Strasbourg: Sushi à volonté à Live Sushi

(J'essayerai d'écrire ce publication en français!)

Je suis allée à Live Sushi avec l'English Gang aujourd'hui midi. Il y a une formule au restaurant tous les midis pour €13.90 pour sushi à volunté. C'était une bonne idée que j'ai pensé de faire une réservation hier soir parce que quand nous sommes arrivés le restaurant était vraiment occupé et il y restait juste une table pour nous! Mais au moins nous n'avons pas besoin d'attendre car il y avait également des autres personnes qui arrivaient plus tard et ils attendaient très longtemps.

Le restaurant est ouvert de 1200h à 1430h, et notre réservation était à 1230h donc nous avions environ 2 heures. Nous attendions un peu pour l'arrivé de G et après nous avons commandé.

C'est la formule pour midi. Pour commencer, nous avons commandé une variété de sushi avec saumon et avocat et soupe miso pour tout le monde J'ai essayé aussi le gyoza et la courgette. Le temps d'attente était un peu long mais c'est probablement à cause du nombre de personnes car tout le restaurant était rempli! Notre commande est arrivé environ une demie-heure après la commande et c'était vraiment bonne!

Nous l'avons fini très vitement et nous avons essayé de faire une deuxième commande mais c'était vraiment difficile de tirer l'attention des serveurs. Enfin une serveuse venait et nous avons fait les commandes individuellement cette fois. J'ai commandé plus de sushi saumon avocat avec soupe miso, et après car j'ai vu le chirashi que P et I ont commandé je l'ai commandé pour la troisième fois aussi. J'étais vraiment rempli quand il est arrivé mais je l'ai tout mangé sauf pour le riz. Enfin nous avons découvert que nous avions trop commandé et il restait 2 brochettes de la viande et 1 brochette du bœuf du fromage mais P et moi nous avons réussi de les finir entre nous deux pour éviter le gaspillage alimentaire.

Pour conclure c'était un très bon repas et je voudrais y revenir mais peut-être pas les week-ends où il y aurait moins de personnes! Mais pour maintenant j'ai déjà avoir assez de sushi.

Après le déjeuner nous voulions aller au Parc de l'Orangerie parce que ça semblait beau mais il faisait trop froid quand nous avons sorti de la restaurant. L et moi sont allées pour regarder des chaussures aux magasins tandis que le reste sont allés au musée alsacien. J'aurais voulu y aller aussi mais j'avais oublié d'apporter ma carte culture donc c'était dommage! Mais nous avons passé un bon temps aux magasins et après sur le chemin de retour chez moi j'ai acheté des chaussettes. Et durant la soirée j'ai fait finalement ma lessive alors j'étais vraiment fatiguée après cela!

First time at Strasbourg's Christmas Markets

Had the histoire de la langue exam today. Completely screwed it up we always thought it was going to be on everything including stuff from the first exam but turns out it was only the stuff taught after the first exam which was basically all the Latin stuff. I'm so bad at the Latin stuff gah so that was horrible ... couldn't resist checking the answers after the exam, not very hopeful for it at all :( Just hoping I can pass omg ...

Anyway after the exam V and O and I went to check out the Christmas markets in Strasbourg! It opened this weekend but as I wasn't here so today was my first time :D It was quite cool but we went before the sunset so couldn't see the lights, but I'll go again soon when it's dark! Was absolutely starving after the exam so we went straight for the food, but they had tons of cute stuff like candles and Christmas ornaments. I wish I could have a tree but there is no space at all in my room HAHA. Anyway, I got a bowl of spaetzle which is a type of Alsatian noodle/pasta I believe. It was quite good and about standard Christmas market pricing i.e. €5. V and O both got flam baguettes with cheese!

After the spaetzles I was still really hungry so I went for a crepe. Btw we were at the market near Place Broglie which seems to have more food. The one at Place Kleber was mostly clothes and accessories and stuff. Got a crepe with nutella from this store quite near the sides called Stand La Bonumeur. Prices start from about €2 for a basic crepe and you can add stuff like fruits and nutella and other stuff! And the owner was super friendly hahaha he gave me chocolate buttons as I was ordering as well as a brochure menu thing. But the crepe was so good omg it was really soft and chewy and the nutella was heavenly HAHA. Will want to go back again! They also have a Facebook page here: Stand La Bonumeur (it's on the brochure hahaha).

We walked over to the cathedrale afterwards for mulled wine. It was not bad but I still think red wine is a bit strong for me hahaha. Anyway it's really good here in Strasbourg that they dont use disposable cups, but instead they re-use proper plastic cups. So like basically you pay about €3 for a cup of say 30cl and you can return the cup to any store afterwards and get €1 back. Or keep the cup. I didn't really like the design that I got today so I returned it but I saw some people carrying nicer cups when I was walking back so gonna get one of those next time!!

After I got back I was really sleepy because of the mulled wine I think and also general fatigue from all the exams so I slept for 2 hours. Have the syntax exam tomorrow so need to study for that now!! As well as 5 hours of classes before the syntax exam omg ... so much for exchange life T_T

Days are getting cold

It's actually quite late and I really should be sleeping but so many of my friends who are on their year abroad right now have been posting links to their year abroad blogs which look really cool so I felt this sudden obligation to update this space! It's been what, 3 weeks since I last posted? Life is going on at full pace and I've been meaning to update for a while but never got round to it and I want to kind of quickly record things down before I start to forget what happened!!

So, I stopped at 27 August. Mid-Autumn Festival!! My craving for Chinese food got satisfied that day because right after I posted V and B and I decided to go for lunch at this Chinese buffet place. Actually, it's the only Chinese restaurant I know of here in Strasbourg. V introduced it to us and it's called Le Grand Shanghai and it's located near Homme de Fer tram stop. And did I mention this already but the best part is that it's a buffet! A BUFFET! I don't fare well at buffets in general but I love desserts ahaha. Their lunch costs €12,80 and dinner is €16,80 I believe, and they also do takeaways which is great. The takeaway boxes come in 3 sizes but I've yet to try so I have no idea how big the boxes are. Anyway, the food was amazing. I tried one piece of every single type of meat before I couldn't eat anymore. And the fried rice!!! Omg I missed rice so much omg. And they also have SUSHI. It was AMAZING. I am getting all hungry again just thinking about the food. But I have pictures!!

So basically, I had 2 rounds of mains and 3 rounds of dessert! One can never have too much dessert. And of course every French meal comes with wine. I had rosé instead of vin blanc for a change.

ALL IN ALL I NEED TO GO BACK AGAIN. Probably this weekend ahahaha.

Anyway back to Sunday. So there was the amazing lunch (probably the best I've had in Strasbourg so far legit crying), then in the evening we went to the Irish Bar for the Sunday pub quiz! And proud to say that we didn't come in last or close to last this time, in fact we were 6th from the bottom which was a massive improvement from the last time :D Then the rest of the week passed by pretty quickly, finally got a French SIM card, went out on Wednesday night (bad idea LOL), was so tired on Thursday and then V and I had to rush to catch our flight back to London!! We'd booked the same flights for Thursday and to return on Monday. So the weekend was spent in London, which I think I'll do a separate post on sometime because it was such a hectic weekend I was just out the whole time and didn't even have time to meet everyone I wanted to meet :'( But yeah, going back for the weekend made me realise how much I'd missed London, and also how much I didn't miss the weather LOL. It was drizzling on Monday when I left, so I was actually glad to be going back to SXB though the weather here that evening wasn't much better tbh HAHAHA. But it's less dry here than London I think? Like my skin doesn't dry as much here as it does in London. Oh and I brought back like 12kg of clothes or something HAHAHA. Didn't actually weigh it but I'd bought a new duffel bag which was bigger than my other one so it was freaking heavy my arms were totes aching the whole week.

Classes again for the week (this was last week btw), I managed to wake up for the 8am class on Tuesday despite only reaching back at 11 the night before which was a great accomplishment, but I was SO tired the whole day haha. Went to Topshop after classes and managed to buy the last piece of the indigo denim jacket that I was searching for in London in my size!! But I've still not worn it yet the days are too cold ... V and I went to O's place for dinner on Wednesday. Carbonara! But they did all the cooking I am absolutely useless in the kitchen ... then on Thursday night I was bored and made a last-minute decision to go to Basel on Friday for a day trip. The tickets were €24 with the SNCF carte jeune, and the timings weren't that bad for off peak, except that the Friday evening off peak starts later and I was actually really tired in the evening but had to wait an extra hour to take the next train back. Once again, I'll do a separate post on Basel with lots of nice pictures aha but that'll be another time. But Basel was amazing! I love Switzerland but everything is so expensive there :( Anyway after I got back from Basel on Friday night we went out again but I was so gone it was horrible omg and I was such a burden I felt so bad T_T Was hungover the whole weekend can't believe it's taking me so long to recover aha. So I literally spent the rest of the weekend including Monday in my room. But I did lots of work, so that was a good thing. And I was doing my own laundry by freaking handwashing my clothes even my jeans and shoes!! The thing is that the laundry here costs €4 per wash and when I went to check out the machines they didn't look very ... desirable for me to put my clothes in. And most of my clothes can't be machine dried and I really don't want to ruin anything. It's good now though because they've turned on the heating now so I could just dry my stuff near the heater. I also finally cleaned my New Balance shoes after one year!! It was amazing watching the laces turn from grey to white again lol. But I left my shoes on the heater overnight and I think the sides touching the heater got scorched ... Fml this is the type of thing that always happen to me ugh. But yes, my shoes are clean. I don't know how to get rid of the scorch marks though!!

Then this week was the 17 intensive hours of classes again, and I have 2 exams next week before Vacances Toussaint!It was freezing this week like 2 deg when I woke up for my Tuesday 8AM. Went out on Wednesday night (bad idea again never gonna do that again) then couldn't fall asleep and I had another 8AM on Thursday (which is today/yesterday) so I've literally been up for like 36 hours maybe?! But I had a nap over lunch. Classes were okay though, I'm really liking the stuff especially linguistics because it's actually really practical for grammar. And it's cool that I have a chance to finally take linguistics, because I still slightly regret not taking ELL over physics in JC it would've been a lot more fun and would've spared me the torturous hours of toiling over physics which I never understand ... But yeah. Also I did a French oral presentation today in FLE, and my tutor just confirmed the suspicion that I've had for so many years that I speak French with a Chinese accent. But what she said actually was that it was a melangé de chinois et anglosaxon (??) because I have the tendency of cutting my words instead of letting them flow like how the French speak. But it's so hard since I'm trying to concentrate on the pronunciation ... and also how I focus on chaque mot like in English instead of a phrase. So there was this sentence which she separated into basically just 2 phrases and it felt so long! No wonder I always feel the French speak too fast for me sometimes, I've been getting it all wrong ... But yes, useful things to know!

I have no classes tomorrow, but I need to sleep now anyway hahaha need to do my London and Basel posts soon but probably over the weekend. I've posted about my spacious flights though :D And need to studyyyyyy. Then it's London again + my 10 day backpacking trip!!! So hyped :D

Eat all day err' day

Been eating way too much for my own good in the past week hahaha it's not a nice feeling being constantly BLOATED. I would say my appetite is actually quite small and I don't like eating meat ... But anyway it's been a whole week of eating (not that I'm complaining) but my face is evidently ballooning up hahaha shuckssss.

Here's my daily summary for the past week or so:

71/23: GOOD SATURDAY.

72/24: GOOD SUNDAY.

73/25: Roadhouse / Ion / Ippudo / Ben and Jerry's (mega full day)

74/26: OG dinz @ 126 Sims Ave

75/27: Kiseki buffet lunch (I don't do well at buffets HAHAHA lesson learnt ...)

76/28: Antoinette (finally!!)

77/29: Dental / ice skating

78/30: Daily Scoop / MAF @ HC

79/31: Brunch at Roadhouse (again but their patty is so good I swear) / Durian ice cream / Mooncake tasting / tried the new Starbucks fizz drink!!

On Monday we had Roadhouse for lunch with Y. Haven't had it for almost a year and the closest substitute I found was this place called Red Squirrel in Edinburgh, but it's quite unrealistic to travel all the way to Scotland just for a meal. I think their menu changed this time because they didn't have the classic burgers anymore, but you can choose to "build your own burger" (B.Y.O.B.) for only $22 for the weekday lunch set which comes with a starter or a dessert. So we all got the custom burgers which were pretty good, along with this fried potato starter snack (I forgot the name), sticky date pudding with ice cream and brownie with ice cream. 

Sticky date pudding which doesn't look that good but was amazing

Brownie. Still prefer my pudding!

After lunch we went over to Ion and shopped a bit, then met M and C for dinner at Ippudo. I think that was my 3rd or 4th time eating Ippudo this summer but oh well :) Afterwards we went back to Dempsey for dessert. Initially we wanted to try P.S. Cafe but it was too full so we went to B&J's instead and got this merlion(??) waffle cone with 5 scoops.

Tuesday was OG dinz at 126 Sims Avenue. We intended to go to Red Star at first but it didn't open on Tuesdays :( I still prefer Swee Choon over 126! They don't serve liushabao so I literally had nothing to eat haha. Then Wednesday I met S for lunch at Kiseki. Their buffet lunch is from 11.30-3 and we really stayed for the whole duration haha. I gave up on the mains cause the meats were really too filling and it was probably a bad move to start with sushi and the rice rolls. The desserts were okay, I quite like the mochi but they only had 2 flavours which were strawberry and matcha, and the matcha was quite strong. There was also a selection of cakes which were a bit dry for my liking and ice cream so I spent the remaining time fully dedicating myself to the desserts HAHA.

This is round 1 which I gave up pretty shortly after HAHA.

Thursday was Antoinette! I love their pavlova and tea. Tried the Organic Charming Meadows instead of my usual chamomile this time and I think I still prefer chamomile because this one tasted quite ... herbal. The pavlova was amazing. I think the sorbet in the middle is banana/mango sorbet but I don't seem to be able to find it elsewhere.

(The lighting was bad)

On Friday I went for dental and I still don't think I'll be taking my wisdom teeth out so hoping hard that they won't give me any problems haha. Went skating for 3 hours with the sis after that and came back with a terrible headache. I guess it was due to the cold. And yesterday was MAF! Didn't actually mean to stay that long as I thought I'd just drop by but ended up staying all the way until the end. Spent a lot of time in the hall eating mooncakes and we went to visit the CSC teachers too. It was good seeing so many familiar faces again though it was a pity there wasn't much time to properly catch up with everyone. It's quite sad when you think about it sometimes because these are the people you've known for more than 6 years but now everyone's going their separate ways and we hardly have anything in common to talk about anymore. I wish I could keep in contact with a lot of people but everyone's busy with their own stuff and things like friendship only work if both parties put in the effort.

Anyway, went back to Dempsey again this morning. I keep wanting to try P.S. Cafe but it's forever full and there's always a queue outside and I was too hungry to bother waiting (as usual). Went back to Roadhouse for brunch hehe. I got the eggs benedict cause I didn't think I'd be able to finish a burget set.

Went to Orchard after brunch. There was a mooncake sale at Taka so we went in to try the different flavours hahaha omg TWG has this blue snowskin mooncake which was super nice. I love snowskin mooncakes hehe. Also shared a cup of durian ice cream with Carissa! It looked really tempting and was only $3, but of course the mooncake version was a lot nicer it really tasted more like the fruit rather than a mooncake filling.

Dropped by Starbucks before leaving town and saw that they had this new series of fizz drinks. I got the yogurt fizz with mango jelly. It tasted like sparkling yakult haha but the jelly was nice. This is like my first or second Starbucks since coming back haha don't really drink Starbucks anymore these days.

And I just realised August is over. :( It's 1AM now but I'm gonna change the time of this post haha. About 20 more days until I go back, I wish my break was longer hahaha kind of regret working for so long oh well. Here's to an amazing September ahead xx

Lazy Weekend

I cycled 13km yesterday morning so I was pretty darn proud of myself. Had to run a couple of errands and the weather looked pretty good and I haven't cycled for ages so I guess I needed the exercise hehe. The route I took was from home to Clementi Mall, then I took a shortcut (by chance lol I guessed the direction) to KAP, then back home via the park connector. I swear the road along SIM/Ngee Ann Poly was hell-ish haha because there were so many slopes and the roads were uneven. Much to my horror there was also construction works going on at the bus stop outside SIM so pedestrians have to take a detour hahaha shucks. Took the other side of the road when I came back and it was slightly better except for a particular stretch which had trees right in the middle of the pathway almost every 2 metres so I had to get off the bike. It was also drizzling very slightly by then so I was trying to cycle away from the rain lol. But the good thing is that the roads were pretty empty.

Visited Artisan Boulangerie Co. at Killiney Road with MZ in the evening hehe. Rarely visit cafes because I don't really drink coffee but it was not bad I guess. I didn't order coffee though, went for English Breakfast Tea instead hehehe London has trained me well :> 

We got the New York cheesecake, raspberry lava cake and mixed berries tart. We were choosing between the fruit tart and the berries tart and the counter and the person kept recommending the mixed berries tart and it was the last one so why note HAHA. The crust tasted like cookies! I like.

Didn't go out at all today cause I was lazy. Lazy Sundays are good hehehe. Last week of work next week!! But no work means no $$$ HAHAHA. Been buying a lot of Brandy Melville stuff recently. I need to compile and keep track of my wishlist soon hahaha.

Lunch at Misato

The week is finally over haha super tired and just submitted my econs assignment because I forgot about it so I went grocery shopping instead. D; Thank goodness I already did half of it yesterday so there wasn't much left to complete / THAT I KNOW HOW TO DO haha econs ggcakes. Last week of school next week! French test on Tuesday and my essay is due on Thursday. :(

Anyway, met up with L and M during my lunch break today. We went to Misato, this Japanese restaurant at Chinatown which M suggested. The prices were quite reasonable, like the rice dishes start from £4+ and the udon dishes start from £6+ but the servings were large. L and I both got the curry udon and M got one of the rice dishes with curry chicken.

Chicken Katsu Curry Udon

I don't really know how to compare food HAHA but it's definitely more affordable than Koya. The serving size is relatively larger too. I would want to come back again!

OOTD / playing with different filters. Sunny but cold weather and sadly no more bare legs like last week. I was so sad that I had to put on leggings haha really dislike wearing tights / leggings!! Also I can't quite get used to babydoll dresses yet haha I think this is probably the only one I own.

Went to Camden after dinner with hallmates. Bought food (including really cute Disney cookie tins - the cookies were pretty decent too), a basin so that it's easier for me to handwash some clothes, and a Disney waste paper bin that was too pretty to pass but I probably would never bear to use it as a dustbin so I'll most likely use it for storage or something ... Anyway here's the tin that I got the first time! #disneykidforlife

Ending off the post with some flowers. Here's to a good and productive weekend ahead!

Budapest Trip: Day 1

Finally sorted out my photos from the Budapest trip. Well, day 1 at least. Regretted taking so many selfies HAHA filtering is a chore. I've uploaded day 1 photos on fb, those that weren't edited hahaha. Anyway I wanted to blog about it before I forget what happened haha the Barcelona trip and Edinburgh trip memories are getting blurry already. All photos taken with my iPhone because I left my camera behind by mistake. So, here goes.

Day 1

Left hall for Heathrow Airport early morning with C and XP, and we reached on time and everything went pretty smoothly haha. Also realised that the more we travel, the lesser stuff we brought around. My handcarry luggage was only half full hahaha.

Ootd taken by C! Wearing my Miss Selfridge sweater, Topshop jeans and Timberlands. My other pair of La Redoute boots are spoilt. :( They didn't exactly last very long since I only got them in October last year argh.

We actually took a bus to board the plane! I always find it really cool to board the plane directly instead of via the boarding gate tunnel (?) HAHA but this would never happen in Changi Airport LOL. Anyway, the flight was about 3 hours but we landed earlier than the stated time. Budapest is also one hour ahead of London. After we arrived, we got tickets for the bus, then we changed to the metro to get to our hotel, which was very near the city centre. The public transport fares were a lot cheaper than London's, we got the 10 pieces discount booklet since there were 5 of us and it was only about 3k HUF, which is less than £10 for 10 single fares.

City centre and selfie LOL. Also realised that we should've changed our currency in Budapest because the rates were better! Note to self next time when I go back to visit. The pastries in Hungary are also REALLY GOOD, they have this chain store called "Princess" at almost every metro station and everything is less than £1 each. I especially liked the hot dog pastries and the strawberry croissants!

View of the Szechenyi Lanchid while finding the hotel. Quite cloudy hence the poor lighting. After we had checked in, we headed for Castle Hill which was only about 10 min walk away. We wanted to get food, and the hotel receptionist said there are a couple of restaurants there (which we later realised were rather pricey as compared to other places but nvm!!).

Walked up instead of taking the tram because tram tickets were quite expensive and it was a relatively short walk!

Saw this slanted lamp post hehe.

First Hungarian snack! Traditional Chimney cake. It was GOOD.

Then, we went to this restaurant called the Tarnok Cafe & Bier (if I'm not wrong HAHA had to use Google maps to find the location). The meal was really good, they had set menus for only 2900 HUF for a starter, main and dessert.

Goulash and Hungarian sausage with rice (IT WAS BRILLIANT).

Something with chips (I forgot) and Hungarian pizza.

DESSERT. I never got to find out the name of it because it was just called dessert on the menu but seriously Hungarian cakes are amazing. I'm not even a fan of milk and cream but the cream was really light and fluffy. Craving it again now HAHA.

Anyway, by the time we finished, it was almost dark. Went to a nearby supermarket to buy water and unfortunately we all bought sparkling water by mistake because none of us could read the words LOL. We only realised after we'd opened to drink. And they had Lipton mango tea! So we bought 1.5L bottles of those.

Really scenic night view of the Szechenyi Lanchid (chain bridge).

Attempted a couple of panorama shots hahaha. No filter and lousy iPhone camera hence the terrible quality. Anyway, we went to Vaci Utca after that, which is the Hungarian equivalent of Oxford Street LOL. We were trying to google for the address and I actually typed in "Hungary Oxford Street" before realising it's not actually called Oxford Street. X_X Didn't buy anything because most of the stores were closed and we couldn't really compare the prices with UK. We went to H&M and Zara but prices were around the same I guess? And Zara had very little of the sale stock left haha. But C and I bought a pair of flats each from New Yorker! They were on sale for ONLY 290 HUF which is like 80p LOL so we had to buy them! They came in pastel colours and C got the baby blue pair and I got the beige pair. We both preferred the other's colour but there were no sizes. :(

Holding our purchases outside the store. It was my only clothing purchase of the trip!

Night view of the Basilica. Then we went to Starbucks and then the gelato place! It's called Gelarto Rosa and it's very near the Basilica. They had a lot of flavours like pistachio and A LOT OF SORBETS. I love sorbets. It was 500 HUF for 2 flavours, so I got the lemon and strawberry sorbet. Was seriously watching in awe as the person crafted it petal by petal! I had never seen rose gelato before HAHA but later I found out Amorino in Soho also has it (but more expensive of course).

Crossing the bridge to get back to the hotel. The lights were really pretty! And yup that concludes the first day in Budapest hehe. Will post about the other days when I have time! x