Meet-up With These Pretty Ladies~

On the 1st of March, I met up with these beautiful ladies in London after so long! 

The last time we met was probably in 2012? I seriously cannot remember. 

But yeah, both Olivia and Minyan are currently studying at Nottingham Trent Uni for one semester so when they came, I told them that we must meet up if they come to London. And of course, they came! 

So on that windy Sunday afternoon, we met on Regent Street (they were shopping~) and I was 45 mins late. LOL They were busy shopping anyways so they didn't mind kekeke. I can't even rmb why I was late. I think I probably woke up pretty late and then my uncle called me and then I googled how to turn the Warm feature on my camera off so that I can take nice photos when I meet the girls (I ended up only taking one photo that day lol). In short, had a busy morning, thus, late. 

Anyways.... It was so nice seeing them again after so long, they haven't changed at all! :)

We were on Regents Street for a bit then, their friend (two of their friends were together with them), Wendy wanted to find a specific Longchamp bag so we went to the store on Bond Street to check it out~ I've actually never walked down Bond Street before but it didn't take too much effort finding the store. Then we spent around 45 mins in the store lol Since I had no intentions of buying anything, I was just browsing and in the end I started talking to the sales assistant lol 

I just noticed he had an Italian accent so I asked him whether he was Italian (lol duh) and asked him which part of Italy he was from. And he actually said no one has ever pointed out that he was Italian, which was I shocked to hear (but very proud of myself for being so observant. I noticed it once he greeted us when we entered the store!) because his accent was quite strong. Probably I noticed it easily coz  I had an Italian lecturer last semester and I've been to Italy before. We chatted a bit while the girls decided on which bags to buy and I told the guy I was working in John Lewis and he said he's an intern in John  Lewis' head office! He's also a student at UAL studying Fashion Management. He's literally living my dream. 

You know how there's a typical stereotype for luxury brands' sales assistants where they can be a bit snobby and rude (especially when you don't intend to buy anything or when you appear to be not able to afford any of their stuff), but this guy was so nice and friendly that he immediately changed my perception of them. Afterwards, Olivia was like, "他跟你搭讪啊?" and I was like, "没有啊，我先跟他讲话的." kekekeke That's how much I've changed guys lol I can just start conversations with strangers without much effort. 

So... after around 30~45 mins, the girls made their decisions on which bags they wanted and bought them and then we left and walked back to Oxford Street to go to John Lewis~ But before that.......

.... I was (kinda) forced to buy this jar of salt. 

If you live in the UK and go to shopping centres often, you'll know how annoying the people from a brand called Soap & Co. can be. I go to Westfield 4 times a week and I need to pass by their stall all the time. And I've been nearly convinced to buy their stuff before but I managed to escape because my friend with me at the time caved and bought something.

That day, I was determined to be strong and not buy anything but this time around, we were in a different situation. 

How did it all start.... So if you look at the photo above, the product isn't from Soap & Co. but when I checked online the night after buying this, Sakare seems to be the same brand just under a different name. Their products are all same/similar. And that afternoon, Olivia, Minyan and I just walked past the store while ignoring the sales assistant who were trying to lure us into their cave of horror (where you can't leave without buying anything). But, their friends got lured into it, without us noticing. We actually continued walking until we realised they weren't behind us anymore! Olivia called them and found out they were in there so we had to go back. And that's when the whole process of persuasion started. The guy demonstrating the products was very charismatic and he knew how to sell. I was not buying anything he said because I knew they were all bullshit. But Minyan they all were so intrigued by the products. The guy noticed I was very quiet and asked me a few questions and therefore found out I was working in John Lewis and have been living in London for a while and was not going to be persuaded to buy anything. 

The long process then continued.... when it came to the point where he asked, "So ladies, which products are you most interested in?" which indirectly means, "which products do you want to buy?" Then he provided us a few "special offers" and said, "That's the best price I can give you." But the products were just too pricey for us poor students. And when we said so, he was obviously not impressed. So he kept explaining different "special offers" and emphasizing how worth it the products were. 

In the end, he was desperate that he turned to me (who had no intentions to buy anything), and whispered/asked, "Rachel, you are a sales assistant as well, help me out here." In my head, I was like, what the heck? Why should I help you cheat my friends?! But then I gave him a few tips he doesn't know about girls. I told him, "when girlfriends are out shopping together, they like to all buy stuff together, and if you can give them a deal where the cost of the products are spread amongst the the 4 of them, they'll buy it because they obviously have the intentions of buying it." So he came up with another deal (buy one get one free or something) and when the girls agreed on it, he still kept asking/forcing us to buy more, saying that, if you buy any other product, I'll only charge you £15. At that point, I really wanted to just walk out but he just refused to take their money without us buying more stuff! So I said, "Okay, I'll buy the salt scrub." And he was like, "Thank you, Rachel." and even high-fived me lol. I made new friends that day lol. 

And he finally willingly took our money and let us free! I was kinda pissed at myself for spending that £15. And I've alr used the scrub a few times and I don't even like it (but it smells really good though).

Enough of the exciting times. After getting through that horrible experience, we went to John Lewis where I bought new black tights and Wendy and Kityi bought perfumes and I let them use my discount card~ After that, we went for dinner! 

We wanted to go to Kanada-ya but they were closed on Sundays! :(

So we went to Ippudo instead which was okay.... But I was just happy to finally get to sit down. 

We all chatted for a bit before it started pouring rain outside! Since none of us had an umbrella, we sat in the restaurant and waited for the rain to stop before we walked to the Tube station.

Overall, it was a very interesting and fun day out with the girls~ I can't wait to find the time to go up to Nottingham to visit them~ I have plans to travel around the UK this summer (since I don't have plans to go abroad) so hopefully things work out! 

Got back to my room and just wanted to test how my photos turn out after switching the Warm feature off... by taking a few selfies kekeke

I also wanted to try out the self-timer on the camera kekeke

Just look at the state of my room that night. Horrendous. Now I rmb when I was late, I probably had to wait for my clothes to finish washing to be able to hang them up to dry. 

That aside, I love this dress and I don't wear it out enough. I rmb seeing it in H&M the day I met with Hy in London and fell in love with it at first sight and knew I had to get it! That being said, I bought more clothes from H&M recently and I've decided to write up an appreciation post dedicated to H&M lol.

This was taken the next morning... you know, just checking the quality of my camera again and using the photos to check how my make up looks. #typical


PS: The posts about my trip to Amsterdam and Belgium probably won't be up anytime soon. I still have a few draft posts I want to published before I start writing up posts for my trip.

Other than that, if any of you reading now have exams coming up, GOOD LUCK!

x

Random Midnight Post

I am really tired and I have a headache. It's midnight and I feel like I should sleep but I don't feel like sleeping. Does anyone else do that? Like, you know it's bedtime, you're tired yet you don't go to sleep....

Anyway, I felt like blogging before I go to bed because today has been a good day. Yesterday was a good day too and I just felt like blogging a bit about them.

I'm now seated on my bed because it's more comfortable and my laptop is nearer to the modem outside. The internet in this flat is so slow right now and I'm obviously not happy about it but there's nothing that I can really do about it. So I shall just blog and let time pass.

So, I'll start from Sunday. I came back from my trip to Amsterdam and Belgium on Saturday night. Got back to my room at around midnight or half past twelve. And I woke up early on Sunday (Joon Tian was still at my place coz she had to catch her train in the afternoon) and I did all the stuff you need to do when you come back from a holiday; unpack, do the laundry. I also had to clean the flat because it was my turn this week, Joon Tian left at noon, that's when I went out to get my groceries.
When I got back, I talked to my uncle on the phone for a bit before he complained he couldn't hear me on the line and hung up. After that, I Skype-d my mum for more than an hour. The internet was also slow, so I had to sit on the floor next to the door (how annoying. I seriously should stop complaining and just move out). Then I just spent the rest of the day transferring photos from my phone and camera into my laptop and then start editing them a bit and uploading them but didn't really managed to get much done.

On Monday, Nia and I met up at uni to do some revision. But we both knew it was not going to happen. We spent most of our time just catching up with each other's lives lol. I was totally still in the holiday mood. And I brought my laptop into uni but it couldn't connect to the wifi so I ended up using a computer at uni. I mainly did some admin stuff I needed to do for Team Up. Then Nia and I started discussing about the k-drama, It's Okay It's Love coz Nia just finished watching it. I let her have my hard drive while I was away so she could watch them all in HD. While we were discussing it, I showed her the posts I did on KSTYLEFILE about Ji Hyesoo's outfits and then I realised that I didn't put episode 16 into the hard drive which meant that Nia didn't manage to finish the series! So luckily I had ep 16 on my laptop so we transferred the file over to the uni computer and watched it then and there. LOL. I still love that drama so much. Definitely one of the best I've watched.

Then I shared some chocolates I bought from Belgium with Nia. Well, I say share, but I actually ate most of them and Nia just ate one piece. lol I did give her a bar of chocolate as a gift though. Then I don't know how time past so quick but it was almost 4pm when we decided to go home. Before that, we went to Sainsbury's where we ended up not buying anything. While we came out, some people from the Co-operative were outside uni giving out free goody bags because they opened a new store next to uni. So we made a detour to get one and while walking, Nia was like, "Why don't you just come over to my place to have dinner?" Because we were talking about what we were going to cook for dinner. And I said, "Why not~" So we walked back to her place together~ On the way back, we went to Lidl to get some stuff for dinner.

We ate some of Nia's homemade black sesame ice cream before we started cooking. In the mean time, a colleague of mine called me to ask me to cover two of her Sunday shifts.... And I agreed to do them although I knew I had exams around those dates. I find it so hard to say no to friends sometimes. Anyway, Nia and I then started prepping and cooking dinner~ We had a really simple dinner of fried chicken breast with roasted vege. Her flatmate also joined us for dinner and we watched an episode of Running Man together while eating. We even had some strawberry trifles as dessert~

By the tine we finished watching it, it was past 9pm so I had to leave. Got back to my place around half past 9 coz I chose to walk instead of taking the bus because the night air was so nice and cooling. Better appreciate this nice weather while it lasts.

I'm so happy that the weather is finally getting warmer~ Today the weather was so glorious! The sun was shining and it was so warm; warm to the extent where you can go out with a sleeveless top! It's amazing how the weather changed so drastically within a week.

I woke up early today and continued editing my photos and uploading them. My uncle is quite impatient and wants to see my photos right now but the internet has been constantly acting up and until now, I still haven't been able to finish uploading everything. I ate a banana and cereal with a new chocolate coconut milk that I bought on Sunday (it was on sale). It was the perfect start to a morning, I really want to stop the habit of waking up late so I've done well today, let's hope I keep up the good work. Then I continued doing some stuff till noon when I started getting ready to go out into the sun! I needed to get a new pair of shoes for work coz my old ones are starting to wear out. I wanted to go to the Westfield in White City coz it's much more peaceful than the Stratford one and Oxford St but they didn't have a John Lewis there. So I ended up going to Oxford St~

As usual, it was crowded; everyone was out in shorts and skirts and sleeveless tops~ I wore my cardigan out and it way too warm for the weather. But I wasn't in the mood in walking around, I just wanted to get shoes, get lunch and go home. I went into John Lewis and remembered that I needed a new concealer so I went to the Nars counter to get their Radiant Creamy Concealer. The lady there was so nice and helpful and she helped me pick out the right shade for my skin tone~ Then I went upstairs to the shoe section and had a quick glance around and found two pair of black ballet pumps that I liked and asked for them in my size to try them on. Luckily it wasn't very busy so I didn't need to wait long to be served. After trying both on, I decided on a cute leather pair~ Hopefully they will be comfortable coz I'll be needing to stand in them for many many hours.

After that successful shopping trip, I decided to have Five Guys for lunch! But stupid me, forgot there was a branch on Argyll Street and walked all the way (under the hot sun) to the branch on Long Acre near Leicester Square. But on my way there, I walked past Leicester Square and there was the queue for the free Ben & Jerry's event! So I immediately joined the queue! LOL I thought it was just nice to have an ice-cream in the hot weather! I was in line for almost half an hour I think before I got my scoop of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream~ Then I continued walking towards Five Guys for my burger! I was so hungry because I didn't have lunch but I decided to take the burger and fries home for dinner instead because it was alr almost 4pm when I bought it. It was my first time in Five Guys and I have been wanting to try their burgers for ages!

I got back to my room and continued to upload my photos while catching up on some Youtube videos that I have missed while I was on holiday. I ate some grapes while doing that coz I was way toooo hungry and I didn't want to have my burger till a bit later. I ended up having the burger at 7pm~ I went for the medium hamburger (with my choice of toppings) and a side of cajun fries. And they were delicious. The cajun fries were so nice and they would've been even better if I had them hot. The burger was good but nothing exceptional about it. I would probably go for their little burger next time with fries, coz the medium burger really filled me up. But coz I have a big appetite, I was able to finish it without any problem but I probably shouldn't be eating that much lol. Overall, because I was starving by the time I ate it, it was delicious~

From then till now, all I've done were just uploading more photos, editing more photos and watching youtube videos. How productive. lol. But coz the internet is being annoying, it's taking forever to get them uploaded onto Google plus so that my mum and uncle can see them. I really hope that by tmr, I can get them all uploaded so that I can fully focus on my revision. But then I'll probably start uploading them to my blog and start blogging about my trip lol.

But yeah.... I mainly wanted to blog tonight because today has been a good day~ I woke up early, ate a good breakfast, soaked in a lot a vitamin D, got new shoes and new concealer (yay!), got a free scoop of ice-cream and indulged in a delicious dinner. How I wish everyday can be like this~ Except with better internet!

The internet seems to have improved now, so I'm going to try to upload as many photos as I can before I fall asleep. Tmr will be my first day back to work after having one week off and tmr I will need to seriously start my revision before it's too late.

Back to reality now.

x

The Urban Shopping Centre

This will just be quick post with some photos of Westfield Stratford City!
These are the photos I took for my mum to see and I thought I might as well post them up for everyone to see too! And some of these photos are definitely going up on my Instagram soon~

If you haven't been to Westfield Stratford City, this might be interesting to you but if you're like me, who goes there on an average of 4 times per week, you would find it meh kekeke
Still, it's a spectacular design for a huge shopping centre. It sometimes can get so busy that it's difficult to even walk from one end to the other, which is what I have to do every time I go into work because the tube station is at one end and John Lewis right at the opposite end.

On the day I took these photos, it was raining outside, so I could only take photos of the outdoor area at night (after work), which gave me a chance to test the ability of my camera to shoot in low lights. But well, as you will see, the outdoor area is brightly lit so it's not really in a low light condition.

And Westfield Stratford City is right next to the Olympic Park, and in John Lewis, there is a viewing gallery where you can see the amazing view of the park and the sunset~ Most of the days when I'm at work, I get to see the beautiful sunset if the weather is good and if I'm not too busy.

This is obviously where I do most of my shopping as well. I sometimes go before my shift starts or when I get off work. There's Waitrose and M&S as well so I sometimes get some groceries there. The old shopping centre, Stratford Centre, next to Westfield, has a Sainsbury's and a Loon Fung (Oriental supermarket) where I sometimes go and get food as well~

Okay, this is supposed to be a quick post, so here are the photos!

x