Joint Birthdays and Anniversary Trip to Bali 2014 preview

One interesting thing about our relationship is that our birthday is two days apart, mine on 27th while his is 29th June AND our real anniversary is 28th! Funny eh?

I have actually planned for us to go away for our birthday this year, especially because his birthday is on a sunday (tomorrow!) and because this way i dont have to use up all of my brain cells to think of a birthday present for him! hahahah and here we are in Bali! A place that all beach bums rave about since is supposed to be all romatic and beach paradise and everything! 

Anyways we are staying at the sofitel nusa dua for the entire trip. Most people say we shoyld be staying in seminyak instead but the purpose of this trip is to relax mainly and we didnt want to be in the middle of a hot mess. If we are branded massive tourists 水魚 then let be it! Will be uploading our trip day by day later! 

Friends for Life!

Shopping aside, (my) main purpose for this trip was to see my dear dear friends from when i was studying in England and i managed to partially achieve this!

I went back to Somerset (well Bath mainly) and met up with my UK Family Denise and Sophie and I met Sophie's boyfriend Steven for the first time! He seems like such a good guy and I am soo happy for Sophie! Denise has moved to Egypt after her marriage ended! it looks like she is having so much fun, though i am sure she misses home every now and then!

I was very good to catch up with them! it has literally been 6 years! the last time i saw sophie was when i went down to yeovil for her 19th Bday and that was it! I was supposed to go down to see them when i was about to leave England after i graduated but i didnt have the time!

hopefully it wont be another 6 years before i see them again! *hint hint*

I just did not want to say goodbye!

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I also met up with my dear friend Jess on the first thursday to visit the british museum and for a light bite at China Town. She recently got engaged and i feel soooo happy for her! the two of us are pretty much like chopsticks and we cannot stop talking when we see each other... by talking i mean bitching! we bitch about everything we see... and no i m not exaggerating! hope i didn't scare S off by the amount of bitching i did! :P

didn't take any photos of us though :(

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went to Newmarket racecourse with my C-Jeh Jade and her boyfriend Joe on saturday! its been almost 2 years since i moved back! i just cant thank her enough for getting the tickets for us and for picking us up from Cambridge to the racecourse! we had so much fun! Joe seems like a nice guy too!! :P i am so pleased to see that my girlfrds have found their Mr Right!

 the guys studying the racecards!

and then we met up with Jess and her fiance for dinner at Wildwood. we were supposed to have dinner at newmarket but we forgot to make a booking so we went to cambridge and ate the same restaurant hahahh! i have to admit that Rob is a very nice and tolerant person that can put up with all of jess's complaints and bitching (so is Steph for my bitching and complaints!) hahaha how can we live without tolerant men like you guys! too bad we didn't take any pictures cus we had to rush off to the train station! we actully managed to catch the train in the last minute!!!

I mentioned earlier that Jess just got engaged recently and she asked me to be her bridesmaid! i feel so honoured!!! WOAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

lets see who does what first! teehee!

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On sunday, i met up with Philippa, our housemate for 2 years! It was supposed to be a mini big house gathering (we used to call our house big house cus it was literally a really big house with 10 rooms!) but the lame people like lakshmen, ed and rich didn't show up and it turned our to be a double date with Phil and Philippa, steph and I! we had dim sum in china town, probably fifi's first dim sum meal! we talked so much about everything! it had been soo long! i think the last time i saw her must be the time when i went to dusseldorf to see her and we went to cologne together! 

she finally got to see Mr Janjan hahahahahaha! :)

Last but not least, it was great to see my other flatmate Adam as well and to meet his girlfriend Rachel. It was so great that they let us stay with them the whole time when we were in London... if it wasnt them we would have had to spend sooo much money on accommodation and we wouldnt have been able to shop so much!!! adam used to live just across the corridor from me at Warwick (tocil) and we used to watch glee together and sang the songs together! he gave me all of my glee albums!!! hes lost so much weight and i gained so much too! :P

it was just sooo great to catch up with him.... seeing him as clever as always and so in lurve! hahahahaha!

Bicester Virgins- Shop til you drop!

26-7-2013

One of S's main purpose for this trip was to go shopping! I have always known of Bicester Village and how its a outlet shopping village near Oxford... i always saw friends on FB that go there every now and then when i was at Warwick. I had to make sure Bicester is a must stop on this trip and for a whole day too! 

I have to admit (:P) S has materialised me megaly in the past year! I mean... i used to go shopping a lot when i visited the US before (woodford/ woodburn outlet (?!) forgot name) and things were a lot cheaper there but mannn i never really bought any designer things apart from the odd Coach handbag (is that even a designer brand?)...

I have to say, Bicester was definitely a much anticipated location for us.. Steph took it real serious and planned our route around the village  "as soon as we get to bicester village tomorrow, we have to run all the way to this corner and work our way around the entire village. we only have 10 hours!" (we actually arrived a bit earlier than we expected so we had more than 10 hours!)

this is S planning our route!

We literally shopped til we dropped at bicester! Took a very early train from Marylebone to Bicester North and hopped onto the Taxibus (which is synchronised with the trains from london) to the outlet village and we arrived there at 9.30am! i don't even remember what time we woke up that morning!

We bought soooooooooooooo so much stuff! of course, some of the stores were disappointing but some were like WOW!

Burberry was a big disappointment for Steph, it is a brand that he really likes... he has SO much burberry stuff.. he loves checked things!!! he wanted to at least buy a poloshirt from burberry! To be honest, i wasn't really expecting to buy anything from there... i just looked around to see if theres anything that i like and flicked through the trench coats and looked at their prices... OMG GBP483? the RRP of this trench coat was 7xx and they were even more expensive in Harrods (9xx)! WHAT THE HECK! i just had to buy it.. and immediately after i said that S just flicked through all of the coats to find the right size for me... come on its not really that crazy.. Steph spend over 10K HKD on his (though his has an inner layer and mine dont... and i have a very good reason to justify for it... these trench coats never go out of style!... i am sure i will still be wearing this in 10.. 15...50 years time... assuming i am still a size 8 UK hahahaha). not too much of a disappointment for me eh?!
*highlights from burberry- mainland chinese shoppers swept he whole floor for cashmere scarves and buy them in stacks.. this is how they rock! (outlet price 204 pounds each) and they arent even that nice...*

Fred Perry was also disappointing.. things there weren't as cheap as we'd expected! Steph loves fred perry too and had been holding off on buying fred perry products in hk cus he knew we can get them for cheaper in UK! still... he managed to pick up a couple of thingsss..

Another big disappointment was Clarks! Steph wanted to buy shoes for work... the shoes in the outlet store there have no design.. all just discounted products that no one wants in the regular stores.. weird sizes etc... i guess thats what outlet stores are supposed to be like... i wish i had more time to take him to Street, Somerset (clarks village near my old school!) he's bound to be able to find something there. to be honest, clarks in general was a big disappointment for him this trip!

Jack Wills was also a disappointment but wasnt expecting too much from it tbh.

the WOWs were... 

• Paul Smith- steph bought like 6 pairs of cufflinks for himself and his friends. some of them are only 15 pounds each! what a barg!
• Hugo Boss- steph bought a pair of hugo boss dress shoes for work! only 185 poounds. original price was like 240 or something! COME ON!
• Tory Burch- it was alright for me.. bought a pair of heels.. saw another pair of shoes that i wanted to buy (to be honest.. idont even remember what the other pair looks like now)... the quality of some of those tory burch shoes are actually quite questionable! check your shoes before you buy them! the one thing i have to praise about the shop is that the staff there are quite helpful and would offer you drinks like tea/ juice/ water.. i guess they saw that we are quite shopped out! :P hope they didnt just treat us as other mainlanders
• Kate Spade- bought two bags.. one of those classic black handbags and then another clutch size bag which i LOVE and used it on the raceday .... pic below!
  

• Ralph Lauren Polos- i bought so many things there... 3 polo shirts (only 30 pounds each!!! RRP 70!) and also a sweater--- i loveeee loveeee loveee their white/ cream colour sweaters! and steph bought his hoodie and a couple polo shirts there... i bought a poloshirt with a big horse for S last christmas and it was like 1170 in HK.. its like half priced there (men's poloshirts with large horse logo are more expensive.. forgot exact price)
• Brooks brother's polo tees were on offer and were only 29 pounds each.. we bought a few and i bought some for my dad and uncles... though the sizes were limited... and the sales have pretty bad service... meehhh
• Lacoste was good too.. steph bought a few things from there... i wanted to buy some shirts for my dad and uncles/ cousins since they were reasonably priced but i just did not know which size to get!MEHHH
• Jimmy Choo was a WOW though didn't buy any shoes from there.. i saw a pair that i loved so much and wasn't too expensive for a pair of jimmy choo but still.... didn't have my size :( i even saw a lady wearing her wedding dress there to pick her wedding shoes!
• Prada's girl shoes were so pretty and i wasnted to buy some... they either didnt have my size or were too pricey for a pair with no much design...

urgh.. i cant even remember much about what else we bought! but we had so many shopping bags and had to combine some of them together so that we could carry them....

this is what we ended up with when we went back to Adam's house:

couldn't even close the bloody door :P

not meant to take pics (too busy too in fact) inside the village :P

Old Trafford Stadium Tour!

Sorry again for the lack of updates! nothing to do with our hectic tourist schedule, its all just cus we couldnt really be bothered and to be honest, we don't really have that much time to blog during our trip!

I have decided to set the date for the blog as the date on the day when we did the things so its not too confusing... :P

We went to Manchester for a day trip on monday 29th July... Steph being a big fan of Manchester United... this trip to manchester was definitely unavoidable. Despite the sunny and hot weather during the first week of our trip... it was pouring down with rain on monday... luckily we were indoor most of the time and it stopped raining pretty much everytime we were outdoor! feel quite blessed. <3

I have been to Manchester with my dear friend Jess once before when she studied in Liverpool but that was a totally different experience. That trip was pretty much full of shopping at the Trafford Centre :) i miss those good times so much!

We had to take a tram/ streetcar to the stadium and the stadium was a bit of a walk from the old trafford station... but we left home a bit late so we were already quite tight time. nevermind.

to be honest, i have never really been a big fan of football... of course i watched pretty much all of the SA World Cup on tv just cus i had nothing better to do and i watched the Portland Timbers played before... i have always thought that football was for hooligans but since i met steph, i have come to realise its more than just people running after a ball across a massive lawn... there's actually a lot of tactics and considerations that go into it. of course, i started paying more and more attention to Man United because of Chicharito...  he is just too cute... !!!!!!!!

Steph looked sooo happy when we were walking towards the stadium.. just like a little kid!!! hahaha i guess he would have been real disappointed if we were able to do this tour... talking about that, we almost couldn't book the tour... just cus we were too lazy and sloppy and it was almost fully booked!

ooops

we visited different parts of the stadium... it must be so amazing to be able to stand there on the pitch and have the crowd cheering for you! just a completely different experience! steph was kind of being my tour guide too by telling me the various things about the team... blah blah blah...

i guess i should leave him to provide more details since he is the real manchester united fan and i am just a +1. 

A few pics:

 the old man on the left is wearing full on Chelsea FC outfit... what the ...

End of the first week

After a bloody crazy wave of purchase in Bicester........
We got a lot that we want, but we also gave a lot that we want....
we went from 9:30am to 9:00pm, come back with more than 10 bags, so it's all you can imagine

The next morning we are off to Cambridge, it is an extremely nice city, except a bit far from the train station. I went punting with J, it was not as romantic as I thought, because the punter kept dripping water over us......but it was still a nice journey as we can see the most amazing buildings and colleges of Cambridge in the boat.

Then we were picked up by another nice couple to New Market, horse racing there was so much fun, I put 10 pounds on a horse in the last race, luckily the winning money was just enough to break even our losing bets earlier......There's a horse named Lucky Beggars, which won at the odds of 33-1, well, if only I trust my friends......sorry to the beggars

We had dinner in Cambridge with J's friends and we just managed to catch the train back to London in the last second, so close...............

This morning, we went to witness the daily guard changing ceremony in Buckingham Palace, it was stunning!!!

After then, the natural history museum was also a nice place to visit, then we met up with J's flat mates in Uni, i can tell she is very happy to see them by her face and non-stop talking, which I am happy to see.

Heading to Old Trafford tomorrow, excited now

3rd and 4th day in UK

hey guys
too tired to update the blog yesterday
I went to Bath with Jan, what a lovely city with beautiful and historical buildings.
In the city full of the scent of history, under the nice weather, we walked, shot and talked relaxing
Among the nice buildings, there are also a street of nice shops, so we did a bit of shopping there. Jan bought a red dress that she is still very proud of after one whole day. I bought some nice stuff from FCUK and a pair of shoes from Hush Puppies with 29 pounds (originally priced 75 pounds), what a bargain! After that, we went to meet up with Jan's dear friends and had a nice moment with them.

What I particularly want to mention is, the milkshake from Shakeaway is extremely awesome, someday I shall bring the brand to HK if there's an opportunity.

Today we went to Oxford in the morning, well, to me, it is just so so. Yet I still manage to buy some nice tees for my buddies. Afternoon, we went to The British Museum with Jan's friend, Jess. The museum is such a mess, sorry I use this word, but there's too much to see and too much for me to understand all the displays there. At night time, we went to visit Jan's uncle Tao, who runs a takeaway shop in Morden. They are really nice and welcoming, we ate a satisfying meal with special beer treat. Yum Yum....

Tomorrow, we are going to have a real battle in Bicester Village, well, my money and wallet are well prepared to take a serious fight there, see ya~!

Surely reliving my memories! Bath, somerset

24-7-2013

Sorry for the lack of updates!

We were in Bath on wednesday! I used to go to school near the city and i just wanted to show S what it's like to be in a historical city outside london and of course let him have a feel of the "countryside". Bath was beautiful as usual and the weather was still amazeballs.

We took the first great western train from Paddington and i kept telling S how i used to do a similar trip to london every half term. paddington is still the same ol' paddington. things are still where they should be (though there are some new shops around and new platforms). Our train was slightly delayed but oh wells, i am used to these kind of stupid delays. kept telling steph how these stupid train delays in london have turned me into a person that always knows to leave really early to be on time etc... you have gotta learn how to make allowance for time!

Bath is just sooo beautiful, again the weather did its tricks! i swear to god if i visit a place on a sunny day for the first time, i am bound to fall in love with that place whether its a shithole or not....

when i was a student, i have always thought Bath was just a town with a high street with a few shops, i never actually went around to explore the outskirts of the city... never realised there's a really pretty garden and churches etc. Of course, we said we were going there to do some sightseeing... we actually just shopped mostly! (bought a realllly pretty dress from FCUK for 39 pounds! BARGAIN... and S bought a pair of dress shoes from Hush Puppies for 29 pounds and they were 75 pounds originally!) MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!

then we met up with mummy dee and my english sister Sophie and her boyfriend steve for drinks and dinner at slug and. lettuce.  i felt excited n nervous at the same time cus i felt like i was bringing my boyfriend home to meet with my family for the first time!  :p it has been like six years since i saw sophie and even more than that since i saw denise.  sophie went through so much between these years and i felt bad not being able to be there for her.  if was sooooo good to catch up with them and i am pleased to hear that they said i have not changed at all.  hahahaha.  i really hope thats true :p say no to wrinkles. 

i just love love love sophie and her family. i wish i had more time so i can spend more time with them!