A quick round up – part 2

So here we are with part 2. Not sure I’ll get it all done so there may well be a part 3 ^^; But here we go.

So, on Wednesday (4th December) Miyu came to mine after school and I helped her make Rocky Road for a Christmas party we were going to on the Saturday. We also made chicken fajitas, which are expensive to make here, but they were damned tasty! Well, once we managed to get the jar of salsa open anyway. 20 minutes or so of trying everything to open it, we eventually took it up to my American neighbour’s apartment and he managed to open it for us. Thanks, Anthony! ^^;

The aforementioned party happened after quidditch and at Morgan’s. A Christmas dessert party! Oh man, there were so many desserts. Everyone did so well making something different. My offering was some mini banoffee pies. They turned out okay. I’m so limited with what I can bake here as I have no oven. Miss making cakes and cookies. We did a White Elephant Secret Santa, which was hilariously competitive. Especially over a plant that Miyu eventually won. Very entertaining! Other party games were also played and it was a lovely afternoon/evening! 🙂

Nearly the whole of the following week I had Sepro, so I was at another ALT’s school. This school was really nice! They provided us with loads of snacks and made us feel really welcome. The students were really good and enthusiastic too! On the Friday we got invited to join a second grade Calligraphy class and I got to try it with a proper brush and ink set for the first time ever!

Then on Friday evening I went to Morgan’s again and he, Miyu, Rich and I played our new favourite game, Wingspan. It’s so fun! And we had a little toast to Morgan and Rich since they were both heading home for Christmas the following day.

Then quidditch the next day was good fun! Lots of good drills and what felt like a very worthwhile practice. Then, the most important bit, we went to lunch at the yakiniku place we had been to before. Soooo much food and so cheap! 😀

Okay, yup, leaving it there. Part 3 coming tomorrow night, haha.

A quick round-up – part 1

Ahhh I haven’t updated in a month! I can’t believe I’ve let that happen. It’s just been quite crazy here lately for one reason or another. Mostly for my own benefit at this point, to be completely honest, I’m going to do a quick summary of the last 4 weeks.

So, first, the Nationals Quidditch tournament didn’t happen. Bit of rain and bam! they postponed it. Bit annoying, but there you go. Morgan, Miyu, Rich and I hung out playing board games instead, and got a Sumo lunch!

Chanko – the traditional meal of a sumo wrestler. Super tasty!

More board games were played with some additional quidditch members, and then some of us went onward to a drinking party organised by the Azabu Stirrings. Many fun party games happened, as well as some impromptu singing and dancing. It was great to hang out with them 🙂

The next weekend, on the Sunday, saw Miyu and I have a last minute meet up for lunch since she unexpectedly found herself in Yokohama. We went back to The Tavern because she really wanted that roast Sunday lunch again, haha.

We found a Miyu-sized vending machine! Hehe.

Then we did some shopping together in Shibuya before splitting ways. I walked all the way from there to Shinjuku (because walking is fun!) and met up with Morgan, Yasmine and Soulef to watch Frozen 2. It was a fun if average film, lol. But great hanging out with these guys!

And wow it got late! So I shall, hopefully, carry on with this in part 2 tomorrow night, haha.

Quidditch, Mean Girls, and Go-Karting!

So, last weekend! The tl;dr version is in the title! Haha. But if you want to know details and see some photos, please continue reading.

On Saturday morning I went to quidditch, as always. It was the last practice together before the Japan Cup tournament, which is happening in less than two days, ahh! We had another bumper session (10:30am – 2pm) that definitely helped our last minute preparations. Most of us then went to our fave family restaurant, Jonathan’s, for a well deserved lunch afterwards. Then it was onwards to Morgan’s for some of us.

Morgan was hosting a little get together so we could surprise Miyu with cake and presents for her birthday. The surprise, I’m happy to say, went very well, and lots of cake was eaten!

Board games were played, of course, and then we watched Mean Girls. Two of our party hadn’t seen it before! They thoroughly enjoyed it, naturally. The sleepover crew (Yasmine, Soulef, Morgan, and I) then got ready for bed and, because we were all pretty tired, actually did go to sleep fairly swiftly.

Sunday morning started off fairly lazily. Well, Morgan had to leave quite early to go to a lesson, but us girls had tea and toast and tidied up. Well mostly Soulef tidied ^^; Then we all left together around 11am. I immediately headed off towards Chiba as I was meeting Miyu and some others for her birthday go karting!

After a fairly lengthy journey, we all met up in Hon-Chiba and went to what was possibly the only restaurant in existence there. A tiny Thai restaurant tucked away in a back alley, lol. The lady who greeted us was very friendly and got us a table for five set up with an extra, kind of wonky chair for Ranil to sit on, lol. The food was lovely! Though I was the only clever one who asked for the least spicy spice level. Apparently even the medium was fiery!

We headed straight to the go karting place after lunch and Miyu got us all signed up and ready to go. It was an inside place with a fairly decent track (I say that like I have any experience with go karting tracks, heh).We paid for three tickets, which was three x six minute stints round the track. It felt longer than six minutes when you were going round! You had to put a balaclava and helmet on – we looked amazing! Haha. Then you get taken into the pits and designated a kart and the pit guys tell you how to drive and then you are unleashed on the track. Hilarious!

The temptation to go too fast was very real after the first go and I definitely went too fast second time round, haha. My best time was 27.765 seconds, which I think is fairly decent. Unfortunately I didn’t get to go a third time as I had yet another stupid headache that made me sick (the karting didn’t help, but I think it would have caught up with me anyway). So I hung out in the toilet whilst the others did their third session. Then we had another photo before heading off back to the train station.

I slept for nearly the whole hour and a half journey back to Yokohama, which shows how sick I was ^^; Luckily I was feeling better by the next day, so could go to school. Apart from the headache though, I had a great time! So glad we could celebrate Miyu’s birthday with her ❤

Just going to finish this entry with a chance photo I managed to grab near Kamoi station a week ago. Yes, that is Mount Fuji you can see in the distance. Right place right time for that photo! 😀

Limousine party in Tokyo!

Okay, this will be a rather rushed entry, I fear, since it is already 11:30pm. I have a really busy weekend coming up and don’t want to miss writing about last weekend as it was super fun, so here goes!

So first, very quickly, a little rewind to the weekend before last. It was another long weekend (love Japan’s numerous bank holidays!) and on the Sunday I went to China Town in Yokohama with Maggie, primarily to see the Kung Fu Shoe Kicking contest. It was even better than it sounds as we got to participate as well. You slipped these little kung fu slip-on shoes on and then took a little run up before kicking your foot forward in the hopes of flicking the shoe a sizeable distance straight in front of you. Maggie did pretty well, but my two attempts gained more height than distance. But it was pretty fun! 😀

Then on the bank holiday Monday I went to Asakusa to meet up with my combat friends from back home, Sheila and Andrew. They were visiting Japan and we just about managed a quick meet-up in amongst their busy schedule. It was sooo good to see them! 😀

Yeah, I look awful, but Sheila looks awesome in her wellies! 😀

So followed four days at school and then the weekend again! It started off with quidditch. A very serious business session as we have Nationals very soon! It was great to see so many people there for the first time in ages and felt like a very good session.

Then after quidditch, Yasmine, Soulef, and I hurried off to Yasmine’s place to go get changed ready for the limousine party! It was for Sesin’s birthday and eight of us were going in a limo around Tokyo for an hour and a half. Sesin chose an all white theme and, predictably, I ended up being the only one not wearing a dress, haha. Five of us did Purikura first, which was rushed but fun!

Then we met up with the other three and waited for the limo to come and pick us up. It was very cool! Just big enough for us all inside. There were balloons everywhere, champagne and glasses, some tiaras and sunglasses as props, and the ability to play our own music. We got to choose two stop off points to have photos taken and Sesin chose Tokyo Tower and the Rainbow Bridge. Very good choices! There was lots of singing, drinking, dancing, photos, and balloon fights. Sooo fun! 😀

Yeah, we got to write on the limo! Sooo cool!

French girls (I’m a 16th French, it totally counts! >.>)

After the limo ride we went to a restaurant in Shinjuku called Sizzler. It’s a buffet, all-you-can-eat style restaurant that I’d never been to before. You basically order a ‘premium salad bar’ and get all you can eat salads, curry, tacos, pasta, macaroni cheese, and more. Plus desserts and all-you-can-drink soft drinks. It was pretty good and a very different kind of all-you-can-eat experience for me.

Overall it was a lovely evening! I’m glad we could all celebrate Sesin’s birthday with her. I had a very calm Sunday after all that excitement, and then it was back to school for a full week. This weekend is going to be incredibly busy, as I said up the top, so expect a full report sometime in the next seven days, lol.

Muddy quidditch and Sunday roasts!

Last weekend started in a fine way. We had what felt like a lifetime’s worth of rain on the Friday and so on the Saturday, though clear skied, sunny, and warm, the ground was very wet and muddy. Perfect conditions for quidditich practice, apparently, haha. We had great fun! We trained at a different park as a school was using our usual place for their sports day. The clear skies and location rewarded us with an amazing view of Mount Fuji, and it just made for a very good session!

This photo doesn’t really do it justice. Mt. Fuji was clear as day in real life.

Muddy boot shot, cause you just have to.

A few of us went for lunch afterwards at Jonathan’s (you really cant beat a good family restaurant, haha) and then to Rich’s to play some card game I already forgot the title of ^^; but it was fun!

Sunday saw me fulfilling a promise in taking Miyu back to The Tavern pub for a full-on Sunday roast dinner. We were also joined by Morgan and Rich and it was a very good roast, which happily included Yorkshire puddings! Not so sure sprouts should be included in anything outside Christmas, but whatever, I didn’t eat mine.

Rich, as an American, was super excited too ❤

A Welsh man, English gal, American dude, and Japanese badass entered a bar… ❤

Morgan scarpered at the mere mention of karaoke but the rest of us went and butchered a bunch of songs for two hours. Rich and I particularly had a blast with the Halloween songs. Then we went to, wait for it, Jonathan’s and ordered drink bars just so we could hang and chat like the teenagers we aren’t. After a good while we decided we wanted cake but not Jonathan’s cake so we headed off in search of other cake. It took a while but eventually we found somewhere we could sit and eat cake without having to buy expensive drinks we didn’t want too.

After stuffing ourselves, we finally parted ways, having enjoyed a very fun, sociable day together. I love you guys ❤

The rest of last week started out as expected. I did my Halloween themed lessons on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and all went fairly well. Unfortunately I got sick again Wednesday night and ended up missing school on Thursday and Friday. My actual Halloween was spent in bed. Ho hum. The good news is I went to an English speaking clinic and have super duper painkillers that will hopefully combat the headaches I keep getting. I also got a flu vaccination, so hopefully nipped that bud before it could bloom.

And it’s getting late… Until next time! 🙂

A long entry about lots of things!

So, nearly a week round again, but it has been a busy week! So on Saturday I’m afraid I missed quidditch practice as I woke up feeling pretty terrible. Bad sleep and, unknown to me at the time, the beginnings of a cold. So I took it easy in the morning and then headed into Tokyo in the afternoon as I was going to hang out with Nicola and Matt! Sooo good to see Nicola since she was visiting Japan 😀

So Nicola, Matt, Shyam and I met in Shinjuku. It was crazy busy because of the rugby but we found each other eventually. We then headed straight for a kushikatsu restaurant nearby. Much kushikatsu was ordered and enjoyed, but the real entertainment factor was the fact Matt and I ordered takoyaki and you have to make it yourself at the table. My god, we were terrible at it, but it was pretty fun! And the non-burnt ones tasted good!

Forgotten kushikatsu as the takoyaki challenge was accepted!

Trying to flip the takoyaki over was sooo hard!

We decided to go bowling after this as there was a place nearby that had a black light floor. Now, I’m usually pretty hit and miss with bowling as I have this weird bowling technique where I unintentionally flick my wrist and make the ball spin. However, usually I get a nice mix of strikes and gutter balls. Well, this bowling alley seemed to have some anti-spin thing going on because nearly all my turns ended in double gutters. I just couldn’t do it! It was so frustrating. I did have good fun though and the others fared a bit better than me.

Can’t believe I am sharing the evidence, haha. I got slightly more in our second game…

After bowling we went to a dessert cafe. Omg finally! I have been wanting to go to one since I got here back in February, lol. So we paid around 1,300 yen for 70 minutes of all you can eat dessert (and curry, bizarrely). They had loads of Halloween themed desserts and the cafe was decked out in Halloween decorations. It was sooo good but we all left having consumed far too much cake, haha.

Creepy Halloween desserts. The purple one was sweet potato!

The orange one was my fave on this plate. Peaches ❤

Nicola and I after our first platefuls, haha.

It was a really lovely few hours! I hope you and Matt enjoyed the rest of your stay and got home safe, Nicola ❤

Sunday was spent in a food coma, lol, and Monday was school. Then on Tuesday it was a kind of randomly placed bank holiday. I believe it was an extra one for this year specially for the new Emperor’s coronation ceremony. I was full of cold at this point but I was determined I would do something worthwhile on this extra holiday day. So Shyam and I braved the rainy weather and went to the Edo-Tokyo museum, which happily had free entry for the day too as a bonus!

As I mentioned above, I wasn’t really feeling very well, and the rainy weather made it worse. Also, my phone was playing up big time (more on that in a minute), which made my mood worse. So whilst I was really excited about going to the museum, by the time I got in there I wasn’t really feeling it anymore. So I didn’t really look at all the exhibitions or read the information properly. So I definitely need to go back sometime! Shyam got some good photos though!

A huge model of the theatres and pleasure quarters.

Festival float of the Kanda Myojin Shrine.

Heavy pole swinging! Nearly got completely unbalanced doing this, haha.

And me being super strong! Fish weigh a lot, y’know!

So we went phone hunting in Akihabara afterwards but I was feeling too tired to concentrate on it properly and my phone wasn’t completely dead yet, so we just went home. Ohoho how I wish I’d bought a new phone. The very next day my phone died completely on the way to school and I was left completely bereft of contact to the outside world. It was very scary! Haha. I spent the majority of Wednesday evening trying to secure a new phone, eventually managing it at Sofmap near Yokohama station. A secondhand iPhone 6s for 19,800 yen, which is pretty decent. What a palava that was!

Anyways, this entry has gotten very long, but just to tack onto the end, because it’s interesting and I want to remember it. The last two days at school we’ve had the annual Culture Festival. My school is a big school so ours lasted over two days. The main theme was the choral concert with all classes in all three grades singing two songs each. The main thing I got from this was even though they’re singing in Japanese, it is very similar to listening to choral concerts back home. My school has great singers too. They all sounded great!

This afternoon we also had performances from the drama club and the brass band club. Both were excellent! I didn’t really understand much of the drama club’s performance but it was basically some take on a dinner date style reality show and all the students watching got really into it. It was a joy to watch them all interacting so well with it. The brass band were superb! They really sounded great and they had a lot of fun with it, with totally well rehearsed cameos of random teachers and students singing and dancing. Easily my favourite part of the two days.

So yes, a very busy week! Quidditch tomorrow, then maybe something on Sunday (plenty of Halloween events on). Then an actual full week of normal school! Though I’m mostly going to be doing fun Halloween-themed lessons, haha. Thanks for reading! Until next time 🙂

A weekend in Osaka

Ahh I’m so late with this blog! So last weekend (yes, a whole week ago!) I finally went to Osaka. My friend, Jess, came back to Japan for a bit, so I seized my chance to go see her before she left again, lol. So because it was a rather last minute decision and it was a bank holiday weekend, the cheaper overnight buses were not that cheap, so I ended up forking out for the shinkansen (bullet train). It was very good to experience it though. So fast and convenient, although not quite as comfortable as I was expecting.

I arrived in Osaka at about 7:30pm and Jess met me off the train. We headed straight to a bar where her friend’s band was playing. They were really good, playing random things like metal versions of Disney songs. It was a fun night! We headed back to Jess’s afterwards and I was amazed by a) how close to the station she was (but literally no noise issues) and b) how big her place was!

We had an early alarm set for Saturday morning as the plan was to go to Jess’s former school’s sports day, but unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute because of Typhoon Hagibis. Instead we went to abacus class! Yes, I was kind of sceptical about it because I’m terrible at maths, but it was actually really interesting and fun! Plus I got given my very own abacus to keep, which is awesome! In Japanese it’s called Soroban and is still taught fairly widely in Japan, I believe.

Two of the teachers took us out for lunch afterwards, which was so nice of them! We had a very generous Chinese meal set, and then we went to a tea-specific cafe afterwards and drank far too much tea, haha. We then, randomly, ended up going to a blood donation centre. Camila was coincidentally in Osaka for the weekend as well and she wanted to go give blood. So we ended up hanging out with her there for a couple of hours. Jess and I couldn’t donate as Japan doesn’t want UK blood because of the foot and mouth disease business from the 90’s (or something), but we partook in the free drinks and snacks in the waiting room, haha.

Nice view from the blood donation centre too…

We went shopping after this, spending a ridiculous amount of time in Forever 21, lol. They’re closing down so there were a lot of bargains to be had. Predictably, I didn’t buy anything though. We also went to the Pokemon Centre but I’m afraid I have to say I prefer the Yokohama one. Sorry, Osaka! Then, after saying bye to Camila, Jess and I bought some nikuman and shyumai from 551 Horai, which I learnt is a must when one is in Osaka. And oh wow those pork buns tasted amazing! 100% recommend it to anyone visiting Osaka.

Pork buns! I liked the one big one best.

On the Sunday we got up pretty early again as we were heading off on a road trip to have a BBQ in the countryside. Jess, some of her friends, and I went in two cars to a BBQ place North West of Osaka in Hyogo. It was nice and sunny after it had lashed it down with rain all day the day before because of the typhoon, but it was cold and windy, which made for interesting BBQ times. We had a fun day though and I got to practice my Japanese listening skills a lot! Haha.

I spent my last couple of hours in Osaka buying some souvenirs and eating takoyaki, because when in Osaka you must eat takoyaki (and technically okonomiyaki too, but I never had the chance – next time!) Then I said bye to Jess and hopped onto the overnight bus. Just over 8 hours on a coach! It wasn’t the most comfortable but luckily I actually slept for the majority of the journey. Hooray! Was less than half the shinkansen fare, so definitely worth it!

Apparently a very famous takoyaki store in Osaka, so yay!

I stupidly ate one whilst it was too hot, but they were really good!

So yes, overall a very good trip to Osaka. I may not have done any of the touristy things, but I certainly got to see city life from a Kansai perspective. Very different to Tokyo and Yokohama. More chilled out and certainly less hectic. And yes, I avoided the brunt of that awful typhoon as well. So a very good weekend to visit! 🙂

Busy busy Saturday!

So yes, yet another blog entry. I’m definitely on a roll at the moment. Saturday was a nice socially busy day. I started the day with quidditch, as usual (well semi-usual, lol). I got there late again, which, admittedly, was half on purpose. It’s so hot still at the moment and I can’t manage the full 3 hours in this heat. 1 and a half to 2 hours is more than enough. We were joined by some members from the Azabu Stirrings, which was great! Always nice to see them 🙂 Also some new people, who were lovely. It was a good practice.

Some of us then went to Yoyogi Park for the Hokkaido Food Festival, where we had a very varied lunch of different treats from different stalls. I had a cheese dog, the longest chips you’ve ever seen, and a pot of strawberry snow (well that is the literal translation of what it was called, ahem).

My face says it all, those chips were long!

FuwaFuwa Yukiichigo, lol. Was sooo nice!

We left the park about 5pm ish and parted ways with Morgan and Soulef. Our now smaller group of four headed onward to the Tamagawa Fireworks Festival (yes another one!). It was crazy busy! But the fireworks were amazing! Probably the best I’ve seen here. They were setting them off in two nearby locations at the same time, so we got whiplash trying to watch both, lol. Also there were tall buildings all around so we got a very weird vibration sound after each bang. Was very cool!

We left slightly early to try and avoid the mad dash for the train back to Shibuya. It was still busy but I think it would have been a lot worse once the fireworks finished. We said sayonara to Ranil here and our now even smaller group of three went to find food in Shibuya. Well technically Miyu and I were focused on karaoke, but then Nick rather plaintively said ‘I want a burrito’ when he spotted a Mexican restaurant, haha. Great shout by Nick because we also found frozen strawberry margaritas there too. Ahh soo good! As was the guacamole! 😀

I promise it is strawberry! Not sure why it looks so orange…

Yay! my favourite summery alcoholic drink, and Miyu’s first time drinking it.

We chose the avocado and our waitress made the guacamole at our table. Tasted sooo good!

We shared this burrito. I think Nick wanted another one all to himself, to be honest, haha.

Sliders that, according to Nick, were much bigger than traditional sliders, lol.

After we left the restaurant we went to get Tapioca. Or rather Miyu and Nick did. I admitted to never having tried it, but was vehemently sure I wouldn’t like it. I did try some of Miyu’s and, sure enough, I didn’t like it. I am so fussy about drinks! We had time for one more selfie before we all said our goodbyes for the day.

Tapioca selfie – you can just about see Miyu’s red straw there, haha.

So yes, a very busy Saturday, which was blissfully followed with a very lazy Sunday. Got a busy weekend lined up in a few days, so having Sunday to do not much was brilliant! 🙂

Post birthday weekend happenings

So, following on from my very self-indulgent entry from a few days ago, a quick little write up about last weekend.

On Friday evening I had a surprise few hours out with two of my neighbours: Toni and Daneille. Toni and I share the same birthday, so we, along with Daneille, went to Cosmo World in Yokohama together. It’s a permanent amusement park and one I’d been meaning to experience properly, so it worked out well. We went on two roller-coasters and in the mirror maze, as well as chilling out in the arcade a bit. It was a lot of fun! Especially the big pink roller-coaster. Loved it! 😀

Daneille and I totally chill before riding Vanish!

We then went for a very traditional Japanese meal at Hard Rock Cafe, haha. It was perfect actually. Sometimes you just need to eat a massive burger! Bit too noisy in there though. The music was on sooo loud! But it was a good meal and a good way to finish a lovely evening 🙂

Daneille, moi, and Toni. Was a lovely evening! ❤

On Saturday I had quidditch practice, of course. I arrived late as usual, whoops ^^; It was still hot! I thought after my two weeks off whilst my mum was visiting, the temperatures would have cooled enough to make practice more comfortable, but nope! This Saturday is meant to be 29c too. Argh! It’s October now, goddamnit. Anyways, we had a good practice with a few new people. And I got given some presents off Morgan, Miyu and Rich, which was nice!

Morgan and Miyu thought these slippers were hilarious considering what happened to me a couple weeks ago. To be fair, they kind of are! XD

They also made me this though, which nearly made me cry ❤

And Rich brought me peanut butter chocolately goodness back from America, as promised ❤

Yasmine and I left quidditch early as we were going to a fireworks festival later and were going in yukata, which takes a long time to put on. So us two, plus Yasmine’s friends Estelle and Sesin, got into yukata at Yasmine and Estelle’s place. For those that don’t know, yukata is basically the summer version of a kimono. It’s incredibly complicated to put on and I bow down to Estelle’s skills. We then did Purikura (photo booth), which is very popular in Japan. So my first time wearing a yukata and doing Purikura. Ticking all those boxes!

Yes, it automatically makes you have anime eyes, lol.

Yeah my neck looks incredibly weird in this one, lol.

So after getting digitally creative, we made our way all the way up to Kita-ku for the fireworks. It was very busy! But we managed to find a small patch of grass to sit on and watch the fireworks light up the sky. They were very impressive! Japan definitely goes all out with their fireworks displays. I headed off home after this, stopping briefly at Yasmine’s to change out of my yukata. I had a really lovely evening with these three girls! ❤

And Sunday was my first day in a long time were I didn’t go anywhere and got to catch up on cleaning and laundry and things, which was good! 😀

Special Birthday meal

So, picking up from my last blog, my mum left to return for England on my birthday, boohoo. But we had a lovely day the day before! And I was to be treated like a very spoiled princess in the evening, haha.

I had SEPRO during the day, which was great because the other ALTs all wished me happy birthday, and some of the kids did too when I mentioned it in my intro, haha. I really do like SEPRO. I know a lot of the other ALTs don’t, and maybe it’s because it’s all shiny and new to me still, but yeah, I just really enjoy it! 🙂

So to the evening happenings. I got dressed up really nice in a dress! (for the people that know me well, they know that is something of a miracle! Haha). Shyam was taking me to Sirius. This is a French restaurant right up the very top of the Landmark Tower in Yokohama. Big shout out to Miyu for helping me purchase said dress ❤

Landmark Tower – second tallest building in Japan according to Wikipedia.

We had a window table booked for 6pm and oh my goodness the view! That by itself would have made my evening so special. I really can’t describe how amazing it was and the photos we took don’t really do it justice. It was breathtaking! The waiting staff were all very attentive, without being overbearing. It all felt just right and I felt relaxed straight away (I had been worried I might feel out of place as I’m not really used to fine dining).

We chose our set menu first and then ordered a cocktail each. Then we were left to admire the view some more for a bit before the first dish came. Below is the set menu, which I got to keep as a souvenir.

I had everything on this menu except the beef.

The ham was brought over first. It was really nice! Shyam had a vegetarian equivalent (I don’t remember exactly what it was). Then bread was brought over ready for the pumpkin soup, which Shyam was brought straight away. I had the duck first and that was very nice! The pumpkin soup was also lovely! I didn’t think I would like it but I really enjoyed it!

The ham dish. The Mimolette Cheese really complemented the ham nicely.

The duck – the photo doesn’t actually make it look that nice, but it was lovely!

For the main I had the choice of seafood or beef and decided to go for the former. Very glad I did when I saw the beef brought out for the lady on the table next to us. Looked like a massive slab of meat, which I really didn’t want. The Yellowtail was absolutely delightful. Again, not something I’d had before, so a bit of a gamble, but I really enjoyed it!

Then they brought the dessert over, complete with a candle in for my birthday. They also took a photo of us at this point, for a purpose I wasn’t aware of at the time, lol. The dessert was so delicious! Coconut ice-cream and red wine soaked berries are so decadent. Also, there were raspberries! I hadn’t eaten any since my last day in England back in February and they’re my favourite fruit. I actually nearly cried, haha.

Yeah, I look pretty tired but I love this photo! ❤

Then tea and coffee was brought over. I had tea, of course. They also brought over another surprise. The photo they took earlier had been printed out and put in a birthday card for me. An amazing memento for an amazing evening! I really can’t thank Shyam enough. I’ve never experienced anything like it before and I felt so special and thoroughly spoiled. I really had the best birthday evening! 😀

Sorry, that was a very self indulgent blog entry, but I wanted to make sure I kept a nice detailed memory of the evening somewhere. It was a fabulous evening! 🙂