Turrrrrtle!

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn’t mention us
And the bible didn’t mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin’ on our heads
But they’re just old light, they’re just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I’d done alright
And kissed me ’til the mornin’ light, the mornin’ light
And he kissed me ’til the mornin’ light

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn’t bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn’t destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn’t mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

Not sure why I picked Spanish for a language back in college, French is so much cooler. So I’ve decided I will self study the language when I have time. Seems like a pretty hard task to do with so much in my plate atm but I will try learning it passively so it will slowly catch on. This means subscribing to a French podcast and talking to Alice in French more, she’ll probably enjoy me trying and encourage me.

So yeah. French. Here’s the things I need to do:

• Subscribe to french podcast
• Speak to Alice in french every now and then

After enjoying (enjoying?) a petite dejeuner, we took our local train station (cadet) to a less tourist infested location. One of the places I was recommended in seeing was café des duex moulins, the cafe that amelie worked in. The trip was pretty funny since we came across Stalingrad (had to take a photo of that). Once out of the station we started searching for the cafe, which we eventually did. The interior was however filmed in some (yes random, the director probably literally picked a studio name from a bag) random german studio. The cafe was pretty cosy. Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you count the giant poster of amelie staring at you as if she knows one of your dirty secrets (you know the one? ;)) as one. The cafe wasn’t shy of showing off the fact that it was a film location for Amelie (even though they only filmed the exterior), the giant poster aside, there were postcards of the gnome featured in the film and most importantly, “creme brulee de amelie poulin”.

I wonder what i got for dessert…

It had to be done. sorry folks. It was quite yum, Alice had a chocolate moose whilst we ordered coffee alongside that. There was a Japanese couple next to us who obviously went there for the same reason. They asked me what I ordered (because you know, you’re in Amelie’s cafe, you must order it). They did their normal tourist stuff whilst we pretty much did the minimal (I dunno, it’s not really cool when the interior wasn’t featured in the movie). We saw more tourists pop in and taking photos of them inside the cafe. After our morning dessert and coffee we paid up (the bill was extortionate) and went outside to take photos of the cafe. Pretty much after that we went next door to get a croissant haha.

Our next stop was Sacré Coeur, using our trusty map we began walking up town to find the place, we randomly bumped into Moulin Rouge. We sat around there for a bit whilst I finished off my croissant. After that we went and found some place for lunch (hungry bunch aren’t we?). We found a nice place selling baguettes and had our lunch there whilst it rained a bit. We headed off to Sacré Coeur, our final tourist place we were able to visit during our trip. We decided to enter the building first and then take photos outside afterwards (pretty much like Notre Dame). This place was quite similar to Notre Dame, however it seems like they weren’t keen on making this a tourist place. We did walk around, but didn’t take any photos. It was nice visiting cathedrals, regardless of whether you believe in religion, the atmosphere alone is clear and clean.

After exiting the building, we began take photos of the place, the sky was amazing today. Since the building was up on a hill, we also had a lovely view of Paris (another opportunity to take loads of photos :)). My camera pretty much died around this moment, I didn’t bring a charger so I just used Alice’s camera for some shots. After our photo session we went back down to our hotel to relax a bit and find some place for dinner. We arrived this station which was a lift down the hill. We assumed the lift would take us to a subway station where we can head home since it accepted the metro tickets. Little did we know the damn thing was JUST a lift. We had waste two tickets going down on a stupid lift. I would have happily walked if i knew this wasn’t a subway station. It was annoying because we were trying to minimise on the amount of tickets we used. We eventually found the station and went back to Cadet and to our hotel room. After chilling a bit we went out for dinner.

I promised Alice we’d go somewhere fancy for our last night. Our target was to find a place that served steak since the French do some pretty epic steaks. We thought this would be a walking mission since we didn’t want to go too far to find food since it’s our last night and we want to save our energy getting some sleep for tomorrow (especially Alice, travelling around Europe isn’t easy). It was really hard finding a damn French restaurant that made steak, we kept bumping into so many damn sushi places! It felt like New York all over again where the sushi bars ruled the city. We managed to bump into Hard Rock Cafe again but going to the same place twice isn’t cool for holidays. We did some more walking and found this pretty fancy place for steak. There was a combo deal on the menu that had steak and french fries for a pretty decent price. Once entering the place we realised that it was quite a fancy place. There was a piano in the far corner which was later occupied by a paid pianist (not me :() and the seats and interior were all fancy. We were quite scared we went into a posh place that would charge you by the nose. We weren’t even sure whether the breadsticks were free or not either. We had some breadrolls to start off with. We ordered our steaks from the combo deal, Alice told me about how the French cook their steaks, and that they REALLY underdo the thing, so if you want a medium rare steak, ask for a medium! And boy was she right! The steak was nice and pink, it was juicy and succulent, nom nom. It was a really fancy meal (what with the pianist and all). Really enjoyed this place (we were comparing it to the other places and felt this was one of the best nights for dinner). I’ve noticed that the entire trip we’ve been eating out in restaurants hehe, I suppose we ARE on a holiday (well not Alice, she’s touring, but I suppose her France stop was a holiday). The dreaded bill came out and we were pretty shocked on how honest it was, the breadsticks, weren’t on the bill and it said what we pretty much hoped it was. We paid up and walked back to the hotel to digest the food and sleep.

I believe that was it for the day. The next day wasn’t so fun since it rained and we had to part ways. Alice booked her tickets on the day but her targetted train time was all full so she had to take a later one, this meant she saw me off at Gare de Nord rather than me seeing her off at Gare de L’est. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. It was amazing to have such a lovely holiday with Alice. The entire holiday was jam packed with things to do, Alice was a star in doing all the planning work. Hopefully we can go on another holiday some time this year again, Berlin maybe?

Our first stop was Notre Dame, we arrived at the scene and it was blazing hot. I was glad I brought my sunglasses for this trip because the light was crazy. We entered Notre Dame and checked out a service along the way. There were some candles to light where you can make a prayer / wish. I lighted one and wished a nice long health for Alice (don’t think she knows). We then took some photos of the inside and enjoyed some hardcore organ action. The guy went nuts at the end when he played some clashing notes, most likely to fend off the tourists.

After that we went to check out the top of Notre Dame and take photos of the Gargoyles and the view of Paris. This was one of those attractions that require some walking. But after Eiffel Tower, I don’t think there’s any staircase we can’t climb (though I still think the one in covent garden is horrifically harder to climb than the other two). Whilst waiting in line to get into Notre Dame, there was a guy dressed up in a gargoyle type mask. It was horrific looking. He would sneak up to people and scare them. Alice almost jumped when she saw him hehe (she didn’t thought because she’s awesome). Afterwards it was just us watching him walk around scaring people. Some screamed, some patted his head, some tried to scare him back, but the best were when the girls screamed hehe. He would either try hold their hand, put their arms around them in place of their husband / boyfriend (one actually let him do it) or just walk right into them until someone screams. The whole thing lasted for half an hour and it did make the waiting a lot more bearable.

Once on top of the Notre Dame, the view was amazing. The sky was a lovely blue and the city felt cosy and little. I really liked the gargoyles, they behaved when we took photos of them. Especially the one resting his head in his hand. After a lot of photo’s we went back down and went to go get ice cream.
The trip was surreal, I think I stopped by for some croissants and baguettes at some point. I was beginning to enjoy these damn croissants. The baguette was nice too, the bread here is amazing (nice and fresh). I’d hate to be subway here. During our trip we managed to post alice’s postcards to her friends and family, at one point Alice went to the cash point machine to get some money. Unfortunately the machine was a bit gay and didn’t give Alice her money, but it displayed it in such away like it was processing it and nothing came out. Alice was worried that she had just lost that money but I reassured her that banks weren’t silly enough to malfunction like that and that her money was still in her account. I can see why she was worried though, it’s easier to believe it’s just the cash machine not giving you the money, but when you’re in a different country, you begin planning the worst. Anyway, the next day we find out that the money was fine so it was all good.

We went hunting for ice cream the entire afternoon, it was hot and Alice felt like an ice cream. We began exploring the place and just walked around until we stumbled into an ice cream shop. We eventually found one that sold all kinds of awesome flavours, including Tiramisu, Pino colada, coffee and some other weird flavours. I need to remember what Alice got but I think I ordered the 3 flavours I mentioned whilst she ordered Tiramisu and something else (yes I had 3 scoops, nom).

We eventually went to the Pompidou center to chill out and appreciate some contemporary art. The museum was pretty awesome. There was one film we saw that featured some guy talking about two stories, one was about a girl he met in Germany and one about how he shot some guy on the road. The story was mixed together, going from one story to the other and they were shown as stills. The fascinating bit of the stills were that they were done live, instead of a photograph, the actors / models were holding their position so you can see their subtle movements. The story was really interesting, the other side of the screen you can see the raw clips of the interview too.

Once we were done with the Pompidou center, our legs were knackered and we wanted to go eat before taking photos of the Louvre and Eiffel tower. We headed to Hard Rock Cafe, we found it yesterday and was hoping to visit there for some food. We also wanted to have a fancy dinner but couldn’t decide on whether this was the fancy dinner or not. Anyway, once we were there we were greeted with lovely English menu’s (wasn’t me, I looked like an authentic French person, with the stripy top and Beret) to order our food. We had two platters to share; they were both yummy and failing. It was pretty taxing eating so much meat, Alice had a craving for chips so we ordered a side order of that too. Food was yum and we had milkshakes for dessert (though we should of shared since it was quite rich). Afterwards we took off for the Louvre, it was unfortunately too late for the Eiffel Tower.

Once at the Louvre this was really where the tripod was put into use. Photos are so much nicer when you have a tripod at hand and was able to set the shutter speeds to 1 second etc. We did some light painting, took a few couple shots and had a lovely time. Alice was attacked by some tourists asking her to take photos of them. It started raining so we called it pretty much an evening and went back home. Outside our hotel there were a lot of drunk people congregating, you could hear them from our room, oh well. Anyway, sleep!
The last day we did some chilled out sight seeing, checking out where Amelie worked, random trip to Stalingrad, and ate some epic steak.

We started our morning with some breakfast, Alice brought her Jam along and used it to spread on her croissant whilst I enjoyed it with a touch of butter. The breakfast was the same as yesterday so we were pretty certain that the breakfast is going to be the same throughout. Today we were going to do some shopping at the Galeries Lafayete. This store was the equivalent to London’s Harrods or Selfridge’s, a big shopping centre with top quality brands selling top quality stuff at high high prices. We obviously didn’t buy much here but it was definitely fun to look at. Alice bought some nice jewellery and some postcards. Not much happened in the store expect for the story about this random French lady with two chicken fillets (which I’ll tell another day).

After that we tried finding the Opera house where good old Eric lives. It was quite close to the shopping centre and was a sight to see. The gold statues were pretty epic. One day I think I’ll have to book some tickets to check the Opera out, it’s just super fancy. The weather was nice and hot, you can start to taste another person’s sweat in the air. Anyway, afterwards we went for some Lunch. We went to a nice little sandwich shop which sold toasted baguettes. I had bacon whilst Alice had the ham, now the funny thing that struck me was whether or not there were much difference in a hot bacon and a hot ham sandwhich, we switched our sandwiches during the halfway mark (so we got a taste of both) and to be honest, you couldn’t really taste the difference (meat wise, the cheese was definitely distinguishable). I was starting to love baguettes and croissants in Paris, they take more time and effort to make these bad boys (what with the whole freshly baking them and all).

Afterwards we had a walk around the town, we saw a Zavvi and went in to check out Shrek. We noticed that there was a hard rock cafe close by I was keen on going there another evening to dine. Anyway, our next stop was the Arc de Triomph, and to get to there we took the Metro to Avenue Des Champs-élysées (see, I did the accents and all). It was a nice walk, some fancy shops to check out (including an Orange shop that sold iphones :P) and some fancy water fountain close by. At one point we noticed a very chavy east end Londoner next to us whilst we were crossing the road, it was hilarious hearing them speak. We did some impressions of it but none of us were able to re-enact the sheer stupidity of a east end accent.

When we arrived at the Arc we took some nice photos of it and went right under it for some tourist action. There was a giant flag hanging under the Arc which everyone had to get a photo of (otherwise you wouldn’t believe we were in France and all) and not to forget the swarm of tourists taking photos left right and centre. Alice wanted to wait a bit since it looked like they were holding an event for the veterans. Sadly the process dragged on for a bit and we decided to go home instead since we were tired from all the walking.

After getting a wee bit lost again (we were slowly getting used to the metro system (well alice anyway, I was just following her :$)) we arrive back in the hotel, hungry for some place to eat. Originally I had a leaflet for a place called Fukushimirmairmair (some Japanese place). With me, when I’m too lazy to finish off a word I tend to just make up some words. I would find the actual leaflet of it (have it somewhere) but I’m too lazy to spell it out correctly, I know however that the first 6-7 letters are correct. But yeah, the entire evening I keep calling it “f**k y*u mummas”. I really should read things properly, but meh, sometimes it’s fun making the end bit up. We looked at the place and they didn’t sell anything special, I was tempted to get some yakisoba and tempura action going on so we decided to go out and find a decent sushi place.

It was funny how there were so many sushi restaurants in Paris, it reminded me of New York and it’s crazy amounts of Sushi places too. Perhaps other countries are picking up the increased interest in sushi, that or we just kept walking into Sushi places. We ended up at this nice little sushi place we picked after a long walk around our neighbourhood. We were pretty amazed that they served stuff in proper boards and boats (kev went to one with boats too). The place was run by a cute chinese family (no way were they speaking in Japanese) where the son serves sushi AND does deliveries. He’s however only a japanese waiter when he puts on that apron. We found it funny how the apron became his identity for what role he was doing. Anyway, the food was amazing, we had some yakisoba, prawn tempura (YUM!) and a nice selection of sushi / yakitori. Alice really enjoyed the sushi there and understood what it meant when we had fish that melted in your mouth. The rice was nice and warm and the fish was cold which made it perfect for some fish melting action (unlike places where the rice is cold because it’s left in the refrigerator). We paid the bill and went back to the hotel for the rest of the evening.

Each day was jam packed with events and places to visit and take photos of, most of which will pretty much give you an idea of what we done for the 5 nights in Paris. So lets begin with the evening where I arrive in Paris after work and the next day where we visit the Louvre and Eiffel Tower.

Its weird sleeping in London and waking up in Paris
Getting there was pretty easy, I left work very early to ensure I wasn’t going to miss the Eurostar, I was told that I needed to be 30 minutes early to ensure I was checked in and everything. The train was at 6pm but I arrived at 4.45pm, slightly early but just in time for some last minute money exchange (thought I needed some emergency funds and didn’t want to go near any cashpoint machines). Once that was done it was straight to St Pancras to be checked in and frisked by security for metallic objects (not really, not going to be a dumbass and make those machines bleep).

I remember travelling on St Pancras, oh how things have changed now, everything is more done up and the station is now sporting a glassy exterior look. When boarding on the train I was able to use one of those ultra slow flat escalators (which always reminds me of the gun scene in die hard 2) that took forever to reach its destination (and you couldn’t walk yourself because there’s ALWAYS someone who blocks the “walking” path so you have no means but to whistle behind them so that they get the point and move out of the way, in this case I just told them to move it hehe). Anyway, once that’s all done I was in the Eurostar, painfully accompanying some guy who had a Mac Book Pro with him, playing Crysis on dual booted windows (grr), I went online for a bit and then fell asleep. Its weird sleeping in London and waking up in Paris.

Gare de Nord and meeting Alice

Upon waking up in Paris, I immediately notice a few things; there are double decker trains, impressive (for people who haven’t seen double decker trains)! Alice was waiting at the platform and it was just amazing to see her again :). We went back to the hotel and along the way, I got some sushi to takeaway since I was hungry, Alice had already eaten but she did have a cheeky taste on some. Our hotel was tiny in a cute way, the reviews really put me off at first saying how small and tiny it is but it was grand! Granted the hotel I stayed in at New York was amazing (3 star hotel too, but with a 32 inch LCD and a marble bathroom, as well as a safe, iron and other bits and bobs) but nonetheless my expectations of a hotel room was one that had a bed since I can sleep on a flight of stairs if needs be (haha!). So yeah, it was a tiring evening and there were lots to do tomorrow so we called it a night. BAM!

Morning’s here! The morning’s here! Sunshine is here!

Woke up nice and early (well we had to). Alice ordered breakfast in the canteen for the time we were staying in the hotel so we didn’t need to find a place to eat. Personally I would have opted to eat outside but it was nice being able to just wake up and head down for breakfast. The lift was epically TINY! It could only fit 3 people and it was one of those retro lifts where you had to open a door to get into the lift. The breakfast at the hotel was simple, just cornflakes, coffee, one croissant, one breadroll, eggs and other bits of continental stuff. It wasn’t really a buffet since we were given croissants when we sat down so we couldn’t get seconds, but nonetheless it was alright. Alice wasn’t too fond of croissants (neither was I to be honest (there’s a whole story behind it all)) but we ate them anyway, Alice wanted some strawberry jam on it and the ones in the basket were yuck. I rather enjoyed the croissant strangely, perhaps having NICE French croissants instead of the soft and prepacked croissants you get in Sainsburys was why? Anyway, that’s all from breakfast, time to head to the Louvre.

Hotel des Invalides

We found these trees and decided to take photos around it.

The louvre / lourve

This and the Eiffel tower were the two places we HAD to go during the trip, not attending is like going to Jerusalem and not visiting the Sexateria. We decided to head to the Louvre first since there’s usually a queue to enter and we wanted to appreciate the art before having it diluted and raped by tourists (a certain painting comes to mind). The louvre was renown for hosting several famous pieces of art in the world (a certain painting comes to mind) so it was only right to check them out, before that, random browsing at sculptures.

We got creative with the sculptures and decided to play a game of mimicking them, luckily noone was about in the sculptures section which meant we were able to execute the poses without much embarrassment (plus I don’t think visitors would appreciate me running away like a girl after being caught). We used whatever we had as props and did some rather funny shots and poses.

The visit was immense, as well as seeing that certain painting that comes to mind and the Venus de milo, we were pretty much “enriched” by the art. It was quite a lot to take in but nonetheless interesting as ever, the building itself was amazing, we went outside to take photos of it and did a few shots of us by it too (tourist shots for the win). We (when I say we, I meant just Alice) got attacked by tourists asking us (again alice) to take photos of them, I avoided confrontation with people and just went about and did my business. After that, it was straight to the Eiffel Tower for some painful stair climbing and touristing.

Want an Eiffel Tower keyring *ching ching*

What’s the first thing that comes into your mind when you think of the city “Paris”? Eiffel Tower? So where do you think 100% of all tourists go when they visit Paris? That’s right, the damn Tower, now before you question my statement of 100% tourists going to the Tower and tell me stories of people who went to Paris and didn’t see the Tower, well they’re not tourists so my fact is still correct. Anyway, the point was, this place is the tourist wallet magnet (not a magnet for your wallet :P), everyone’s trying to make a business out of the area. One type in particular are those who sell Eiffel Tower keyrings. They reminded me of the folks who hand people the London Lite or The London Paper in that sometimes you just want to beat the crap out of them with whatever they’re selling (in this case, their Eiffel Tower merchandise). The feeling of beating them up with their own merchandise rose when they approached you and shook their damn ring of Eiffel Towers (the keyrings were all attached to a giant metal ring so you could carry them in one hand, and shake them to get people’s attention / make them hit you). The whole system made me sick, I’m surprised a few people actually bought them, though I was more annoyed in how they could just shake their ring as a sign of salesmanship (or the international language of “buy my damn Eiffel Tower, I speak your language therefore you are like a brother to me and I’d only offer my brother an offer that juicy that you cannot refuse”. So yeah, I obviously steered clear of these people (in case I gave one the old one-two) and just focused on taking the odd photo of the Tower.

Man it was hard taking photos of the place, my kit lens couldn’t handle it so I had to make compromises in how I composed the shots. They turned out pretty well I must say, me and Alice then queued up to climb the Eiffel Tower. There was a lift service but we felt that was cheating (plus it was for losers) and made sure we climbed every step of the tower (well I occasionally skipped a step so don’t read into the line too much). The queue was pretty long but eventually we made it, you would think the queue would be pretty quick but these cashiers had to service loads of tourists who don’t necessarily speak French (or English in some cases). Luckily Alice was my translator for the entire trip. She was pretty amazing at it and didn’t have trouble in talking to the natives.

The painful painful climb through the tower

Boy those stairs were painful, and to climb them with tight jeans was just suicide. Once arriving to the first level, we stopped for a quick break and croissant. The prices were high but not as crazy as I expected (though 3 euros for a cup of coke was a bit too much). After finishing off the croissant with loads of crumbs in the floor, we went and took some photos of the place and continued our journey to level 2. We were now more prepared on the stair climb. I wasn’t that put off by it since I swear the stairs in covent garden were more painful to climb. Once at the second level we took some more photos and continued to the top of the towerrgh.

Queuing was pretty painful, once at the top the view was pretty epic, it was nice and sunny so it was perfect to view and take photos of. We weren’t at the top for long, we then began our descend back to ground level. Along the way we were able to pay a visit to the gift shop. I bought Alice a small Eiffel Tower since she sent me one ages ago and I had promised to give her one back. It was nice to make those promises and eventually do them. There was a wee problem though, the new Eiffel Towers had the word “Paris” printed on it. It was so ugly, I mean, do you really need the word “Paris” to show that the Eiffel Tower is in Paris? Maybe the level of sophisticated tourists *shuffles lapel* is on a decline. I eventually looked a few other gift shots and got Alice an Eiffel Tower with the word Paris more subtly written on the tower. Once back down on the tower, we took a few shots of us behind the tower.

Start stirring that egg

After Eiffel tower we started to get painfully lost in the metro system, the damn double decker buses kept stopping out of nowhere leaving us confused to where we were suppose to go. We eventually asked a member of staff for directions and found our way back to the hotel. We then went hunting for pizza, Alice had a strong craving for it so we walked around our hotel neighbourhood to find one. We eventually found a cute little Pizza place and decided to dine there. Alice ordered her Pizza whilst I got a nice spagnola with carbonara sauce. It came with a cracked egg which I had to pour and stir away before eating (which was fun) and yeah, the meal was nice. We were a bit peckish still afterwards so we went to a supermarket and got some croissants to eat at the hotel room. Alice also bought some jam since the jam this morning was horrific and we were intending on bringing it to the table for breakfast too. I think that was it for tonight, our feet were knackered from all the walking in the museum (4 hours worth) and more walking up the Eiffel tower (my legs were shaking after climbing down the tower (as Alice noted)).

So yeah, next day involves a shopping trip and visiting the Arc de Triomph.

Anyhow, here’s a list of things I need to bring/pack/buy:

• Tickets
• Passport
• Wallet
• Phone (emergancies and pre/post paris)
• Euro adaptors (got 2 woo)
• Euros
• Tripod and remote/ext (want to take some scenary shots with me and Alice in them)
• dslr with all memory cards (raw baby)
• Clothes
• Toothbrush etc
• ipod
• ipod charger adaptor (phone and ipod uses usb!)

Here are places to go and things to do, feel free to suggest anything, Alice won’t read this hehe:

• Eiffel fucking tower
• Take stereotypical photo of it and perhaps lash kev’s photo of it
• Go cafe’ing inside Eiffel
• Buy a small eiffel tower for Alice
• The lourve
• That arc thingy
• Buy a beret! Need to look like a native french person :p
• Make fists with feet on carpet, die hard style (not plane trip but meh, it’s a tradition)
• Try a snail nigiri
• Some candlelit action, either small restaurant or picnic
• french bread, nom nom
• check out opera house del phantom

Update

Well, I actually did everything I put on the list so that’s pretty epic

I really like uka’s green walls, wish I could pull it off in my room, but I get the feeling I’d go crazy if I spent too much time around it (even though green is my favourite colour) Right now my walls are nice and blue and they make me feel quite calm :).

So yeah, will be taking photos of Paris trip like a motherbitch, any ideas of where to go? Except the dead obvious ones. The plan was to originally meet up at the Eiffel Tower (not at the station, bang on at the Tower) but hey, we’re practical people and I’m arriving after work so I’ll be seeing Alice at the station. Will be fun!

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).