It may be midnight in Hong Kong but it’s sure early in the UK. Still having a great time but still have more places to visit and things to do!! Here’s another pre-prepared post I wrote earlier…
I applaud Baileys with this advert! What a nutcracker this is!! ^_^”” LOL (I’m laughing at my own joke).
Well it definitely is a nutcracker. I really love it. Not only because I like ballet, but I really think it’s cool for a Christmas advert.
Clara who is the main female character enters the party room and is served with a glass of Baileys. She then sees the Nutcracker and both of them start dancing. The Mouse King sees them and is jealous of their passion, so he starts a fight. The Nutcracker and The Mouse King are battling it out, but it’s Clara’s kick that beats The Mouse King… Baileys is then re-featured at the end of the advert…
There are not many references to the Baileys drink in the main plot, but you do see people holding their drinks in the advert.
A boy who’s in Year 10 that’s around age 14 to 15 runs out from home and goes door to door of his closest friends, boss and encounters. The boy looks like a thief just running and sneaking around as he leaves presents at the door. A trimmer for a neighbour who got him a B in maths, perfume for a girl he likes, a mug for his close friend, a box gift set for his newsagent boss and the last one which made me go awwwww is a present to a nurse who looked after his nan… And then the boy gets a gift from his parents.
Now this is a Christmas advert that makes sense!! And it only lasted 1 whole minute!!!
Woohoo! Well done Boots for making a better advert than John Lewis!! XD
The Geek is going on one more holiday this year, so just before I step out the door, into a cab and get on a plane out of here for a week and a half I’m posting this… I will also post some whilst I’m on holiday (taking my netbook with me!)…
Here’s a few ads I saw around Elephant and Castle…
This first one is from Honda. I like its light amusing way of trying tell us that Honda are trying to be economically friendly with their cars. Anybody driving this car? Is it true that the less fuel you add in the more driving comes out? How far can you travel to a normal car? And how long will that fuel last for? It’s one of those questionable type adverts… It makes you want to research for more!
This one is from Wickes. This is quite unique. Did I take a picture of the one from last year? I can’t remember! Anyway, this shows a rooftop with I think some thermal stuff that needs to be inserted into the roof for insulation… 3D advertising works for me! Good luck Wickes!
This last one from Ford made me giggle. I think I’ve seen this somewhere before. “The Ka Made Me Do It”. Hehehe. Ka is probably a slang word for Car… I quite like it. The car made the girls jump into a fountain. What would it make you do next?
Anyway, seeya UK!! Back soon… it’s going to be a short, quick holiday!
Don’t forget I will still be blogging from abroad…
Update 25/03/2015: Unfortunately this place has closed down and is replaced by a Lebanese restaurant…
I rarely go out to lunch during workdays but this was an opportunity I did not want to miss, and I actually turned this done the previous week because I thought I was going to out with Mrs Hen to eat Chinese food… Unfortunately that didn’t happen, so thankfully I went out to lunch.
This place Gusto is a new Italian restaurant in London Camberwell SE5. I can’t even remember what was there before it became a restaurant! It’s been opened for a good few months but I never had the opportunity to eat there. Was going to go with Miss Posh, but I was too busy (and I still haven’t met up with her yet!). So this time I went with two female colleagues (Mrs Jewelry who likes to make bracelets and necklaces and Ms Pâtissier who likes to bake cakes and cook all sorts) and Mr Bear.
Gusto Italian Restaurant in London Camberwell
I rarely eat Italian food outside because you can easily prepare food like this at home… So off we went… When we got there I realised I left my phone in the office, so all these pictures are taken with using Mr Bear’s phone…
The seats are like lounge setting type… Comfortable…
Nice light bulb!!
The condiments
The chef at work
It actually took us a good 5 to 10 minutes to decide because the amount of choices was a lot than what I would have expected in an Italian restaurant. After we ordered there was a long wait for the food. I was getting a bit peckish. There was only one chef… And this is what we had…
My Cabanara came out first. I wanted to eat this with spaghetti as I kept seeing Korean dramas of people eating spaghetti, and I wanted cabanara!! Unfortunately it was warm when it came out, not piping hot like you would expect it to be. The sauce was nice (I could have licked my plate in the restaurant), the spaghetti was al dente and the ham was delicious… Not bad, but could have been hot.
Cabanara
Ms Pâtissier had the Lasagne Bolognese with spaghetti. This also reminded me of all the Korean dramas that featured Spaghetti Bolognese as they would mix the mince into the spaghetti rather than dump the sauce and mince on top like most people do. When I make mine, I mix it in then serve it. Never got a taste of this, but Ms Pâtissier finished it! Must’ve been good!
Lasagne Bolognese
Mr Bear had this Pratto Verde which consists of ham, spinach, garlic and cream… He said it was good, but not great… I thought he was going to lick the plate after he finished his pasta but he didn’t. He really loves spinach!
Pratto Verde
Mrs Jewelry ordered the Gusto Italy pizza without the artichokes. She ate half of it and started picking on the toppings… She didn’t finish it, but says it was lovely… I think all of us could’ve finished it for her but we didn’t. XD The pizza does look good though! Must try one of them next time…
Gusto Italy Pizza without artichokes
All together it came to a cost of £31.20 but in fact we got a 15% discount! So the cost came to £27.14. I love discounts. Need to go there more often… ^_^
They are currently booking for private Christmas parties, so book now if you want to have an Italian party!!
My geeky rating: 4/5Make that 4.5/5 from January 2014
Good points:
– Polite service
– Quiet restaurant
– Nice and clean
– Pasta sauce for my cabanara was excellent! – I also recommend the garlic bread and lasagna bolognese – these were hot!!
Bad points:
– It was good food but mine was a bit too warm
– Food took a little while to get to our table as there was only one chef.
Just want to point out that I went again to Gusto with Ms Pâtissier last week, and this time we got there they had one customer, got served a little quickly, and I realised they were doing a 15% discount throughout the whole of January. Must also point out that their Lasagna Bolognese is the bomb!! Sweet tomato sauce and lots of cheese. I really felt like Garfield enjoying lasagne. (^_^)b Garlic bread was also served like a pizza. OMG. That’s a lot!! PLUS they have started serving breadsticks. Ms Pâtissier had a pasta (obviously) but I forgot the name of her dish. She couldn’t finish hers as there was just too much garlic bread… So now I’ve upgraded my geeky rating to 4.5/5!
From top left: Breadsticks, pasta with ham and mushrooms, lasagna bolognese and garlic bread with mozzarella
A couple of months ago (that’s a long time ago) I sent my brother Mr Stingy on a challenge, and he failed. I asked him to take pictures of all the Chinese restaurants, Chinese supermarkets and Chinese stores… Well he missed a few!! (We skipped the Japanese, Korean, Thai and Malaysian restaurants – not being biased or anything since China Town is supposed to be for the Chinese in ancient times… ¬,¬””). There are a few still missing I believe… (this doesn’t include all the backstreet stores)…
I have sectioned the below into supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, bubble tea places and snack stores. Some of the places I have blogged before but I have added here as a summary… Pictures are going to be small, because there’s a lot to go through!… Also I haven’t added the addresses and telephone numbers for each place, you will need to research that yourself!! 😛
Bakeries / Cafes Golden Cake Dessert House
Kowloon City Bakery
Sun Sai Ki Wah Chan Teng
Wonderful Patisserie
Chinatown Bakery
Sun Leun Snack Bar
The other entrance to Sun Leun Snack Bar
Golden Gate Cake Shop
Supermarkets / Snack Shops
Oriental Delight – snack store
New Loon Moon Supermarket
Loon Fung Supermarket
Yuan Guang Supermarket
See Woo Supermarket
Mini Market – this is the back streets, so you will need to find this one…
Bubble Tea Shops
Chattime
Up… T
Cuppacha – already blogged about this
BobaJam on Charing Cross Road… There’s one on Shaftesbury Avenue too!!
The Restaurants Never realised how many restaurants China Town have!!
Golden Day
Young Cheng on Shaftesbury Avenue – already blogged about it…
Mayflower
Little Wu
Wong Kei edit: (changing management ¬,¬)… will blog about this place one day when the changes are made.
Young Cheng on Wardour Street
Hung’s – already blogged about it
Cafe TPT
Dim Sum Palace – already blogged about it, I think it’s still closed… CLOSED
Hong Kong Diner
Mr Wu
Gerrard’s Corner
Kowloon Buffet – this one is next to the bakery
London Chinatown
Golden Dragon – already blogged about it
The Black Bean
Royal Dragon
Oriental Dragon
Dumpling’s Legend
Golden Pagoda- already blogged about it
Moatai Kitchen
Leong’s Legend
Four Seasons
Aroma
New Look Lam Moon
Haozhan
Lido
New Loon Fung Restaurant right next to the supermarket!
Feng Shui Inn
Harbour City Restaurant
Friendly Inn …. I think this is closed down!! Edit: Reopened!!
Wan Chai Corner – this is very new
New World – already blogged about it
New China
Canton
China Buffet
Can’t see the name of this one! Edit: Not a restaurant… it’s an agency of some sort!!
Some snack stalls
Jen Café
Leong’s Legends Continues …
Imperial China
Hing Loon
Beijing
Young Cheng in Lisle street
Mr Kong
Super Star – Already blogged about it
Manchurian Legends
Tao Tao Inn
Hong Kong Buffet
Er Nei
Fu Zhou
Bawei
Longji
Baozi Inn
Real Being Restaurant
Red Hot
Plum Valley
Oversea Chinese Restaurant – newly refurbished!!
If I have missed out any, please let me know, and I will take a picture and amend!!!!
Taking a break from adverts for a bit… Onto chocolate!!
I had no idea Mr Sensible was reading my blog… he said he likes the chocolate posts where I’ve taken pictures of the chocolates close up. Heheh… so this post is for him…
Not sure how long these have been out for, but I thought I might as well try them out since they were sitting in the till section in Morrison’s and they had to be bought to be tried out for this blog. XD
Wonka Chocolate Bars
Diagonal View
Wonka bars are named after Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book by Roald Dahl… I used to love the 80’s film. When I first watched it, it was just awesome!
The first one is this Chocolate Nice Cream. There’s an outer layer of milk chocolate, an inner layer of white chocolate and a soft gooey chocolate inside. I like this!!
Chocolate Nice Cream
A head and a hat
Layer of white choclate
Topped with chocolate cream
Millionaire’s Shortbread has an outer of rich chocolate with an inner layer of shortbread. I don’t like this as much as the Nice Cream. It’s too rich for liking… It also gives this taste that makes me go yuuuuck.
Millionaire’s Shortbread
Close up of Millionaire’s Shortbread
Inner layer of shortbread
The Creme Brulee one is sweet, not rich, has a little crunch to it, and I like it.
Creme Brulee
Close up of Creme Brulee
Inside the Creme Brulee
All of them cost me £1 each, I would probably buy the Chocolate Nice Cream again… but they are definitely not my favourite chocolates. Not sure why Nestlé likes to make their chocolates as sweet as possible. Some tester has their sweet-tooth set on ULTRA SWEET!!
Here’s a special treat for fans of Aaron Kwok 郭富城… He is my childhood / teenage Hong Kong idol. Love his songs, his dance moves, his acting… I just love Aaron Kwok!! I have to thank @gwai_zhi Twitter follower too for mentioning this to me!! I stood in the cold London weather at Cineworld in Haymarket for a good 45 minutes waiting for him… He whizzed past me, so my two pictures here are not that great!
Aaron Kwok arriving at Cineworld in Haymarket for the Chinese Film Festival closing ceremony
¬_¬” I wonder why companies have advertising teams. Storming a Christmas idea for an advert may be difficult… But really Sainsbury’s? One of the most renowned supermarkets in the UK. A supermarket that has the most expensive products. They must have money to come up with something better than this!!
It seems like this year for supermarkets, it’s more of a family orientated affair. I don’t disagree on the subject, but the content on the advert just totally bored me to death. It’s worse than the Tesco one! (I bow my head in disgrace to a company that sells good quality food…)…
The whole advert is full of small clips of families gathering for Christmas, singing, gasps of getting a present, disliking presents… and nothing much else to do with Sainsbury’s.
Is there a Christmas advert out there this year that’s going to WOW me? Fingers crossed there is!!
And the other supermarkets have also released their Christmas adverts in the pursuit of attracting more customers!
I’m going to first start off with Aldi’s Christmas TV advert – Like Christmas With Aldi. It’s probably one of the best short adverts I have seen so far! It’s rather basic and shows a few seconds of children and adults indicating what they food like for Christmas… At the very end, which makes me giggle, is when Santa makes a wish -“I’d like a holiday in Barbados”… Wouldn’t we all!! Nice advert Aldi!!
This next one is from Tesco. ¬,¬ Whose bright idea was this to last for 1 minute and 30 seconds of boredom. The first time I went saw this I actually skipped towards the end to see if it was definitely from Tesco… Yep it is. This advert is an entire clip of small video clips of a family during their times during Christmas. So what could have been brought from Tesco in this clip? The food? The drinks? The happy times? I have no idea.
The Geek is going to be mean here and say it’s not the best Christmas advert of 2013…
I love this one from Morrison’s. You can see they made the absolute Christmas effort to produce a very good advert! Showing off food… bring on the gingerbread man animation, bring on the singing and bring on Ant and Dec!! Morrison’s gingerbread man sings an altered version of the song Be Our Guest. They have emphasised a lot of food in the song. I actually love it and brings out the festivity of Christmas!
This next one is from the Cooperative – Here For You For Life. I can say they made a better effort than some other supermarkets. Quite a simple advert of a lady who shops then goes home and has a party using food from the Co-op. Nice simple advert. Well done!
It is one of the most ridiculous adverts I have seen in my life… The scarves can easily indicate which stores it is trying to compare themselves with! Geez… if only I could tell off their advertising department… well I am on this blog… All ASDA care about is price comparison… where is there Christmas spirit?!!!!
The Sainsbury’s one is not out yet, but I hope to see it soon!
Waitrose have made a couple… so I might wait for several more to come out before reviewing!
Yep! The aliens are back for another Argos Christmas advert!
In this advert each member of the alien family decide on a “Gift for Santa”. They suggest quite a few things like an ipad, a Teksta puppy which scares the elves and the alien dad says “poor little mixed up elves”… hahahah!! They also suggested a beard trimmer and then depicted Santa with an elongated chin once he shaved… hmmm… I don’t think the real Santa would have appreciated that.The last gift suggested was a GPS gadget… Not a bad idea alien mum!!
After being disappointed with Mayday’s concert being cancelled in September I got a chance to go and see a different concert. A totally different one. A Korean one. The one I have been waiting for, for a few years!! Super Junior 슈퍼주니어!!! I actually have to say thanks to my mum, MummyGeek. She followed me to China Town two weekends ago, and I saw a poster in a restaurant we were just about to enter in. Yay!! ^_^
If you have never heard of Super Junior, then you’re missing out! I would say they are the most wanted boy band from South Korea to perform worldwide. They are not as “popular” as PSY worldwide (they ARE really popular worldwide), but they are very, very BIG in Asia! And I mean BIG!! The Asian, as well as the Korean community LOVE these guys, and I have to point out that their most popular song is Sorry Sorry (Mr Bear’s favourite Super Junior song). We’ve been fans since 2008 by the way!!
Right, so who are they? Well, originally they were a boy band of 11 who were going to be doing various projects, one would be removed and another would be added in. But that all changed as their fans known as the E.L.F (ever lasting friends) made it clear that they did not want any changes… although their management SMTown decided to add one more band member who sings very, very well!!… Then there was 12 of them… As they were so big, they split into small groups to sing different genres and reach out to different parts of Asia. They even have a Mandarin group – Super Junior M where they’ve added two more Chinese members. One of the original members who is Chinese left the band and sued the company as he was being mistreated… You can find more on Wikipedia about their entire history.
Members are Leetuk (who is the leader and not in this tour… he’s in military service at the moment), Donghae (my favourite member!!), Shindong (the chubby one), Kangin (the one who got into trouble), Ryeowook (Mr Bear’s favourite member), Sungmin (he’s a cutey), Heechul (the one who loves to dress up), Yesung (he has a very gothic look), Eyunhyuk (the rapper and has very good dance moves), Siwon (the tallest member), Kyuhyun (the last member to join the original group), Kibum (the one who turned into an actor but is still a member of the group), Hangeng (the Chinese one who sued SMTown and left the group)… and Henry (the Canadian-Chinese who is more in Super Junior M but appears in South Korea a lot) and finally Zhoumi (also from Super Junior M!).
Super Junior will probably be the only boy band (where all the members are younger than me) who will be my favourite Korean singers and entertainers forever!!
It took me a while to convince Mr Bear to come with me to this concert. He is an absolute fan. He would sing and show off some of his dance moves in the office, and I would just glare… Why did I get him into this boy band I tell ya?! But yes, he had to come. I didn’t care if he was going to block someone else’s view, he just had to come!!… Tickets booked, but on the day before the show I was told by an automated message to go to the Box Office to change my tickets. I was being upgraded… Not enough fans going and the back of the arena was sealed off… (I didn’t like being upgraded by the way, some girls were blocking my view… Had to stand most of the time!!)…
Mr Bear and I had food at Tai Tip Mein before we went… and thankfully we made it in time!!
Before the start of the show
Lots of fans standing
The back of the arena… Cameras ready to go!
Audience started to fill up
The show is about to start!!! Arggggh!!!
Just wanted to point out, Super Junior performed in Mexico a few nights ago, and had arrived in London yesterday morning… They must be extremely tired… 😦 SMTown, you’re killing them by not giving them enough chill time!!
The show started at 8pm. There was a long intro before SuJu (short for Super Junior) came out… There were only 8 members who came to perform: Eyunhyuk, Donghae, Siwon, Sungmin, Kangin, Ryeowook, Shindong and Kyuhyun… Here’s some maybe awesome pictures of the night! Hope you all enjoy…
Super Junior!!! ^_^
Lots of SuJu fans
There’s a lot of pictures following of SuJu dancing…
From left to right: Eyunhyuk, Ryeowook, Sungmin and D
At this point, the members were introducing themselves in Korean and English… Donghae speaks very good English… I think from the screaming of the fans everybody loved Donghae, Siwon, Kyuhyun and Eyunhyuk!! 😀
Four of the members (Siwon, Kangin, Sungmin and Ryeowook) all dressed up as women… I think it’s more for their male fans or cosplay… I don’t know why South Koreans do such things… It’s for fun anyway!! 😀
Donghae and Eyunhyk are singing a duet…
Eyunhyuk meets the crowd!!
Donghae and Eyunhyuk singing “Oppa Oppa”!!!
The others joining in on the “Oppa Oppa”
Siwon and Shindong!!
Eyunhyuk stripping off his t-shirt
Siwon and Eyunhyuk topless ^^
Wooky!!! ^^
Kyuhyun!!!
The audience!!!!
What is Shindong and Ryeowook doing?
Ryeowook doing the love sign ❤
This was the end of the show 😦 … We want to see more!!!
Encore Time!!!!!!
Back on the stage… woohoo!!
Eyunhyuk lying on the floor
And then he sings
SuJu want to rest…
At this point my camera died… and now I’m using my phone camera…
Now it’s the final goodbye…
EXO members were in town to support SuJu!! ^^ I had no idea who they were until Siwon said EXO!! Hahahah… EXO are a boy band (like SuJu) created last year…
Suho and Kris from EXO
Suho from EXO
Kris from EXO
My final picture!!!
Well that was a SUPER long concert!! I have never been to a concert this long before. The fans were screaming and screaming for more!! My eardrums were near to exploding!! I enjoyed every minute of it even though I had a blocked view from many female fans in front… and don’t worry, Mr Bear did not block anyone’s view… They blocked his view instead… 😦
I will post the videos later, as they will take time to upload… ^^
I hope SuJu will definitely come back in the nearest future with the missing members!!! They must keep their promise!!! ^^
사랑해!!! I LOVE YOU SUPER JUNIOR!! ^^
Update 10.25 am
Here’s the videos you Super Junior Fans!!!
Video 1 – Sexy, Free and Single
Video 2 – Spy
Video 3 – Oppa Oppa
Video 4 – Wonder Boy
Video 5 – Forgot the name of this song!! Help me out fans!!… It’s called Sunny!! (Thanks YouTube user pineapple04) ^^
Video 6 – Sorry Sorry… (Sorry for bad quality… Girls were screaming and in my way!)
Hope you’ve all enjoyed the videos. Lets hope SMTown will give them a big break AND make sure they do a big European tour next time!
wITH MY CURRENT JOB ROLE FINISHING UP IVE DECIDED TO DO A ROAD TRIP FROM SYDNEY DOWN TO the coast of VICTORIA AND ONTO SOUTH AUSTRALIA. wILL BE POSTING IN COLOUR
A Simple Geeky Life 
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