A Picturesque trip to the Botanic Garden

On Saturday 26th September, I went to a lolita meetup at the Botanic Garden in Oxford. For those unaware, it is a beautiful green area filled with flowers and plants and trees and greenhouses of natural beauty. I had never been before, but I can safely say I will definitely be going again. 

I was in such good spirits as I set off that morning. I've recently taken to using my village's train station instead of the main one in the town centre. Even though it runs a slower service, I find the lack of crowds and abundance of trees there to be very peaceful and pleasant. It's nice to be able to sit at one of the benches on the platform, and gaze into the distance, waiting for the train to appear.

Once on board, I settled myself down and listened to some music. I'd had the new Macklemore song "Downtown" in my head for days now, and I couldn't help watching the music video on my phone. I have been a fan of Eric Nally for years now so to see him pop up in some mainstream track is still quite surreal to me. 

I soon arrived in Oxford, and after using my trusty travel sewing kit to sew my friend's broken shoe strap back together (this turned out to be a very temporary fix, unfortunately), we headed off to our meetup destination.

It was a photoshoot meetup, organised so that we could come up with a picture to contribute to the upcoming Tea Party Club calendar. Our month is April, so it seemed only sensible that we try to create a springtime gardening scene. I was initially worried about the fact we would have pretend it was April in September, but these gardens looked like they were stuck in spring, and we were surrounded by flowers of all colours in full bloom. To contrast, there were also great trees sprinkling golden leaves onto the luscious grass, so it was like experiencing two seasons at once. The weather that day was sunny and hot, so the only unrepresented season was winter. The brightness was perfect for my camera, and I excitedly snapped away endless sharp images. One of the items on my overly long list of interests is photography, and I particularly enjoy taking pictures of flora and fauna.

We only stayed for a couple of hours, heading off for lunch as soon as we were done taking pictures, but we managed to see a lot of the gardens while we were there. I particularly enjoyed the plant life in the greenhouses, though sadly these were fairly busy and excruciatingly humid, so we could not linger for very long. Despite this, I was still able to get some nice shots before we left for lunch.

So many flowers!

I am so proud of this shot.

A little pumpkin!

I was focused not only on capturing our lovely surroundings, but also on getting pictures of myself! I have so few genuinely decent pictures of myself in lolita that I feel determined to keep a better record of my outfits moving forward. My friends felt the same way, and in between posing for the calendar we found ourselves moving into our own little spots to take outfit pictures of one another! I made a particular effort to take pictures of Sammi as I didn't even get an outfit shot of her at the recent big lolita event we attended last month. I went a little "street snap" with her to make up for this neglect.

I decided to put together a country inspired coordinate using my newest dress, Meta's Gingham Cherry Ladder Lace jumperskirt. There are cherries, strawberries, and daisies in the print-- perfect for the spring theme!

I love this photo of me! 

So, that was my experience of the garden. There's something very revitalising about being surrounded by plant life, I feel, though that might be my tree-hugging side talking. Being out and about in pretty surroundings lifts my spirits and gives me things to marvel at and appreciate, which comes as a welcome relief from the stresses of the world beyond it. I must make more time to indulge in these days out, and remind myself that life has its good moments, too.

I hope you enjoyed this post! On warm sunny days, do you enjoy garden strolls and walks in the countryside, or would you rather be doing something else? I'd love to know what sorts of outings you like best! As always, thanks for looking and reading.

See you next time ❤

Summer International Lolita Day 2015

Last Saturday, I co-hosted a meet along with my friends Sammi and Luna for ILD.

Over the past few months, I have felt that meetup planning itch, which I wasn't sure I'd ever feel again after having had a lot of negative experiences in the past. Still, I broached the idea with them of doing something a bit more organised and special than the usual restaurant meets, and we put our heads together to come up with something that would be affordable and yet a lot of fun. We knew we would have to charge entry to the event, and were at first sceptical as to whether the comm would roll with it. After a few weeks of making the event, however, we found ourselves with a guest list of 12 people, a great group size!

Using the money we put together, we were able to book out an entire floor for 5 hours in our favourite pub, came up with a whole host of activities and games to fill the day with, not to mention putting together a feast, and buying prizes for the winners of each activity. On the day of the meet, we were running a little behind schedule and rushing through the city centre like our lives depended on it! We managed to get everything sorted (somehow!) and ended up having a really amazing day!

We made silly little goodie bags for everyone to take home! I don't think it's a concept you ever truly grow out of!

Here is the table of food! Sammi really stole the show here, and prepared homemade potato salad, couscous dishes, and even macarons which came out perfectly! She truly is a culinary goddess.

Our first event of the day was one of my infamous quizzes. I put together yet another print name test, where you had to guess which of the print names were real, and which ones I'd made up. The highest score was only 11/20! 

After this, we did Luna's Lolita Assault Course! The tasks were as follows: walking through a slalom as elegantly as you could while having balloons thrown at you, doing the best lolita pose you could, sitting as nicely as possible, tying the best bow, putting a sugar cube into a teacup and stirring daintily, and then doing your best lolita laugh! As you can probably tell if you've seen Misako's series on Kawaii Pateen, a lot of that activity was inspired by it!

Gorgeous Maddie got the highest score in the assault course! She is so elegant!

At the start of the day, us organisers hide one of the prizes somewhere in the room. We gave no clues or hints as to how to find it, but whoever did find it would be the one to keep it! Only two people seemed to remember to look for it, and one of those two found it immediately!

Eva was victorious! She found the super cute and fluffy macaron purse.

The next activity was pass the parcel! It took myself, Luna, and Sammi close to an hour to wrap it and put it together a few weeks ago! It had so many layers we couldn't remember which layer was the last one, and so the game (aided by some cheesy pop music we found on one of the pub's CDs) went on for quite a while! 

 I think everyone won something, even if it was only a lollipop or a lip balm. The last layer had a pair of cute Bodyline knee high socks in it. 

Next up, cupcake decorating! Everyone was allowed to decorate two cupcakes each, to be put into an anonymous display where everyone then had to vote for their favourite one!

Some cake decorating action! People got really creative with their designs.

A few of the finished cakes! Some of the ideas were incredibly adorable! It was interesting to see how differently each person approached it.

Our final event of the day was lolita charades! This was so much fun! Us organisers took it in turns to pull a print name out of a hat, and act it out. Whoever guessed it right first got to claim one of a selection of prizes. It was a really nice way to end the day!

After this, people hung around for a while and we all ate more of the food as we were getting a little hungry again! Luckily, we had bought and prepared more than enough, so there was plenty of food to go around still. 

Of course, the day wasn't complete without a (most of the) group photo! 

So much Angelic Pretty made an appearance! It was like going back in time to when sweet lolita ruled the roost!

And now for an outfit picture!

I decided to give Dreaming Macaron an outing! Lately, I've really wanted to try to stop myself from wearing so much black, so this was definitely a success. I didn't feel particularly out of my comfort zone either, so I think it would be nice to do some more proper pastel outfits more regularly. I also tried out twin buns for my hair and I like how it turned out! It's a shame I didn't get any photos of my outfit in natural lighting, but I'll probably do a similar coordinate again soon!

And finally, a mirror picture for the organisers!

Luna went with her adorable Sweetie Violet dress, and Sammi rocked up in glorious Honey Cake! We all had fun being super sweet AP lolitas that day!

Overall, I had such an amazing time, and I'm really glad I got over my mental block for organising meets! Everyone else seemed to really enjoy themselves too, which was really nice to see! One thing I did learn is that three heads are definitely better than one. Putting things together as a group gives you so many more options, points of view, suggestions, and a certain comfort in knowing that if something isn't going to plan, someone else can step in with a plan b. Plus, it's so much fun planning things to do with your best friends! I am so looking forward to us putting our heads together again to come up with another extravaganza in the near future!

What did you get up to for Summer ILD? I'd love to hear about it! Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your comments ❤

Hosting Meets and Being Considerate in your Local Lolita Community

Photo by Saoirse Clohessy

I've hosted several lolita meetups in the past. Generally, I've found there are very few places for a big group of lolitas to go, and I always find it a shame there aren't cheaper crafting workshops, good venues, and other fun activity sessions which aren't in the middle of nowhere!

In an attempt to make up for this, I decided one day that every meet I hosted needed to include an activity of some sort, even if the only indoor place we could find to sit down and hang out in would be the restaurant we'd have our main meal in. Needless to say, I always work hard to come up with meetup ideas, and even if we struggle to find places to go, I do my best to make sure everyone is content. 

A recent unfortunate experience made me feel compelled to write this post. Without the security of lots of people I already knew, it was in fact a very dire experience. One point I would like to emphasise (and summarises this post quite well) before I go any further is that hosting a meetup is so much more than just booking a restaurant. With that said, on we go.

*   *   *

If you have no interest in the welfare of others, do everyone a favour and never host a meet. If you cannot be bothered to do anything more than choosing a restaurant, don't waste everybody's time. If you find tracking down guests who are meant to be there but have gotten lost to be too much effort and would rather start the meet without them, then I really wonder why you want to be part of a community in the first place.

These are all things I witnessed firsthand. In the past I have often felt as if I cared a bit too much about things, but maybe some people have to be like that to counteract the people who don't care about anything. I found myself taking over this meetup, in an attempt to make sure the lost person made it to the meet (luckily they were stalking their facebook frantically and I was able to message them from my phone), and to make sure we even got to the meetup destination, which the "host" didn't know the exact location of. I had looked it up on Google street view a few days earlier, and led the way, essentially making up for the fact they were in no way fulfilling the role they had taken upon themselves.

I suppose this all sounds rather like I enjoy "backseat driving" or taking over, but I don't. I don't like feeling responsible for other people's messes. I don't enjoy being around "hosts" who are content to allow people to travel to a meet they've put absolutely no effort into, and then not care if they even make it there or not. I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the attendees (who were, incidentally, very new to lolita and meets in general) never came to a meetup again after such a disappointing, lacklustre experience. I've seen people write of their own bad experiences within their local communities online, in which they talk about their inability to form any real friendships with people as everyone is very cold with nothing in common with them. I wonder if they simply stumbled upon an unfortunate situation consisting of people with no real sense of consideration or genuine interest in others. 

I really do believe you can make real friends via lolita. I've done it myself, to the point that I don't really need to attend official lolita meetups any more as I have a solid group of friends I love. But this sort of thing is not going to happen for a lot of people unless as a whole, the lolita community redevelops its sense of being an actual community. Meetups are not for standing around with other lolitas for the novelty factor. Lolitas are real people, not props. Meetups are a social event, not just a photo op. The idea is to meet new people and to interact with them, in the hopes of making new friends-- something you will never do unless you care about others.

My point is, you need to care if you are going to host a meetup.

Here's a straightforward list of some meetup basics for both hosts and attendees to keep in mind:

• Make a sensible meeting point. For every meet I've ever been to, we've used the train station as a gathering spot.
• Come up with a meeting time and stick to it. Make it clear well in advance. 
• If you realise on the day you can't attend, let someone know so that everyone else isn't stuck wondering if you're coming or not.
• If you're eating out, book the restaurant so you are guaranteed a spot, and book a time that's late enough to account for any latecomers, and to get everyone to the restaurant from the meeting point.
• Make sure the restaurant/meet caters to everybody's needs with regards to their diet, and physical accessibility i.e. vegan food, Halal meat, wheelchair access, etc.
• Plan an activity. You could come up with one of your own to be done during the meal. Previously I've made silly lolita themed quizzes with a prize at the end. If the weather is good, have a picnic and play fun active games, though make sure they are accessible to everyone.
• If someone needs help with something, help them! This might be as simple as showing them to the toilets, helping them carry something if they're struggling, or suggesting the best dishes on the restaurant menu. A little consideration goes a long way.
• If you need to leave the group for whatever reason, explain where you're going and when you'll be back. 
• Don't whinge.
• If you have a serious physical or mental health problem which could arise during the meet, let someone else know beforehand so that if anything happens, it can be dealt with appropriately and efficiently. 
• Make it clear when the meetup is over, preferably before energy levels have completely plummeted. 
• Overall, be considerate!!!

Apologies for the ranty nature of this post. But I find lack of consideration for others appalling. Even if you are meeting for the very first time, I think you should still do your best to think of other people's feelings. Every friendship has to start somewhere, and if your first interaction with someone is a positive one, there's no doubt a friendship will have a chance to form.

Have you ever had any negative meetup experiences? Any other suggestions to add? Let me know in the comments and I will see you next time with a more positive post ❤

A Board Game Meetup!

On Saturday 4th October I got together with my friends to visit a café in Oxford called Thirsty Meeples. They stock a vast collection of board games which you can both buy or play over a tasty lunch. I'd never been to it before, but I loved the concept, and was happy to find it was a great place for a get-together.

Ok... so I only truly enjoyed one of the games we played ("Articulate!" has to be my favourite game ever. I was the winner when we played it!) but the atmosphere was great, and I was happy to be there on rainy day. The other tables seemed to be really enjoying themselves, too, including a group of people who aiming plastic guns at each other! I wish I'd found out what that game was called because it looked hilarious.

I only got a slice of carrot cake and a pot of Earl Grey, but both were amazing. I seem to have gotten into loose leaf tea lately! I must invest in a tea pot!

A card from one of the games we played, which was called Marrying Mr Darcy. This game nearly bored me to tears! It was based on Pride and Prejudice, and you had to follow the instructions on the cards with the aim of winning yourself a husband. The cards were pretty, and I think that's the only positive thing I have to say about it!

We also played Concept (a really bad, long-winded version of Articulate! that was very slow and ultimately boring). Cards Against Humanity happened, which I found to be an unnecessarily crude, naff game I might have enjoyed if I was twelve years old, wilfully ignorant, or very drunk. I literally don't understand why this game (if you can call it that) is so popular.

This seems to have turned into a scathing review of games rather than a meetup report-- time to get back on track!

After our three hour time slot was up, we found somewhere to take group photos. It was an unexpectedly cold day so we all look a bit chilly. I loved everyone's casual coordinates!

We ended our day in the pub. I was so hungry by this point that I ordered myself a nice main course of beef lasagne and chips.

The menu said that it was served with garlic bread. It did not specify how much, but somehow, I expected more than a single slice, haha! It didn't matter so much in the end because I was very full by the time I finally finished my side of chips.

To finish off with, here's a photo of my coordinate for the day.

Hair comb: Cloudberry Lady

Blouse: H&M

Jumperskirt: Princess Wardrobe by Metamorphose

Boots: Red Herring

Thanks for looking, and I hope you enjoyed this post! See you next time ❤

A Casual Tea Party Meetup!

Last Sunday I had a lovely day out in London with two friends, Wing and Reina, who I hadn't had a chance to have a proper catch up with in so long (literally years... I am terrible).

We decided to go to BB Bakery in Covent Garden. I had never been here before and had no idea what to expect. When I got inside I was really excited because they sold adorable desserts, and all the food and tea came served in the most amazing crockery.

I was rather in awe when all our orders were placed on the table!

Everything was so flowery and gorgeous! I have never been somewhere like this before and would really love to again. Somehow, eating and drinking from such special plates and cups made everything so much more magical.

The tea was loose leaf, and it tasted amazing. I don't normally drink tea or find it appealing, but I couldn't get enough of it here! 

For dessert, I decided to try their fruit tart as it looked most enticing, and I was not disappointed! Lovely rich raspberries and blueberries on top of yummy custard and a crumbly base... I was in heaven!

We had a cosy nook in the basement of the café to ourselves, so we were able to just sit comfortably for hours talking about anything and everything. We even refilled our tea pots and continued to drink very weak tea, but none of us minded. 

I dressed pretty casual for the occasion. I was happy with my coordinate, even if I always seem to wear Alice's Ribbon Kingdom! It really is my go-to jumperskirt.

After our meal (which was really reasonably priced due to a special lunchtime offer), we got someone in the café to take a group picture of us. They had a really great sense of humour and even took a selfie after obliging us with photos on all of our cameras!

The three of us! Wing wore JetJ, Reina went for Emily Temple Cute, and I wore Baby. 

We then decided to have a wander around Covent Garden, which I really enjoyed as I don't get to have a good tour of London very often (if ever). We went to Art Box, where I bought myself a cute pink chocolate bar pencil case, and a chocolate themed pen to match. 

Sadly, when we went to the purikura, the machine wasn't working, but I saw pictures of my friend Sammi on the front desk which was pretty unexpected!

We headed to Japan Centre and ended up crowding around a copy of Kera magazine, whilst a middle aged French couple bitched about us (yes you two, I did understand what you were saying!) There were some really lovely pictures in it but I simply couldn't justify the £10+ price after basically having experienced all there was to experience, seeing as I don't know any Japanese. Still, it was fun actually looking at a copy in the flesh!

Before we left, I got myself an apple and almond bread for the journey home, and soon, it was time to say goodbye!

I had a really amazing day and I can't wait to hang out with them again! ❤

Another Alice-themed Day in Oxford!

Last Saturday was Alice Day in Oxford, a day dedicated to celebrating Lewis Carroll's Alice, and her adventures in wonderland. But somehow, despite kind of knowing where the events would be held, myself and the other Oxfordshire Lolitas managed to completely miss all of those official items of the day! We still had a really amazing time, with Luna being an awesome meetup host as usual.

We started off the day in our favourite pub for a meal. It was pouring with rain outside, but I couldn't help sharing a pitcher of summery Pimm's with Sammi and Luna. Outside we noticed a lolita none of us knew walk past. Mysterious!

After our meal we went to a sweet shop before hunting down the Alice Day activities. We found one event happening, but it consisted of a couple of gazebos and not much else-- certainly not worth paying an entrance fee for. After getting pestered for countless photos (or simply having people take our pictures without asking) we decided to cool off in the ice cream shop. Newly refreshed, we headed to the park.

The day's activities included an egg and spoon slalom race with plastic utensils and breakable plastic eggs! The spoons were much too small for the eggs so actually moving with the egg on the spoon was close to impossible and incredibly frustrating! Who knew this traditional children's sports day race could get so intense?!

I ended up winning both of my egg and spoon races, and won a prize! I got a hair clip, and a teacup ring (which I totally didn't notice until I got home. I was amazed when this random ring tumbled out of the tissue paper in my bedroom!) I love how real the sweets on the clip look, plus they matched the charm bracelet I was wearing that day which was an added bonus!

My outfit included my trusty Alice's Ribbon Kingdom jumperskirt! I'm finding this is becoming my go-to jumperskirt as I'm more comfortable coordinating with black than with pastels. #bittersweetlolita XD

The blouse is Anna House, and the shoes are from Bodyline. You can just about see a Pusheen necklace trying to hide in my blouse!

I would say my lolita style is very casual (probably too casual), but I would like to add more details to my outfits in future and step out of my comfort zone. I found Blair's coord very inspiring, and couldn't help but snap detail shots. Her Innocent World wristcuffs are positively divine!

The meetup attendees! I'm the sort of person that is more comfortable in smaller groups, so this was a really nice change of pace for me. By the way, please excuse our collective squinting at the sudden sunlight-- we really struggled to find a good spot to take a group picture that wouldn't have a ton of tour groups and randomers for a backdrop!

Overall, I had so much fun at this meet! I adore doing silly running around activities and not taking things too seriously. It was nice to get to know the two newer members of the group, and I hope they will come to more meetups soon!

I hope you enjoyed this post! See you next time ❤

International Lolita Day Summer 2014

Last Saturday I organised a lolita meetup in honour of the summer edition of International Lolita Day. The weather was set to be rainy and stormy, so I decided to call off the picnic I had meticulously planned. But whilst I did wake up to thunder and an intense rain shower, by around 11am it had completely cleared up, much to my frustration. My replacement plan was to go for a meal at Wagamama.

The day became really warm and summery. We posed in the now fully bloomed area of the park which made for some lovely photos. We couldn't help trying to pose with all the flowers!

Silly photos and yet Luna and Sammi still look totally adorable! 

After a rather cloudy start to the proceedings the sun came out and all of a sudden it was boiling! I had dressed for the apocalypse only to be greeted by some sort of summery paradise?! 

We managed to get a nice photo of the entire group.

Such a lovely meetup setting!

After taking lots of photos, we headed off for our meal. I ordered yaki udon like I did last time and I was disappointed by how sour it was. Oh well... this time I got TWO whole prawns instead of one, haha.

During the meal I handed out another one of my quizzes! This time it was a print name/dress name test, where you had to decide which prints were real, and which ones I had simply made up. Luna, being the lolita knowledge champion, won the quiz again with 13/20, and Fern came in second place with 11/20. I awarded both of them with flowery hair accessories. Most people only got 4 questions right! I can't say I'm surprised... you probably wouldn't have expected Ruby Gloom and Dobby Cherry to be actual lolita brand dress names!

Sammi's test paper turned cupcake plate!

After our meal we ended up back in the park again to eat the cupcakes someone had been generous enough to provide! There were also donations of chocolate chip cookies, and really adorable goodie bags that day, too. We all had a souvenir to take away from the day.

And finally, a picture of me, chilling with the roses of course. The blouse is my trusty Anna House one, and the jumperskirt is actually a Sai Sai, Camden find. The label says Pyon Pyon which I believe is a Taobao brand. I need to wear it more often! I quite enjoyed my venture into kuro lolita!

I hope you enjoyed seeing what my local comm got up to on International Lolita Day! Did you celebrate? :)

Thanks for reading, and feel free to leave a comment! ❤

Bonus:

I couldn't resist making a little dress-up game version of my kuro coord! XD

A fun picnic meetup!

Hey everyone! Apologies for not posting in a little while, but I've simply not had the time!

I thought I would do another meetup report, this time on an Oxford lolita meetup that happened on Sunday.

We decided to go for a picnic. Luna and Sammi organised a series of games for us to play such as lolita print bingo, and a pinata, and overall, it was a really funny meetup!

We set up camp under the shade of some big trees by a duck pond.

We had croissants, cocktail sausages, sausage rolls, grapes, strawberries and cream, fairy cakes (which were amazing), Doritos, couscous and sandwiches!

This lil ducky chilled out with us for a bit. She was rewarded with Doritos after we decided she was a "cool original" sort of duck.

James ended up in a tree in an attempt to set up the pinata so I gave him my camera so he could get some cool birds-eye view photos of us! Luna's dress makes me nostalgic as it's what she was wearing the first time we properly met! I decided to wear an Anna House blouse, Bodyline macaron print (because food theme!) and a handmade strawberry clip and handmade teapot earrings!

All of us waiting around for this bloody pinata to get it together! Despite Sammi having dried out the paper mache for days, it still had a weird gooey texture and didn't quite work out properly.

We each took turns to whack at this thing for so ages before finally deciding to just tear it open already!

My shoes weren't loli at all but I didn't have my black tea parties at my parents' house where I was staying. Oh well XD

After we were done with clearing up all the pinata mess, we went for a bit of a wander around the park, getting stopped for photos, and then going on a hunt for the toilets. We then headed for another shaded area to take group photos.

And here's all of us! We had a couple of newcomers and they were so lovely. Hopefully they'll come to more meets in future!

After this, we settled ourselves down once more so we could sample Nicola's chocolate cake.

It was delicious, of course! So far, Nicola's chocolate cake is the nicest I've tasted so far. I love that she doesn't overdo it with the chocolate so it's not overly rich or bitter. It's just perfect! I regret not asking to take some home with me!

After that we headed to the ice cream cafe to cool down. And then, the meet was over!

I had such a great day! Meetups are so much fun in hot weather because the days are longer, and there's so much more freedom when you can stay outside and be comfortable.

I hope you enjoyed this meetup report! Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment! ❤

A Meetup in Basingstoke

On Sunday I attended a lolita meetup in Basingstoke. It's not a town I've ever been particularly blown away by but I ended up having a really great time there. It turns out there's a large, picturesque park area about a ten minute walk from the town centre, with a paddling area for little children, and a large expanse of pond for people to pedalo in, and ducks to frolic in (though they mainly seemed interested in sunbathing on the dry land).

The previous plan had been to have a picnic, but it seemed like the weather was going to be terrible so this was called off. On the actual day however, the weather was gloriously warm and sunny.

We decided to walk to a little bridge area to take photos of the group. 

Here's the picture I took of the group! On this occasion, Luna and James couldn't make it so we didn't have the option of using James as the photographer XD A lot of us were wearing more subdued classical coordinates this time. 

I made sure to get some nice snapshots of Ophelia's coord which was, incidentally, my favourite one of the day.

Doesn't she look wonderful? I love coordinates which include red, and I'm forever loving anything with a retro vibe.

Here's my coordinate for the day:

This picture gives me so much fringe rage! I forgot to use my comb before the picture, and a breeze blew as it was being taken so as per usual it split in the middle. So frustrating... maybe next time I'll get the perfect outfit picture. Anyway, I'm wearing Btssb's Alice's Ribbon Kingdom, and a bag I got recently from Floozie by Frost French. The blouse is H&M and the shoes are Bodyline.

After this, we decided to get something to eat, and ended up at Ask Italian, outside in a covered seating area. It was nice to have a private area for our group to eat and chat.

I had this rigatoni meatball dish. It was nice, though highly reminiscent of a supermarket ready meal I used to have all the time! Luckily, it didn't cost too much in the end because Emmy had brought a discount voucher for us.

When we'd gone through the headache inducing task of splitting the bill after using discount voucher, we headed to a wall beside a church where we ate the homemade fairy cakes that Jerusha had brought with her. 

We ended the meet by checking out a shop in the main shopping centre, which sells anime related merchandise, traditional Chinese clothing, loads of Hello Kitty related stuff, and other miscellaneous items. I'm not entirely sure who the target audience of this shop is but it's definitely fun to browse either way! I ended up buying a sparkly butterfly thing which I'm planning on turning into a hair accessory. Rosemary decided it was overpriced whilst Emmy kept pushing me to buy it, acting as the devil on my shoulder! In the end, I decided to treat myself out of the convenience of it. 

At the till, along with my butterfly, I also placed a fortune cookie from the box on the counter. Outside the shop, I snapped open the cookie then burst out laughing as a read the message inside.

Spooky, huh?

Things soon began to wrap up as we all separated in different directions to get home. 

I had a great day, and I'm glad my opinion was changed of this town. It doesn't have as many things to do there as my hometown, but I'm sure it'll suit us well for a summer picnic. 

Until next time, thank you so much for looking and feel free to comment ❤