few years (I am pretty paranoid about money matter!)
But hey, I am going to study in Tokyo with my own personal money, debt free, and worry-free. For now, I don't have difficulty buying rice and sashimi so I guess I'm good lol

And my school for the summer term will start on 9th July. Which is due in 2 weeks
I am taking just language school and not master degree. Both my school and apartment are located in central Tokyo
It's not like I won't be coming back to Jakarta anyway, I have some stuff and work probably in Jakarta so I might go back and forth as usual BUT I am changing my base to Tokyo

After all, I don't think anyone will notice much that I am moving because I was not always in Jakarta and even when I was there, I didn't go out much haha
And anywayyyy, here's my current profile on Instagram

A post shared by Stella Lee - Beauty and Travel (@stellalee92) on Apr 22, 2017 at 7:36am PDT

Definitely a honor to be an official blogger of Sariayu X Miss Indonesia again in 2017!

A post shared by Stella Lee - Beauty and Travel (@stellalee92) on Mar 31, 2017 at 11:37pm PDT

My most favorite hair color in my entire life thanks to japanese hair stylist's skill, which is NALU in Omotesando! Everyone compliments this color and I wanna have it again!

- Kawaii.i Campus Launching

A post shared by Stella Lee - Beauty and Travel (@stellalee92) on Apr 2, 2017 at 5:00am PDT

Just at the right time to see the launching of Kawaii.i Campus from NHK International in Tokyo and met so many kawaii people!

- Japan 3 Times in A Year


I still remember how difficult it was to achieve this dream. This year I traveled to Japan 3 times in Winter (February) for 2 weeks, Spring (April) for 1 month, and Fall (November) for another 1 month. In total I spend 2.5 months in Japan in a year, which was not bad! Should I break the record this year?

- Travel Expansion