So second blogpost before we go into the New Year!! Yay!
Canada – #ACgiftofhome This year I’m going with Air Canada, where a few lucky people thought they were filming a mailing service but in fact Air Canada are flying those people to see their loved ones. Brought a few tears to my eyes… seriously peeps… It’s like watching Home Alone when Macaulay Culkin reuniting with his family in the end.
Germany – EDEKA Weihnachtsclip – #heimkommen
This is quite epic. It’s actually become famous and has been compared a lot to the British John Lewis advert. EDEKA is a German supermarket like LIDL. It’s not surprising that other countries get the Christmas advertising and I’m sure this ad didn’t cost £1million to make, The advert shows an old man spending year after year alone at Christmas, he fakes his death just to get his family together! Surprisingly not any member of the family is angry about it!!
Poland – Coraz bliżej Święta – Margaret ft. The Voice of Poland 2015 Finalists | Coca-Cola #PodarujRadosc (Translation: Closer and closer to Christmas)
Wow! If you like the Coca-Cola mini jingle song then you might like this… It’s not really a complete advert but a song of The Voice finalists with a famous Polish singer Margaret. I like this. I think I might be into Polish music. ¬_¬””
Spanish – Anuncio Lotería de Navidad 2015 – #Justino
Here’s another year of the Spanish Lottery where they’ve used a bit more imagination and fun animation. My god, this made me cry!! The night caretaker of a manequin factory seems to be quite bored, so he plays about with the manequins. The day staff play the lottery, and one evening they won… the night caretaker seemed to be upset that he wasn’t there with them, but the staff stayed behind and threw a party for him… it’s best if you watch it. Emotional!!
USA – The Wish Writer – Macy’s Christmas Film
Something tells me the USA are following pursuit with the British 3 minute style Christmas ads. Not bad for Macy’s. Could have added a bit more script to it… like a bit of talking… But anyway, this follows two kids who make wishes using a magic pen making them come true, in some cases they don’t come true. It’s more about sharing and giving to others. An ok-ish advert, could add more spring to it though.
Slovenia – Za najbližje gremo najdlje (Translation: Go to the nearest longest)
A bit of a strange ad from Telekom Slovenia. ¬_¬” A kid follows a snowflake and is filmed by a TV crew… I think the snowflake is looking for his family. Probably like following the star to find Jesus… something like that I guess.
Hong Kong – 頭抬高 睇Good Show！(Translation: Raise your heads Watch a Good Show!)
Well Hong Kong adverts tend to be short and simple, nothing spectacular, so here’s just a short advert from Ocean Park tell kids and adults to stop looking at their mobile devices, look up and watch a good show at Ocean Park.
Japan – ソフトバンク CM MOON RIBAR「みんなのクリスマス」(Translation: Softbank CM MOON RIBAR “Everyone’s Christmas)
The Japanese are always cute with their adverts. I cannot deny that SoftBank, correct a bank can show off their advertising skills! A group of friends decide to surprise one of their friends for Christmas in Tokyo. I know it’s Tokyo because they see fireworks lit up next to Tokyo Skytree. ^_^
Korea – [부라더#소다] 부라더소다 하연수 광고영상(크리스마스 ver.) – Translation: [Brother # soda] soda Brother Ha Yeon-soo video ad (Christmas ver.)
Uh, sometimes I think Korean adverts are pretty cool… but this one surprised me. Without translating the title I assumed this was about sleeping mattresses, but in fact it’s about soda! Drinking soda. O.M.G!!
France – Orange
I think most of the mobile phone ads these days is about video or taking pictures with a good resolution… this French Orange ad shows a mother trying to capture all the good moments with her family but does not succeed until the very end.
Czech Republic – Kaufland: Jak se točila vánoční reklama (Finální reklama!) (Translation: Kaufland: Behind The Scenes Christmas advertising (Final advertising!)
LOL!! The Czech are quite funny with their dry sense of humour in this advert. A young boy and his granny go around in a Kaufland supermarket with an angel throwing confetti, a silent choir and then in the end, wait for it… an exploding car. ¬_¬”” Very dry sense of humour!! Heheheh
That’s it for this year…! Can’t wait for more adverts in 2016!!
Welcome back to my fourth year of international Christmas adverts. I’m hoping to find some interesting ones this year.
Starting off with the IKEA ads once again. ^_^
Singapore/Malaysia
This year Singapore and Malaysia are going techno on YouTube. So they are start singing in a small IKEA style with We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Then second version comes in with a few more dynamical singing voices and lots of IKEA goods… Then the last part gets trendier!! I love it!! You can also switch between scenes by using the dial in the bottom middle. So fun!!
UK
This is called “Come Home to Play”, an animated style advert where a robot learns to fly with his two friends a bat and an eagle… It doesn’t look all IKEA until the end when the family room shows two kids and their father playing as the robot, bat and eagle. Hmmm… Didn’t feel that much excitement as the Singaporean one. Disappointed!
Germany
This is a nice ad from the German side of IKEA, it starts off with the kids taking over the house, then we see some cooking, then back to the kids drawing on everything (on the table cloth I guess!), then it’s a big family dinner. Nice!
Italy
This is a funny one from Italy. The young lad versus the old granny on who can set the table the fastest. A very cool Christmas battle – IKEA style. Hah!
I’ve been searching all the IKEA channels on YouTube, but it’s been disappointing that only a few countries decided to do a Christmas ad. 😦 … maybe next year!
Uh oh, so now I’m trouble with all my friends because I booked this show (in June!) without asking anyone if they wanted to go and see Disney on Ice on Boxing Day! Well I thought Miss Money would be working and Miss Pinky would be in Scotland… but neither didn’t do that this year. Whoops.
Disney on Ice tickets were on sale with Amazon Local earlier this year and I was being selfish (a typical trait of mine when it comes to me, entertainment and spoiling myself :p) so I bought my ticket hoping for a good seat in which I did get…! Yay!!
The show was amazing with the skaters just building up on each Disney film.
Start of the show started off with some boomerangs…
Then Mickey, Minnie, Donald Duck and Goofy presented the show…
First story was Toy Story.
We all know the story. Don’t need to explain.
Next was The Little Mermaid. I actually loved this animation when I was young… O, does this indicate my age? I was pretty young when this came out. Used to love the toys (especially Ursula) from McDonald’s. ^_^
Cars isn’t one of my favourites. A boy Disney film… I’m gender bending. ¬_¬!
Next up was Frozen. The famous one of them all. Are there just more kids into Disney these days or are the songs in Frozen just too captivating? I think the latter! This was the actual reason why my friends hated me… I watched this part without them… and I knew most of them liked Frozen. 😀
A spectacular show! I hope they do Frozen again next year and I’ll take Miss Pinky and others… Fingers crossed I don’t get beaten up before then. :p
Knitting and crochet?! I seemed to have bought loads of yarn from the 99p Store. It was 3 for 2, so I had to take a gamble and buy a lot.
Here’s just a selection of the things I have made this year… these are for Mr and Mrs Travels and their three girls…
Presents for the Travels Family in France
I made this bag just by looking at pictures online… Just wanted to make a bag for Mrs Travels and this looked so easy to make! Just 13 large granny squares.
Granny Square crochet bag
A scarf for Mr Travels. This took me a week to make (in between parties). ^_^
A Christmas amigurumi monster for Missy A. She’s only 1 year and 4ish months. Blimey.
Finally (I actually started making these first with lots of remaining cotton yarn) I made these crochet bags for Missy I and Missy S. They took a week each to make!!!
I’ve made a sparkly white hat for Miss Money, a bag for Mrs Hen, and I’ve got two more amigurumi’s for Mr Smiles and Mr Bear to make plus a pink granny square bag for Miss Pinky. Humph… Christmas holiday seems to be a busy one catching up with presents. :p
Well, it’s about time I went to Love Walk Cafe. I’ve heard and read different views on this place and most of my colleagues praise it.
So straight after a meeting (and after my first work party at The Camberwell Arms) with slightly dreary eyes and hungry to try something different Miss Vegan and I went to buy things in Superdrugs then straight into Love Walk Cafe. It’s cash only and Miss Vegan forgot to get some cash, so I said I’ll treat her.
The place looks a bit daunting inside with pipes showing and bear walls but other than that it looks kind of a natural place to be in. A natural looking cafe.
Looking at the menu board there wasn’t much that I wanted so we asked if there was a separate food menu… yes there is! Quite a bit of choice.
We stood there waiting for a while, drinks became ready… Miss Vegan had the hot chocolate with soy milk.
And I had a go at the Love Hangover smoothie consisting of spinach, mint mango and apple. Very green. Very healthy looking. Didn’t have a hangover but thought I should try it out!
We both ordered burgers but unfortunately it took a long time… In fact they were given to the wrong person. 😦 So one of the waiters went running to retrieve them back… It was also unfortunate that one of the burgers already had ketchup in it, so they had to change the chips. 😦 Hmmmm… maybe the waitress should have checked whose orders they were before giving them away… such a palava!! That’s already given me a bad impression of this place.
Well burgers sorted, a free pastry given (which I had) and a short walk back to the offices it was time to eat!
Blimey the burgers look big… Didn’t look as if it was anything special. I had the Jerk chicken burger that had a piece of pineapple in it. It actually didn’t taste bad. With jerk chicken I always worry about if it’s spicy enough. I think (from what I remember) is mainly the pineapple rather than the spice. Chips were ok, but went cold after our longish wait.
Miss Vegan had the Quinoa burger. She thought it was queer to see a quinoa as a burger but surprisingly it does work… I had a bit of taste of it, and Miss Vegan said it does work but needs something to finish it off. It’s kind of dry-ish towards the end of the taste… It needs a sort of sauce to make it a little wet and agreeable to the palate.
Well, total cost came to around £21. Expensive for cafe food methinks!
Miss Vegan tells me the soup is the best part of the cafe… I guess I have to try it when I can.
My geeky rating: 4.5/5
Good points:
– Polite service
– Burgers are big
– Smoothies are cool
– Apparently the soups are fantastic too (according to Miss Vegan)
Bad points:
– Cash only plus a little expensive
– Check orders before giving them out to the right customer
– Longish wait
Address: 81 Denmark Hill, Camberwell, London SE5 8RS
So there were a lot of Christmas parties and gatherings this year, but I’ll only feature two pubs I went to and add some pictures of food from the gatherings.
First party was with my current team at the beginning of the month, which started at 6.30pm in The Camberwell Arms… I think I had a bit to drink that night. Well pampered by this team. The food was different to last year’s! Yay! I would say an improvement. ^_^ I especially liked the fried (tempura looking) brussel sprouts and the surprise of some horseradish in between. Phew, hot stuff! Probably not best suited for vegetarians or vegans. Miss Vegan was not impressed so I told her to buy some other food beforehand… she came late to the party!
It’s too bad they didn’t cater for more (well my team should have asked for food for up to 60 people!).
The very last office party (which I gate crashed) was with the very first team I worked with at my current work place. I’m still in contact with the old staff, and Mrs Hen was there too… so I was there to enjoy seeing my old team get all drunk, :p Wouldn’t go back to my old team though… not in a million years!! Tough working with them… Anyway, I kind of gate crashed this party at The Grand Union but technically I was invited. Heheheh, This is an American style bar/pub in an old Victorian pub… It’s a really well hidden place in Camberwell, and you wouldn’t think that such a nice pub existed in the area! Wow!! The food felt decent, fit for vegans, vegetarians and meat eaters,
An exhilarating party meeting some old team members, and even Mrs Hen got drunk. Heheheh,
Other gatherings included office parties and another visit to the Czech Club… no more parties please. I’m spoilt and a tired Geek. 😦 I HAVE XMAS PRESENTS TO MAAAAKE!!!
Italian Meatloaf with spinach and egg
Czech Club: Menu numbers 16, 23, 27, 46 and 57 – I have to remember this for next time!!
Second to last office party… missed the beggining…
But I got the last coffee icing cupcake!! Yaaaay!!
Right, it’s time to cool down and sleeeeeep till next year’s Christmas parties. Heheheh.
Going to write about these Christmas adverts really quickly!! Intu – Come and Play this Christmas
Would you let your child go around a shopping centre, shop and dress like an adult? Intu would… Intu by the way is popular on the outskirts of London (that’s why I’ve never heard of them).
Anchor Butter – Little Elephant
Lol!! Every parent’s nightmare is a squeezable elephant that makes an elephant sound… terrifies them to the point when they have to have Anchor Butter down them. Don’t you worry, I won’t do that to Miss Pinky and Mr Picky with my goddaughter… ¬_¬” (yeah right, of course I will!!)
Debenhams – #foundit
😦 Ugh, don’t like this advert… so you’ve found the present in Debenhams and have to explain why you think you found the perfect gift… hmm
Cadbury Christmas Cadbury are on a mission this year. To serve the nation with Cadbury advent calendars!
Boots – #DiscoverMore Very different to the usual Boots ads, but this time it features more and more of the products they sell in store… quite a casual advert. Not that exciting.
Argos – Just Can’t Wait Woah, Argos have spent some money this year for this advert! Fast paced skiers, people on those snow vehicles, bouncy balls with minions inside… By the way, it doesn’t take 60 seconds to collect and item… it takes FOREVER!! Believe, I’ve been there and done it in half an hour.
Coca Cola – Taste Christmas with Coke Ok, I actually like this advert… probably not the best advert I’ve seen but Coca Cola have been around for many, many years… and everyone just loves Cola!!
Littlewoods
Featuring Myleene Klass once again who plays the piano in a slow paced song… gift miraculously appear under the trees or rooms of people… it doesn’t appeal to me. Boring!
TK Maxx – Love Your Neighbour
Well, well, well, TKMaxx got this one right. Love Your Neighbour!! Buy gifts for them ^_^ … neighbours in my neighborhood, please buy gifts for me. :p
House of Fraser – #YourRules
OMG. Overdramatised much!! This features Grace and G-Eazy (who are they exactly??? I’m out of touch with the new pop world of young folk singers). Lots of dancing, sadish song, and lots of drama… but the great thing about this advert is that they featured a lot of their clothing, accessories, furniture-ware and other stuff.
Harrods – Once upon a Christmas
Here we go again with another advert of mice Peter Pumpernickel and his friend Poppy Peashoot. Sadly there’s no narrating in this ad, which would have made this a better advert, so you just have to follow the storyline of the two mice who jump into the dance to make Santa all happy.
Mulberry – #MulberryMiracle
And to end this post is an advert from Mulberry. What blasphemy is this! Imposing a red Mulberry bag as Jesus… hmmm… It made me laugh, but I’m not sure if it made the rest of the world laugh… ¬_¬”
Ah, can’t wait to get onto the International ads!!!
Moving on slowly to another restaurant called Eat Tokyo (so much eating this month :p).
The Japanese classmates (the ones I became friends with before switching to a different class) were having a lunchtime get together. It was decided in the end that we’ll go to Eat Tokyo with 8 of us going.
This restaurant is next door to Shackfuyu, it is ultimately one of the most popular sushi restaurants in London I have seen so far, besides Yo! Sushi. People start queuing outside the doors just to get a seat!
It took all 8 of us a long time to decide on what to eat. Just so much choice!
So we all ordered away…
This is what I had… Soba noodles, natto beans for people to try out and a caterpillar sushi roll. ^_^
My drink came out last! After I had all my food… ¬_¬”” An oolong and sochu mix. It was a strange mix, but as I kept drinking, it got better… One of my classmates said they could easily make this into something else… a sweeter cocktail I guess.
Total came to £155! That’s just under £20 each… wow. Did we eat that much?
My geeky rating: 5/5
Good points: – Friendly service – A large variety of sushi – Not too expensive
Bad points: – A little crowded – Served the drink last… is that how it goes?
Make sure to book a table if a large group is going!!
Address: 16 Old Compton St, London W1D 4TL Tel: 020 7439 9887
Finally get time to blog! Well, a very short hour before I move onto my Japanese studies. >_<""
Miss Pinky wanted to go out last week and she picked the day of Master H’s (her youngest brother) birthday to go out on. ^_^
Miss Pinky passed by Elephant and Castle on a bus one day and said she saw this sign that was lit up quite brightly and messaged me to go and try Mamuska (English meaning: Step-mum… huh?!), a Polish restaurant which originally existed in Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre and I’ve never tried it…
We entered and the Christmas parties were already swinging into action.
One of the staff members explained to us how to order in modern fashion… They basically start off like Nando’s where you pick from the menu and order your food at the till… Then once ordered, it switches to Argos where you’ve been given a ticket number and your number shows up on the TV screen where you yourself have to pick the food up. Heheheh!!
Well, that was a good way of explaining the ordering service!!
So all four of us (including Baby B who was fast asleep in her pram) really had a good look at the menu before going up to order. It really took us a while to think about this…!
Master H was at KFC earlier with Miss Pinky before they had to rush out the door before coming here. So Master H was eyeing the fried chicken so he asked for the Kurczak Panierowany (Eng: Breaded Chicken). I had a taste of it and it was delicious, there was a lot of chicken compacted together, and you could taste the chickeness in it. Master H was avoiding going home too early, so he ate slowly and took the rest of this home.
Kurczak Panierowany (breaded chicken)
Miss Pinky ordered the Pork Gulasz (Eng: Pork Stew). This similar to all the Eastern European gulasz’s! Even the Czech version is quite like this but the taste is obviously different. This tasted like a saltier stew than the Czech’s, and the pork was very tender. Master H said it looks and tastes like African stew.
Pork Gulasz (pork stew)
For the actual starters we ordered these Pierogi (Eng: dumplings) with pork filling. They look like Chinese dumplings! How weird! Well the pork tasted like tuna… how’s that possible?! We all liked these.
Pierogi – Pork
And I ordered the Slow Roasted Pork Belly which had mashed up buckwheat and gravy. Wow is all I can say! The buckwheat tasted like lumpy mashed potatoes. The pork belly was tender with the skin looking a bit like jelly. Aaaah it was amazing! I think I’ve had too much pork belly in these past few months… time to cut down… I recommend this if you like pork… Most of the foods on the menu are pork orientated.
Slow Roasted Pork Belly
As for drinks Miss Pinky and I went for the Polish beers. I had the Raspberry Beer whilst Miss Pinky had a normal Polish beer. Master H had a lemonade.
Rasberry Beer
Some sort of Polish beer
In total it came to around £32 or more… I can’t remember actually! But for three people, it is a reasonable price.
Happy Birthday Master H (who inconveniently had a birthday party yesterday ¬_¬).
Ok, back to the Christmas adverts for the moment but there’s just too many to go through!!! So I’m going to stick most of the supermarket ones here in this post before I move onto the next bunch of adverts for this year.
Morrisons – “Handmade Right Here” This year is a little boring from Morrisons. I guess they had spent too much on advertising on previous years using celebs. This year, Morrisons expresses that they make everything in their stores. Yeah, that’s true! A little girl in the end expresses her love and gratitude to her mother by writing a special message on a Christmas cake… Food isn’t making my mouth water and the advert is just really simple with their message…
Lidl – “Lidl School of Christmas”
Lidl tries something different this year. I’ve actually watched it a few times, and it makes it giggle each time I watch it. A few “teachers” here teach you the art of Christmas by preparing their students on how to cook, give tips on opening presents, how to be a santa and how to untangle those menacing fairy lights that were stored away from last year! Heheheh. It’s a funny ad but not much Lidl input (product wise).
ALDI – “#AldiFavouriteThings”
Oi oi! Aldi have made an interesting food ad this year featuring Jade Williams singing “Favourite Things”! The shots coincide with the song in time (very important!), the food looks great and the little graphics like the moving reindeer on the gingerbread house and the skater who skates on the cake are just brilliant additions to the advert… My kind of Christmas ad!
ASDA – “#becauseitschristmas” ASDA have gone a bit flashy this year… I mean they’re using a lot of sparkly lights and a hit song called “Sax”, it just makes you want to dance all night long! Just don’t sleep in the middle of all the partying. ^_^
Marks and Spencer – “#TheArtofChristmas” Oh dear, I feel like ASDA and M&S have clashed with their adverts! It also feels a little similar to the Argos advert from 2014. Sometimes it’s hard to have an original idea. Everything is so similar and familiar every year. I wonder what advertising is going to be like in a 100 years time… Same old stuff! Anyway, M&S starts off with lights and action, clothes and more clothes, accessories and food (but not enough of the glorious food)… Pretty much a party ad but not as fun as the ASDA one.
Tesco have done a few ads this Christmas and I left these till last because it’s hilarious.
Tesco – “Flirt”
I’ve never actually seen a guy in action in a supermarket trying to hit on someone before… Does this stuff really happen in supermarkets?! I guess they do!! Well just make sure your parents are not following behind you… ^O^
Tesco – “Emergency” There’s a lot of gluten free stuff you can find in supermarkets and lots of things that aren’t with wheat. Hahahah, Tesco try to make it look simple in this advert that you can find gluten free food and things… like a light bulb… 🙂
Tesco – “Party” If you’re having a private party try and keep it secret! Tesco does party food which cooks at the same temperature… hmmm, if my kitchen is finished before Christmas, I might just have to try it! 🙂
Seems to be a lot of hashtags this year!! More ads to come!
Here’s an exta one from Tesco!! The Final Shop! ^_^
Stuck in Sydney posting old photos taken with various camera phones on my world travels. Posting in arty Black and White and includes witty commentary 🇦🇺
A Simple Geeky Life 
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