♡ 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

♡ My Best Friend Came to Stay Part II ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Oh Mejibray ヽ(；▽；)ノ

Ohhh I am way behind on blog posts and I am seriously loathing myself for being so busy yet lazy at the same time へ（>0<#）ノ as well as this blog title being a complete lie, it's now been a whole week since Sapphire left and to be honest... I've been really bummed out about it because I loved having her here at my house with me... it feels natural to just be around her and I seriously miss her to pieces like all the time. Distance seriously sucks... and it's ten times harder with the fact my other half is six thousand miles away as well as my best friend being a good 2-3 hours travel away also /u g h/

Anyway, sad and moany moment over... the rest of the week with Sapphire literally flew by. On Wednesday and during the day on Thursday, we literally did nothing except for watch anime and eat snacks. On Thursday evening, we were invited out for dinner by Sapphire's mum and her mum's boyfriend Ed. We were originally going to go to Chimichanga's in Braintree but an accident on the motorway kind of put a hold onto that idea but instead we headed in the opposite direction to the Chimichanga's in Bishop Stortford instead /h u z z a h/ I have never eaten at a Chimichanga's before so this was a whole new experience for me and I must admit that my standards were set extremely high... only to be met halfway. I ordered a pulled pork chimichanga burrito which came with rice and black beans and it tasted very yummy (wow I have a degree in creative writing and that was all I could come up with?) but the portions were a little... down graded especially with the prices of each dish. We were originally going to have dessert but we were all still so hungry after that we did and I ordered the key lime pie and I love key lime pie and what comes out instead? A lime flavoured cheesecake with a wedge of lime...

Both Sapphire's mum and I agree that Sapphire won on the pudding decision... we were both drooling over her churro's like no tomorrow ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<;)･ﾟﾟ･｡ In all honesty though, Chimichanga's is a nice place with a nice atmosphere... it's just I believe that they need to re-think their portion sizes for the prices or vice versa because those prices were ridiculously high!

On the Friday we headed back off into London as it was Sapphire's last full day in Essex and we needed to make use of being able to go into London and spend lots of money on things... my saving is going extremely well by the way (￣ω￣;) For once I actually took a nice picture of myself... I just wish that I had a better idea of how to position my camera for self portraits so I didn't cut the top of my head off

I haven't worn my grey wig in ages! ( ；´Д｀)

We were going to meet a few people for lunch at Misato's but only Monique turned up but it was ok as it was easier to be seated as well as not having to talk to so many people and catch up at the same time! I believe that I have Sapphire hooked onto Misato's food as it's so delicious (and hhhuuugggeee) for such amazing prices... we all fed ourselves for a tenner each! I was boring and ordered my usual of inari sushi and chicken katu teriyaki and rice but hey... I know what I like and I will tend to stick with I know extremely well etc.

After we all had our fill, we all headed over to the supermarkets in Chinatown as we needed to stock up on milk tea because... ummm well no real reason for me but for Sapphire she can't easily gain access to it like I can. I'll be sending her a care package just full of milk tea soon because I'm just the best waifu in the world (￣︶￣) it is safe to say that I stocked up well and truly on milk tea

I might like to point out here that all I have left from this stash is the Taiwanese green milk tea... d'oh (_ _ll) Oh... we also bought some cakes from one of the bakeries as we were both gazing at the cute panda style ones the other day. I decided to be a good daughter and bought a couple of slices for my parents... can you guess which slice I kept for myself?

We then headed over to Bermondsy station to meet some people at Jay's for a get together and for Sapphire to meet a few more people and we only stayed for a couple of hours as it got dark and cold extremely quickly so we said our goodbyes and headed back home. We stayed awake until gone midnight even though we were both so dead tired from the day but we enjoyed it and in the end we both fell asleep extremely quickly!

Last Saturday morning came too quickly and it was so sad to see Sapphire go but we've already made plans to see each other again soon! We just need to decide if I am going to go up to Telford to stay with her or if she is going to come back to Essex to stay with me. I hope she comes and stays with me again more in the summer time... around June / July time (and before I head off to Korea) as the weather can get really nice around that time of year and then we could take a trip off to the seaside at Frinton as well as taking the ghastly trip to Southend - ok Southend isn't all that bad... it's just I haven't had amazing experiences in that particular place /g a h/

Oh and last Saturday night, I went over to Rachael's as I literally have not seen her since the Screw gig last May... every plan we had made had legit gone down the drain so this time we were determined not to let anything get in the way! I love seeing her and I finally managed to give her her birthday / christmas present and vice versa... I almost killed her when I saw these presents by the way!

Two things I love about going round to Rachael's... seeing Inky winky and Maddie boo boo bear! I adore these dogs to pieces because they're so loveable and such ruffians (but in a good way) Also I love how Maddie always has a perv smile on her face and is always always always up for cuddles!

So really since last Sunday, the only things I have been doing revolve around getting some nail designs done and going to work... sociable right? Oh well, I have felt drained all week but now I feel extremely energized and ready to see people again... at the weekends when I definitely don't have to worry about work etc. I'm also working on a project for our Easter egg hunt at the nursery! I finally feel useful to help out with an event and we're so busy in the next few weeks too... I love it （*´▽｀* ♥

Thanks for reading!
xoxo