FUNDON! Day 2 part 2

After Matilda, Pooey and I had to wave goodbye to Caro & Friend and rush away because...WE WERE GOING TO SEE ONE DIRECTION AT WEMBLEY STADIUM!!!! This is a not a joke. This whole trip was actually planned around the fact that we had tickets to it hehehehe

The excitement started on the Tube to Wembley Park. We weren't the only ones dressed in the gear and holding the accessories!

Pooey jumps for joy as we get closer and closer!

We were waiting for Leesh and Meems and took the time to put some tattoos in strategic locations.

such as a conveniently kissable one!

Pooey greatly regretted not getting a tour shirt when she saw them in Melbs. No such regrets this time.

But please also note the custom-made shirts!

Our great regret was that neither of us notices that it would have been much more fun if one of us had first names and the other had surnames. 

Yes, we were pretty happy. And here's Leesh and Meems showing their level of enthusiasm.

Wembley holds about 90,000 people and they sold out 3 concerts.I'm just going to say that with the exception of the seats behind the stage...it got more full. Such is the world domination of their cult. Of which I am definitely a member. 

We arrived too late to late to see the warm-up act who happened to be Aussie band Five Seconds of Summer :D. But we were in time to listen to the warm up music and watch everyone dance to the Macarena, Single Ladies, and Jump Around. And when I say everybody, I don't just mean the paying audience - even the security guards were getting in on it! 

But then the entry video started and everyone went apeshit

As the tour is titled 'Where We Are', the vid featured the different places 1D have been in the last few years. 

Then Harry came out to start 'Midnight Memories' and the stadium exploded!!!

Niall actually plays the guitar quite a bit. I guess he's been practising

Oh Zayn. What a hottie

But what hey, Liam has grown up and growing up has been kind to him!

And yeah, Louis. 

The great thing about having Zayn as favourite is that, due to his heavy vocal load, he was featured quite a bit in the close ups.

Problem with this was that he often looked uninterested :( It looked as though he was having problems because he kept fiddling with and replacing his earpiece.

But Liam looked really happy to be there and kept saying things like how awesome it was to be at Wembley and not being able to believe that everything started for them a few metres down the road when they auditioned for X Factor. And so now Liam is my new favourite! Sorry Zayn, but at least pretend you want to be there!

Like you Mims! What are you yawning for?!?!

See my super-happy face? At this point I think I'd been bouncing around for at least an hour.

The performance of One Thing. *sigh*

YEAH!!!!

I think this was Little Things. 

HOLD UP ALL THE PHONES!!!!

Hehehe, animated 1D

Leesh had a much better camera on her than me and Pooders

Crystal clear shots of them!

Best Song Ever closed out the night...

And then BAM!!! It was over. 

I will unabashedly say that this was one of the best nights of my life. Not only did I get to spend a few hours bouncing around, singing at the top of my lungs and basically being the teenaged fangirl I wasn't as a teenager, I got to experience one of the most amazing and spontaneous events ever. After the concert, there was (naturally) a bit of a crush as everyone headed towards the tube station to get home. Police were out and monitoring the situation. When suddenly, someone started playing 1D music out loud and the crowd burst into song, even when the song abruptly ended before its actual end. This happened a few times and showed the general cheer of the crowd despite the very uncomfortable situation. As we inched forward, it turned out the source of the music were a pair of policemen, their bullhorn, and a mobile phone! And still high on concert buzz, much to the amusement of people on the street and Smee, Pooey and I walked home from the tube, playing,singing, and dancing along to 1D. Best night ever!

FUNDON! Day 2 part 1

Back in Fundon, me and Pooey were queued in for a very busy day. First stop - our regular brunch/high tea at Fortnum & Masons. This time around we invited two of my friends who were in Rundon - F&M HT virgins Caro and KT. 

Caro decided to forgo High Tea and ordered afternoon tea because she wanted sandwiches. She was pretty happy when they arrived at the table :D

But she had a serious case of food envy when the lobster omlette bisque for Pooey, KT, and myself arrived!

Mmmm. KT and Caro were impressed by how the place settings even matched the furnishings. 

Nom nom!

Even though it was cake overload, we ordered slices of the raspberry, coconut and lime cake (far left) and the lemon loaf (left)

Now, one might say that having afternoon tea doesn't sound too strenuous. Well it was because while it would have been nice to lounge around and slowly munch our scones and cake, Pooey, Caro, Caro's friend and I at tickets to Matilda so we had to scoff and scoot!

The set. Books noted!

I would highly recommend Matilda to everyone. Based on the eponymous Roald Dahl book, while some things are (naturally) condensed or altered, the plot is essentially the same with the brilliant Matilda conducting acts of revenge against those who she believes act unjustly - from her appalling parents to the headmistress of her school, Miss Trunchbull. Miss Trunchbull (played by a male actor, in that wonderful panto-tradition) is a real scene-stealer and got many loud boos at the curtain call :D. But the songs and performances are wonderful. 

If I had to have a criticism, there might have been a problem with the sound in the first half as it was a bit difficult to understand the actress playing Matilda at some points, but this cleared up in the second half. 

Bath!

Soph and Rich also suggested that I could visit Bath since it's only 20km or a 15 minute train ride from Bristol. In Australian distances...that's closer than Melbs home to Melbs city centre! I put it on the liste because I haven't been to Bath despite my regular UK sojourns and familiarity with both 19th century English literature and 20th century Georgian and Regency romance novels. 

On the topic of romance novels - The Pump Room!

The western facade of Bath Abbey - angels climbing ladders to heaven!

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed into the Abbey due to a private event taking place oooh!

So we went to the biggest tourist attracting in Bath - the Roman baths.

The Great Bath. Mmmm, picturesque (although the upper balcony was a 19th century addition).

But I'm not complaining because it gives a lovely view of the Abbey!

In the Museum were models of how the building is believed to have looked at various points in time, such as the original structure (above) and the complex at it's greatest extent (below). 

Some of the archaeological ruins in the museum.

The Sacred Spring. You can see the bubbles of the spring in the water!

The water overflow

Water flowing into the Great Bath! 

I don't know why, but I was really surprised at how warm the water was!

You're not supposed to touch the water and bathing is no longer allowed because the water flows through original lead pipes and microfauna in the water. 

Despite that, there was a tap where you're allowed to taste the water. It was very mineral-y. Not tasty at all.

 Having spent longer than expected in the Baths, we decided there wasn't enough time to go to the Jane Austen Museum and we decided instead to walk around and grab lunch before I had to catch the bus back to London. 

The Circus. Very nice. 

My lamb meatballs and coucous from The Circus Cafe and Restaurant. Very tasty. But service is quite slow here so we weren't able to get to The Royal Crescent :(

I would highly recommend taking the bus to Bath over the train with one caveat. My one-way ride cost only £8 or so and was supposed to take 2.5 hours. It ended up taking 4.5 hours (I left Bath around 3:20 and ended up in London around 8pm). We were making good time - I remember realising that we were close to Heathrow and that we'd be home soon - but there was a MASSIVE traffic jam from Hounslow to Hammersmith. It could have been worse though. At least I was only supposed to take the Tube home once I got to Victoria Coach Station; a girl on my bus was supposed to catch another bus to Norwich which she naturally missed. 

But all was made well by the Hotpot dinner Smee and Pooey provided for my return!

Bristol!

When I told people I was heading to Bristol during my trip, the usual reply was, "Errr, why?" Like Glasgow, Bristol has a bit of a reputation as a rough city that's slowly coming back...but still not exactly somewhere you go for tourism. Well the primary reason was that Soph moved there and since my visits have been on the short side, we hadn't been able to catch up for ages. Since this trip was long(ish) and I had never been to South West England, I may as well head over for a visit! 

Unfortunately, we were so wrapped up in catching up that I didn't take any photos of the Georgian sandstone buildings of the Bristol city centre or of the cathedral as we strolled around. Eventually we made it to Clifton for lunch and then up the hill to Clifton Down.

Proof that we met up! And that we went to the Observatory!

The view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge from the Down. 

The bridge spans the river Avon and is apparently quite famous a suicide bridge. There were a few signs on the bridge listing a phone number for people who need help. 

I enjoy crossing famous bridges by foot. This photo doesn't indicate how windy it was. I may have Marilyn'd the passing cars.

The view of the Down and Observatory from the bridge. 

The Avon apparently flooded last year and made it up to the highway down there.

We headed back into town and while walking around, saw this beautiful Victorian era shopping arcade.

According to the official website, when the arcade was opened in April 1879, it flopped and eventually fell into disuse. It was restored in 1998. 

We went to a gastropub for dinner where I had a nice burger and cheese platter. Apparently I was too busy eating to photograph them for postery but trust me, pretty good! And then we went home and watched World War Z. Also pretty good!

Next stop - Bath!

FUNDON!!! Day 1

My flight was delayed getting into London and it was too late to do anything other than take a cab from Victoria to St. Pauls so the first day of my trip to visit Pooey and Smee amounted to sleeping :D. 

The first proper day was a full one with many things planned. First stop - Barclays in The City so that I could withdraw money to pay back Pooey for all the things the bought on my behalf (mostly theatre tickets).  

But on our way we saw this travesty of a shop selling a viet poison pork roll BLT variation. WHAT?!

Second stop - Clapham for me and Pooey to get our brow and mo threaded.

Because I'm simple, I was pretty amused to see that this exhibition about mammoths used MAMMOTH FONT!!!

Next stop was to Covent Garden for me to get my hair cut off, followed by fourth stop - lunch at Five Guys.

I haven't had this before but apparently these are really good burgers.

With the cajun fries. Check out my new long bob! Even Pooey said she liked it!

Does this burger look filthy? Well it was. It was pretty delicious but I felt like I was dying each time I took a bite. 

Fifth stop - Chinatown for me to get a bubble tea.

From Cuppacha. And another view of the bob!

Next stop - TCR Primmy, for all our shopping needs.

Also, we walked by this stall selling Chinese buns (baozi) as...Chinese kebabs?! Errrrr, okay...

And then for dinner we met up with Smee and went to Kam Fung in Holborn because he wanted to check it out after seeing my photos of the CNY banquet. It appears that we didn't photograph anything but we had the golden pillow prawns, roast duck, and some vegetables (da miu). Smee was alright with it (hes fussier about his food than me and Pooey), and then we walked to Chinatown because he wanted some snow ice and I had my second bubble tea of the day!  

Yeah.

I really hate that colleague of mine.

On Monday I discovered something that had been requested for them had not been carried out and then yesterday morning I found evidence that it was because they had cancelled the request. This annoyed me because they had neglected to inform me, despite the fact that I am the person responsible for this. When I discovered this, I immediately fired off an email asking for confirmation that this had indeed been cancelled. I received no reply for the entire day despite seeing that they had clearly read the message. I waited today to see if they would reply in the morning. Nothing. I'm flying to Run/Fun/Yumdon this evening and will therefore leave work early. The especially shit thing about waiting for confirmation is that since I will be on vacay (wooh!), I have to then organise someone else to take care of this while I'm gone (boo!). So this isn't just inconveniencing me, it's now going to affect someone else!

Very useful words to know.

As previously stated, I've been playing with language learning app Duolingo, and that despite being quite advanced in some of the languages I've chosen to refresh, I decided to start learning them straight from the start. 

While I previously mentioned that it was funny to find that one learns how to say that one enjoys assorted alcoholic beverages in the basic stages, this has led to finding some pretty amusing sentences as more and more vocabulary is added to the mix. 

For example, when learning about family members in German:

Yep, my parents do like beer!

And more hilariously when learning the names of animals in Spanish:

Always possible!