♡ My Best Friend Came to Stay Part I ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

I love this remix of Arashi's 'FACE DOWN' and Perfume's 'SPRING OF LIFE' (｡♥‿♥｡)

My best friend Sapphire is staying down with me for a whole week! It's a nice change because I always tend to go up north to stay with her... but now it's my turn to host and have her around hehehe ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ)

She arrived last Saturday afternoon... seriously though I thought she was meant to be arriving around 4pm but the satnav was apparently being a bugger and so she arrived around 3pm instead ( ꒪Д꒪)ノ after a slight panic attack she soon settled in and we spent most of the evening comparing recent buys / wishlists etc. On Sunday we didn't do much either... Sundays tend to be really boring in both of our households so we went to Tesco's to buy some sushi and drinks to devour that afternoon. The weather has been freezing cold here so we stayed huddled up under our duvets for the rest of the day to stay warm gah!

On Monday we decided to go into Chelmsford to have a day outside and be nosy... also Sapphire did want to buy some new clothes because she likes clothes (not good with reasons) Chelmsford isn't that great... most of the shops are extremely overpriced as well as many of them closing down etc. Here's a nice picture of us two together (ﾉ´▽｀)ﾉ♪

We even went into HMV to see if there was anything decent we could get in their blue cross sale... this failed miserably! The good thing about that day was buying some nice (and cheap, cheap is the best) accessories and nail polish from Primark, some more nail polish from Boots and getting a soy caramel cream frappe from Starbucks!

We didn't even stay in town for some lunch... because of the bitter cold wind and gloomy weather we just decided to get some snacks from Tesco's and head off home again. I hate how much we have to pay for the buses now... £6.30 for a return whilst a single is £5! Swear down that is daylight robbery... I feel so outraged by it all as well as have more determination to pass my driving test!

Yesterday we headed into London! I had an appointment early in Braintree so we headed straight to central from there... it costs an extra £4 from Braintree and we go straight through Chelmsford *MORE RAGE EMOJI'S INSERTED HERE* 

We managed to get into central around midday and headed straight for Japan Centre because I know Sapphire wanted to have a mooch around as she's seen their stalls at expos etc. I managed to buy some nice goodies - which includes some reduced Hello Panda because the boxes were damaged... hey I'm not complaining because cheap food as well as some apple pan and green tea pan! I also managed to buy some ingredients to make certain dishes that I love so I'm pretty chuffed about the visit to Japan Centre! Oh and I got a couple of cans of flavoured milk, particularly melon milk and strawberry milk because they're my favourites ヽ(；▽；)ノ

After Japan Centre we headed over to Starbucks because Sapphire needed a coffee hit! As there is a huge HMV near Trocodero we went in there to see if there was anything worthwhile in their store as that one was going to close down... mission failed again as everything we actually liked was horribly overpriced! So we mooched over towards Chinatown where we did even more food shopping in the two supermarkets followed by drooling over the most adorable cakes in the windows in the bakery! Swear down that I'm going to purchase a couple of these on Friday...

We were hungry by this point so we then headed over to Misato's where we were immediately seated as there were only two of us and there was a seat by the window free! I love Misato's because they're so friendly and you get your money worth and quite possibly more because their portions are beyond epic! I ordered the chicken katu teriyaki with rice and even had enough money left over for a portion of some inari sushi （*´▽｀* ♥

After food; we headed over to the market near the purikura machines because Sapphire wanted to oogle all the cute things and possibly buy something... but after seeing all the prices we BOTH decided against spending money on something that we could find online for like 1/3 of the price (_ _ll) so we then went and had a session on the purikura machines upstairs and I haven't been since Emilia came so I felt slightly awkward doing it after so long... weird I know!

We've had a really nice couple of days to be honest... we've spent today relaxing as we've had no plans to meet anyone or do anything. Tomorrow we're not going out during the day but we're being treated to dinner with Sapphire's mum and her partner Ed which is really sweet of them! They needed suggestions on where to go and they liked the sound of the Tutti Tuscan Grill restuarant that is about a fifteen minute drive from my place (〃￣ω￣〃ゞ 

I'll be writing another blog post over the weekend as Sapphire is here until Saturday and we have more plans to fufill! Keep your eyes peeled （　´∀｀）

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

♡ お誕生日おめでとうございます! ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Argh I cannot stop listening to Jaejoong's 'MINE' song!

Ayyyaaahhh (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ I am so behind with writing blog posts that I'm starting to not care and just leave them all out... which to be honest people would probably like it if I didn't post so much huh? 

Anyway on Saturday I went into London, specifically to Ealing Broadway, to have lunch with Sharan and a few of her friends to celebrate her birthday - which was actually on the 11th but eh we all work during the week so weekends are the only great time to meet up! I actually had a horrendous cold all of last week as well as over the weekend - I've literally only just gotten over it but still am a bit wheezy and cough a lot - and on Saturday I had such a croaky voice I could just barely raise my volume to a mere whisper but I was glad that I could still interact with everybody and not seem like a anti-social bitch.

I don't look half bad for a sick person huh? (￣︶￣)

We ate lunch at this cute little place called Tuk Cho, which is about a five minute walk from the station, where they specialise in south-east asian food from countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. They even do a couple of Japanese inspired dishes too but it seriously made such a wonderful change to eat south-east asian food rather than just sticking to the usual Korea / Japanese cuisine. I ate a delicious jungle curry for my main meal with a side bowl of some lovely glutenous rice and this was seriously the best jungle curry I have ever eaten because of the amount of vegetables inside the dish itself where as with previous experiences I would have been lucky to have found anything more than carrot and sweet potato... Also the spice managed to help unblock my nose and I could finally breathe through my nose towards the end of our meal! ヾ(*´∇`)ﾉ

I also ordered a couple of side dishes, which are more known as street food from the countries they came from, and they both were so tasty I could have just lived off them! My first side dish was karii buff (Thailand) which is curried chicken in flaky pastry parcels served with sweet chilli dipping sauce and my second side dish was sate (Indonesia) which were charcoal grilled chicken skewers served with a spicy peanut dipping sauce.

Somehow, after all of this amazing food, I managed to have room for dessert! I ordered the lime chocolate brownie with chocolate chip ice-cream and in the end Sharan and I ended up eating part of each others desserts! She had the ginger and white chocolate cheesecake and I thought that I wouldn't particularly like it because I hate ginger so so so much but it was amazing! I do regret not ordering the cheesecake now but hey... a great excuse to go to this restaurant again!

I honestly and truthfully recommend this restaurant to visit from the bottom of my heart because the atmosphere was so lovely and the staff were so kind and caring too! Also you can peep into the kitchen from wherever you're sitting and sneakily watch the chefs cook away! Check out Tuk Cho's website here.

After we had eaten, the others were heading over to a friend's house in Bermondsy for a noreabang session and one of my closest friends was going to be there and as I hadn't seen her for a good 6 or 7 months i decided to surprise her and tagged along for an hour. The best moment was the look on her face when I snuck up behind her and we literally had the biggest cuddles for a good 10 minutes! Unfortunately after 25 minutes I felt worse health wise than I had in the morning so I sadly said my goodbyes to everyone and headed off home. Next time I'll stay longer and spend more time with people... as well as next time I won't be ill when I get invited out. 

Despite the flaw of the day being completely and horrendously sick, I really enjoyed myself and enjoyed the food and enjoyed the company. As well as making new friends, seeing old faces really warmed my heart up and put a smile on my face. Oh and Sharan... you'll forever be 25 in my heart as well as your own 誕生日おめでとう。 （*´▽｀* ♥

Another thing... just ten more days until my best friend comes down to stay for a whole week! I am pretty excited as I haven't seen her for so long! ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<;)･ﾟﾟ･｡

Thanks for reading!
xoxo

♡ Etude House Sweet Recipe Collection ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!
As it is a new year; I'm not in the slightest surprised at this newest collection by Etude House - the Sweet Recipe 2013 collection. I am, however, surprised at myself for being so in love with this particular collection because of reasons that are actually unknown! 

The faces of this collection are Sulli from F(x) and I think this other lady is someone from SNSD? I'm not a fan of that particular group so I honestly cannot tell who is whom from that group... sorry!

Oh and SHINee are a part of this project as well by making an appearance in the advert but they seem to be a part of the whole Etude House franchise as of late so it's not unusual to see them be a part of this one:

Compared to the Princess Etoinette collection, where that is based around feeling like a pretty princess and so has used packaging to entice the eyes, the Sweet Recipe collection are following in the footsteps with using sight to entice their customers into buying the products - not that I am complaining because the whole sugary sweet foods certainly appeal to me!

This collection doesn't have anything like the bath bombs or candles like they did in the Princess Etoinette set but they do have a couple of brushes as well as some usuals that we tend to use in our daily routines such as make-up sponges and cotton wall balls made to look like mini candy floss balls!

Do you see anything that catches your eye the most? Personally... the eyeshadows are more appealing to myself but I do like the look of a couple of the lipsticks too! Unfortunately I can't seem to find the collection online where they ship overseas... so we'll all just have to pine over these beautiful items on Etude House's homepage instead /s o b s/

Check out the homepage and Sweet Recipe collection here

Please note that all pictures displayed here are from the Etude House homepage and are NOT my own work. Thank you!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo