♡ London MCM Expo Weekend ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Girl jigeumui nareul mideojwo (Nae anen michin sarami isseo) ♪♫

It's been over a month now since expo had finished... despite having almost a whole week off work and then some... you would have thought that I'd had the motivation ((there's that darn word again)) and time to write this blog post... brain says no though (_ _ll)

It's been a couple of years since I last went to the expo - I actually thought that 2010 was the last time I went but it was actually in 2011 the last time I visited... d'oh. But this time instead of making plans and then coming up with excuses not to go to the event; I actually stuck to my guns and went along yay (ノ￣ω￣)ノ I made the plans with Emilia and we opted to stay in a hotel close to the Excel centre - Forest Gate to be precise - and it wasn't so much of a hotel... but more a residential home turned B&B? Either way the place was really nice and a great distance from Excel as well as central London despite having to keep chopping and changing to different lines to get to said central of London.

Emilia and I headed off into central for the Friday evening for food and purikura... typical right? But sadly the purikura photobooth place might be closing down and there was limited sheets for the actual purikura machine so we did that first to beat the whole expo rush and actually get a memento of our time together! 

↑↑ Best purikura to date... ↑↑

After purikura we then headed over to Eat Tokyo, a restaurant I have wanted to go eat at for aaagggeeesss but couldn't find it when Toni came down to visit so this time I stuck to my guns and kept going (as well as with the help from Emilia's gps on her iphone!) until we found the place booyeah (￣︶￣)

Eat Tokyo is seriously the smallest place I think I have ever eaten in... and I've been in some pretty small places in London as well as in Seoul... but the atmosphere was bubbly and the smells of the food were simply divine! There was a small queue as well so we didn't get seated for about 30 minutes and by that point we were both starving and ready to eat anything and everything! Emilia and I opted for a couple of  side dishes to share as well as a main dish each. We went for the tamago omelette and chicken teriyaki california rolls then I chose a mixed katsu bento box whilst Emilia had a sushi bento box and I tell you what for the prices that were given... the portions were massive! Almost as good as Misato's but the pricing is just slightly higher... but I'm definitely going to return to this establishment before I head to Seoul for my teaching gig (︶ω︶)

On the Saturday morning; Emilia and I had originally planned to wake up early and get to the excel centre early but we realised that we didn't have to exactly rush to get to the venue so we dilly dallied a little and got to the centre around 11am... it was soooooo crowded already and the queue to buy tickets were already out the doors at the front... I do believe both Emilia and I were extremely relieved that we decided to buy our tickets online so all we had to do was sweep in, grab our wristbands, wait a few moments for some strange reason and then swoop out again and into the main hall! 

↑↑ Isn't Emilia pretty?! GFDI woman... ↑↑

The only problem I have with standing still for more than ten minutes is that I tend to find that I get all fidgety and bored ugh... After spending a while inside the hall and talking to a few people that we both knew separately, we went and sat outside for a while as it gets extremely hot inside and as we were both enjoying the sunshine... there seemed to be a small gathering of Deadpools... it was pretty fantastic though because I soddin' love Deadpool man! He's not my favourite character but he always cracks me up into mass bouts of laughter （　´∀｀）

We stayed at the excel for all of the afternoon where we met some new people and chatted away with them for a while and then we decided to head back to our hotel to rest and wash away all of the grim as Saturday was pretty sweltering... and I felt vile so having a shower sounded like the best plan ever at that point! We stayed in watching Titanic and had a small pizza party!

Day three of the weekend started later as well... not as late though as we had to check out by 11am (aka leave the keys on the side and skulk out like thieves in the night jfc) and we headed into Stratford Westfields to get a coffee hit from Starbucks:

I ordered a soy triple caramel frappe with no cream... holy crap the amount of sugar in this drink had my head spinning all day! I also decided to say that my name was Leo (my favourite member from the k-pop group VIXX... look at said video in this blog post for reference) and the barrista man obviously had thought  that I said 'Neo'... yes I decided to say I was from The Matrix (_ _ll)

I've never been to the expo on Sunday's before and honestly... Sunday is officially and definitely the best day to go in because the crowds are much smaller and prices on certain things had been deduced because I think many stall holders just want to get rid of stock? Either way I managed to grab a few bargains! I think Emilia got a few bargains as well... I can't remember to be honest! Also there were some serious amazing cosplays on the Sunday! Because of the smaller crowds, I managed to stop and actually take some photographs of different ones. Here are my favourites from the entire weekend:

I cried happy tears when I saw a Gundam cosplay... it was the only one but hey at least there was one! Also the child storm trooper had a storm trooper teddy bear! Crying even more again because it was holding hands with a Boba Fett cosplayer fhskahfkjads

These storm trooper cosplayers were amazing... the patience they had was phenomenal because of the amount of people that wanted pictures with them were extreme... like extreme extreme! Also look at the one with the child Jack Frost cosplayer... right in the feels again.

After hanging around outside with Zore and Emi and listening to some sound music... Emilia and I headed off as we had trains to catch and yeah... sobs it was horrible parting from Emilia because I adore that girl to pieces and the expo weekend was seriously so memorable and the best one I've ever had so I thank her from the bottom of my heart for putting up with me and my weirdness. Oh... have one more picture showing off all the goodies I nabbed from the entire weekend:

↑↑ I regret nothing with these goodies ↑↑

Peace Out
xoxo

♡ I Had A Visitor That Came To Stay ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Note: you remember what I wrote about motivation in my last post? Well this one has taken a little over a few weeks to write... oops!

I need therapy lalalala therapy ohhh ♪♫

Over the bank holiday a couple of weekends ago, I had Toni finally come and stay with me! We had been talking about seeing each other for a good couple of months and made the decision for her to come down to me because a) last time I went up to visit her and b) because she wanted to go into London for a day so it was pretty much a win win situation for us both. I originally decided not to bother getting all prettied up but an hour before I was meant to leave, I suddenly changed my mind and made myself look at least half decent for the arrival of my friend:

I am forever in love with my new wig 

I went and met Toni at Kings Cross station because she is a little fuzzy with directions and stuff but I didn't mind going to meet her as it got me out of the house and injected some fresh air into my system. I tend to enjoy riding on public transport as it means I can plug my i-pod into my ears and daydream off into my own little world without being disturbed. Kings Cross station is really a confusing place because there are two main areas to catch your train as well as St Pancreas International station across the way... and in all honesty I am used to going a certain way up into the station itself but this time I actually ended up on the other side! For once, lady luck was in my favour as Toni was on the same side of the station also so we happily met after a few panicky moments. We then headed up a level to Wasabi and nabbed some food to munch on the way back to mine. I got the sweet chilli chicken katsu box as it's seriously one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten in my life

Travelling back to my place can go two ways; good or bad. We somehow met in between this time around as buses are fair and few to my house and tend to come every hour, we had missed one by about 15 minutes so spent the rest of the time sitting down and catching up with everything, despite the fact that we practically talk to each other almost every day via IM, we still manage to keep up conversations. I love talking to Toni because she's just as bat shit crazy as I am and she pretty much gets what I'm on about 99.9% of the time... except for when it comes to k-pop... but I'll turn her one day

A couple of reasons for Toni's visit was to go into London for a day as well as seeing Iron Man 3 at the cinema - it's turned into a tradition of ours to see comic book films at the cinema with each other now! Sadly because of the EXTORTIONATE prices at the cinema... we had to decide against going to see the movie as payday for both or us was just slightly out of reach. But we did stick to the London plan despite the bipolar weather that decided to hit on the one day we were going out... Originally we were going to meet another friend, Gigi, but sadly because of /many/ closures and line updates, she couldn't come and meet us but we still had a good time despite the gloom and delays. First, we headed over to Japan Centre as Toni wanted a magazine and I /needed/ a few bits and pieces a.k.a strawberry and melon milk! Oh we both also purchased some curry bread... my reasons was because I've never actually tried curry bread before and it tasted ok... but I tried half cold and the other half I heated up in the microwave and it just tasted better hot in my opinion.

After Japan Centre... we decided to go to a restaurant to eat and I was intending on remembering where Eat Tokyo was but right at the last moment I forgot so we headed over to one of my favourite cheap and cheerful places; Misato - Toni somehow let me do all the decisions on what to do that day goddammit woman! I think both of us had an extreme 'eyes bigger than belly' moment because I was silly enough to order the beef rice as well as some chicken karrage......

I'm not even slightly ashamed to admit that I ate about 95% of this food... but I'm glad that I wasn't the only one who over ordered either as Toni did exactly the same thing but ordered the udon as well as the chicken teriyaki rice - not the one I usually order but a different style one. Let's just say that afterwards we felt a little bit sick and needed to walk around in the fresh air to get rid of the food babies we were both carrying. After about an hour we headed over to the purikura photobooth to do the usual shots I tend to do whenever a friend comes down to visit or I meet up with someone for a day .

We decided to incorporate a lot of things that Toni and I tend to talk about through IM, so that included Marvel, Kamen Rider W and just full on............. us! I must admit that this is one of my favourite photosets that I have done in a long time. Because the photoboot was pretty darn busy, it took almost two hours from the moment we arrived to the moment we left before we decided to head home as we had finished getting what we wanted and were pretty much exhausted. I did managed to stock up on my favourite rose milk tea as well as getting a packet of instant ramyun as well as some melon and grape soda!

The time between our trip into London and when Toni had to leave was spent sleeping, eating and watching a lot of TV. Toni and I seem more comfortable around each other when we don't have to rush around doing anything, plus Sundays in a quiet village tend to be rather... slow so buses are rare and few (_ _ll)

All in all the time spent with Toni was really lovely and I wish it didn't go so quickly... but next time we see each other it's my turn to go up to where she lives! Also I think we were pretty gutted that we couldn't go and see Iron Man 3 at the cinema because of prices... but if we could have gotten away with getting a student ticket like when we saw The Avengers we would have been first in line for the first Sunday viewing at the cinema /d'oh/

Thanks for reading!
xoxo

♡ 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

♡ ロンドン Baby! ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Trouble, troublemaker yeah that's your middle name wooaahh ♪♫

As per usual... I roll out the blog posts a week after each event has happened (〜￣▽￣)〜 Last Saturday afternoon; I /finally/ met up with Emilia and her friend Ash! I have been conversing with Emilia online since the beginning of the year, hitting it off straight away and so for a while we had been throwing ideas back and forth to meet each other in person - usually ending up in failure but we finally had success! (,, ･∀･)ﾉ゛

I was extremely lucky to get a lift off my dad into London - huzzah for him working at London City Airport - and so I met Emilia and Ash outside Camden station at around 12.30pm - it took me forever to get from the airport because I had to change over from the jubilee line to northern line at London Bridge station and because of the amount of weekend people it was just hdfdljkshfdlsk (｀Д´*) the three of us mooched around Camden for a good couple of hours - Ash needed some hoodies and even though she asked for my help with haggling prices, I swear she is a natural haggler with the stall holders! We walked around the stables before sitting down for a few minutes so that we could have a breather and for Ash to have a smoke - and as I have now officially quit smoking I was comfortable to be around her without craving for one myself! We were going to get a snack to eat but the amount of time it took to get to order we just decided against it and went to meet Ash's friend Stephen instead and headed over to Leicester Square via the good ol' London bus service - it was a lot quicker and a lot cheaper than going via the underground!
Once at Leicester Square; we split off into pairs and headed to each restaurant that we wanted to eat at! I actually took Emilia to Misato - where I have had wonderful experience previously and wanted to share it with her... along with the excellent food and cheap prices! We messed around and pretended we were on a date... to the point where we accidentally ordered the same food and drink (」゜ロ゜)」 and I actually got compliments from the extremely cute waiter... oh now I get complimented when I am in a serious relationship?! SHEESH ((*゜Д゜) I'm just joking... I love you really sweetiepie （・∀・）

Amazing chicken katsu teriyaki (｀ω´*)

I swear the food in Misato I could easily eat all the time... Anyway after food; Emilia and I headed over towards the Leicester Square gardens to meet Ash and Stephen again. When we arrived there, we noticed that there were some people in the garden raising money for charity - dressed up as comic book heroes and villians! There was Wolverine, Magneto as well as a complete Iron Man costume that looked absolutely immense as well as a couple of storm troopers! Emilia and Ash went up and had their photographs taken with loads of the people but I was too chicken and only had my photo taken with Indiana Jones... as well as Emilia because like I said... chicken ( ꒪Д꒪)ノ

We then headed over to the プリクラ booth to do the usual プリクラ MAGIC session that I do with pretty much all of my friends. During decoration, I got a phone call from my dad saying that if I wanted a lift back home then I was welcome to... at this point it was dark and getting a lift home from him would have a) saved me £15 and b) saved me almost two hours of travel so I opted for the free ride home so I said goodbye to my wonderful friends ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<;)･ﾟﾟ･｡

I had such a wonderful day out and about and as much as I do like to see my friends... I did feel all panicky and horrible spending so much time outside... am I really becoming a hermit?! I hope not because this will definitely be a set back for future plans 。ﾟ(ﾟﾉД｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡ I'll try and become more sociable... I promise!

Peace Out
xoxo

♡ Day Trip to London ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

On Tuesday, I was finally able to go into central London without having the worry of work or study weighing heavily on my shoulders. I was originally meeting up with just Sharan for the day, but we decided to invite a few others especially since I don't know when I'll be seeing them again because of all my funds are being saved for my move abroad as well as the Olympics starting in London on the 27th of this month!

A few of the group met outside of Leicester Square station and upon deciding to go and find somewhere to eat - as it was close to about 1pm and some of us are extremely naughty and didn't have breakfast /whoops/ - a couple more people joined us on our stroll through Chinatown towards a small Japanese restaurant called Misato. I had never been to this place before so it made a nice change to the usual hideouts I tend to lurk around. I must admit that I was worried about prices as many locations in London can be extremely expensive, especially when it came to food, but luckily the costs where very low and the portions turned out to be rather large! Misato is very small, almost like a cafe/canteen style place and we only waited 10 minutes to be seated as there were six of us and they had to push tables together for us to fit. I was happy to order some inari sushi and kitsune udon with mango juice and even those three items came dead on £10 - which honestly as someone who worries about money I will be happy to return to this establishment again.

What made me happy was being able to feel comfortable around these people and mess around like crazy - especially when it came to them grilling me about my other half and I pretended to be all like "can't talk eating" and it changed the subject for five minutes before it came full circle around again /d'oh/ ('-'*)

After food, we headed over to Trocodero to wait for a few more people and as the weather was a bit iffy it was the best place to go and sit without being given death glares from people. On the way though we did stop off at Starbucks and get drinks - despite just finishing lunch literally 10 minutes ago - and me being me, I did contemplate having coffee but decided against it and went for a blackberry fruit frappe (｀・ω・´)” Sharan actually decided against having coffee also and went for the mango passionfruit frappe but we ended up drinking some of each others in the end!

It must have been an hour we spent in Trocodero before we headed over to the market in Chinatown where the プリクラ machines were and in the end only three of us went into the booths but it was ok - we made some blinding プリクラ pictures in the end!

After プリクラ, a few of us split into groups as some wanted to go and eat whilst others needed to do things and I, myself, needed to head over to Arigato (a Japanese supermarket) for some things I like to cook at home. So, it was just Sharan and myself and we enjoyed the walk from Leicester Square down to behind the Boots in Piccadilly and then back again where we popped into Costa for a peach iced tea. After, we headed over to Tottenham Court Road station where we met up with Sharan's friend Bekki and ate dinner at Seoul Bakery. Now loads of my friends seem to go to Seoul Bakery often, but the fact was that this was my first visit to this restaurant, just like it was my first time visiting Misato! I've heard good things about Seoul Bakery though so I was happy to go along and try out the food (︶ω︶) I ordered the beef bulgolgi for my main meal as we decided to share Gimbap and pancake... to be slightly honest here I wish I had choosen something else to eat as the bulgolgi was nice it just wasn't for me ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<;)･ﾟﾟ･｡ But the service was lovely and so was the fact you can write on the walls! Myself, Sharan and Bekki all did a post-it note... can you guess which one is mine? /teehee/

After dinner, we headed over to Bar One which was across the road from the station to meet up with the others who went straight there whilst we had dinner. I didn't drink anything but Jackie kindly bought me a non-alcoholic mojito and it was delicious! Just wished they had skimped on the mint leaves just a little bit (。┰ω┰。) other than that... I headed home at around 8pm as it takes two hours to get back to where I specifically live in Essex as buses only run every hour and I had sadly missed one by five minutes so I had fifty five to kill... luckily I had a book on me!
Oh! I almost forgot that I did buy some goodies! A new gorgeous notebook that seemed way overpriced but I couldn't resist it /sobs/ and a packet of strawberry yogurt face masks! I spoke to the stall holder that sold them saying I had combination skin and after 10 minutes of finding the ones that would be suitable for my skin type... I did go for this particular one just because of the pink /creys

And that was really my day out in central London! I do apologise for such a lengthy post... I mean I was out for over 12 hours that day! I just hope I didn't bore you all to death...

Thanks for reading!
xoxo