The joy of Christmas

Tinsel and truffles and turkey 'oh my!'

Now I am totally ex-haaaaaaaaaaausted, my make up is a little worn by this point and my hair is all frazzled, but it sort of doesn't matter at this point.

I know that Christmas can be tricky, you are thrown together with friends and family, even some people that do not like you  and perhaps want to make a point of not liking you, or even enjoy pointing it around other large groups of people, that is always a hoot.

It's just important to realise that your tolerance has new levels that you did not even know existed, and to be as gracious as a person can be, not biting back to rude or snide comments. Just focus on yourself and knowing that you are not hurting or making others feel bad, but are another sparkle in their Christmas Day.

Now onto the more fun and interesting parts-

My outfit of the day looked like this:

Red plaid dungaree shorts from ebay

Black, low back top from Topshop

and a cute little pin of a geisha holding Hello Kitty that I put on my dungarees!
I wore a pair of black leggings and then knitted tights over the top and then my slippers, I get chilly...


My makeup looked like this but a little fresher:

I used half baked from the Naked palette all over the lid, and a matte black in the crease, a little liner and a highlight on the brow bone and inner corner.

I ate a lot of Roses, watched 'The Snowman' and played racing with the wind up toys won from our crackers, and all the other traditional things that people do on Christmas day like napping, eating some more.

I can fall asleep content now, and thumbs up to me for being a dedicated blogger, posting real-life in time snaps from Christmas Day!

Japanese Dinner!

It's about that time again where I go out for something to eat with my friend from school who moved to the same city as I did!
I recommended that we eat at the same Japanese place that I went to a few weeks back in December, and it was so delicious that I blogged about it, and here I am blogging about it again!

I even ordered the same thing... I know, not very imaginative but I knew I loved it and I had craved it a few times since.
This is what I worse, I suppose this seemed appropriate attire!

 I wore my birthday part tee! I love it, it's from a shop on ebay and has presents and balloons and cake on it!
Along with my rock and republic trousers that are made from a black stretchy fabric, these are from TK Maxx and have lasted foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr, on my feet I have my pink stripy socks, I guess I'd forgotten to put on my shoes- but I swear I did wear some!

Makeup is a whole mish-mash from the Naked 2 palette, I can never remember what I've used, I just go into a bit of a colour daze and use everything that I like

 A close up of my feather earring that I like because a part of it looks like a feather hair extension! I love the cool blue colour part, this has lasted me over a year I think and made it through the treacherous windy weather that blew my hair every which way the minute I left!

Now I am too full up on sticky rice to move! Ooopsy

It's (pre) CHRISTMAAAAAS

In our flat, we all decided to make a wonderful Christmas dinner, before our Christmas dinners at home.

I was on Turkey and Yorkshire pudding duty and I was pretty nervous abotu the Turkey- I've never cooked a Turkey before and I didn't want it to be dry!

It was a Turkey crown that we put in the oven for 2 hours, but every 30 minutes we took it out to baste it which maybe was the best thing that we did because it was surprisingly moist and delicious!

I made the Yorkshire pudding using my Toad in the Hole recipe that I've posted here before, but just didn't put any sausages in it!

But it all turned out well in the end and we were all equally surprised by how homely it tasted.

After the delicious dinner we exchnaged presents, ate sweets and watched Puss in Boots the movie!

I feel all Christmassy!

The best dinner ever!

If you've read my blog for a while, you'll know that I have been a part of a Japanese exhcange for the past few months, but my newly found Japanese friends had to go back to Japan at Christmas, so to say goodbye we went to an 'authentic' Japanese resturant as recommended by then. I didn't know what to expect but I was very very pleasantly surprised!

I ordered the Sweet and Sour Bento

Bento apparently is a box! So like a meal in a box, when it arrived it all looked so pretty and authentic, but I did not eat it authenticially and left my chop sticks on the table and used a spoon and fork instead!

The sweet and sour chicken was nicer than at a chinese takeaway, and in the middle were pickles that did not look like pickles, the rice was of a different consistency too, more sticky but I loved it.

In the bottom left corner were green beans in a peanut sort of sauce, a potato salad in a silver cupcake casing haha!

I tink it's so much fun to have our meals in boxes rather than boring round plates!

 

How do you know if a resturant is fancy?

I think it's usually by the plates, if the plates look fancy pants then the place you are in is probably fancy pants

buuuuuut...

If the plates all seem like mundane white, china circles then you can't tell the fancy from the 'unfancy'

So the next best step to telling is by what little 'nibbles' are left on the table, some nice places leave free bread, which I almost always indulge in, with those little rectangles of butter, because I do not buy butter like that at home I have the stuff made of non-milk produts which is a lot lighter but less tasty.

Or olives, which I also over-indulge in, the green ones not the black ones.

But today I went to Cafe Rouge which is one of my favourite chain resturants, but the only problem with it is that the titles of the dishes are in french, the description is in English though, but I suppose I should embrace the culture, especially with it being a french restaurant.

Since no nibbles were left for us, we got a breadboard to share which was super delicious, but I wish I'd taken a picture of my meal!

 

It was chicken, with vegetables in the creamiest sauce imaginable, it was so-super delicious but I ate it before I remembered to snap a picture of it, and for dessert... creme brulee

My mouth is drolling for more of taht wonderful custardy-ness at an exceptionally late hour

Waga-Yumma

My sister and I went to Wagamamas for dinner and it was scrum-diddly-umptious
I only ever went once before and I had the Ramen which I thought was as good as it got, but oh no no no no...
I introduce to you the:

Cha han

stir-fried rice with chicken and prawns or fried tofu, egg, mangetout, mushrooms, sweetcorn and spring onions. Served with a side portion of miso soup and pickles

 

It was serisuoly good, I swapped out the prawns for double chicken portions and it tasted uh-mazing, even those weird yellow looking things tasted like spare ribs somehow? Even though it looks like it would taste citrusy. Then the rice was kind of like egg fried rice but way less greasy than your average chinese takeaway, the miso soup was pretty good too, the pickles were a little spicy for me...

My sister usually has the chicken katsu but wanted to go for something healthier, and healthier she got!

 

Teriyaki chicken donbur

grilled juicy chicken glazed with orange teriyaki sauce, sticky white rice, with thinly sliced carrots, pea shoots, spring onions and sesame seeds and a side of spicy kimchee

 

We ate with really cute wooden cutlery, much better than plastic cutlery and feels more 'authentic'

So we give our Wagamama night in 5 Waga-thumbs up!

Icy Sunshine Funshine

I'm staying with my ssiter which is so so fun
and.... while I'm here summer has rolled along too which is the most pleasant surprise as it was becoming mid July with just rain rain rain
So at the first sign of sun my sister and I headed out to indulge in some summer shopping and there was a really fun sale on at Jack Wills, I was very tempted to buy these little red shorts with white tennis rackets all over but right at the last minute I put them down because I decided that while I may want them I don't actually need them.

On a more delicious note we cooled down with milkshakes from Cafe Nero I got peppermint flavour and my sister got a more healthy strawberry and raspberry. They were both delicious but I think mine was the best! It was mixed with crushed ice so it was really icy cold and refreshing and I've never had a milkshake that was just mint before, usually it's mixed with chocolate which believe me is not as good as mint by itself.

Afterwards we had lunch in a sweet little cafe which was lovely under the sun, there was ivy entwined all around and the cafe looked like a converted house which made it feel all 'homey'

I ordered delicious pasta with mushrooms and my sister had a baguette

Afterwards we headed back home and fell asleep in the sunshine!