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!
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.
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
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