Welcoming Autumn with the Thames Festival

The weather has definitely changed this week, as Winds from a Hurricane somewhere are effecting the English water, so Britain's getting a bit windy lately, less daylight moving on to Winter ~.~

But I do love Autumn- leaves change colour, temperature gets cooler, light knitwear to layered styling and the weekend just gone, I decided to join my friends and check out the Thames Festival on Southbank:-

I haven't really explored it these past fee years, so it was something nice to see, and Mark Autumn arriving.

Fortunately we went out later as we wanted to see the fireworks in the evening, otherwise we had ALOT of time to kill!!

Typical of a festival, there were a lot of stalls selling assorts of things along the Southbank- clothes, ornaments, music, books and of course food & drink from around the world. It was nice to walk around Southbank, along the Thames in the evening, the feel was so relaxing and enjoyable, minus the congested crowds of where the food stalls were.

Other reason we wanted to go to the Thames Festival, we wanted to see the Korean section by the OXO Tower (^.^) 

There were quite a fair few stalls too and a stage for the Korean Culture performances including music, dancing and martial arts. Wish I checked the Korean area the evening before as they had a K Pop event!

Was quite surprised to see a stall devoted to K Pop Karaoke! My friends wanted me to do it, but I don't know all the lyrics, mainly the choruses to the songs they had! (^_−)−☆

They even had this song by Shinee on the Karaoke ^-^

We unfortunately missed the carnival parade as it was on the otherwise of the river, so wondered around to find a good spot to see the fireworks. Despite The fireworks being delayed by 15mins, we didn't see them let off till 10pm, Boris must have rambled lots of there was a speech involved! (z_z)

But it was a very enjoyable display, seeing the rockets so close let off from the tug boats on the river, was worth the wait (^^)

Good way to lead into Mid Autumn Festival (-^.^-)

Vanity of social photography

Most my friends know I enjoy taking photos of a night out. 

A friend last week laughed as she noticed I've still been using the same camera, that big with shutters that stick- my lovely Panasonic Lumix, 6x optical zoom, 6 years old, 4 megapixels and runs on AA batteries and has survived a lot, including a very sweaty Lost Prophets gig one Summer as well as being dropped from my clumsy drunken nights (^.^)  

 I replied to my friend, saying "if it ain't broke, no point in getting a replacement yet" which is true.

But last month I've taken photos at little partying social gatherings, and have had to delete up to 8 from Ye Olde Facebook; because friends said they look awful in them. Ok fair enough, but to be honest they weren't that awful.  

I am the type of person to do paparazzi styled photography- catching people in the moment, natural occurring scene. Can work at times, jolts people's memories, can be funny! 

I have seen photos of me friends have photographed and damn I did not look the best, oh well I get over it and carry on. But some people they just comment on the photo of message me saying "delete please". It is effort trying to find which photo they're on about.

Will put some photos on this blog when I get a bit more time! ^.^

Childhood TVB Chinese cartoon nostalgia

This year I have been finding and watching childhood cartoons I watched as a kid in Chinese dub

With the likes of Sailormoon (美少女), Old Master Q (老夫子), Doreamon, Candy Candy (小甜甜), Dr Slump (IQ博士) there is a few more!!

What I'm still hunting around for is Animitsu Hime (甜甜公主) but I still haven't found it in Cantonese!! Seen it in Original Japanese but not the same!! I can only find the Chinese theme song thanks to youtube

But recent discovery thanks to Mum and my mum's best friend, they made me rediscover 忍者小靈精!! Cartoon about a Ninja who helps a kid out & keeps saying his catchphrase "yun yun yun" made me smile -^.^-

Click here to watch 忍者小灵精

Nostalgia of cartoons; they were funnier back in the day, can't really appreciate the new cartoons now!

The joys of Summer

Can't believe this summer is flying by so quickly and it's almost the Last Bank Holiday until Christmas!! ~.~

What have I got to show for it?? I have no clue, until I go through the diary and photographic evidence of my antics that is! Hehe :p I really do envy the people who work at schools, they get their summer holiday of 2 months. Lucky people!

At least weekends are good to chill and have R&R! But sucks when weekdays it's sunny & I'm stuck in the office working! (-.-")

Now recollecting my thoughts of what I've been getting up to, it's mainly been catch ups with friends, birthday celebrations and house hunting. reasons of my not blogging, naughty me (^_^*)
I'm doing the scary step of wanting to get on the property ladder! It's very daunting, doing this independently for sure, but it's good to have family's advice those does drive me potty at times, and it's god to speak to friends who are fellow 1st time buyers. This type of hunting around is indeed stressful.

But putting that aside, I chat to friends in HK asking them what they got up to in the weekend, usual antics of drinking in LKF, I'm sure they do this every weekend! Don't they get bored?

Then again my lifestyle in the weekend can be pretty mad, ranging from birthday celebrations this month, involving clubbing @ Funky Buddha in Mayfair on a Saturday night; I do not want to go there again for a LONG time, pretentious, expensive and rude door staff. At least I got my monies worth on dancing the night away though pretty sober
However the other social night activities that is involving karaoke, very Chinese I know but is good fun. Singing your heart out social chat catch up with friends and drinking quite a bit. Cost of that night £30 compared to a club night! Then again I went mad to balance the drinking by joining another circle of friends jogging 5km from Limehouse with only 2 hours sleep!! =.= still recovering!

Bank holiday is going to be chilling back in Devon, where the pace of life REALLY slows down so I get my 10+ hours sleep! Can't wait!! ^.^

Keep Calm and Carry on

I am having trouble in knowing what to blog lately as I've been really busy, stressed and not sleeping well. 


As many have seen in the media or maybe around them, UK has been suffering riots and looters this past week that has gone so out of hand, it has actually been causing me to lose my concentration at work (-.-")

The riots and looters have really angered me having kids as young as 8 years old taking part damaging their community and stealing from it. It just gets out of hand, where innocent people got swept into this mass destruction and have been injured and killed because of it. 


UK I feel is becoming soft, evil thoughts have sprung to my mind such as bringing back the death penalty! Or even at least be like countries such as Germany or Korea where people age 18 have to take part in the army for 2 year, then they can have some form of direction to life and become well disciplined and learn respect


I am pretty pissed of how some people can act, especially in a country I was born and brought up in. 


I suppose as the saying goes, we need to try keeping calm and do our best to carry on and not dwindle 


I am so glad that people are getting involved with helping to clean up the mess, and an epetition has been made to revoke all benefits from any rioters involved, over 100,000 people have already signed it, more support is needed 


Click to read and sign the petition

  

Forever 21 arrives to London

It's been a week since Forever 21 has opened on the busiest shopping street that is Oxford Street. As my colleague old me the day she went, which was the grand opening it was RAMMED full of people! So many people were excited over this brand finally coming to London, since there's a branch in Birmingham that has been opened for a while now.

London's branch consisting of 3 floors all womenswear (unlucky guys hopefully in the future!) full range of smart, casual, underwear and accessories.

I decided to have a mosey of the store after work seeing what the clothes were like. I will say that the clothing is young fast fashion, style is definitely High Street- Miss Selfridge x H&M, quite nice for an American brand! However the prices and workmanship/quality of clothing is Primark to H&M prices. As I said, fast fashion for consumers needing their fashion fix and keeping on trend.

My friend who came along with me said that some of the prices are really good but differs pending what type of garment you're looking for; and she did say America would be cheaper with the brand, well of course! I did feel bad wandering off to try some clothes on in the fitting room, was a LONG queue. I can't believe how long women can take to try clothes on, but some did have 10 pieces with them!

 

I couldn't get over the cost of shorts that were sold ranging from £7-£13, basic tops from £2.50 even a light showerproof jacket was under £30, such a bargain!

I decided to try out some pieces towards the Autumn Winter trend of cobalt blue. I was quite hesitant about this colour on me as it doesn't suit everyone, but I ended up really liking the colour and found it suited me; beats my usual pallet of greys and earthy colours! ^.^

Those who don't have the store you can opt for shopping online!

Forever 21 Enjoy!^.^

iTunes Festival at The Roundhouse

This year the tickets have been so difficult to win and obtain, iTunes Festival is getting more and more popular as the years go by and the line up of artists get better.

It so disheartening when you get emails from iTunes of the band’s name, and then saying, "Thank you for applying for iTunes Festival tickets. Unfortunately you have not won tickets". As my mate said, if you want to be rejected 20 times or more, apply for iTunes tickets! (o_0)

Fortunately I managed to go iTunes twice this year o(^_^)o being a spontaneous lastminute.com helps and winning a pair of tickets from Metro, the only other time I tried my luck in getting tickets.
So first gig I went to see at Roundhouse was The Script. My friend spontaneously asked if I wanted to go that afternoon. I thought why not as I didn't have any other plans and Zumba was out of the question as was suffering split shins from the 10k run ( ; _ ; )

The warm up act was Loick Essein, I didn't know who the hell he was until he sung his popular hit at the end, making me think "oh, that guy!" was a good performer too much rnb/soulful music for my taste to be honest.
When The Script came on the vibe was really positive. Many people were singing along including me, and was good the band worked the crowd; I was really impressed how good they are live- nice gig for a Tuesday night (^｡^)
Then on the Monday 2 weeks after, I won tickets to see 2 Cellos & Lang Lang. I was expecting a lot of classical music from the sounds of their names.

I was very entertained by 2 Cellos Croatian musicians who became a real hit on Youtube, where they twist it up by playing modern rock music on the modern electric instruments. They really worked the crowd! Was amazing that they also got a drummer in so they played a really well know 80s rock song I've forgotten the name of and "Highway to Hell"
They even did an encore which was really good, still can't think what the name of the song was...

Then final act of the evening was Lang Lang. Slightly short Chinese guy but had a lot of spirit in him especially when it was just him and the piano. I was amazed at how well he played and was fascinated at the speed he played was intense, but something about a gig i usually relate to rock than classical.

But Roundhouse is a good venue for all genres. However I wish I had a seat for his performance; though I was wearing trainers my feet hurt after the 20min performance as I wasn't really moving or dancing to the music. Thought was really funny that after his performance, fans gave him flowers. I bet none of the other artists who performed got flowers (^_−)−☆