#4.39 Sparks Fly

"Saying hello to all the beautiful and sparkling Christmas Lights before kissing Mr. 2015 goodbye for good. =) "

The week before Christmas was real good to me but it was just so busy. I reckoned that every Pharmacy staff in the UK was completely burnt out at work during this period. It was like every patient and his or her great grandaunt on this part of planet Earth decided to pre-order two months worth of prescribed medications even though we were only closed for two days during Christmas time.

On the other hand, I was busy house hunting for the past few weeks. Despite all the misfortunes and setbacks that I had experienced initially, I was quite glad that my effort and prayers got paid off in the end as I found one that suited me very much. Hopefully, it would not disappoint me after I moved in next month.

With love,  from Dorchester.

Even McD got all festive.

On Christmas day itself, I was lucky enough to get a taste of the traditional home-cooked Christmas roast meal made by Linda. It was a lovely few hours of time spent together and it made my Christmas a lot less lonely, especially when I could not be surrounded by Smurfies as usual.

Lovely meal and company indeed.

Roast turkey.

Brussel sprouts!

Champagne time.

Loving all my Christmas presents.

Two days later, my real post-Christmas break began and I hopped on the train up to London again to do some shopping and meet up with two of my favourite people on Earth. Once I stepped out from the underground, I was completely mesmerised by what came into view. 

Busy streets, endless rows of elegant stores, beautiful displays by the windows, people lining up even before the shops were opened and not to mention the fast-paced walking and loud noises. All these coupled with the glittering snowball-like Christmas lights decorations along the entire street made my heart flutter. Oh London, I had missed you after all these months.

The oh-so-festive snowball muffin.

Hello London!

Oxford Street by day. 

House of Fraser.

Later that day, we tried the Honest Burger chain as it was highly recommended by so many. After a good catch-up, we decided to walk around Oxford Street to appreciate all the beautiful lights before heading to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. 

Honest.

Busy streets and hectic lives.

The glowing orbs. 

Beautiful lights.

After dark.

Oxford Street at night.

Such a pretty city.

Massive crowd everywhere.

London.

Wefie along the streets.

Merry Christmas.

Let it snow!

Goodbye, Oxford Street.

We had churros and traditional mulled wine while exploring Winter Wonderland and grabbed some 大包 along the way at Chinatown before decided to head back home. At night, we had beer and Mimi and it was certainly one of the best nights in a long, long while. 

Churros with Nutella that were to die for.

Glad to be able to make it here again.

冬天里吃着大包子！感动到～

After a good night's sleep, we decided to try out The Breakfast Club in Soho. While there, we queued for 45 minutes before we got our seats. Three of us shared two plates of Bennie's and all I could say was that everything was perfect and that I could totally understand why many would willingly stand in the cold for such a long time.

The long line.

Making fugly faces to kill time.

Where the best breakfast in London was served.

The beautiful wall inside the cafe. 

Never been this happy for a long time.

Eggs Benedict and Heuvos Al Benny.

Sadness wanted to a bite as well.

Peanut milkshake on the house.

We left a little something on the wall before we left!

Our short London trip came to a perfect ending by sharing a big Korean hotpot at ASSA in a cold winter afternoon. Before long, it was time again for me to board the train back to Dorchester and I could only hope that there would be more meet-ups like this in the near future.

So little time, so much to gossip about.

Satisfied to the core.

Until next year then, bye! XOXO. =)

In The Night - The Weeknd

#4.38 Back To December

"Hello Christmas lights, snowman and gingerbread latte. =) "

I could not fucking believe that it was December already. It was like the year had just started yesterday. To my surprise, these few less pleasant months just flew by in the wink of an eye.

Before Mr. 2015 arrived, there was a small fear within me. I knew in my heart that everything in my life was going to change drastically and my world would surely be turned upside down during these 12-month period. Well, it's almost over now and Missy 2016 was on her way here soon whether I liked it or not.

Beautiful things made me happy.

Autumn leaves.

Fall.

Over these past few weeks, I got my fat ass back into the kitchen a lot because I was too poor to eat outside every day I wanted to fulfill certain food cravings and made myself feel useful on my off days instead of just sitting on my couch all day long.

Some days the food that I prepared was fab, some days not so good. But I guessed that it was all about making mistakes and learning from them so I hoped to continue to learn along the way by trial and error. It was not easy to maintain the determination to home cook every day due to all the messy clean-up so I hoped that I would be able not to throw in the towel any time soon.

Loved the avocado.

Getting them ready.

Sweet potato fries over normal fries anytime anyday.

Bagels to brighten up my day.

Bak-kut-teh when I missed home.

Thanks to my group community project, I got to be in Bournemouth for two days. It had been more than a year and I could not be more excited to be back. It felt really good to be able to return to this beautiful shopping heaven and I absolutely loved everything about this big city.

Besides its perfect location and pretty Christmas market, Bournemouth had many of the best cafes and restaurants in the UK. Among them, the hot beef sandwich served by South Coast Roast was the one of the best things that I had ever tasted and I swore that I would surely come back for more in the future.

The signature hot air balloon at Lower Gardens.

Started the morning with eggnog latte, the best festive drink ever created!

I knew good sushi when I spotted one.

Ramen dinner after a long day.

In deep love with the gingerbread latte.  

Green and white theme for us~

This girl got the best taste when it came to food!

The tender and juicy 5-star hot beef sandwich!

Wantying came all the way down to Dorset to visit me but the weather on that weekend was utterly horrible so we stayed indoor most of the time. The howling wind was so strong that we ended up with the unique experience of eating sands while we were strolling along Weymouth beach.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a local cinema to watch The Good Dinosaur and I instantly fell in love with the inspiring and fear-overcoming movie. If you ain't scared, you ain't alive was definitely my favourite quote from the Pixar/Disney film.

So cute and festive!

Every pastry from this store was gem. 

Sinful meal.

Nando's after The Good Dinosaur.

Also, I finally got to go back to Nottingham after such a long time. While I was on my way to board the midnight train at St. Pancras, the most beautiful Christmas tree in this whole wide world came into view.

The Christmas tree was made up of many different Disney toys with Mickey at the very top of it and just when I thought that it could not get any better, snow began to fall down from above. It was designed to do so every few minutes and the whole scene was too dreamy for my eyes!

#beautiful

Ain't it magical?

Could I have them all?

Coffee was much needed for the six-hour train journey. 

Gingerbread latte with cute ginger-man biscuit.

All five of us finally got together after midnight and Vivian's instant noodles certainly made me feel a lot better after the painfully long journey. It made me miss all the time when I was surrounded by my Smurfies so much.

On the next day, we had a lovely Pizza lunch and a wonderful Skype session with most of the Smurfies. Although it was just a short weekend together, it was really heartwarming and I was really reluctant to go back to Dorset to deal with reality again.

Pizza time!

Missed their company so much!

Proper Chinese dinner with round table.

I needed more weekends like this, seriously.

Would miss them a lot.

With Christmas coming up real soon, I hoped that I would get the chance to meet up with all these beautiful souls once again. But as of right now, I had to go back to work, put on that smiley face and be a good boy so that I would be on Santa's good list this year.

Till next time then, bye! XOXO. =)

Sledgehammer - Fifth Harmony