♡ It's All A Bit Of A Pickle Now ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

So my holiday is now over and today I will be making my way back to Essex /boo/ but I must admit, I now miss my parents and I certainly miss my rabble of animals like crazy (*ι*)ヾ but of course I will miss Sapphire and Danny because spending the past 10 days with each other, it will be weird not seeing them every day... sobbing (ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ Saturday 15th August: today, we went into Telford town centre again but this time to meet Steve for a couple of hours! I met him last time I was up north and he is so kind and lovely. We headed to our favourite spot once more and spent another hour or so drinking cold drinks, gossiping and I was perving over Steve's Avenger special edition comic books that he had brought along for me to oogle.

I am the best waifu ever buying coffee for my waifu （＾ω＾）

We then headed into Waterstones to see what they had to offer in their graphic novel / manga section and they've actually improved since the last time I was in Telford Waterstones! I knew it was bad of me to spend more money but I couldn't resist buying more manga books! Argh I am such a bad influence and the voice in my head that normally tells me to stop what I am doing must be on holiday too (〃￣ω￣〃ゞ

I also bought some DVD's from HMV and there is a small niggle in the back of my mind telling me it was a bad idea, but it's Beyblade and my closest friends know me so well and just understand that Beyblade is my ultimate favourite anime / manga ever. 

At this point, we headed over to the retail park which was about a 10 minute walk from the town centre and because the weather was really nice, we ambled over instead of hurrying from place to place. One of the shops we ventured into was Smyths, which is like a big and cheaper version of Toys R Us and Steve was nice enough to buy Sapphire and myself presents *A* legit don't know what I did to deserve it but it was so sweet of him and I picked out My Little Pony toys because at heart I will always be a kid and also... I love Rarity and Fluttershy to pieces:

In the evening, Sapphire and I had been invited out to dinner for Jade's birthday (which was earlier in the week but this meal was for family and friends) and we went to a Chinese buffet restaurant somewhere in Wolverhampton. On the way, we were listening to a variety of music including The Rasmus and I think everyone in the car had their love for this band re-ignited, including myself. When we arrived at the restaurant, I believe every single person was ready to eat the tables and chairs from hunger. After we were finally seated, a few of us headed up to grab as much food as possible and there just so much different food to choose; from Indian to Japanese and from Thai to Chinese food, it all looked delicious. My first plate of food I bulked out on rice and seaweed, but tried some pork in yellow bean sauce and crab claws from recommendations, I loved the pork the most because it was moist and not dried out so thumbs up from me! My second plate of food, I could not even finish because my stomach was starting to ache at this point, I had some paneer curry, naan, ribs and vegetables. I am proud of myself for not eating as much food as I thought I would, but I regret not getting some other items.

I luckily had enough room for dessert, but I am one of those people who does not have a major sweet tooth so I had to include some fruit in what I had picked. They served little tiny bite-sized pieces of dessert and there was also a large range, including a chocolate fountain with marshmallows, but I stayed clear of e that because it would have just gone all over me.

We were at the restaurant until around 11pm and we didn't arrive back to Sapphire's house until gone 11.45pm and by this point, we were ready to collapse from exhaustion. It was a really nice day and a lovely evening all together ( ・ω・)

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

♡ A Little Here, A Little There ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

♪♫ I'm burning dddooowwwnnn tonight ♪♫

I did have an idea of rolling two blog posts into one but once looking at the insane amount of pictures I have for both days, it is better that I didn't! So in advance I do apologise for the amount of pictures that shall be included here 。ﾟ(ﾟﾉД｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡

Friday 14th August: today, Sapphire and I only went into Telford town centre as we needed some food because we had basically eaten everything edible. First off we mooched into Primark as I was in desperate need of some new (and cheap) clothes, and for once Primark actually had some decent clothing and I spent way over my limit than I intended to (。┰ω┰。) 

My mass haul of clothes included; five t-shirts, a cardigan, a pair of leggings, new shoes for work and some accesories.

Again, I was super pleased with what I bought but my favourite has to be the pink/black cardigan! It goes with pretty much anything and the pattern is something intriguing to me for sure. Normally I am not bothered with what I wear for clothing, but recently I have been wearing the same thing over and over again; especially for work ヾ(´A｀)ノﾟ and it's becoming boring and tedious. So the fact I have these new items, well they excite me and make me happy to try new things （　´∀｀）

We must have been in Primark over an hour at this point, so we then made a quick stop off to Costa for a drink and I decided to get the latest caramella latte drink that they are offering and it wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be, but it would nice! 

Another hour was spent here because the atmosphere is Costa is really relaxed and welcoming. Also the seats we had were really comfortable (◡‿◡✿) After our coffee hits, we finally went to Asda to buy the food we needed... which in retrospective didn't turn out how we planned either (_ _ll) curse you Asda for having Hello Kitty and Disney foods that made us both die inside and buy it to consume:

On Friday evening, we had planned to go over the Jade's house for a sleepover but it kind of didn't happen but we did still go round her house and the girls tried to make me watch the Kuroshitsuji musical and because it was being skipped along to the songs... I didn't really follow / understand it and so I begged Jade to turn it off at this point because... well... IT WAS SCARING ME ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<;)･ﾟﾟ･｡ I think I need to lock myself away in my room and watch all of it from the beginning for me to like and understand it... mind you the actor who plays Sebastian is extremely hot and oh point I should make - you should never leave me alone for more than five minutes, especially with a bag of sweets with a perverted snake on the front:

That was basically our Friday and even though it seemed relaxed, we were actually rushing around like headless chickens at certain points but it was a fun day.

Peace Out
xoxo

♡ Birmingham Day Trip ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

♪♫ Say la la la la la ha ha ha ha ha ♪♫

It is one of those days where I am having very extreme crazy moments from tiredness and drinking too much sugary drinks /d'oh/ and I somehow have this song stuck in my head... oh well! On with what I am actually meant to be writing about:

I have never ever, in my whole life, ever visited the lovely city of Birmingham and yesterday I was finally able to go with Sapphire and Jade! At first I was having slight panic attacks because I had not been paid by work, like I was supposed to be, but luckily my mother was kind enough to loan me some money - which I have paid back already huzzah （＾ω＾）I decided to wear a pair of my monster nails that I had purchased from ebay a while ago and it kind of failed after an hour because I had used tabs instead of glue... never using tabs for false nails again (｀Д´ )

We made it to Birmingham around 11:30am and instantly went to find this small bubble tea shop that Jade was banging on about and with the help of a lovely mall guard, we found the stand (not a shop) across from Selfridges. It was Jade's and Sapphire's first time trying bubble tea and they asked me for recommendations and so after scanning the menu... I wasn't very helpful and said that any one was a good choice (゜▽゜;) I decided to have vanilla milk tea with orange popping bubbles and it was really delicious! If you find yourself in Birmingham Bullring shopping centre, go and find the moo-cha stand opposite Selfridges!

The weather was really gorgeous for the day, but it got slightly too hot after lots of walking and so I had to take off my scarf and jumper (；▽；) we mooched off into Waterstones where Sapphire and Jade proceeded to look at the manga whilst I oogled the Hellboy and Thor graphic novels - there were so many to choose from and many that I don't have ｡･ﾟﾟ･(>д<;)･ﾟﾟ･｡ After that, we walked to another small shopping centre part called The Oasis where it has more alternative fashion/music etc and there were some bit that interested the others but it just came across as a naff Camden. After this we decided to find the restaurant I had booked online for us to go eat at, which was over near the ICC and canal area of Birmingham. It took us over an hour and half to find this place and the area it was suppose to be in... well it just didn't seem to exist and as it was close to around to 2:30 at this point so we hopped into a Yo!Sushi that was conveniently there:

Lots and lots of delicious food (´･ω･`)

We didn't really eat a lot as Sapphire and I had ordered some takeaway sushi from another Yo!Sushi store... sometimes you can just have too much sushi  (*´_ゝ｀)

After lunch, we walked back through New Street and stopped off in another Waterstones which was in a building that resembled an old council building(?) It was a pretty building and had those two way stairs that you see in historical films where the girl comes down the stairs at a ball and the guy is oogling her as she walks down. Do you know what I mean? /gah/ ヽ(ﾟДﾟ)ﾉ

I managed to buy a couple of manga books, as it has actually been over a year since I last bought some for my collection, and it certainly looked interesting to me! Then when we went back to the original Waterstones we had visited earlier, I brought some more of the same series:

Books 1 through to 6 huzzah (*ﾉ▽ﾉ)

Very! Very! Sweet! by Ji Sang Shin and Geo 

A spoiled brat from a wealthy Japanese family, Tsuyoshi is unceremoniously shipped off to Korea by his strict grandfather who tells him the family secret — they’re Korean! Sparks fly when the resentful high schooler arrives at the airport and shares an impromptu cab ride with Kang Be-Ri, a plucky girl who happens to be his new neighbor. Will the two ever get past their differences? And will Tsuyoshi learn to accept his new destiny?

I am not sure if this series is a manga or a manhwa... I need to ask my friend who likes manhwa. Also, I technically got one of these books for 79p... because I had paid under £20 after using my points from my club card and I didn't realise until we had returned home and I finally went to look at the receipt! What a bargain of the day and I had such a grin on my face （　´∀｀）
We went back to the bullring at this point and down into the food court area of Selfridges, where Sapphire and I picked up our takeaway sushi, and there were so many tasty treats tempting us... Jade and I couldn't resist buying something:

The macaroons are actually for my parents, they say they should hold out for 5-6 days and I go back home on Monday so fingers cross they will survive (ノдヽ) And my excuse for the pop tarts? Yeah I don't actually have one...
As we weren't allowed to catch a train home during peaks times (even though I swear we all asked for a ticket during peak hours) we had about an hour to kill so we mooched around in Starbucks drinking a whole load of drinks and talking. It was nice to relax and not be on our feet at this point

They spelled my name wrong (/ﾟДﾟ)/

Walking back through the bullring - it literally huge and split into two sections with more shops in the middle... mother of god - Jade bought some more bubble tea for the train journey home and we made a quick detour into Forever21 and it was the best decision ever. I love Forever21 but sometimes their ranges can be a hit or miss with me and instead of looking at the clothes, I headed straight upstairs to the accessories section! There was so many goodies to choose from, I don't quite know how I refrained myself from buying EVERYTHING!

*bling bling*

Ummm... that was basically our day! The weather was gorgeous, the company was lovely, the food was delicious and the shopping was amazing. Overall, Birmingham was a great experience for me and I know that my mam would probably like it also because of the kind of shops that were around, so I'm going to suggest to her coming up to Birmingham for a girly weekend ヽ(´ー`)ﾉ

I think I've written about everything now so have my favourite picture of myself from that day, because you cannot see my face o(｀ω´*)o

Peace Out

xoxo

♡ Weekend Trip to Wakefield ♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Last weekend I travelled up north to Wakefield - which is near Leeds - to see my friend Toni for her birthday as well as to see a film I have been excited to see for an extremely long time - Avengers Assemble.

Originally it was meant to be myself, Toni and Ali but sadly Ali couldn't make it for the weekend - b'awh ( ；´Д｀) - and so in the end it was just the two of us in tow. I arrived at Wakefield around 3.40pm and after Toni arrived to pick me up from the station, we headed on over to the Travelodge where we were staying - seriously I have a thing for Travelodge's at the moment hurhurhur - and after checking in and dumping our stuff off, we headed back through town and towards the cinema in hoping of catching the 6pm showing of Avengers. Alas though, the screening had been fully booked up so we instead we bought tickets for the 7.45pm screening and headed on over to KFC for food. Our original plan was to see early screening of the film then head out for Chinese food afterwards but it didn't happen obviously ヽ(○´∀`)ﾉ♪

I swear down though, the thing I couldn't get my head around whilst being up North was in the fact the accents and how fast they speak ∑(O_O；) I had to ask the poor KFC man to repeat what he asked at least three times - but I'm glad he knew I wasn't from around that area! Also, I had only eaten my corn on the cob and started on my fries and Toni had already finished her food... WHAT WAS THAT (ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ it's like she inhaled it or something!

The movie was obviously AMAZING and I am halfway through the review of it to post on here for Movie Monday (yes I have neglected it a lot recently but I have two films to make up for it!) and I am still laughing to myself over certain parts of the film.

On Sunday, I went to meet Toni's family - ey up it must be serious the fact I met her parents *inside joke* （　´∀｀）and they were all so lovely and normally I get extremely nervous meeting my friends families but I never felt so relaxed in my life! Also I must admit being eyed up by an African Grey Parrot was a little - disturbing because it felt like she was going to slit my throat with her beak at one point! But towards the end she let me stroke her stomach and she seemed to enjoy me playing Yamashita Tomohisa and Vivid music to her （　´∀｀）

Also on Sunday (before we headed over to Toni's place) we met up with another friend Kitty - who works in Wakefield and didn't know that I was coming up for the weekend so we hung out in Sainsbury's for her lunch break. I must admit, I did buy a Thor figure from the store HAH

Umm that was about really it for the weekend as after we left Toni's house, we went back to the hotel and watched The Incredible Hulk on ITV2 followed by lots of Alice Nine Channels whilst devouring crisps and cookies and Monster energy drink ⊂((・▽・))⊃

It was a nice weekend away from my family as well as university work and job hunting and I would like to travel up North again but maybe this time to either Manchester or Leeds or Birmingham!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

♡ Seoul Trip 4 부 ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

I have never written so many blogs in the space of a couple of days! I know I've done small blogs every day, but not ones of these lengths! Anyway, here's the final installment of what I did in Seoul.

For our last few days, We didn't go far, only to places we knew best as money was kind of running out (well for me it was) at this point, so we went to the Kyobo book store near Myeongdong and checked out their cd and dvd department they had and managed to nab some other cd's and even a Boy's Over Flower's DVD set for a good deal! And then walking past their electronic section, Rachael bought a Winnie the Pooh cheki camera! She's finally part of the cheki club! And it seriously was so adorable! And I almost bought some Miffy and Hello Kitty cheki films but I worked it out in my head that it was actually cheaper to buy them on ebay... go figures huh?

Sitting outside the store in the early evening is so relaxing because we don't have to worry about rushing anywhere before the stores close as many of them shut between 10 and 11pm, so it's just nice sit outside and soak up some of the atmosphere... until we saw a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf shop across the road and so we found a crossing (seriously you cannot just walk into the road here, it's much safer to walk the extra distance to a level crossing so you don't get killed!)

What I like about The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is that they have these buzzers you get given with a number on, so when your order is ready, the lights flash up and the disc starts vibrating. It saves so much hassle for the workers to try and find you in such a large space and you get to burn off like 3 calories walking back and forth to your table! I bought this time a white chocolate nut cookie and a peppermint iced tea and you would think that the iced teas are sweetened for you like they are over here, but it is actually cold peppermint tea. You have to add sugar syrup to your own liking to your drink and it's amazing because I don't like overly sweet foods (and I kind of found the cookie a bit too sweet...) and so doing my own measurements of sugar in my drink is pretty sound.

There was a really cute water pond piece as we walked to the subway but it was too dark for my flash on my camera to make it out properly... goddamit. I shall have to buy a dlsr and actually take it to Korea with me next time. Oh, I also managed to sneak Rachael in the picture below! So much laughter! This was taken just outside the subway station near the Kyobo book store, it's behind me in the picture. Can you still see what I mean when I say everything is so tall in Seoul?! Immense!

So, even though we had many cd's on us at that point, we decided to head back into Sinchon as it was nearby to return to the first music store we went into as we knew what to expect and because we couldn't find a couple of things in the Kyobo book store, we went back to see if that store would have the items. After we had our fill of cd's (we managed to get Super Junior's Mr Simple album at this point, I got Leeteuk as he's my joint favourite with Heechul, but I couldn't decide and in the end... Leader won!) we headed over to a traditional bbq place where a member of staff would stand outside clapping trying to get people in and well, I had to literally drag Rachael inside and we were placed at the front of the restaurant as if we were the main attraction or something! But everything was in hangul and we didn't know what was what so we pointed to the people next to us and asked to have what they were having. It was chicken, sausage, cabbage, beansprouts, noodles (honestly it was spaghetti but they call it noodle out there) with a red pepper paste sauce and it's cooked right there in front of you.

I'm not even going to lie, I loved the macaroni waldorf salad they gave us as a side dish! Seriously going to make that when I can ♪( ´▽｀)

Delicious food and the atmosphere was just buzzing... I kind of expected all the workers to just jump up and go OOPAH at everything! Afterwards as we felt extremely full at this point, we went and sat in a little park area just outside of the restaurant. It felt like a communal meet up point... like a concrete part that all the students sit to either eat, smoke and talk with their friends at. As it was a Friday night at this point, we watched couples and small groups of people going past to club nights in the area, would have been nice to have gone to one but alas we wouldn't have gotten in because of one of us being underage *shoosh*

At this point, it was pretty late as we had been out all day and we were too tired to tackle the 6 flights of stairs at Dapsimni station so we headed over to Wangsimni station and caught a taxi from there to our hotel instead. I didn't realise to get out of the station, you had to walk through a giant shopping centre to get to the street level... seriously it was massive! Even bigger than Westfields here in London!

Everything was either closed or starting to close at this point, but there were a few shops instead still open, mainly coffee shops. But yes, that was what we mainly did in Seoul. I wish we had gone to some places like Hongdae, Busan, Namsam and Lotte World but honestly, I'm now saving to go to them places next year when I go again. And there is now a few more spots I would love to go and see also! Even though I have only been back in England for a couple of weeks, I am itching to return to Seoul once again!

Ummm... also I didn't really want to write another blog post about purchases so I thought that I'd add them onto this one.

CD/DVD Purchases:

Picture One: Kim Hyun Joong Lucky mini album, Playful Kiss Photo Diary, You're Beautiful OST, Mary Stayed Out All Night OST, Kim Hyun Joong First Fanmeet DVD, SS501 Solo Projects album, SS501 Destination, Rebirth and ST01 Now albums, Jang Guen Suk Japanese album, Boys Over Flowers Limited Edition OST and Yamashita Tomohisa Supergood Superbad album.

Picture Two: Kim Kyu Jong Turn Me On mini album, Infinite's repackaged album, JYJ In Heaven album, SS501 Find and Deja Vu albums, Kara Step album, Park Jungmin mini album, Orange Caramel Bangkok City single and an indie singer cd which I got as a free gift.

My Leeteuk Mr Simple album! eeeeeeeee~

Boys Over Flowers DVD boxset and SS501's Persona Concert Photobook!

Beauty Product Purchases:

Because of the immense amount of things I had bought from Etude House, Nature Republic and Face Shop (oh and two things from Skin Food...) I managed to get a load of freebies!

Picture one: freebies from Etude House, Nature Republic and Face Shop... I managed to get some more which filled up the whole case in picture three!

Picture two: Red Bean BB Cream and pale pink lipstick from Skin Food

Picture three: Collagen Moistfull kit containing moisturiser and cream, Aura Primer, BB cream and lemon face masks.

Picture four: leopard print nail stickers and eyebrow shaper blades

Picture five: Etude House matte nail pastel collection, Peach (panda) and Apple (penguin) lip balms.

Fangirl Spazz Purchases:

Picture one: Jang Guen Suk and Kim Hyun Joong memobooks, stickers, socks and photocards.

Picture two: Jang Guen Suk and Kim Hyun Joong posters.

Picture three: Jang Guen Suk and Kim Hyun Joong 2012 calenders (not official but don't care ohohoho)

Picture four: Boys Over Flowers memobook and Jang Guen Suk phone charm - these were actually free from the nice lady on the stall I bought these from.

So that's it! That is what happened on my holiday in Seoul. I'm really looking forward to travelling back there again next year and seeing more sights and I just hope you enjoyed reading all my posts about everything.

Thanks for reading!

xoxo