this is the story of a girl.

Friday, April 14, 2006

part 2: meet the parents (28/03/06-30/03/06)

after spending a week in greece, i went back to london with the rest and stayed at kazu's house for a couple of days before flying off again for our holiday. was definitely freaking out in the tube on the way to his house in north london but his parents turned out to be really nice and sweet and i really love them! :D they remind me of my own parents, which in a way is kinda freaky but let's just not go there heh. anyways! was fed loads of traditional japanese food when i was staying there.. like teppanyaki, okonomiyaki (japanese pizza), seaweed, tonkatsu, yoshinoya-style beef rice and alot more other yummy japanese food that i cant name haha. i really got along with them which was a huge relief.. and they kept telling me stories of kazu when he was growing up. on the first night, his dad sneakily came into the room when kazu was outside and started showing me baby pictures of him (something that my dad would SO do if it was the other way around).. AWWWW!! kazu was such a cute little japanese baby!! and he used to be fat! haha! the image of a fat teenage kazu wolfing down a steak on one of their family holidays is eternally etched in my mind now heh!! will definitely keep taking the piss out of him after this :)

it was really nice to meet his family and see where he grew up and stuff.. and im invited back for summer so yay! :D glad i pleased the parents heh!

part 3: brussels (30/03/06-03/04/06)

so i stayed at his place for two nights and had a really great time there. our flight to brussels was on the 30th from heathrow terminal 1 at 2:40pm and we got there two hours early, well excited for our trip and ready to go. but then, we did the stupidest thing ever and MISSED OUR FLIGHT! ahhhhh!! massive panic attack cos there was no reason why we should have missed it when we were so early.. we just wasted all our time bumming around chatting, checking out cute children on the next table, looking at duty free stuff that we completely forgot and by the time we got to the gate THE PLANE HAD LEFT!! oh man.. i was seriously close to tears :( so we got back out and went to the bmibaby.com counter (i hate them! the woman was such a bitch! apparently they were announcing our names over intercom but we just dint hear them) and found out that if we wanted to fly to brussels we had to pay 200++ quid which is insane! so we sat down somewhere and felt really stupid and looked so sad that the immigration people thought we were illegal immigrants! boo. we got our luggage and kazu phoned his dad who was a travel agent to try and find another way to get to brussels without paying the 200 quid. thankfully, his dad was a great help and managed to get us cheaper tickets (50 quid) on the eurostar train yay! :) we rushed to waterloo tube station, made sure we didnt miss the 6pm train and only got to our brussels hotel room at 10pm, 6 hours later than we should have! i guess thats really what you get when two big bakas travel around together haha.. both his parents and ma couldnt stop laughing when they found out.. argh we really are the biggest bakas in the world!! -wry grin-

in our brussels hotel room after the day's drama! me with tan hah! :D

brussels really is a beautiful city.. i totally fell in love with it! the grand place is such a romantic square with really nice gothic architecture buildings and cobbled stoned streets.. i like!

nicest building on the grand place

why is there a random man squatting in my picture?!? go away!

the st michael and st goedele cathedral

belgian food is soooooooo awesome and belgian beers are all fruit-flavoured and sweet - the only beers that i like! there's cherry, peach, blackcurrant and my fave raspberry!! yum! think i had loads of beer whilst dining out in brussels with kazu everyday.. we went around looking for all the best belgian food like croquettes, mussels and seafood, in restaurants like this one! called la rose blanche

view of the grand place; silly boy enjoying his beer; my chicken waterzooi, his flemish beef stew

a great night out in brussels with natalie and her friends.. she's one of my close friends in management! think i got abit tipsy since it was the night before my birthday and when it turned midnight they made the dj play the 'happy birthday' song in the middle of the dancefloor! :); having drinks with nat and scottish guy; us nat and her best friend lucy - she's really nice!; me & kazu

on my birthday, we went out for a nice meal in the city centre

toast to me being TWENTY and OLD!! haha! birthday present he gave to me.. it's a follie follie watch with a heart-shaped face and a miniature key on it.. "it's the key to my heart!" - he says in his corny way haha! silly baka! had really yummy mussels with wine but we wolfed it down so fast we forgot to take pictures heh! i spent a really nice birthday with him! simply exploring the romantic city hand in hand, chatting, making silly comments about everything, lie around in bed eating chocolates drinking beer bumming around, think it might have been the best birthday ever.. doing nothing else but just spending a really good time with him! :D

lovely picture of the brussels skyline from our hotel room.. love the colours! this was what greeted us when we got back on my birthday :)

take picture take picture! see the skyline at the back..

again! aww he's so sweet.. he kept refusing to give me clues for my present but i got really curious and in the end i guessed it before he even gave me! the idea of a watch just randomly came into my head.. he was so bummed! awww.. i really thought i would be sad cos this was the first birthday i spent away from home but honestly, i can imagine no other way of spending it than with him in brussels.. he made it really special for me and im just glad i'll always remember this birthday cos of him! :D

the other thing that made brussels memorable was the BELGIAN WAFFLES!! they sold waffles from random waffle vans and they were all caramelly and yummy.. great with homemade icecream or with hot fudge and bananas!! and they're really cheap too!! just 1.50euro.. as compared to exorbitant UK prices heh.

finally of course, who can forget BELGIAN CHOCOLATE!! ahh think i actually went abit insane eating chocolate over there.. maybe it was my birthday season or smth but i had chocolate every single day! for breakfast lunch dinner and supper! and i bought ONE KILO worth of chocolate back to warwick.. i love leonidas's dark chocolate truffles! im a happy happy girl!

this is one of the handmade ones.. it's sooooooooo cute!!! couldnt even bear to eat it.. but of cos we did.. come on it's chocolate!! haha.

alright that concludes our brussels episode.. in essence, brussels is such a romantic city! definitely a place to walk around with someone special.. there were so many moments spent with him that i'll treasure forever.. like huddling in a random sidewalk waiting for the rain to stop; eating waffles with the wind blowing and sun shining; lazing around in bed refusing to wake up and the many times we stumbled into a nice street or building. the food is awesome, like the belgian waffles chocolate beer seafood mussels and croquettes.. have made a promise to myself that i'll definitely go back there some other time in my life.. cos it's just such a nice place and i ate so much good food and i spent my 20th birthday in that wonderful city.

mengxin made it known at 4/14/2006 08:56:00 PM

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