Photos: 2014 Leading Into 2015

Hey guys.

I've been procrastinating again.

The excuse this time around is because I've been watching a really nice k-drama called Discovery Of Romance. I recommend everyone to watch it! In the last episode, there was a line that stated, "Romance is reality, not drama". And I was like, YESSS! This is why I love this series!
It's similar to It's Okay, It's Love, where every thing is more realistic than your typical k-dramas. No revenge, no one back-stabbing anyone, just nothing too over-dramatic. Also, the age range of the characters is similar to It's Okay It's Love where they are all in their 30s and therefore more mature. And I think people who have been in relationships would be able to relate to various situations in the story because it touched on many issues that couples go through in real life, like how it takes a lot of effort and sacrifices to maintain a good relationship together.
I grew to love each and every character in the drama, which is really rare for a k-drama where there's always bound to be a bad guy that everyone hates.
Plus, they wrapped up the story very well in the last episode, which a lot of k-dramas fail to do.

Basically, the story is about one girl needing to choose between two guys. And although you kinda know which guy she would choose in the end, the writers keep making you feel uncertain about it as the story goes along. And you will pity both guys at some point and then you'll pity the girl as well for having to make this decision, because she's a nice person who doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. But she knows where her heart lies in the end, or maybe she knew from the beginning.

Anyways, that's what I've been spending my time doing last week and therefore never got this post up until now. I just came back from my Team Up session and also made a trip to Sainsbury's for my groceries, and I can't have dinner until I finish this post!
I keep feeling like I need to have a wordy post up because, I just have some stuff I want to get out of my brain but that all depends on whether I can take out some time to get it done. For now, here's some photos from Christmas, the last few days of 2014 and some nice photos from the first two week of Jan 2015!

I think I mentioned before that I went over to my aunt's place for Christmas, this is a sneaky little photo I took of her on Christmas morning. keke I was texting Nigel at that time and I wanted to show him a photo of my aunt. 

I worked on the Christmas eve and it was a very hectic day at John Lewis. Customers doing their very last-minute shopping and the staff had to make multiple announcements asking people to leave the store because we were close. And all the staff had to make preparations for the clearance sales before the store closes for Christmas and Boxing Day. So I was practically stuck in the stock room pricing children's shoes for 2 hours. And I don't even work in the shoe section! 

Anyway, we all managed to get a lot done that day and after work, I headed over to my aunt's place. Thankfully, the trains weren't that busy. I decided to take the tube instead of the fast train, so it took me almost two hours to get to Watford.

When I got to the station, my aunt came and picked me up and it was so cold that night!

I ate a very simple dinner and then chatted to my aunt for a bit while watching The Holiday (one of my fav Christmas movies~) before going for midnight mass.

The weather on Christmas morning was beautiful. We saw a lot of families going out for a stroll.

Around 2pm, we headed to Uncle Peter and Auntie Chung's for a scrumptious Christmas meal. We had a nice leek and potato soup that my aunt made as starters and as for mains, we had steak! Uncle Peter personally cooked them for us~ And lots of yummy roasted vege that Auntie Chung prepared. I love roasted vege; I can eat a big bowl of them and I actually roasted some myself a week ago.  Roasted parsnips and sweet potatoes are my favourite out of all!
I had a nice time that day, after a very heavy meal, we all just chilled in front of the TV watching stuff that I wasn't interested in but I had to choice. Then it came time for dessert! My aunt made a steamed Christmas pudding which tasted so good! I really want to try and make it myself but I don't have a mixer and a big enough pot to steam it in. :(
Anyway, after a few hours of watching TV and eating more stuff and drinking more tea, we left before Downton Abbey's Christmas special started because my aunt wasn't feeling well.
My aunt ended up being ill for the rest of the week. :(
I ended up watching Downton Abbey alone at my aunt's place.
On Boxing Day, my aunt cooked another traditional Christmas meal and asked two friends over to join us. It was a lovely meal but the conversation was boring for me.....
It wasn't particularly an interesting day but I managed to finish listening to a podcast called Serial in my (old) room before going to sleep. If you're into podcasts, I'm sure you've heard of Serial. It was really interesting but I can't say that I enjoyed how she wrapped things up though. But I guess they (the producers of the series) did their best. Serial is about a real-life murder case that happened 14 years ago in the US. And this journalist decided to re-investigate the case to find out what happened back then. So she goes through all the available evidences and talks to as many people involved in the case as she could to find out whether the court locked the wrong guy up for life-imprisonment.
Definitely go check it out if you're interested in taking part in solving this very complicated murder case!

On the 27th, I had to go to work so I left my aunt's (with some leftovers kekeke) and headed back to London. The trains weren't working due to engineering works so I had to take the Overground which made me almost late for work.

Then on the 30th of Dec, I met up with an old friend, Amanda at Old Street station and we went to The Breakfast Club for lunch!

Amanda came to London in mid-Dec and is here for a month visiting her boyfriend since she finished uni. And she's been travelling a lot since she's been here which makes me so jealous because I want to travel too but it's so hard to find the time and people to travel with!

When I told her that, she was like, "Go find a bf la!" XD Easier said than done, Amanda.

When I met her at the tube station, the first thing she said was, "Wah you got an accent already!" 

I'm actually really worried that people back home will judge me that I have an accent.... You know how those Youtubers that make videos of Msians that go overseas and come home with a fake accent and how everyone finds that very annoying. But the thing with me is, I left Msia with an accent already! I never had a heavy Msian-english accent to start with!

Anyway, who cares right?

And lol at this sign outside The Breakfast Club.

Tbh, I didn't understand it at first. When I understood it, I didn't even find it funny.

I ordered a breakfast burrito~ I just wanted some guac tbh lol

It wasn't as I expected it to be but still very yummy~ And I ordered a flat white again as well.

I had a nice time catching up with Amanda over a lovely lunch~ So glad for her for doing so good in life right now~ She's already got a job in KL waiting for her to start in Feb~!

After lunch, we walked around Shoreditch a bit towards Brick Lane just to show Amanda around this side of London. 

Whenever I go to Brick Lane, I want to try one of the (apparently) best bagels in London but everytime I'm there, I've already eaten! And do not have an excuse to buy more food...

We then walked towards another tube station so that Amanda could go back while I walked back to my flat.

Lo and behold......

The Olympus Pen EPL-5!

You know how I've been saying I wanted a new camera? I got one now! 

I got it on the same day I met Amanda. I saw her compact system camera and told her how I wanted to get one too and she was like, "Just get one la!"

And I was like, it's not that easy for me to just spend my money like that you know?

But then I don't know why what she said just stuck to me and when I went home that day, I checked on Curry's website to see the price of the camera. I've been frequently checking Amazon and Curry's to see whether the price has gone down since October.... And when I saw that this camera was on sale for the Boxing Day sale, I thought to myself, this is your opportunity now! 

So I walked out again to Curry's. Thankfully there's a megastore just 5 minutes away from where I live, and I bought it! 

Obviously, I've done a lot of research on it, and I've given it a lot of thought before buying it (since it is a lot of money spent!). I even went into Curry's around November to look at the camera and ask for the sales assistant's advice. Coz I was torn between getting the EPL-5 and the EPL-7 which is the latest version in the Pen Lite series, which also cost more. 

But the guy said the EPL-7 is not worth getting since both cameras are almost the same. Therefore, I went for the EPL-5! And I'm loving it~ 

I'm so annoyed with myself for going to St. Paul's Cathedral the week before I bought this camera.... I could've taken much nicer photos of the sunset if I had this camera....

How long has it been since I uploaded a photo of me without glasses? LOL

I just took photos of everything when I first got the camera lol

I still need a lot of learning and practicing though.

First thing in the morning (or afternoon) when I woke up, took a selfie~ XD

And before going to work, yet another selfie. lol

This was on the 31st. New Year's Eve. My initial plan was to go to work and just go back to my room and chill and watch movies for the night but on my way to work, I thought to myself, Do you really want to just stay in your room on New Year's Eve?

So I quickly thought of where I could possibly go to see the fireworks since the South Bank was closed to only ppl who had tickets for the fireworks show. 

So I thought of Primrose Hill and started googling whether it was open till late. And when I went to work, I asked two colleagues of mine if they were interested in joining me since I had no one to go with and they said they had no plans either so they were more than happy to go with me!

And after work, I texted Amanda and asked her whether she had plans for that night and invited her to join us as well~ 

So in the end, when we met at Chalkfarm Station (near Primrose Hill) at 10.30pm, there were 8 of us altogether! Good last minute planning~ LOL

I really didn't like the thought of standing in the cold for long so that's why we met at 10.30pm. Amanda's bf's housemates came along as well and one of my colleagues brought along a friend as well. So we all then walked over to the park. Which was more packed than I expected it to be but thankfully it wasn't too packed. The ground was really really muddy though so all of our shoes were looking very disgusting when we got to the station after midnight.

I kept playing around with my camera while we were there, but sadly, this was the only good photo I got. Jsyk, that was my first day having the camera so I have an excuse to suck at it.

The fireworks were really amazing though. We were quite far away but at least we could see everything~ So glad that I decided to go there instead to staying in.

Next time, I might try to get tickets and join the crowd at the South Bank!

After the fireworks then came the time of everyone fighting to get into the tube station at the same time. ugh it was a nightmare. but thankfully we all got home safely~

Since then, I've still been playing around with my camera now and then. 

This is a candle holder my aunt got me for Christmas that has my name on it! How cool is that?

More selfies~ This time, I tried out the flash on the camera. This was probably before I went to work one day. It was so busy at work during the first week of the sales. You cannot imagine how annoyed I was with the mess customers make when they're shopping. They just leave things everywhere and on the floor! And I have to pick them! It was so tiring..... Thankfully now everyone is back to work and back to school and it has quiet down a lot.

Another selfie with the same expression lol 

And this is another flannel shirt I bought from Uniqlo in the sale~ And I'm actually wearing it right now kekeke I love it. 

This was before going out with my friend Keziah to go see Matilda The Musical~

We managed to buy discounted tickets for a Tuesday night performance. We wanted the cheapest tickets but they were all sold out so we got the more expensive ones but with a better view!

The huge billboards at Picadilly Circus. 

We wanted to go for dinner together before the show but we were a bit late so we worried we won't be able to make it in time so we just had some sushi from Wasabi before walking to China Town to hunt for some asian snacks to bring into the theater~

Look at how nice the set of the musical was!

The show was amazing and hilarious~ I truly enjoyed it and worth every penny spent!

Outside the theater.

We thought of grabbing a coffee together after the show but most of the shops around that area was closed by then so we just headed home.

Okay. That's all for now.

I would love to stay and blog more about how I have started the new year and some thoughts of starting the new year with new goals but I'm very very hungry. All I've eaten all day was a bowl of oatmeal and half a cup of a smoothie. 

So goodbye, I need go eat the sushi I made yesterday and the BBQ chicken wings I bought just now~!!! And watch a movie my Advertising lecturer asked us to watch, The Greatest Movie Ever Sold while I enjoy my dinner! 

x