Lagging behind.

So it’s been a while since I last typed a blog so I figured this was a good of a time as any.

First off, I haven’t been locked in a cage or suffered any lack of outside contact for several weeks, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve found myself meeting new people and experiencing different places. Was it all worth it? Pretty much, yes.

Quake Con was ok, pretty similar to EU events, all work and no play made me a ridiculously dull person to be around in general but the event was cool enough to keep me smiling. Enjoyed working with iGames and Alienware, if it wasn’t for them, I would have been hella bored.

MLG was a console event and impressive from an EU perspective since nothing else really does the console world as much justice in the EU as MLG does in the USA.

Poor Erik has been working hard trying to keep me smiling when all that is necessary is a little sunshine and a good book. I wish people would understand that I’m not the kind of person who needs to be doing things all the time regarding travelling or spending money. Sure, I’m female, it’s inbuilt that I enjoy spending but honestly, I enjoy spending my own money and so so so, much less other peoples.

Hrm….let’s see, what else have I done.

Flew to Seattle where I learnt to crimp networking cables in large amounts, almost cut the top of my finger off and then took pictures from hundreds of feet up in the air from both the plane and the Seattle Space Needle. The meals I had in Seattle were lovely and I cannot thank people enough. The meal with Chloe and E was way beyond what I expected from a sea food restruant. Seriously, this place was in a league of its own. There was but one thing I can think of about Seattle that Ididn’t like too much… the weather…

Honestly, 27C and I’m shivering away….22C and I’m wearing a thick hoody and countless layers…. this is what I have to thank Dallas, TX for….boy was it good to be back in 35-40C heat. mmm yeah!

England is going to take some adjusting to…

I have actually been trying to get a little colour into my skin  and I don’t mean redness from frying myself outside. Casually sitting out in the sun reading seems to be doing the trick, I think. I mean, I can’t really tell if I’ve actually got much of a tan. Still, I have a week to loose it all and not look like I even went outside much….

Been keeping up my hobbies too, those of you that truely know me, will know I’m not just taking about my new addiction to WoW but other more productive enhancements to my life!

So, 1 week left and then I return back home. Yes I’m missing home, my family and my friends that I know oh so well, but I’m certainly going to miss the Texas sunshine and the family who were kind enough to put up with me for such a long time.

14,000 ft up on America’s highest paved road…and Buffalo…

First off, I can’t believe I pee-d in a hole…Womens toilet? Pah. Honestly, if I could have helped it, I would have.

Well I guess there is a first time for everything…. although I guess there aren’t many toilets 11,000 ft up so go figure.

So, yesterday we traveled to Evergreen lake and Red Rocks – pretty damn spectacular. I do have photos and I’ll upload them in mini-form when I get the chance. Really nice weather here. Weather I can actually step outside in – for longer than 30 mins hehe.

I cannot, just cannot get used to the size of portions. I order a milkshake and I have enough milkshake for 2 large glasses. Its insane, value for money, but insane and I can’t drink it all!

Today we drove up 14,000ft up America’s highest paved road, had my ears pop goodness knows how many times, drank well over 3L of water and pee’d in a hole…. a hole! 11,000ft up.

Stopped off at the gift shop on the way down where I was let loose…

The view was amazing, damn cold but amazing, beautiful snow topped mountains all around, lakes and wildlife. Quite something and very peaceful. We stopped off at Idaho Springs on the way back to grab some lunch (which I decided was dinner after I was sooo full up afterwards). Dinner was a Buffalo burger and salad ( I swapped my fries for salad….don’t do chips/fries) high in protein, low in both fat and cholesterol and super nice. I barely managed it though, and when I did, I felt so full up. I still feel full up. It was a lot nicer than the corn dog let me tell you.

I find myself drinking so much water and juice here its unreal. Not that its a bad thing,  it does make me feel a lot better and should be a good habit for me to get into. In Colorado, I am literally dehydrating faster than I can swallow the water. If I didn’t know better I would swear the water evaporates through my nose as soon as it enters my mouth. Seriously, I’m parched. I cannot drink the soft drinks here – except Gatorade and Mountain Dew – I make special allowances for those(the colourings, the additives, the artificial flavourings – what more could someone ask for? Want to be loopy? Eat Smarties and drink Gatorade..).

The Coke-a-Cola or Lemonade or whatever else is sooooo sweet and sugary. I’d probably be better of dipping fresh strawberries in a bag of caster sugar…..mmmm strawberries…..but dude, I’m still full up – insanely full. -_-

Oh and one last thing, I’ve just been told to mention how I’m being chauffeured around by a white haired European stud muffin (Eriks dad is from Hungry). So there ya are

Other than that, I’m now resting and drinking more water. Oh and missing everyone as much as I miss video games and the gym…. which its funny because I have both of them in Texas!

Colorado and the 13 hour drive through deserts…

This title pretty much sums up yesterday. 13 hours in a car with Erik and lots of sun and heat. What did I do? Absolutely nothing.

The journey was long and Erik complained for most of it due to me not really wanting to drive! Maybe I will for a bit on the way back.

This blog is pretty short and boring since the only activities that I could come up with in the car were tapping beats on my legs to Guitar Hero songs or singing along to random Disney performances.

Oh and the journey got a little bit of excitement upon arrival into and through Colorado Springs with the addition of a lightening storm. So much excitement – seriously… I resorted to counting the strikes…and then shortly gave up after reaching 40.

What was the scenery like? Well for 11 of 13 hours it was desert. Green bushes every 1000m coupled with sand and rocks….I’m now being told I was in prairie land which in my opinion was what I described… lol. You could see for miles and miles, for the most part the land was really flat and the roads were ridiculously straight. How depressing is it when you can see the next 20 miles of road and it all looks the same as the current road? Very.

But yeah, that’s pretty much it, this make my journeys in England seem so small and simple! Love England! Love flying….hate cars….hate 13 hour car journeys…end of.

Missing you all.

Golf Ball Hail at 100+mph & Fork Lightening ^_^

So I wasn’t actually going to blog today, but lucky for you I am. Just kidding, but yeah so here’s the story.

I’m sitting down nicely minding my own business when I start to hear noise like a plane traveling over head. Then I start to think I could be hearing things because this noise was lasting a hellova long time and coming quite frequently. There wasn’t  any rain so I wasn’t sure if it could be thunder. I lent over the balcony and asked Erik’s mother Cindy if she could hear it. She opened the backdoor and confirmed the thunder. This ‘thunder’ went on for maybe an hour or so and we got our gear ready to go to the gym.

I grabbed some water and we got into the car and left. By this point it was raining. Now, the gym is maybe 5 mins away by car and in this 5 mins so much happened.

I sat in the passenger seat watching blazing forks of lightening stike maybe 300m or so away in various different directions every 20 seconds. We turned into the road towards the gym and by this point the rain was so bad you could see almost nothing through the windscreen, and I mean that literally. Take a grey paint brush and paint the window – that’s what it was like. We drove around and turned into the gym as a massive thud came and we saw fist size hail stones pounding the floor around us. At this point, Erik’s mother is turning the car around and we drive to look for shelter from the hail. Fortunately, America has drive in banks that are sheltered so we attempted to look for one whilst biting out lips about the hail hitting us. It was as though 50 golfers we pummeling us with golf balls, and these things were coming down fast. Luck was on out side as there, by the cash points, was one more empty space for a car. 5 other cars had also sought after shelter from these massive balls of ice. Under the shelter people were getting out to check for damage. We hadn’t taken an damage, although from the noise, you’d have thought someone was smashing the car with a baseball bat. I half expected the windows to smash.

The hail eased and we decided to check the weather warnings: severe till 3:30pm – we had 45 mins for wait. Once the hail eased some more and we were left with rain we headed back to put the car in the garage. On our way back Phil phoned to inform us that a house in the area (about 5 mins walk away) had been struck by lightening and was on fire. He told us to come take a quick look. So we did.

After taking a couple of photos we headed back to wait out the storm. I’m a tourist and we had an iPhone at our disposal!

I’ve never seen anything like it. Kind of exciting though.

The thing that made me laugh was I asked Phil how he knew about the house. His reply? He saw the firetrucks coming and followed them…. made me laugh.

Will try to go to the gym again now the rain has cleared a bit, thunder is still rolling the skies though.

End of Week 2

This week was hot – yes that was a no-brainer. I induldged once more into the wonders of American cuisine….corn dogs…. never going there again. Heart attck on a stick. For those of you that don’t know yet what it is, well, its a hot dog wrapped in a doughnut coating. Probably insanely high in fat, sugar, artifical stuffs and processed meats….

Credit to http://sugarmamabakingco.files.wordpress.com for the image.

It was alright taste wise, but not something I would buy again. Had to try it though. I couldn’t eat it all, my taste buds were dying!

Ok, so another run down. We went to VGL Dallas Ft Worth (Video Games Live) seeing Tommy’s show was good fun and very well done. Certainly worth going if you’ve not seen it. Although we laughed as we walked to the hall seeing young boys with their parents who obviously made them dress smarter than usual if they’re in their room playing wow. By the way, yes my Rogue is going well

Next up? Harry Potter. Always have been a fan of the books as I think they’re really well written and the films have been decent enough – not as good as the books but whats new. This next installement of the series is up to par. Unfortunatly, it does miss out bits of the book but that is expected and it besides, still makes for a good film. Will I see it again? Highly likely… you know me

Hooked up with Alienware for Quake Con so that’ll be good – kinda However, that’s not till August and I’m not about to wish my life away. Live in the moment and all that jazz, and we’re also booked to go to Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle in September.

I’m still trying to work out why all the vehicles here are red, black, white or silver. It’s just strange. It’s like there are no other colours around, destruction of the rainbow somewhere? I want to see other colours! Not only that but water here. You can buy purified tap water…..?! Maybe I’m going mad, but England you can’t do that – atleast that’s what I remember. $0.60-0.90 for a bottle of purified tap water? Mineral water please!!! Come on now. Not only that but mineral water is expensive here! Nice but damn expensive. I’m better off getting Gatorade! Not health wise but money wise

The other activity I partook in during the week was a trip to Medievil Times Restruant and Tournament.

This place was good fun. Reminded me of my trip to Disneyland Paris with my family when I was younger. The event consists of a Medievil dinner – yes, eatting half a chicken with my hands, drinking soup from a bowl, and cheering for whichever Knight we had been represented by. In our case it was the Green Knight, who was possibly the best looking of them all, although the red-and-black Knight was cool too.

Anyway, so we ate our food whilst watching these fine strapping men run stunts on horses for flowers and points then beat each other up with poles, axes, swords, lances and maces whilst cheering loudly for our fabled Green Knight and boo-ing maliciously at everyone elses. Each time a Knight won a point he gained 3 carnation flowers which he would throw to his adoring crowd…..to the ladies ….. he, ofcourse threw one at me, missing my face by next to nothing, probably because there were more guys than girls so his choice was limited! I then proceeded to let the girl next to me have it since she looked really upset about not having one -_- I’m too nice. hehe

So yeah that’s about it for this time

End of week catch up

So still in Dallas and still enjoying the 40C heat. What have I done? Shop, eat, rest, play piano and go places. Do I have a tan? No. You try laying in the Sun in 40C with scorching heat for longer than 10  mins without looking like you’ve been for a quick swim or just out of the shower!

Food wise we tried out an English ‘pub’ here which I have to say wasn’t to shabby at all – except the ‘chips’ or ‘fries’ whatever you want to call them were not the same – in any way shape or form. Now thinking about this is making me almost want some. Ah, and Cheesecake factory. Ah, cheesecake factory. A restaurant (selling other food too…) with cheesecake – so many types and damn yo! Sooo damn tasty! Probably full of fat but fortunately the only food I had eaten all day was some sushi from a nice Japanese restaurant. Yes, I came all the way to Dallas, TX, and I’m eating Japanese and English food.

So far, I’ve also tried Hot dawgsssss, pancakes, bacon (very cooked, crispy bacon) and the milkshakes/smoothies (which btw are bloody awesome!) Everything here is very tasty, but I find myself having one meal and then being pretty damn full up.

Oh yeah, and Gatorade! Into Kroger we went, down the drinks row and bamn, a rainbow. A million colours and tonnnnneeesssss of sugar, artificial flavours and to top it off- artificial colouring! All the E numbers I miss out on from Smarties now. 10 x 946ml for $10……yes we worked out later it was actually 1 for $1 too but we had brought 10….I blame Erik…. Americans Just imagine the sugar you can put in 946ml….. they don’t even make bottles that big in England…. that I know of…..

Yesterday we popped to a different Mall and then in the evening we went to see Bruno…..

Earlier in the week we went to South Lake for more shops outside this time. I found myself dehydrating quicker than a kettle makes water boil and proceeded to complain insistently until my thirst was quenched by a nice smoothy from starbucks. I’m seeing a strange pattern of smoothies right now.

Even earlier than that we went to see Ice Age 3 which I thought was pretty good. I used this as an excuse to indulge myself in more American charm with some nice butter flavoured popcorn. As if the popcorn didn’t have enough butter and fat in it already – I could even add more from the counter just before we handed our tickets in…..did I do it? …..maybe a little…. but only a little……seriously…….you know me……it’s not ice cream………….I’d like to live past 60 please…..70,80,90 if I’m still fit and healthy…..

Ok, I’ll stop boring you now Atleast you guys are semi-up-todate now.

London to Dallas to Denton

Kinda difficult leaving family and friends at home but  I’ll be home…soon.

Leaving England on the 1st of July during the rush-hour was… well… busy. I forget how long I queued up for baggage check – in, felt like ants entering an ant hill, and then proceeded  to say my good-byes to my Dad and Nan and then move on to security, whereby I was met by another ant hill and another hour or so…of waiting.

Once through security, I had little over 90 mins to kill… so me being me, I shopped a little, had lunch, and then waited for the gate – which was….delayed.

Upon boarding the plane, I noticed my ‘window’ seat wasn’t really a window seat since there was lack of a window – just a wall, and that the Air Hostesses didn’t show us where the exits were just assumed that we knew…I’m a frequent flier but what about everyone else.Ah well, technological advances…

The piolet informed us of the delay and then continued to mention that we would potentially be arriving at DFW airport 30mins or so ahead of schedule regardless of the delay. I left London’s 29C, a plane full of grumpy American Airlines hostesses and landed, 10 hours later, in DFW’s 40C to a familiar face.

First mistake? Trying to get into the car on the drivers side -_- backwards America – or England, which ever you prefer.

I have to admit at first I thought it was hot, however I seemed to have settled nicely now ( a week later).

So to recap the events so far:

1st July – Landed safely, met everyone and relaxed.

2nd July – Jetlagged, woke up early for a business meeting Erik and his Mum had to go to, then went for a Chinese buffet following that, did some shopping for bits and pieces I’d forgotten.

3rd July Met up with Aliki at ScrewAttack event and nabbed our passes.

4th July Went to the Galleria to find out that Tiffany’s was shut but proceeded to  spend some money on buying presents.

5th July Celebrated Erik’s brother; Jason’s birthday, nice evening of fun with an interesting game!

6th July Back to the Galleria and Tiffanys to buy a necklace and finish of a bit of shopping. Later that day, headed to Kendras home to meet up with both Kendra and April and learnt I am allergic to cats, lol. Gathered the troops and then rallied for a nice Thai restruant. What time did we get home? Around 23:30. Tiggered out.

7th July Grabbed my first milkshake of my trip here from Chick-Fil-A, Peach. High in sugar but nice

So thats the basics so far I’m being taken care of more than I could possibly imagine and enjoying the Texas sun.

Notice the difference? I’ve noted many – 1, drive through dry cleaners…..2, drive through banks…..3, bag packers…..4, no roundabouts just a bazillion traffic signs and lights….oh and the nice temperature mmmmm 40C is good… and so is air-con…..

Japan – Miyajima & Hiroshima

Ok so it should be Hiroshima and then Miyajima but I like Miyajima a bit better although Hiroshima is cool.

Went to Hiroshima castle and the atomic dome on arrival and its shocking the amount of damage that was done. The garden – peace looked really cool with an everlasting flame. Lots of people around paying their respects.

But Miyajima…. wow. What an island. The following day we went to the island for a quick visit…. which turned into a whole day of 10 hours. Watching the sun go down and then lights on the Tori gate and then eating Tonkatsu and goodness knows how many icecreams. Then going up the mountain and seeing all the monkeys and then back down again with all the deer.

My camera eventually ran out of battery so I had to use my phone.

Will fill in more when I get back. Gotta go pack for Osaka now!

Japan – Matsuyama (Dogo Onsen)/ Takamatsu / Osaka

So I arrived in Matsuyama and grabbed a taxi to the hotel after being tired and just wanting to chill out. Dogo onsen was the perfect place. We stayed in a spacious Ryoken when no english was spoken, took some adjusting to but I was fine.

Dogo Onsen being one of Japans oldest hot springs was pretty cool to see. Such a large building too.  However on one of the days it was far to hot for me to even contemplate going inside!

A few days on and I left for Takamatsu. Little did I know this day would be eventful. The journey was ok, not too long but not short enough lol.

On arrival in Takamatsu I made my way to the hotel and chilled for about 2 mins before handing them my bags and being told my room wasnt ready. So I took the time to go around Takamatsu castle. Not like English castles but in their own way very cool! These castles in Japan seem to be soo peaceful (although at one point im sure they were busy). I wandered around for little over an hour before heading to the arcade and shops further down the road.

Afterwards I headed back to the hotel and checked in, rested briefly and then headed out to the station to go to Ritsurin park!

I picked the right day to do as it was super nice weather. The park was not so far from the station near by and well worth travelling too. Such a peaceful and beautiful place. When I was there I felt miles away. Was a really nice feeling. The park is huge and took a while to walk around and cost around 400 yen entry per person. After a couple of hours I headed back to Takamatsu station and then back to the hotel.

The following day I got up at 6am ready fro my day trip to Osaka. Random trip, unplanned. But I`d done what I wanted to do in Takamatsu so I figured I`d trip it to Osaka.

Takamatsu to Okayama, Okayama Shinkansen to Shin Osaka and the Shin Osaka to Osaka.

Took about 2 1/2 hours there and ofc the same back. But was worth it. Huge department stores and allsorts!

More to come!

Japan ー Kyoto and Nara

Today we went to Nara to see the big temples, chill in the park and see the deer. Nara is maybe a 40 odd minute rapid train ride from Kyoto station and quite worth it to be honest. Nara plays host to the biggest budda in Japan and also is well know for the deer in the park that just wonder around with you.

The park was very relaxed and even more so were the deer.  On our way back from one temple we bumped into some people we`d met the day before so we spend the rest of the day as a small group of 4 and eventually headed back to Kyoto.

In Kyoto we showered, changed and then popped out for the final night in Kyoto. We went to Shin Kyogoku which is like a shopping area and myself and the other girl jumped in a Puri Kura booth and spent the next 30 mins editing and doodling – hey its been a while!

Today we head to Odayama and to our Ryokan in Dogo Onsen so once more I will be without the internet.

Im about half way or just over through my trip and so far, its made me realise how much I loved Japan before.