Alex goes to Newcastle

Just a tiny whiny series of photos and gifs of her visit

Sarah goes to Bristol

Another post already? Why yes, I'm on a roll (also, unemployment) so you're welcome. I've gone down to Bristol a total of three times, photos below are from my second trip. All of which were usually short and sweet. I remember my first time in Bristol was after my Germany trip, Petra and I feasted on asian cuisine for the next couple of days just pigging out after doing so much walking in Germany. Second trip down (displayed below) was to see a handful of my favourite people that were coincidentally based in Bristol at the time. So of course, what other way can we catch up and bond other than feasting on good food such as dim sum, fish noodles, korean and western food. Due to my trips being short, I never got to properly explore the city but I'm not bothered, I was always surrounded by lovely company. Even got to take a little boat cruise in the river with Liza and Petra on my third trip after Valencia. 

All I wanted to say about my visits is how thankful I am to the friends who gave me a place to stay during my visits, taking time out of studying to have meals with me, bringing me to church services (*blow kisses to christabelle*) and of course, Petra, always being my tour guide and arranging little adventures for me. Hills and graffiti aside, Bristol is a beautiful city, it was also the boyfriend's home for a year when he studied in uni there. I might come back again in the future to see the Clifton Suspension Bridge and walk down boyfriend's memory lane of the streets of Bristol. Till then, enjoy these few photos I whipped up. 

Sarah goes to London ; Eeling's 22nd Birthday

How should I start this post? There is only so many ways one can start a post, another hello there? A week going into October, I found myself taking the train down to London with my little travel buddy, Katryn. We all pretty much had a buddy system going on for those who had to make our way down south to London to celebrate our girl, Eeling's birthday. We all  were coming together from all directions, Dundee, Newcastle, Sheffield and Bristol.

DAY 1

Upon arrival, Katryn and I had time to have a cute little pasta dinner date with each other before heading to the airbnb to get ready for our night out with the birthday girl. I was having all sorts of fun, for someone that is rarely seen outdoors after 8, well, your girl had a tremendous time out clubbing (what is this foreign word?). But of course, I've reached my quota of loud music, sweaty crowds and being stared at like a wagyu beef, no thank you. I guess I only had this much fun because I were surrounded by a big group of friends so having familiar faces around was comforting. Also, it definitely helped that Richard was around, him being on the same page as me, unsure of how much of "introverts gone wild" we should let out that night, it was nice to loosen up at such environment once in a very pale blue moon.

Around the mid-end of all the dancing, everybody got dispersed which led Tasha and I to venture off on a hunt to locate the birthday girl. We went around to different floors with different music genre, let me do the honours of setting the scene for you. Two asian girls in a crowd of non-asians, dancing to whatever music that room was playing which varies from electro, hip hop and commercial dance music. However, our favourite though, we ended spending most of our time in the bottom floor that had music from the '90s and early 00's playing, plus the dance floor was flashing colourful lights. We were in our element dancing and singing along to Mambo no.5, we recruited Richard as well on our venture. The night ended with getting ripped off for a kebab but we managed to get home safe and that's pretty much all that matters.

DAY 2

We met up with more friends on the second day and venture off on a "let's stuff ourselves with food till we're broke" adventure in Camden Town. Of course, we snapped a buttload of photos because it was one of those rare moments so many of us (Sabahans) were gathered in the same place. Camden Town by morning and Maze Gordon Ramsey by night for another out of the world meat consumption experience. Faces were stuffed, tummies were tamed from rumbling and our bank accounts took a big hit. I'm pretty sure after this trip, most of us were living off instant noodles for a few weeks in order for our wallets to recover. By sun down, we went back to our airbnb, had some drinks and talked our night away in jammies (which was leaning more on my daily spectrum).

DAY 3

First off, I did not plan this minion assemble, I was just thinking Hufflepuff, be kind.

Mr Fartsalot arrived after we had dimsum for breakfast, slowly everybody got on their trains back to their towns to go back to uni. Being a happy unemployed graduate, I got to mess about a little longer in London (more like I got tickets for a ballet performance months beforehand and I was lucky enough for it to be Alice's Adventure in Wonderland). Also, this trip being Mr Fartsalot's first time in London, I got to play tour guide.

DAY 4

We had breakfast in a cute vegetarian cafe, 26 grains, visited a japanese art gallery, stopped by for tea in a japanese tea shop, had Tsujiri's matcha and houjicha soft serve in Chinatown, window shopped in multiple vintage stores, a japanese convenience store and a japanese stationary store (JP Books). You want to talk about being hipster (or Japan-obsessed)? Meet my boyfriend. I forgot to mention, we had Shoryu Ramen for dinner the night before. The only sightseeing we did were going into the Hippodrome (casino) for a pee break and standing outside of the Royal Opera House, staring at the architecture of which we were going to be inside of in the next few hours. It was miraculous, both inside and outside. Chris and I had sushi for dinner at Itsu before the performance, we didn't want to set our wallets in flames so cheap sushi would have to do.

Entering the opera house was quite an experience, boyfriend and I were clearly the town mice in a lobby filled with fancy looking city people. We were thoroughly entertained by people watching waiting for the show to start and for Eeling's arrival. Poor darling had to rush over from work and arrived in the nick of time with a heel one foot, sneaker on the other and the other heel hanging for its' dear life in the pocket of her backpack. I love that memory picture I have of her, she's the best.

As of the ballet itself, I was covered with goosebumps and close to tears (surprisingly, I did not cry a river of happy tears) but that didn't stop me from barely blinking during the whole performance because I did not want to miss a single mere blink of it. Ticked watching a ballet off my bucket list. I was in awe how much work, practice and time had to put into the performance, the live orchestra, the costumes, the lights, the sets, the props, the ballerinas, the visuals, truly phenomenal (and I'm not just using that word to paint my post pretty) TRULY PHENOMENAL. That's all for this post, thanks for reading.

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happy new year, readers.
be kinder.