♡ Japan Centre Haul ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

Recently; I've been on a cooking whirl, and one of the cuisines I have been wanting to cook for aaagggeeesss is Japanese - but because of where I live, it's hard to get certain ingredients.

I have used Japan Centre in the past - when I used to live in London for university, whenever it was payday from student loans, I would go up to there (when it was located on Regent Street) and get the basics I liked cooking with, i.e. dashi stock, noodles, karaage seasoning and more. Fast forward a few years, and the fact I haven't shopped in Japan Centre for a long time, and we're here!

Besides the basics; soya sauce, mirin, cooking sake, sushi rice, sushi nori and dashi stock, I went with a couple of kits; the breakfast set and miso soup kit, fish cake, udon noodles and noodle extras, some snack pieces (as a treat), my favourite strawberry milk, some other basic store cupboard ingredients, a couple of bento items, and finally; a gorgeous black, matte ramen bowl w/ chopsticks. I just, literally, spent over the £75 limit and got free next day delivery because of it... score!

There are also a few items, I purchased that aren't listed here either! I managed to get hold of a few bars of the Lotte Ghana White Chocolate and some matcha powder - because I had seen a recipe for a matcha latte using those specific ingredients, I couldn't resist!

Everything was so well packed, and preserved - as the fishcake was a cold item, it came in a cool box with the gel ice blocks! Nothing came damaged, and it did stick to the "next day delivery" as I had ordered before the cut off point. I will, certainly, use the online shop again in the future, but for bigger purchases, and when I need a few items here and there, I will just wait until I go into London to pick them up myself!

I haven't cooked many dishes yet - only tanuki udon, donburi, ongiri and used the tofu for a different dish, but I cannot wait to try more! What's also handy, is that Japan Centre has a recipe section, so you don't have to scour the internet, looking for one.

Until then, do check out their site. I know you can rack up points whenever you spend, can purchase a subscription for either snacks or tea, and sometimes they hold special offers with things i.e. extra points, or discounted items because of holidays etc.

Thanks for reading!
xoxo

♡ 안녕히 계세요... ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

It’s going around well,I haven’t died and I’m back for ya ♪♫

Ahhh another trip into London... but this time to see a couple of friends whom were sorting out their visas for their study year abroad in Japan! Ren and Emily are finally going... it feels like a lifetime ago when we were talking about the whole thing but it's finally here and they're finally leaving me... for a few months may I add! I decided against wearing extremely heavy make-up this time around and I'm glad that I did because hello that horrible melty face feeling...

It was another disgustingly hot day in London, around the 33°c mark I believe and I felt more uncomfortable travelling than I had done previously! I literally just wanted to stand inside a freezer to cool down because even the shady areas were baking hot... cries. I headed into Starbucks near Trocodero whilst I waited for Ren and Emily to finish their visa stuff and as there tends to be air-con there; it was nice to chill out for a while and enjoy a refreshing drink! I actually finally managed to order the mocha cookie crumble frappe as for a while I haven't been enjoying the taste of coffee like I normally do... but this was delicious despite the fact I actually tend to dislike chocolate drinks! I think the coffee helped tone down the chocolate taste so it wasn't as sweet as I imagined it to be...

I met my friends at the "Four Bronze Horses of Helios" fountain which is less than a minutes walk from Starbucks and it's an amazing fountain based on the Greek legend of Helios:

"The greek legend is that of Helios, the young Greek god of the sun. He is the son of Hyperion and Theia. By the Oceanid Perse he became the father of Aeëtes, Circe, and Pasiphae. His other children are Phaethusa ("radiant") and Lampetia ("shining") and Phaeton. Each morning at dawn he rises from the ocean in the east and rides in his chariot, pulled by four horses - Pyrois, Eos, Aethon and Phlegon -- through the sky, to descend at night in the west. Helios once allowed Phaeton to guide his chariot across the sky. The unskilled youth could not control the horses and fell towards his death." information source: http://www.fountainsoc.org.uk/fountain/45

Isn't the fountain pretty? Well from the angles that I was sitting at I suppose but yeah... after meeting the girls and meeting a couple of their friends (new friends yay!) we headed towards Japan Centre for drinks and then for a sit down as by this point... I think the heat was getting to us all? We tried to go and sit in Leicester Square gardens but they were closed as the premiere for 'Red 2' was apparently happening that evening so builders were getting it all ready for the red carpet etc etc so as it was too hot to sit on the walls outside, we headed over to Misato's for food:

After that, another friend was coming to meet us after he had finished work but because of mis-communication, he didn't arrive until 5.30 and by this point we were all tired and feeling grotty from the heat so once he arrive we said our goodbyes to each other and parted ways! I am sad that I only got to spend a sparse few hours with Ren and Emily and even less time with Dayle but ugh weather... next time I'll see the girls will be when I'm out in Seoul myself and when they has holidays from studying (roll on next spring woohoo!) and I'm definitely going to try and see Dayle as much as I can before I piss off to the other side of the world!

Oh and literally minimum purchases for once... a couple of decent magazines that were on sale as some cute (yet extremely cheap for once) 3D stickers! I can't wait to use the stickers actually...

Peace Out

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