♡ I Went To London Again! ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

It's been a while since I've done anything productive and actually left my house for something else other than work. Originally yesterday was a day for me to go and hand in my final re-sit assignments for university but unfortunately I am struggling with one of them because with trying to put down the exact words I have inside my head is becoming a problem for me (_ _ll)

Anyway, I managed to spend an afternoon out in Central London (again!) and enjoy the company of some lovely friends - one of whom it was a goodbye as he was going back to Korea for a year or two, very sad times as he is a straight up sound guy. A group of us met outside of Leicester Square station - I swear it's the only train station people know of without getting lost... but anyway we all met around 2pm and at this time a few were hungry - including myself as I was naughty in skipping breakfast again... I must stop doing that (；￣Д￣）
We all headed over to Corean Chilli - a popular Korean restaurant located just a minute from the station exit - and were seated pretty much instantly. Now in the past when I have visited Corean Chilli, I have never had any problems from waiters/waitresses or the food but today was very different. Our waitress was extremely rude to us as a group and spoke in very short, sharp sentences and when it came to ordering, yes I'll admit we were a bit higglty pigglty but hey, that's what happens sometimes you know? I decided to go for my usual of Corean Chilli's sweet chicken with rice and a kimchi fried pancake, as I was seriously craving kimchi pancake for a while now. My friend Sasha also ordered the sweet chicken like I did... and well she wasn't impressed either with her food. Now... where to begin with this meal;

Pros

★ Was served to the table very quickly
★ Served hot

Cons

★ Kimchi pancake was slicked with oil and burnt around the edges
★ Chicken was more batter than meat
★ Almost chewed my jaw off said batter
★ Rice tasted like day-old food
★ Rice was non-sticky and felt like I was eating basmati rice
★ Poor Sasha only had one piece of vegetable whilst I seemed to have the rest
★ Sauce was too sickly sweet, unlike last time when it was just the right amount of sweet
★ Pineapple juice was warm
★ Pineapple juice in a glass that wasn't even £3.30 worthy
★ Waitress was extremely rude
★ Wouldn't let us pay separately even though we asked and we did it before in the past
★ Waitress ignored us for 15 minutes before giving us out bill

Yeah I don't think I'll continue with the cons... we shall be here all day to be honest. So basically my deal with this restaurant was the bad service, bad manners and for once, the bad food. Yeah it is only one bad experience at this restaurant but honestly, I doubt I will ever go back again.

Continuing on, a few wanted cake and I stated how in one of the bakeries located in Chinatown is a) massive and b) cheaply priced so we headed over to the Golden Gate Bakery - which honestly is one of my favourite bakeries because they are just so friendly and happy in there! Oh and one time I got loads of free cake for no apparent reason, so happy place! I ordered a slice of strawberry mousse cake which is delicious and perfect for the weather that we had for the day - seriously it was like we were being baked in an oven, I kind of regretted wearing jeans for the day by this point. After the bakery, Sasha and I headed into Boba Jam for some ice cold bubble tea but in a way it was Sasha who treated me to it because she needed to pay by card and there is a spending limit before you have to use card payments... so yeah Sasha I owe you one bubble tea!

After that, we dispersed from each other to be honest and I tagged along with Jackie to the KCC to see Jay for a filming thing they were doing. We literally walked from the KCC to Trafalgar, to Leicester Square, back towards Trafalgar and then onward towards Green Park. It was so long and in the heat we all seemed to tire easily but manages to find a nice piece of shade in Green Park;

I literally left the others to do their filming and I sat down under a tree and read more of my book. It's called 'Please Look After Mother' (엄마를 부탁해) and it's written by South Korean author Kyung-sook Shin. The book is about the disappearance of sixty-nine-year-old So-Nyo when is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as long-held secrets and private sorrows begin to reveal themselves, they are forced to wonder: how well did they actually know the woman they called Mom? It is such a powerful book and because of the style of writing, it made me believe that the author was telling a story from her life and it actually surprised me that this story is fictional. I enjoyed it so much and didn't put it down for two days straight, I seriously feel like reading it all over again now.

It was about 7pm when I decided to head home as instead of the usual 30-40 minute journey towards Kingston, I had to endure a grueling 2 and a half hours to my parents home here in Essex. I'm still finding it hard adjusting here and now that I won't officially graduate university until January, my plans to move to Japan and teach English out there has been pushed back a few extra months which suck beyond belief. Despite a few hiccups to the day and the extremely hot weather, it was nice to be in London and be away from Essex even for a few hours.

Peace Out

xoxo

♡ Leibster Award ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!
So doing my weekly reads of blogs I follow - and sometimes of blogs that they follow also - I came across a post about an online "blog award" called a Leibster Award.

What is a Lebster Award exactly?

★ The Liebster Blog Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. 

★ The Meaning; Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. 

The Rules: 

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves. 

2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you've tagged to answer 

3. Choose eleven people and link them in your post. 

4. Go to their page and tell them. 

5. Remember no tag backs!

Now, me being a slight sucker for things like these I thought it would be nice to put forward some of my friends and other bloggers that follow me (and I follow etc etc) And also as I haven't myself been put up for this, I don't have eleven questions to answer so instead I'll just write the eleven things about myself and the eleven questions for the people I will tag.

Eleven Things About Myself:

★ I have an eclectic taste in music - or so I've been told - ranging from country & western, dance and hindi all the way to k-pop, j-pop and visual kei.
★ Despite honey being the only food in the world not to be allergic to, my body still finds a way to reject it... oh and I can't touch maple syrup and treacle without throwing my guts up.

★ When I do play games using a game station; I tend to stick to games in the ranges of GTA, Red Dead Revolver and Fable. Everything else I'm just rubbish at.

★ If I wasn't on this diet to lose a lot of weight, I would legit eat cheese 24/7

★ I have 40 pairs of high heels in my wardrobe yet I barely wear high heels these days 

★ I'm graduating university with a 2:1, but I still need to complete and submit three essays to actually be able to graduate properly

★ Contrary to the question - cats or dogs? I can never decide because I prefer both cats and dogs

★ I prefer to spend my money on cd's and dvd's than on food and clothes - this was the case during my three years as a student...

★ I work as a nursery assistant until I get my university degree so I can go to Japan and/or South Korea to teach English

★ I have a pretty strong stomach when it comes to gore, but the one thing I cannot stand is vomit 

★ I usually suck at thinking up facts about myself...

Eleven People I Think Deserve This Award:

1. Sapphire

2. Keita

3. Ali

4. Dodo

5. Hollie

6. Melissa

7. Magda

8. Toni

9. Suwan

10. Chriss

11. Ray (the like one and only guy who I actually follow on blogspot... oh and he just started out but already has an awesome blog)

Eleven Questions to These Eleven People:

1. How would you describe your fashion style?

2. If you were a model for any particular magazine, what one would you choose to model for?

3. What is your opinion on plus sized models?

4. If you were locked in a cupboard for a weekend with one item of food and drink to survive on, what item would that food and drink be?

5. If you were given a one way ticket to any location in the world - where would you go?

6. Best live gig you have been to so far in your life?

7. A song that makes you feel nostalgic?

8. If you were to meet your idol, how would you react and what would you say to them?

9. Favourite item of clothing/accessory/footwear in your wardrobe?

10. What do you aspire to become?

11. What life lessons do you live by?

If you have only just stumbled across this online award /thing/ and haven't been nominated yourself, who would you put up for this?

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

♡ Fashion Inspiration: Punk Rock Style ♡

みなさん、こんにちは!

Just like a previous post, I have been skimming through KERA magazines from January 2012 through to May 2012 and picking out co-ordinates that appeal to my sense of taste (despite not actually putting this sense of taste to my wardrobe yet as I'm still losing weight...) This time though, I sorted out all the co-ords into the "Punk Rock" catergory because of the classic tartan prints laced with blacks, leather and chains - stereotypical I know but that is what is associated with the particular style.
"Punk fashion has been extremely commercialized at various times, and many well-established fashion designers — such as Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier — have used punk elements in their production. Punk clothing, which was initially handmade, became mass produced and sold in record stores and some smaller specialty clothing stores by the 1980s. Many fashion magazines and other glamor-oriented media have featured classic punk hairstyles and punk-influenced clothing" read more on the subject here.

What I like about the style of punk fashion is that it's not one sub-culture, but more divided in many and with other different style influences infused into the mix, it seems to bring out a whole new style itself. I like the contrast of the vivacious reds popping against the sleek blacks that seem to be the base colour of practically any style and personally... I like red (a lot) I enjoy looking at designers lines like Vivienne Westwood's and I like clothing brands like GLAD NEWS that seem to incorporate this style into their lines and if it keeps my legs covered then it certainly gets a vote from me!

Me being me, I won't be comfortable in any form of style until I have at least lost a few more dress sizes and toned up all the flabby parts of my body that seem to be forming from the weight loss. But I hope one day I'll be able to do two, maybe even three of these co-ords you see in this post here. I think it would be a style that would suit me greatly and now I'm just praying that I'll become happier with myself so I can try out this style as it's something that appeals to me the most out of all three styles I've choosen.

おやすみなさい！

Peace Out
xoxo

♡ SCREW EU TOUR 2012『蠍-SASORI-』♡

みなさん、こんにちは! 

Wednesday 30th May - Camden Underworld, London UK

Writing this post with a calm and steady hand is proving much harder than I originally thought. For the past 3 months - I had been preparing to see one of my favourite bands SCREW on their 『蠍-SASORI-』European Tour 2012. Originally I arrived in London the day before to stay at a hostel for a couple of days with my friends Ren and Emily and I swear I only survived on two hours worth of sleep because I was shaking with excitement and waking up around 6.30am on the Wednesday morning my nerves were certainly getting the better of me. Nether the less, I arrived at the venue around 7.20am and there were already a few people there including the wonderful Chriss who had, in fact, camped overnight! 

The whole day was spent making people write in the fan book I had brought along for the band and meeting new people and spending time with friends I had not seen for a really long time (the last gig I had been to was Versailles last October...) I remember the band arriving at the venue around 1.30pm and being dragged around the back where the tour bus was parked by the gorgeous Iku, I legit was shaking with fear and after the band walked past us as waved - I broke down into a flood of tears and cried onto Iku's shoulder, so I really thank her from the bottom of my heart for keeping me upright. Then it was around 6pm when the made another appearance, this time just outside the doors of the Underworld for a small photoshoot and all I can say is that when Manabu and Rui stood in front of me - I cried AGAIN. I didn't mind that I was being teased by other friends around me - mainly by Dayle - but being right behind these artists that I've admired for so many years was certainly overwhelming!

About 6.30pm, the Global Fan Club members - including myself as being part of the GFC - were allowed inside for the meet&greet that had been done for this tour and the heat of the small area of the Underworld was certainly overwhelming! We all had to line up to have a photo taken with all the members - everyone sitting in between Byou and Jin who were both very adorable - and whilst I was having my picture taken, Rui placed his hand on top of my head whilst Kazuki put his on my shoulder and I remember Byou coming in really close to me that it genuinely scared me slightly! Then after everyone had their photo's taken and so again we all lined up to have the cheki pictures signed by them. I handed the fanbook to Kazuki, who genuinely seemed surprised to be given it and he said "Thank You" and shook my hand really enthusiastically! After morning signing we all sat down for a very short Q&A session which the members went on to make us all laugh with their silly (yet serious) answers. Honestly, they're all so lovely and gorgeous in real life and even typing this all out my heart is beating extremely fast remembering everything!

As we were already inside, GFC members were allowed to grab a spot at the front and I managed to get a spot dead straight in front of Kazuki with a new friend, Zoe, right next to me and a facebook friend Golffy who was next to her! Weird that she was there and I didn't notice until after the gig but I couldn't find her to say hello! Soon enough, the rest of the crowd who were lining up outside were let in and in a short space of time we were all reunited with friends and at around 8pm, the lights dimmed down and the band entered on the stage and the most awesome experience started for the next couple of hours. The set list from what I can remember consisted of:

★ The Abyss
★ Deep Six
★ Brainstorm
★ Cursed Hurricane
★ Ancient Rain
★ Gather Roses
★ Wailing Wall
★ Vegas
★ Kairos
★ Vanquish
★ Jellyfish
★ Raging Blood
★ S=R&B

Encore
★ Scarlet
★ Zansatsu Fiction

During the gig, I got spat on by Kazuki with water twice and of one of the many times he jumped into the crowd he held my hand! Insert a tiny bit of a spazz session as I re-live that moment! Also when Rui came over to our side of the stage - in the space of a few minutes he managed to crush my hand against the barrier and smack my head with his bass guitar... so much pain from one person! I remember sticking my tongue out at Jin and he pulled a face back at me! Also, as I knew every single lyric to each song that was played, I sang my heart out and Kazuki smiled a few times when he noticed I was doing that. Legit, it was the best night I had ever had and one of the best gigs I had been to in an extremely long time! Despite my hand being in pain still as I type this blog post, I have the biggest smile etched across my face and I still have tears in my eyes on the amazing experience I encountered with my wonderful and supportive friends.

I'm sad that I didn't catch any plectrums but I did manage to snag some great merchandise of a giant picture (just a smaller version of a poster) and a couple of photosets - where I swapped a Manabu photo from the Cursed Hurricane set with Sharan for a Kazuki photo from their latest look!

Afterwards, I waited outside in the lovely cool air with a few people to wave them off on the rest of their European tour and they looked just as exhausted as we did but content at the same time

Thanks for reading!
xoxo