♡ Sapphire's Birthday + Aquarium ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

Hi hi hi everybody! It's been a while since I've blogged huh? It's been over a week since my best friend left to go home and last week we actually had a storm here in the UK that evening which cut out our power here from 7am Monday morning until 3.30pm on Tuesday afternoon (seriously a whole 32 hours of doing practically nothing except for read and drink tea is extremely mind numbing...) and then afterwards I've been (trying) to edit about 200 odd photographs and with my attention span... errr it didn't go as planned there so I'm really really really behind :c

Anyway this post is about Sapphire's birthday and our trip to London Aquarium! You see, Sapphire's birthday was actually the first birthday (be it mine or hers) that we've actually spent together so it was pretty exciting to be honest... I managed to get her a U-Kiss album and have it delivered on time because delivery from Asia varies from time to time and I didn't want to take any risks so I ordered it about two months ago and I made the right decision seeing as it arrived literally a few days before she did! We went into town for a few hours to have lunch together and just do a bit of window shopping... or in my case do some actual shopping as I've been kind of needing new clothes for a while >u> Actually our first stop was at Nando's as we had both been naughty and skipped breakfast and by the time we actually got into town it was about 1pm so food was pretty much an amazing option by then. This was actually the first time Sapphire had ever been into Nando's and she seemed to like it quite a bit... it's a nice relaxed atmosphere and the staff are actually rather lovely and welcoming.

It was strange that we both pretty much ordered the same food except for one side dish... we didn't even give away any information to each other to what we were going to order until the food was delivered to us... it's pretty freaky sometimes how similar our minds actually are! Afterwards we did try to get some Halloween goodies from Poundland but alas nothing really grabbed our attention so we headed over to Starbucks to try their autumn specials. I ordered the salted caramel mocha and oh my days it tasted like I was eating a chocolate pretzel (which obviously is yum) and it did feel slightly weird to have rock salt on top of whipped cream but it worked? I was slightly greedy that day as it has been quite a while since I last had Starbucks so I ordered a strawberry and cream frappe afterwards.

We headed to primark, as said previously, I was desperate for some new clothes but the ones that I actually liked in there didn't have my sizes so I left with a long assed jumper, a skater dress top thing and some stone washed leggings which for the prices they were... it was pretty much a bargain. I also splurged a little that day and treated myself to Lady Gaga's 'FAME' fragrance as I was in the market for something new and even though I loved Katy Perry's 'KILLER QUEEN' fragrance... I opted for Lady Gaga's as it was a surprisingly nice scent.

Later in the evening, we had a mass family meal... more my family than Sapphire's as my brother and his housemate (who is also like another brother to me as we all grew up together) practically smelt the words /free food/ a mile off but to be honest... those extra bodies made the atmosphere more jolly? I originally wanted to cook all of the food and make Sapphire a cake myself but mum was like "no... you go and enjoy time with your friend and I'll do it all" and despite a lot of protesting it just turned out easier to give up arguing and let mum do all of the cooking (￣(エ)￣) All in all it was such a lovely evening and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves!

So on the Thursday, Sapphire and I headed into London to go to the aquarium at South Bank as they still had a 2 for 1 offer going on so it was pretty stupid not to snap it up and go along. It was rather cold in the morning when we headed out... normally I'm used to going into London around midday and coming home at like 11pm at night but we left the house around 9am... such a massive difference! Getting there early though, there wasn't much of a queue (heck there wasn't even a queue when we came out almost two hours later!) there isn't much to explain about the aquarium so I'll just splash (no pun intended seriously) a few pictures for you all to see;

I do very much apologise for the mass picture spam but it was so so so hard which ones to post... and is it obvious that I enjoyed the shark reef a lot? Apparently Sapphire should have taken a picture of me spazzing out at the penguins because they were so chubby and chubby and cute and chubby ; n ; omg though one was actually called 'Tubby' whilst another was called 'Vladamir'!!!

After the aquarium, we headed towards Central as it wasn't so far away and headed straight towards Chinatown (duh) for food. I originally had a list of places I wanted to take Sapphire (as well as to cross off my bucket list for before I moved abroad) but that didn't actually happen... so to save on the cash we went to our favourite eatery Misato as for the piles of food they give you and for the prices they charge how could you refuse? Oh and the food does taste amazing as well... yeah shouldn't forget that part. I originally wanted to go for something different but in the end I went for my usual;

After food we wandered around Chinatown, on which I purchased about a months supply of instant ramen as well as some other treats and then we went to purchase a cake. I actually took Sapphire to a different bakery previously and we were both disappointed with the past experience so we went to my favourite place 'Golden Gate Bakery' which has all the stars for style and substance (hurrr reference there)

After we had our fills in Chinatown, we went to Westfield's at Stratford City as that is pretty much on the way home so it was nice to go somewhere different. Actually I only had one place to go to on my mind and that was;

DISNEY!!! Gosh I love Disney stores and this one was all prepared for Christmas already but there was just something that made it even more magical. I was so caught up in the Disney I practically had to drag myself away from signing up for a Disney cruise experience... sob. But the one thing I was aiming for was to purchase a new mug as my last one sadly cracked a few weeks back and believe me choosing a mug was definitely a hard decision there! In the end I went for my favourite character Miss Daisy Duck;

I also may have cheated and purchased a couple of other items as well.... but but but they were in the sale and how could I not take them home?! And actually I technically got the marshmallow Sully for free because the (rather cute) sales guy was getting all flustered and didn't know how to scan the item so he was like "eh have it on me" sobs I could have married him on the spot!

My final purchase of the day was a box of macarons from a tiny iddy biddy stall down the food court (I swear it feels like a mile walk just to get from one end to the other) and I've previously purchased from said stall before hence why I had to purchase again because their macarons are simply delectable;

And thus this is pretty much the end of the first half of the week with my bestest best friend... I miss her so much already that I feel that I may have to push back my move abroad by about a week to go up to visit her and say goodbye and shit :c ugh I envy the people who have their best friends so close by to them when ever they need them... I know Birmingham isn't exactly far away away but when there is work in the way it makes it seem like it's the end of the world? I'm just going to finish off this post with a couple of pictures of Sapphire and myself before I get over emotional;

Oh one extra final note... I'll try not to leave such a massive gap in between this post and my next post about London MCM Expo... it's kinda sorta not actually been started but I'll try and get that done and published by the weekend hopefully if I don't get distracted by something sparkly...

Thanks for reading!
xoxo