Gluttony at the diner

Sometimes I eat a lot.

Matte French manicure

Listening to; @4:33

I finally managed to do a French manicure on myself, in PINK. This may not be much of a feat to most people but I have huge man-hands and this is my left hand! and I am left handed! I am giving myself a pat on the back. :P

I went for a matte finish too, a little different and the end result was quite cute.

Brick lane vintage market

I visited some of the vintage stores on Brick Lane on Sunday. There were lots of colourful chunky sweaters and some great deals. If I weren't unemployed I would totally have bought something.. haha.

But... The food. OH yes, we all know how I love food and there was some great Moroccan curry, and tasty Chinese stir-fry at the food market. It was full of people too, all sampling the tasty treats..

Talk about vibrant, argh.. I want to eat it now, thank god I can't smell it or I think I would drown in a pool of my own saliva.

Some selca 1

Took some pics looking a little raggedy. See, I can integrate colour into my outfits!! 

There's blue red and camo there! I really love the military jacket I got, its huge so you can really layer up underneath.

my favourite moustache ring, from COEX in Seoul.

Mwah!

Peace

Listening to; drum&bass + vocals + piano = 

Korean BBQ

I finally got a fix of the Korean BBQ I was hankering for. I found a place near holborn, and I forget the name, but you can find it on the right if you walk from Holborn to Tottenham Court road.

It was authentic, with an ajumma and everything. Great meat and KIMCHI! While I was over there I didn't ever think twice about leaving all the kimchi I was given behind, because you get it with everything.. eeeeeeverything and sometimes you just don't want to eat kimchi.. but at about £5 a serving I ate all my kimchi this time. They weren't joking about getting charged for allllll the side dishes here.

My food coma face. yeah.

I am really trying to get out of wearing black all the time but I do have relapses!

Chilling with habeebee

During my days at home, I often chill with my royals. They are really curious about everything, constantly poking at everything and looking for little hidey-holes.

I have a breeding pair, and this is the male 'Habeebee' (which if you have ever heard Arabic music you have probably heard a lot. it means 'darling' in Arabic). He is about 10 years old now, little guy has just reached the other side of the hill, like his owner, so we have even more of a connection now.

Look at that cute little face!!

They make the cutest couple, always curled up together, and you can see that they sometimes have arguments, and he gets relegated to the other side of the tank (she is bigger than him), but they always get back together. It will be mating season very soon so they will probably be steaming up the tank window in the evenings. They just don't care.. they just don't care.. they just don't caaaaare... with their PDA.

I am listening to;

love the 'death-by-beach-ball' artwork. 

Cutee style

I got invited on a movie date with my sister and her boyfriend, can anyone say 'third wheel'? Yes. Well I appreciated her taking pity on her hermit sister and inviting me along. I treated it like a real date and went for a 'cute' look with polka dots.

#

My sister has since borrowed this sweater on a non-return basis, I will have to dig in her room if I want to wear it again. But it looks cute on her so I can't hate. :)

I am really attached to my bum hat with the giant pom pom..I doubt I can get away with wearing a woolly hat throughout the summer so I am trying to get it on as much as possible. I know British summers are famous for their extreme temperatures (!)... Yeah.. well I can dream can't I?!

Observations on the last train home..

1. Most people were eating/were finishing off fast food.. the whole train smelt like KFC/Burger King. Its funny how most people would feel guilty for that behavior during the day but as people eating were the majority it wasn't a big deal.. LOL. The food smell made me want to eat fries.

2. One couple fight where this guy was telling his girl about how gambling on football is an ambition and how stupid she is for not understanding.. and why doesn't she have any ambition.. and *enter earphones* she cried and by the time she spoke I couldn't hear. I couldn't help but continue to be irritated by his apparent immunity to cold with his sockless boat shoes and rolled up jeans combo..

3. Two girls crying for reasons unknown..

4. I had put in earphones to block out the inane couple fight happening across from me and the man opposite nudged me on the foot and said "Be careful she might puke on your shoes.." gestures to girl sitting next to me..  across the isle.. bent over with her friend rubbing her back. random act of kindness from a stranger appreciated cos that would have sucked. He also added that had she been about to puke on the dude he wouldn't have said anything. His boat shoes may have offended "random warning man" too.. She got off the train and puked at Stratford.. another shitty Friday for that station attendant. An even shittier Friday on the night bus for that pukey girl because that was the last train.

Breaking my Hermit Ways - Liverpool

Breaking routine and pulling myself from the protective womb of my living room out into society for a whopping second time in no less than three days, I'm finally on my way to Liverpool.
I find long train journeys really relaxing.. chilling out to music while watching scenery.

When booking online I chose the seat with a plug socket to allow worry free phone use the whole way.. nothing sucks more than running out of battery and losing music, while also opening your ears up to potential crying babies and people who laugh louder than I do, while on a journey. However my seat choice also meant that I would have to sit facing a stranger. I sometimes wonder whether people look at me and can tell that I'm unemployed.. like a cartoon smell.. the are wavy 'unemployed' lines rising from my head.. I'm past the age where people would assume student, and I look way to chill to have an army of children, I dunno. Maybe because I like to guess what other people do, where they're going, whether they like Marmite or not, I'm just over thinking.

I managed to make it through most of the journey avoiding eye contact with the successful looking business man sitting across from me, and took some scenery pictures :)

Most of them were poo because as soon as I saw a nice view I'd unlock my phone, go to the camera app, and by the time I was ready for my pic there was a line of trees blocking the view.. or a wall.. so after a few shots I got this;

Snowy fields seen  from the London - Liverpool train

When I first took that and posted it on Instagram it seemed really eerie.. then I looked at it again to post it here and it seemed really chill/peaceful. The only difference was soundtrack;

First time;

Second time;

Soundtrack is so important..

Selca

"Selca" / "셀카"
Comes from the words 'Self' and 'camera' and is used in Korea to describe shots you take of yourself.

With time doing nothing and a smart phone, you could explore the vastness of the internet, chat to friends overseas, read the news... or just take pictures of yourself... yeah!

Bit chilly..

Snow on my little car.....

That's going to be there a while too.. till I can replace my license, (Traded in years ago, in return for a Korean license, which is now useless to me, and also lost..), get a job... pay insurance... pay road tax...... ugh, gonna take a while.

At least today is a snow bootie day.. yey!

London Casino~

Today was the end of a week long hikikomori stint.. brought to a peak by the arrival of my PS3 from Korea, and subsequent disregard for any social life apart from that within Little Big Planet.

It was brought to it's end by a message from a childhood friend of mine inviting me out for Friday night merriment.. I really wanted to catch this guy because he is always in and out of the country flying planes and looking cool, and it had been a whole since I had seen him. However having a shower and peeling off the pyjamas I had worn for a week straight was such a daunting task that I stared at the sweaty controller in my hand, and seriously weighed up the pros and cons of being social... I was assured we would get the last train back, which took a good deal of the 'cant be bothered' factor out of it, and spurred me into action.
After I had washed off my layer of hermit dirt I was ready to hit the town;

Sexy outfit: check
Oyster card: check
Beautiful but incredibly painful heels: check
Pair of converse in bag for inevitable removal of said shoes: check!!

This was the first time I had been wandering alone in London since I came back.. and I realised when I was walking from Oxford Circus to Leicester Square that the average London man has upped his street game. I was stopped three times on my way there.. although by this time I couldn't stop and one middle aged business man followed me for a while before giving up.. i was wearing jeans, an over sized black shirt..n leather jacket. Nothing too extreme.. I wonder what changed because that didn't really happen to me before.. isn't this a city where women outnumber the men?

Finally arrived and it was a whole flock of pilots. Is there a word for a group of pilots?..
After a few drinks we hit the casino.. it has been a while since I went to a casino.. and in Seoul I rarely went, the longest time I was there was to film a publicity video.. where we were told to look happy.. happy!! Even happier!!! To the point where our smiles became almost manic and mine hid the tears I wanted to cry because the chips I was holding alone would pay my rent for a year buy a nice car..

Anyway back to London, I had to register for this casino and they took my name and address..! If anyone knows why I'd like to know.. they took a photo of me and I got a shiny new membership card.. I'm not a gambler so this is all kind of wasted on me.. but whatever..

We hit the Black Jack table and with £5 someone gave me I managed to win over £100.. and lost it all immediately after... :'( only reinforcing the reason I didn't frequent casinos in the first place... anyway.. hours passed and drinks kept flowing.. I realised if you want to drink into the morning the casino is the place to be..!

As I wasn't playing I decided to quiz the dealers.

"Has anyone ever cried at your table..??"
"Only because they won.."
"Won? How much?"
"£100...
....oh....



I had visited a casino in Seoul with some pro baseball players who were playing with a lot of money and I never saw any tears win or lose.. tbh I was concentrating on the main reason I was there, free alcohol! Which was clearly absent in this casino.. :'(

Our last train was gone long before we actually got to the casino so for me the last hour was waiting for the first train.. haven't done that since I was a teenager.. because I lived in central London since I was 18 and cabs in Seoul are reasonable.. It was a fun adventure though, and I am glad I managed to get out of the house!

I haven't been so exhausted from a night out that didn't even involve dancing before.

I need to get my car fixed. I'd gladly trade a hangover for a warm fast journey home..!!

£8.00 for a coffee n cake!

Last week I met a friend for coffee and cake in Soho, it had been a while since I hung out there.. the streets were vaguely familiar and places I passed sparked distant memories of cycling and driving around there while I was a student, but I still managed to have no idea where I was for 80% of the time..

We walked past some really cute cafes and eventually settled on one that looked like someone's grandmother's house.

Great quiche. Coffee was whatever. The staff were lovely and they had a really vibrant array of cakes and treats.

Chopstick Through Eye Prevention Agents (CTEPA)

Being back in country after so long, I inevitably have to find a new job and earn an income as I don't want to be at my parent's house for any longer than absolutely necessary. Looking for jobs in London, especially in what I want to do, is a soul destroying and often mind numbing experience.

But with help I have managed to stay sane, and prevent myself from removing my brain through my eyes, using the chopsticks I just ate my 라면 (Korean instant noodles) with....

Chopstick through eye prevention agent 1:

Shinichi Osawa (formerly Mondo Grosso), changed his name and style, and I like what he changed to. 

I saw him on this night when he played Club Volume in Seoul where I may or may not have been working.

Here are a just two of his songs, I tried to show you two that are different in style, because he has a range of different styles for every mood. And if you don't like the song there are angry bears shooting stuff so you can't complain.

Chopstick through eye prevention agent 2: 

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs

I was away for so long that I totally missed these guys, as anything non top 40 rarely filters through to Korea, the land of K-pop, and K-pop, AND...... if you're bored of K-pop, K-pop covers of perfectly decent songs.. But that is totally different post. These guys seem to be chill.. And I like to mix my up's with my downs.

More chilled than Shinichi but not a snooze fest so I can stay awake long enough to read the same job descriptions for different jobs over and over again... >.<

Chopstick through eye prevention agent 3:

Nosaj Thing

While I knew one or two of his songs I really hadn't taken the time to look for more as my Melon search brought up a total of 1 track, and after that effort I lost focus and gave up on my search. It was a great track, (a remix of The XX's, of whom I am also now a fan, song 'Islands') so a little later on I remembered that I should do a search for more of his stuff. Kinda pissed at Melon for denying me such a great artist, with Korean heritage too! But  now I am in a country of more musical diversity I will be able to get his stuff more easily.

Wise words on the last video;

Max Crane 1 year ago

Listen with a subwoofer and reap the bassy rewards!

When I get my PS3 from Korea (poor baby is travelling alone) I look forward to playing games and getting blazed drinking tea to this.

So I would like to thank the agents above for helping me keep my eyeballs intact as REED and Jobs.ac.uk tag team raging on my sanity.

L

2013

As is my regular redundant custom in the new year I always get a really cute, pretty and sometimes expensive diary from the stationary store, use it for a month and when it becomes bothersome to carry around it joins the collection of diary's past in the corner wondering where they went wrong. This time I have decided to save trees and cash by starting a blog.

The problem I had before was that, when cool things that I should write about in my diary happened, I was too busy having fun to write about it, and when I was home reflecting on life's more depressing points I was drawn to write about it and it made for some rather depressing reading. So this time I am going to just write things I remember, recent, past, whatever.

To welcome in the new year my friends and I took our hangovers to a park, or so I was lead to believe till we arrived and it was actually a graveyard. I am not one of those people who used to hang out at the graveyard as a teenager, drawing pentagrams and writing poetry, so at first I thought it all a bit odd that after all these long years, on New Years Day I found myself at a grave yard.

My initial preconceptions aside it turned out to be a peaceful and quite beautiful place. As it was sunset the light that filtered through the trees and over the gravestones gave Brompton Cemetery a glow making it more towards the peaceful and less Evil Dead.

Everyone seemed to be enjoying the fresh (London) air and the stroll. Apparently this cemetery was used in the filming of Sherlock Holmes. Watching as squirrels were playing on one of the deceased's resting places was a really good reminder that life is short and I should make the best out of the new years, because once in the ground everything just goes on without you. Squirrels have no respect. I was bitten by a squirrel once at school.