Anyway, before and after the event me and Alice had our time off together, Alice wasn’t too happy about leaving her job but had to so she could go travel. Hopefully that all pans out right. We were able to prepare loads of stuff since Alice was leaving very soon. On the duck day me, Alice and Inn met up a wee bit for some random browsing and whatnot. Alice wanted to do a makeover with Mac but that backfired when booking was required, same with Body Shop, shame because it would have been fun watching! Inn also got some food before the duck event. We then chilled out at a starbucks where we met up with Gem and Paul.

After getting a wee bit impatient we decided to just go red chilli and chill out there. We managed to get ourselves a big table that had a lazy susan in the middle. Was a good thing since there was quite a lot of people eating and spinning food around was a good idea. (it’s ALWAYS a good idea). After some bantering kev and her sister finally arrive. We began the ever so painful process of choosing food and eventually we picked a few starters and that duck (whole variety)

The duck was epic, granted Inn wasn’t as chuffed but man it was epic haha. We had a lovely soup too and the others had spring rolls and, some cake and a hot and sour soup (all for kev, though he shared). The main course was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, I ordered the hot pot, kev ordered the sizzling beef, paul ordered some chicken and spring onion dish, alice ordered some chicken dish too and inn had to be alternative by ordering some braised pork trotter (which was some slowly cooked pork so the meat is soft (but salty).

The chicken dishes were highly accepted as well as the sizzling beef. Food was slowly but surely consumed and we even cracked a bottle of champagne (well I did, hardly anyone could drink because they were all driving or didn’t want to drink too much! Rats). I got it from work and had to find a way of using it, not going to just sit on my own and guzzle it haha.

So yeah, we got some nice orange wedges to finish off (everyone ruined their oranges by not eating it the right way (bit like eating sweetcorn too)) and boom, the bill. It was a lot less than we expected which was good and I paid almost half of it since it was meant to be a treat as well as me helping to pay Alice’s portion.

So the moral of the story is, eating is cool. Me and alice took alice’s family to go eat at Red Chilli again so we were able to enjoy a double heaping of duck! They were chuffed about the food too since we ordered some epic dishes (including soft shell crab mm).

Anyway once at the place we were told to wait for an hour for a table, this was a bummer since we went to Leeds just for this, loads of people didn’t bother getting a table because of this, I was persistent and eventually we got a table within 15 minutes, turns out the predicted hour is simply what you should expect to wait for and not an accurate measurement of when you’ll get your table, ho hum.

We ordered a lovely Peking duck at Red Chilli, we were both very hungry and was determined to get some duck action. Anyway, there were two n00bish tables next to us, I already got an idea that they had no idea on what to get and will most likely eat set menu stuff, most of which had “Crispy Aromatic Duck”. Take note that it’s simply NOT peking duck, Peking ducks are roasted nicely and sliced up right in front of you by some fat chef (which makes you wonder why he’s always fat hehe) whilst the crispy variety only involves deep frying some duck and having the waiter/waitress “shred” it for you, it’s a lot more dry and has a dull deep fried brown look contrary to the nice golden glossy orange look.

Anyway, we were sat in some corner and the two n00b tables were placed in a way that our fat chef couldn’t come cut the duck right next to us. In comes the hilarious bit… Since the chef couldn’t cut the duck next to us he had to do it between both the tables, when the duck arrived both tables were staring at our duck being sliced up, one even took photos. They thought it was their duck since it’s being cut up next to them despite the waitress handing us the pancakes. Both tables just finished their starters so you can’t blame their gullible selves that they thought this was their duck. After some slicing the moment came, they served US the duck. Their faces were disappointed but by the looks of it they looked like they were expecting to get the same, this was when the waiter came and placed a lovely dull brown duck on their table. The reactions were priceless! Not to mention we got to see for both tables. Lesson of the day, Peking = win, Crispy = fail, thinking you’re getting a peking duck but getting a crispy = double fail

I met up with everyone at Victoria, they decided to go sushi it so yeah. I said hello to everyone and tried shaking everyone’s hand. I showed off my new york hat and gave people some “Kisses” chocolate. The meal was pretty nice and then we went to get Stu’s ticket at National Express, I ended up doing it on the phone but nonetheless we got stu out of the door haha. We then went to Covent Garden and checked out some boring street performer as well as cyber candy. I got people to take the stairs since it was quite a gruelling walk!

Afterwards we went to funland, that was.. fun, we had some bumper car action and I did some DDR’ing. Afterwards we went back to Victoria to meet up with stu and have some nando’s action. I took some photos here and there and tried to abuse the 50mm lens.

After meeting up with Stu we went to find the nando’s, I used my google maps app on my phone to locate it but the problem was finding out where we were in the first place, eventually we got there and found out it was packed and it might take 20-30 minutes for a table to be ready, we went to the pub next door to chill out and scream at passers by, eventually we get our seats at Nando’s and had a lovely meal, I ordered two jugs of sangria to treat everyone. We played a few games of “I never” and abused my nando’s loyalty card to get some extra chicken. The meetup was quite fun and ended at Wetherspoons. Max kept playing with his new compact Canon camera bless. I got back home and had an epic sleep! ready for work!

The graduation itself was pretty boring, it was fun wearing the fancy graduation robe, but my part went quite quickly… a bit too quickly one might say, I was literally the SECOND person to receive my certificate. First class students get to go on stage first ;). But yeah the rest of the event was spent listening to a bunch of imbeciles hoot their fellow students when they received their awards, I mean, it’s a formal event, we’re at the Barbican, dressed up in robes and hooting? wtf? Ah well. The highlight of the graduation event (me picking up my award aside) was the fact that Mark Shuttleworth (founder of ubuntu) was there to make a speech! That was pretty epic. I spoke to a few students but kept it simple.

We went to hardwok cafe afterwards, Alice had never tried it and it was lunchtime so it made sense hehe. We managed to get the last of the yummy hardwok food, I had a Thai Red Curry (per usual) and Alice had a chicken in black bean sauce. We ate outside the place and had Krispy Kremes for dessert. Alice finally understood why I kept raving about hardwok cafe (if only the rest got it). Later on that evening we met up with Jason and Rachel for ANOTHER Royal China. We went to a Caffe Nero beforehand since it was a wee bit early and there we talked about how “judge judy” was the ONLY famous judge. Rachel said that there was another famous judge called “judge brown”. It was hard trying to make her crack that it was a lie since she kept building up a more and more elaborate lie about who judge brown was and what he did that made him so famous, it got to a point where Rachel said she was in contact with him and that he was her father. After a the battle of judge brown we headed to Royal China for our grub. This time we ordered a half duck to feast on as well as some dim sum dishes and awesome seafood noodles / ho fun. The meal was epic as ever (especially when we got ourselves some scallops action too) and though it was about £20 odd per head, it was a yummy meal! Afterwards we settled in the Natural Cafe and had a lovely chat like before.

The next day we had a meal at Wagamamma and spent the rest of the day at Central London, I took Alice to loads of places including Cyber Candy at Covent Garden and the Apple Store (beautiful landmark). It was disturbing how we managed to get a lot of things done, we also went to china town and got ourselves… ANOTHER duck haha, this time I went into a restaurant and ordered one cut up for din dins, it came to £14 which was amazing! We went to picadilly circus to so Alice could take the ubiquitous shot of the lights (not as epic as times square though).

Sunday we had a lovely meal with my dad and then spent the rest of the day watching Harry Potter (we managed to watch Sliding doors at one of the days too, it was a must!). We also watched Kill Bill and had a lovely meal at home. The next day Alice went back up north and I went to work again, it was a lovely day but it was always a bummer going to work and ONLY just departing with Alice. Ah well

I also got an awesome KATAMARI BIRTHDAY cake!

It was nice watching everyone give and receive presents on Xmas day, I managed to get Alice a lovely ipod since she was thinking of getting one in the first place, granted she did pay for the warranty and chipped in £30 for it, so I suppose it wasn’t a full present :$. I was also able to check out Ikea for the first time up north, they do awesome £1 breakfast though I got myself a double breakfast since it was so cheap, the furniture was pretty awesome and I can see why people love it so much. I got Alice to get some finger puppets since they looked flippin’ awesome.

We were also able to do a quick Gourmet Burger Kitchen visit with kev and have some bingo action in Leeds, I picked a lovely BUFFALO burger which was new on the menu. It was pricey as fuck but was pretty amazing, nice and juicey. Besides it’s BUFFALO, who can resist (yup, I see you salivating you veggies haha kidding). Kev and Alice were pretty impressed by GBK too, Alice had a Oreo milkshake too which was new on the menu. Bingo night wasn’t too much of a success since we missed the early thingy and wasn’t able to win much. It’s getting slightly frustrating because it’s almost that we’re playing to win and not for the fun anymore, though it’s been a while since we’ve won and I’m dying to say “GWAR” to everyone. Maybe Inn stole all the win from everyone

The last day up north was spent at Nando’s before my train arrived, it was a lovely meal, we hadn’t had Nando’s for some time so it was pretty cool. The train journeys were spent surfing on my new E61i phone, was able to use fring as well as surf on sites via Opera Mini.

I’m not sure how we spent our evening and morning but I believe we did have an amazing breakfast! We bought everything we needed to make the perfect full english breakfast and got delayed for the actual event that Max and Aino organised. I believe we did quite a fair bit of smash brothering too which made us disturbingly late, no worries though since we’re the host I guess *shrugs*. Passing Brent Cross I was able to smuggle myself a black DS Lite for Stu whilst Karis and Inn were able to distract Stu for a bit.

We arrived at Regent Street pretty late and finally found everyone, we then headed to a very packed Oxford Street finding the restaurant. We were going to have tapas at a place called La Tasca. Quite a fair amount of people were about which was fun and we had a lovely seat booked and all.

The meal was alright, paella was just wet rice and bits of stuff however we did order a fair amount of stuff and in the end, the bill was a joke. It came to £200+ and people were simply gobsmacked by it, it was rather awkward for people, especially when some were refusing to pay any more. Me and Alice decided to save the day by pitching in the rest so everyone was able to pay the bill and avoid embarrassment. But boy Max and Aino aren’t planning any meetups in the future. Tapas is a 2 person event, not suitable for orgies.

The rest of the weekend was spent with Alice, we met up with Jason and Rachel and had some yum yum dim sum at Royal China, I chose this place because Jason and Rachel previously took me to “Ping Pong” to have dim sum when I told them that Royal China is a nicer place and do a wider range of dim sum. So yeah, it was a pretty epic meal at a far less scary price (especially when Jason and Rachel could afford it all hehe). I was very pissed off that we didn’t get free oranges! They usually do it so

We went into the Natural Cafe to sit around and chat for the rest of the day, Jason got me an orange to eat hehe. Was always nice seeing Jason and Rachel, Alice got on well with them too so it was all good We then called it a night and that was that day.

The day after I had to go work and Alice had to return back up north, we said our farewells at Monument and that was the weekend. Lesson of the day, don’t get tapas. Stick with a golden crispy fucking duck haha.

Yo Sushi and a very late stu

Upon arriving fashionable late I met up with Kazzie and got a seat at Yo Sushi! We were still waiting for Stu to arrive so we just sat around and drank some green tea, I ordered some cold dishes so that they were immediately ready when Stu was about and Kazzie ordered a chicken yakisoba to eat. The wait was pretty long as I believe Stu was almost an hour late. We eventually got nice and cosy and ate our food, Kazzie promised Stu that if he came today she would eat a Salmon Nigiri so we ordered just that (I persuaded her to do it so I could have her nigiri if she couldn’t finish the other one off hehe). The dish arrived and kazzie actually kept her promise and ate the thing. Though it’s nothing for us (me, alice, inn, kev and loads others), it was quite remarkable that Kazzie did eat raw salmon when she didn’t like fish in general!

I ordered a salmon skin hand roll, a tamago nigiri and a beef ramen which kept the bill nice and small (should of got a rainbow combo to be honest). I mentioned the gig I was going and Kazzie and Stu were pretty much up for it, we were then contemplating what to do between the gig and after Yo Sushi! After paying the bill and leaving victoria we headed off to the Apple store in Regent Street to have a look at the new ipods as well as perv at the iMacs. Stu did some research and found out that imax were showing Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix in a hour and a bit so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Harry Potter! The difference was that it was at the imax (one of the biggest screens in the UK) and the last battle scene was in 3D! I think the idea of watching it all in 3D was too much to miss so we went to waterloo to pay imax a visit.

mmm Dumbledore in 3d

We were given large specs at imax and were able to buy decent tickets to the show and all. We were also able to catch a few 3d trailers to really enjoy the 3d experience, it was amazing! Things were popping out right in front of you and stuff, it just made us desperate to see what 3d harry potter had to offer!

The film was amazing, if you exclude hermione’s moving eyebrows, kazzie’s constant giggling about them, the large number of discrepancies from the film and the book and the fact that our seats were slightly to the left. The 3d bit however was flawless, it was amazing watching it all in 3d. The best bit was when Dumbledore was fighting Voldermort. Stu laughed at Dumbledore’s whipping wand technique and I was just gormless when the the glass at the ministry of magic shattered. It was all pretty jaw dropping when it was in 3d.

We are Physics! Did they goto the imax too?

After the film we decided to head off to the buffalo bar at Highbury Islington station. Stu decided that he was tired after watching Dumbledore in 3d so we left us at Euston. Kazzie brought her dslr camera so we were ready to take some lovely photos of the band at it. We met up with Michelle (who was with Caff) and headed to the venue to go check out the band. They were pretty amazing, really reminded me of Polysics as they were really jumpy and fun to watch. Photo taking was slightly tedious since the lighting was inconsistent and all. However with the help of flash I was able to take a few decent shots. The guitarist was wearing 3d specs which led me to believe that they might have went to see Harry Potter too haha.

After the gig there was also another band playing but due to time we had to leave at 11pm, was a shame since I wouldn’t mind watching them myself (they’re headling and all). But yeah, the venue was pretty far away from where I lived so it was best to call it a night instead of risking taking a painful night bus back home!

Visiting Burley Park

As well as spending time with Alice, I had also booked time to go visit my brother since I was only going to Leeds Festival for the day whilst Alice was going for the entire weekend with her friends. So once Alice was all packed up and ready to head to Leeds festival with her friends, I had to bid her farewell for the day and head off to my brothers place to stay. I was to set off from Huddersfield to Burley Park to meet up with my brother (who was currently doing a bit of shopping).

Once meeting up with him I went to his den to check out the state of it (they’ve recently moved houses and now live in a cosy house with a spare guest room which I was going to be staying in). His house was definitely a lot nicer than the previous one. I’ve noticed that he’s got a few new toys to play with, including a Silverburst Les Paul guitar, his POD XT Live and his bloody Mac Book Pro. There wasn’t much to do at his place though, I luckily brought my Wii over to play around with (otherwise it would have been boring) and he got to have a go at it and test out on whether he’d want to buy one afterwards. I also had a go on his Mac Book Pro, it was pretty awesome, however the problem was that all he did on it was browse the internet. Any £300 laptop PC could do that! I thought it was quite a waste to just buy it for the purpose of browsing the internet. I was expecting him to use photoshop or making music via Garageband or Logic, but noo. Just browsing.

Food wasn’t too exciting, lots of oven baked food haha, I wasn’t use to it to be fair, I talked about restaurants he liked going to and he mentioned a place called Red Chilli which was a proper fancy Chinese Restaurant. At some point he was going to show why Red Chilli was an awesome place and all. I told him about Lucky Dragon but he didn’t seem to like the idea about it and thought it was too much of a Takeaway kind of restaurant. Later on my brother had guests and all so I slowly but surely went back to my room to play with my laptop. I did socialise a bit with them but I’m getting the feeling that they’d prefer their own company and all. Anyway, I had Leeds festival to look forward to and all.

Arriving at Leeds Festival

Arriving there was nice, managed to pop by at kev’s place for a bit before heading off to Leeds, originally I was going to have a quick trip to Wokmania and stock up on food but turns out Wokmania wasn’t opened yet so I changed the plan and bought some meal deal lunch at Boots. I knew the importance of food during festivals so I made sure I was nice and full during the day so a decent lunch was required, wasn’t too bothered about dinner since we were all (kev, inn and me) planning on getting a curry after the festival. Inn was going to drive us to the site so once I met up with kev it was a matter of waiting for inn to arrive. After a quick banter at kev’s place we headed off to the festival. Inn was familiar with the route so it wasn’t a painful journey and all.

The trek back to the car

Once there we parked ourselves at the Brown parking overflow place, Inn managed to take down some landmarks to remember where we were and all. The trek to the site was a pretty long one, there was a lot of moaning involved of a trek that seemed like forever, we eventually got there and got our wristbands. I phoned alice and told her to come and meet us. We got into the venue ok (smuggled my DSLR camera as well as a daddio telezoom lens!) and met up with Alice. As I was trying to take photos of the ferris wheel I discover that I had forgot to put my battery in my camera! ARGH! Luckily inn had her DSLR in her car so me and Alice (alice was being ultra nice) had a lovely trek back to the car to retrieve her battery and all. Kev also wanted his Ribena back too and I also wanted to leave my top in the car too. It wasn’t too painful of a trek since I was with Alice and all, finding the car was a pain though. Had to rely on Inn texting us about landmarks and stuff. Eventually we found it and were able to head back to meet up with inn and kev who didn’t really see much since we were gone.

He who must not be named

I wasn’t bothered about who we saw before Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins so I pretty much saw whatever everyone in the group saw (think that was the same case with Alice and Inn) so kev pretty much led us around places to see random bands. We saw the Cancer Bats purely because their name had the word “Cancer” in it. We also saw a bit of the Maccabees which was fun, another band which vividly stands out in my experience that day was the band “The Dwarves”. We had no idea what they were like but we had a look anyway. Lets say theres a lot of nakedness. A lot of nakedness. The guitarist, “He who must not be named” was all kinds of naked. Well thats a lie, he did wear a mask haha. It was quite a sight haha, especially when he got up on the amps and started to pleasure himself in front of the crowd (thank god his…thing.. was shy). There was also the bassist who was dressed up as a priest who spent most of the gig with a bass amp fault. It was funny watching them try and fix it and then half way through the singer went “I don’t need bass!” haha. So yeah, pretty random.

Revenge of the Refried Beans

After that we decided to go to the main stage to check out Fall Out Boy and the other bands after them (Kev wanted to see Fall Out Boy). We weren’t really paying attention to Fall Out Boy and spent the time eating our lunch and all. I was surprised that I managed to smuggle my bottle of Innocent Smoothie into the venue and all, it went down well with my all day breakfast sandwich. After fall out boy kev wanted to go and buy a taco (grande) since he was feeling hungry. I advised him that tacos weren’t exactly the best food you’d eat in a festival, he was asking for some proper bowl movements and all, and this is what he got.

After Fall Out Boy came Lostprophets, we began to make our way to the front of the main stage since the rest of the bands we wanted to see were on the Main Stage. We manage to catch a quick glimpse of Kate Nash playing in some random tent as well as the all important trip to the toilet for kev after his taco grande. Lostprophets were fun, they mentioned about how little UK bands were playing tonight as well as getting a proper mosh pit going. I managed to take one decent photo of the lead singer which was good.

Nine inch nails and Smashing Pumpkins

I’ll keep this short (photos will occupy the rest of the post), after Lostprophets we began making our way to the front, the crowd were pretty tame so around the time Nine Inch Nails started we were pretty near the front, and when Smashing Pumpkins started, we were practically in front for it.

Nine Inch Nails were amazing tonight, they did play quite a lot of Year Zero songs as well as do an all synth stage to play a few synth exclusive songs (Me, I’m Not for example) I was really happy that they played Sin tonight as well, they ended with Head Like a Hole and Hurt. The Smashing Pumpkins were just as amazing, though only Billy and Jimmy were left in the band, they still did a pretty good job with their old stuff. Tonight Tonight was probably the best song from their set. I wasn’t too keen on how they went a bit too riff wanky at every song, just picture all their songs extended with big 5 minute instrumentals. Heavy Metal Machine was disturbingly long :/. Anyway, here’s some photos of the gig, I was really happy of the outcome since I was really far away from the stage.

Alice’s birthday and the trip back home

After the festival we exited the festival and went to Alice’s campsite for a bit, we were hoping to celebrate her birthday for a bit as well as have some cookies haha. The time spent there also meant that we wouldn’t have too much of a problem exiting the place since it was pretty packed with people leaving the place and all. After a nice chat and all, me kev and inn left the festival site and headed straight back to kev’s place, we were initially going to find a curry house to eat in but we were too late, everything was closed and all so our only hope was to order a takeaway at kev’s place. Once at kev’s place we decided to download the new episode of The IT crowd and watch it whilst we ate. I ordered a chicken madras, inn ordered a korma whilst kev ordered a lamb balti. Twas a yummy meal, though it was pretty hot stuff the madras (glad I didn’t get vindaloo). After consuming our dinner and watching the IT crowd we pretty much called it a night and went to sleep.

Back to Burley Park and Lucky Dragon action

Kev had already informed us that he had relatives visiting so we had to pretty much leave the place at around 11 odd. We cleared up the living room and stayed at kev’s room for a bit surfing around the muse board and all, once things got boring we decided to head off. I needed to head back to my brother’s place first to unload my stuff and have a nice shower before going back to Leeds for a meal with inn (she wanted Yo Sushi!). After a quick trip to Burley Park and a quick shower we headed to Leeds uni to park the car and head for Yo Sushi! However, along the way I managed to persuade inn that Yo Sushi! wasn’t really a good idea and that Lucky Dragon was the place to be. I finally managed to persuade inn to go and so we headed to Lucky Dragon and had a lovely dim sum meal. I knew what I was going to order since I already had that dim sum lunch with kev and alice. Inn on the other hand was a bit indecisive. The best bit was when we were issued Chinese menu’s and inn couldn’t read it at all. I helped order the with little help of the menu and managed to get a pretty decent dim sum set. The bill came out pretty nice, we only paid about £6 each and was pretty full from it all so it was pretty amazing. Afterwards we went to hunt for a present for Alice, I managed to get her a nice pair of earrings that were the invisibility stars in Mario. The next task was getting a nice box, card and stuff to stuff the box in, we managed to get some cotton balls in Boots for 39p so score! Once all that was done I said my goodbyes to inn as she headed back to kev’s place because she forgot her sleeping bag. The rest of the day was spent at my brother’s place, it was pretty boring, only got interesting the next day.

Red Chilli

The next day my brother proposed that we all went to Red Chilli to have a lovely meal. I immediately agreed since I was getting pretty bored in the house. We booked a table and headed off around 8pm odd. Once there I immediately saw why my brother liked Red Chilli, the place was pretty classy! Not only that, the food was more unique and old fashioned compared to your bog standard chinese restaurants. My brother was initially going to order the “True Love” dinner set which was £26 per head. I however persuaded everyone to get some duck instead since duck is always nice as well as the fact that most set menu’s aren’t exactly cheaper than when you order a la carte. We ordered some seafood soup, scallops (I didn’t get any though :() , half a duck and 3 dishes for main course (chicken with some spicy dip, some seafood dish and softshell crab). I was amazed at how cheap the soft shell crab was! The duck was amazing and everything else was lush! I was really impressed with the place and preferred it over Lucky Dragon (for meals anyway, they dont do Dim Sum here). The bill came to about £75 odd which wasn’t bad for a party of 5. Will definitely pay Red Chilli a visit when I’m out about in Leeds (and when I have money haha).

Reunited with Alice

After a lovely meal at Red Chilli the night before I went back to Huddersfield where I met up with Alice, apparently the people around her campsite went a bit crazy so Alice and her friends decided to get a lift from one of their parent’s and sleep in the comfort of a house rather then raving festival go’ers armed with lighters and other flammable objects. I met up with a very tired Alice at Huddersfield where we got a lift back to her place from her mum, Alice was absolutely tired from the festival but nonetheless glad to see me again :). Afterwards the remaining days were spent with Alice at her place watching films and recelebrating her birthday with the rest of her family. It was a pretty hectic and fun week. I left on the 30th and had another Yo Sushi! Meal.

Arriving at Stu’s place

Canterbury was fun. I was heading there for Stu’s housewarming party. I had only received a lovely package from Alice containing Harry Potter books that I was keen on start reading. For the hosuewarming party I pretty much brought the bare essentials. I knew we were going to the seaside but I decided against in bringing anything swim worthy like. Simply not my kind of thing haha. After a painful journey down to Canterbury (tube messed up which meant I had to take a different route and barely manage to get to the National Express coach).

I was to arrive on Friday night, though Inn Kazzie Christy and Stu were already there I was forced to go on Friday due to the fact that I have begun signing on haha (deary me). I was actually glad I didn’t go on Thursday since it sounded like a pretty hectic girly night in. Inn was petrified by the stuff people were doing (mainly involving watching high school musical and singing to some girly pop songs). Stu’s house was pretty decent for a student (sorry had to) house. I saw some really ungodly looking chocolate cake that looked like a brown frisbee as well as Kazzie’s silly spyro the dragon plush doll. We were waiting for Blee and Sarah to arrive before we got the party started.

4 Whole chickens

We wanted to buy some food to cook and consume so once they arrived (which they did) we immediately went shopping at the local 24 hour ASDA. As well as buying food for that night we also purchased some lovely BBQ food for the next day. At ASDA we manage to get some pretty awesome precooked BBQ chicken in the ready to eat section. Now here’s the best bit, they were only 70p! (odd) . You’ve got to love reduced items. We decided to buy 4 which would definitely be enough to feed a group of 6 meat eaters (Blee = Veggie).

Once back at stu’s place we unpacked and prepared the food for consuming. We didn’t really have much to serve the chicken with but we made do with beans and some chips. We made this meal pretty formal which meant everyone was wearing ties for the occasion. I ensured that the evening remained formal by applying some table formalities I learnt from Alice’s place hehe. As well as saying grace for the occasion, having a toast with our glasses, we also engaged in some typical table banter which involved me asking everyone how their day was.

The rest of the evening was spent playing the game “I never” as well as playing some hardcore video games. A lot of singster was involved tonight as well as a tedious game of Buzz to test our music trivial knowledge. I didn’t do too well I must say :(. The evening was spent playing a lot of Tetris DS as well as bantering whilst other people went to sleep. Tomorrow we were going to go to the seaside and have a BBQ, yum hehe.

Seaside and BBQ

I’m not particularly keen on seasides, they’re a bit boring for my liking You either get baked or get f**ked. I spent most of the time under the parasol. Not much to do, though it did seem like Kazzie was doing quite a lot of stuff that day including digging a big hole, buying a blow up raft and getting lost at sea (and then saved), getting buried inside her hole she dug up and almost suffocating inside it and other random bits and bobs. I pretty much sat around eating Kettle chips and chicken sandwiches prepared with shredded chicken we had last night. Seasside was however a cool place for taking photos, quite a lot of fun things you could do with sand and all.

After some crazy seaside action we decided to head off back to Stu’s place for some food since everyone was hungry. We were making sure we left early enough to avoid traffic as well as come back with enough time to actually get some BBQ action going.

The BBQ was pretty awesome, it was student BBQ so quite a lot of econo food was used, though I managed to get some hot and spicy wings involved (marinated in nando’s sauce typically). The burgers were probably the best in the bbq, especially with Nando’s BBQ sauce (yum yum). Sausages once again spat like crazy which meant we were to leave them last. It was pretty horrific to say the least, but eventually they were cooked and eaten. The bbq was alright but definitely not the best I’m afraid. We had loads of other food ready for tomorrow and we were keen on making it a proper full english breakfast. Since we bought a BBQ for stu we were able to BBQ the breakfast too.

The rest of the evening was spent playing the wii, a lot of Big Brain Academy was involved, we were split into teams and did brain quizes and sprints (seeing who answered all 24 questions first). The game was pretty intense and usually my team won hehe. The rest of the evening was spent playing an eye bleeding game of Mario Striker. I had recently bought that (so recent that it arrived yesterday). This game became pretty addictive for it’s mole killing features. The evening was pretty ace and eventually things settled down and it was back to some more sleeping.

BBQ Breakfast and Goodbyes

The morning after was a pretty awesome one. I was up nice and early followed by Blee (though I believe she might have woke up earlier than me (who knows)). We immediately got the BBQ going and started cooking the food up since people were generally lazy anyway. Blee did a pretty awesome job in cooking her food in the BBQ as well as helping me out to cook our food for the BBQ, I did all bits and bobs and slowly people began to wake up and helped out with the breakfast making. I took a sly route in terms of cooking so many sausages by simply precooking most of the stuff in the oven and then giving them a nice BBQ glaze. This was actually the slyer way to BBQ food, especially when theres quite a lot of food involved and not much cooking life in the charcoal.

Eventually the food was all ready and breakfast was served. It included loads of lovely bacon, sausages, hash browns, fried egg (me and inn got one since we prefer that to scrambled), scrambled egg, toast, beans, chicken wings (we had loads spare!) and some celebration juice (though that’s mainly for me and inn). The BBQ breakfast was quite a success and we had a lovely toast and all.

After breakfast we had a go at Mario Striker again (for quite a long time) and pretty much called it a day after that. We slowly began packing up stuff and all left Stu’s, Inn drove me and Kazzie back to Kazzie’s place where I got yet another lift to Watford Station via Kazzie’s mum and went back home. It was a pretty awesome house warming party, though parties involving the wii and BBQ’s are generally awesome (unless you have shit wii games and make shit BBQs).

12th July Arriving at Alice’s

Was the first time I’ve set foot into the Day household. I brought Alice a lovely rose (there’s a reason why it’s rose) and some white malteasers (don’t worry, the choice of chocolates get better in future haha!) since she’s never tried them. Other presents I got Alice included a Joseph CD and a little pot of lucky charms. Since I was anticipating that it was going to be a nice long week visit and I would be meeting up with other people (including Gem, Paul, Inn and Kev) I decided to buy some Krispy Kremes in Victoria station. They were pretty last minute and quite a burden to carry but nonetheless I brought it. The train journey was nice and I spent most of my time going online. I brought my laptop in case I’m left on my own or if we want to surf the web without using Alice’s house PC.

Immediately after seeing Alice my world started to light up, we headed straight back to her place and I managed to really make myself feel at home hehe. We initially wanted to go out to the moors to do some shouting and photo taking but the rain sort of got in the way (and I was tired from traveling). The day went pretty quickly and I was also able to meet most of Alice’s family who were really nice.

13th July: I’ll get you John McClain!

Today was a nice and chilled day at Alice’s place, I decided to venture in the Lucky charms I brought for Alice. We shared the pot and enjoyed the lovely sugar filled frosted goodness served with some nice greyish looking milk (got to love food colouring/dye from the marshmallows). Afterwards me, Alice and two of her brothers went off to Bradford to a buffet place called Annam’s. It’s been a while I’ve had a proper curry so it was quite a treat to visit the place. Immediately I notice a slight competition involved (maybe it was me) in how much food we can consume. I ate quite an ungodly amount and ended up going back about 5-6 times (it’s a buffet, that’s what you do haha).

Later on that evening we watched Die Hard 2. Not really a film to watch with the company of a girl but it’s Die Hard! One must appreciate that I didn’t get worked up and called people bitch right after the film haha.

14th July: Little Tokyo and Bingo

I’ve read Alice’s and Inn’s entry about this and boy it’s more detailed than mine, so it’s probably better to check theirs for details :p We were due to meet up with Inn, goto Little Tokyo to celebrate my results, then meet up with Kev, Paul and Gem and get into some good old bingo action!

Before meeting with Inn we went to Millies to buy her some cookies. I promised her that I’d get her some since she did encourage me a lot during my final year in terms of doing my work. Twas a little token of appreciation Of course the damn cookies were bloody tempting so I believe I did eat some myself (either before or after handing them to Inn). We met Inn at the Leeds Station carpark (slightly late) and got ourselves parked and ready to eat at Little Tokyo.

The food was pretty yummy one might say. Though I do feel like I paid far too much for it. I ordered a lovely prawn tempura bento box and enjoyed some lovely (and disturbingly meaty) prawn tempuras. I was quite jealous that the other two had loads of sushi to eat, it was a Japanese restaurant afterall hehe. I did do swopsies with inn on some sushi, she knew she was getting a good deal though since the tempura was just SO SO meaty hehe.

After Little Tokyo we went to meet up with Paul and Gem at Starbucks. We took a quick detour and went to Yummy Beads to see Katie in action haha. I had no idea why but hey, meeting people is fun so why not. Once there Alice instantly recognised her and pointed her out to me and Inn. We then acted a bit nonchalant (in a totally obvious way) and I decided that it was best for us to do some bead shopping. I always wanted to get a bumble bee bracelet made for myself so I thought now was the best time to get that done. I wasn’t too particularly keen on the yellow beads they had but nonetheless I asked Alice to make me one hehe. Once buying it inn approached Katie and told us who we were (before she started to thinking we were some weird stalkers haha). Twas a lovely chat (though I think I only said “hi”) and soon after we headed off to Starbucks.

Starbucks was fun, spent making bracelets and taking photos. I did a few photo challenges with Alice only to be lashed once again by her composition skills. We then met up with Paul and Gem and I shared some of my donuts to them. After a lovely drink and chat we decided to head off and lounge around for a bit before meeting up with kev and going to bingo. We ended up in WHSmiths for a bit and Gem was approached by some guranga people. I’m usually not keen on them, though thats probably because the London ones are a tad vicious when they approach you (they were waving a big chunky book at me and said it was for free, then when I had it they said they needed donations, then when I only donated £2 they said “well since your donation is a small one, how about taking this smaller book!” My mind was set on the big chunky book that I was supposed to get for free, though in all fairness, I wasn’t actually going to read it anyway haha. Gem was a pro at all things guranga, she had loads of guranga mechandise and was always accepted when she started shouting guranaga at the folks hehe. I had no idea what he was saying but all I know was that I had no money (most of which were spent on Little Tokyo or going to be spent on a vicious Bingo session that evening). After a quick lounge and magazine browse inside WHSmiths we went to Mecca bingo to meet up with Kev and Lindsy to do some bingo

Once at bingo we got Alice a new card (since she was new to it all). I decided to get myself a new one too since my other one was addressed to Bob Spektor. The reason why it’s not a good idea to go into a Bingo hall as someone else is due to the fact that IF you do win one of the grand prizes, no doubt you will be given a cheque rather than a wad of cash so best not risk it, not that I had the chance of winning but purely on the fact that I was uneasy all of the time last time knowing that if I did win I would have to give the bingo ticket to someone else to call!

Bingo was probably a bit too intense than usual! Me and Inn did claim our free panini and drinks we got from our vouchers as well as enjoy a £5 discount from our bingo tickets. Inn had some really manky cheese panini (purely because i picked the nice looking one) and it looked like industrial rubber dyed yellow than cheese. Mine was alright, a bit chewy but nonetheless, when compared to Inn’s monster of a panini, it was definitely a blessing of a panini haha. Right now for the bingo; it was going ok until some lady gave us her remaining tickets for us to play. It is extremely painful to play with another set of vouchers, you really need to work on the vouchers as fast as possible as well as ensuring that you do not miss a number. I missed it several times (then passed it on to kev who also missed it so many times) and yeah, was just painful. To makes situations worse inn spilled coke all over Lindsy’s side of teh table rendering her tickets as useless! Gem Paul and Alice tried to salvage the remaining tickets by taking them apart but it was simply a mess haha. Not only did we have a bit too many tickets to play with, but we also had to deal with the antics of people panicing over the spillage. Damn inn and her exceptionally good luck last time, it was a disaster waiting to happen (which Inn did state several times).

I think that was about it after the game, Kev won a fair amount of money for us to split between each other £35 I believe which we then spent on drinks (instead of a nando’s meal haha) Me and alice headed back to the Fax whilst the others said their fairwells

15th July Real Authentic Mongolian Cuisine

This was an awesome day, inn was bored at kev’s place since kev was doing his work so I suggested she come and drive to Halifax and we can find places to eat (yes we love eating food haha). I intially wanted people to go for some peking duck action but finding that in Halifax was proven extremely difficult. All they had were cheap chinese buffets that obviously didn’t sell peking duck (good ones anyway). We were losing hope and motivation in finding a decent place to eat when we decided to phone up Gem and see if she could recommend a good place to eat (as well as inviting her to come). Turns out Gem had just the kind of restaurant we would want to go. It wasn’t a chinese restaurant selling peking duck, it was a Mongolian buffet place called Temujin. It was quite a unique buffet since you’d pick all the ingredients and take it up to a chef who would cook the food up in front of you with their trusty woks.

I was definitely pleased about this place, seeing how Alice was agreeing with Gem on the phone was pretty much the main reason why I decided to go in the first place haha. Inn quickly drove us there and we enjoyed our lovely buffet meal with the addition of Gem and Paul. Inn had previously arranged a curry night with kev this evening so she decided that she would only eat a bit. She got tiger prawns (which were Buy One Get One Free) and we began to feast. Loads of combinations of sauces, oils and garnishes to choose from. I picked the right ones for a nice black bean sauce with noodles and beef hehe. But yeah, food was definitely good, we were very keen on trying the random meats that you wouldn’t normally see in restaurants, today they were serving crocodile. Just tasted like chicken hehe but was nice in filling up your food portfolio in weird things to eat hehe. After a nice meal and some bill complications (mainly inn and her abusing the buffet system haha) we headed back home and enjoyed some lounging about with nice and full tummies. I think I ate about 6 bowls

16th July The Lucky Dragon and the hunt for the Golden Peking Duck

Today was probably the best food day out of the week. We were initially going to go Yo Sushi! to try out the rainbow combo (£10 for a dish of each colour) There was a slight problem however with the trains in Halifax which made me and Alice late, by the time we were in Leeds most of the stores were closed, we were contemplating on going on Nando’s when an idea sprung to mind. The legendary duck hunt! We decided to give that another shot and since it was Leeds it should definitely be a lot easier to find than in Halifax (which is riddled with cheap chinese buffets). After a nice walk we eventually end up in China Town (it’s a pretty lame excuse to be called that though since it’s just a car park with a sign saying China Town haha). We had a look in there and a further look around the area to find nothing but buffets and some restaurant called “The Lucky Dragon”. The menu’s did look pretty nice though, and they DID sell Peking Duck, but it stated that a 24 hour notice was required. In the end we went into the restaurant to see if it was possible to order one without notice. Luckily it was possible! (woo!) We ordered some other bits and bobs including some yum yum dim sum and some chicken feet (for the sake of Alice haha). It was pretty funny watching Alice eat them! Kev and Inn seemed to enjoy it pretty much (kev’s first time) and I myself loved it. The duck was definitely the highlight of the evening though. It was amazing haha! I couldn’t get enough of the thing! It was placed on a plate of Prawn Crackers (which was funny since Kev ordered some too haha) and another dish was made from the remaining meat of the duck. It was an amazing meal and by far the most valued for money (I think we paid about £12 each!).

After a lovely duck meal we headed off to play some dirt cheap Bingo, we were pretty late so we were pretty much there for a laugh. Didn’t win anything though. We then went to Dr Wu’s for some random open mic night action and ended around Leeds station to do some hardcore tetris DS’ing. We’ve finally discovered the powers of 4 player tetris and was finding it more and more addictive of a game.

17th July Yo Sushi! and DIE HARD 4.0

We agreed from yesterday that Inn would stay at kev’s place for another night so we can go eat at Yo Sushi! the following day. Me and Alice arrived at the place slightly earlier than Inn and Kev. We sat down and had some tea before ordering a few dishes. Once inn and kev arrived we went at it with the ordering. It was funny looking at Kev’s menu, he had designed it using WordArt and was hoping it was the perfect combo. Unfortunately for kev most of his selection was compramised and he had to rethink what he was going to eat. He used a Bingo dabber to rewrite the combo on the back of the paper. Kev tried to impress the waitress serving us (Karen Wright: Ace Yo Sushi! Waitress haha) but she didn’t seem too impressed haha.

Food was amazing. I had a Salmon Skin hand roll, yakisoba, crunchy prawn maki roll, beef ramen, prawn gyoza and assorted tempura. Unfortunately the assorted tempura this time didn’t include soft shell crab :(. We ate and took photos of our food, was quite a fun day, followed by a nice and aggressive amount of Tetris DS’ing. After that it was time to leave and all so kev left us with his other mates whilst inn drove back home. Me and Alice thought going to Halifax now was a bit silly so we decided to head to the cinemas to watch… yes that’s right… DIE HARD 4.0! The film was amazing! Really lived up to the other Die Hards, once again John McClain saves the day haha. Theres apparently a Die Hard 5 planned so lets hope Bruce Willis gets into tip top shape for that one haha. After that we went back to Halifax and lounged about.

18th July Lounging about in Halifax

Was quite a quiet day, made a cake though

19th July More Yo Sushi! and me going back

Today was where I had to say goodbye to Alice. We decided to head into Leeds slightly early and just lounge around for a bit. Once there we decided to actually have another yo sushi! day! We ordered very similar meals and had a lovely meal and several games of tetris. Then we headed to a Nero and sat around there for a bit. Eventually it was time for me to board the train and all. It was pretty sad leaving Alice, she was going to go France the week after which meant we would spend 2 weeks odd apart. We said our goodbyes and I went back to London.

The week was definitely amazing, I really love where Alice lived and will definitely pay more visits to the place :).