Month: December 2017

IKEA International Christmas Adverts 2017

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
It’s Boxing Day!! 
Skipping the UK IKEA advert in this post, because I’ve already blogged about it… Forgot that I should’ve added it into this post.
Afraid that I only got to see these four this year. It’s kind of sad that the other countries aren’t really doing Christmas ads… maybe they take it in terms. I’m sure they would have separate budgets though…

USA: “Family Photo” https://youtu.be/BdDJBgq5nIY (ahhhh, they already took the ad down!! Boooooooo).

An American in an American home. An American likes to show off her furniture from IKEA whilst trying to take a family photo. 

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Germany: 
1. TV Spot “Opa” https://youtu.be/0c_hM3NkaMM
I think the Germans always try to make their ads light and funny… The granddad is dancing all night long with the kids… then decides to take a nap on the sofa… but where on the sofa?

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

2. Online-Spot “Jesus” https://youtu.be/cRvrg2l8fqQ
Hahahah!! This actress is hilarious… She says “Jesus” all the time as she loves the furniture. But somehow she becomes British. The accent changes and sees a guy dressed like “Jesus”. 😇 Had to give this a five star!

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐



Austria: “Vorbereitung auf die Weihnachtszeit” (Preparing for the Christmas season) https://youtu.be/nQuA-KLbR9g
And this one from Austria is all about babies playing with fake snow and getting ready for Christmas… Boring…

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Hope you haven’t spent all your months wages… You know that your next pay isn’t until January right? 😆

International Christmas Adverts 2017

On By Bao Bao QiuIn Uncategorized1 Comment
Is the Christmas season boring right now? Yep. Nothing to do except watch old films, Korean dramas, crochet and not study… Might as well catch up with the blogging…
There’s only a few I’ve found… (and I’m giving ratings out of 5 stars by the way – because I can 😱).


New Zealand: “Farmers Christmas Advert 2017 – Secret Santa” https://youtu.be/sYPNA0D-TZI

It’s sunny all year long in New Zealand! I know that because I know there’s a blogger from London who’s still out there! LOL! Well, well, well, this is quite extraordinary. I could feel my eyes watering. 😭 Some old men can be so grumpy (I know as my Dad is one of them) but deep down inside they are quite dear softies as we see in this advert. The son of the neighbour is reckless, and the old man decides to help a little by going to the Farmers Department Store to buy replacements adding a little dust then giving it to the neighbour. The boy seems to be onto the old man… and knows what he’s doing… In return a plate of cookies and a cup of milk is placed outside the old man’s door. Cute! 😄

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Japan: “Dear Working Santa” https://youtu.be/gZ-89O58Q3M

Nitori ニトリ is a Japanese furniture and home accessories store. This actually reminds me of a British advert… a Japanese business man (salary man) has to go to work during the Christmas break. So sad. His family seem to understand as it’s part of the Japanese culture for people to work hard even during the holiday seasons. In this ad, one of the metro carriages is decorated with Christmas deco (from Nitori 😉). Then a foreign Santa enters (definitely not a Japanese man dressing up) who gives out gifts on the metro. Lucky people. The father/business man gets a different gift. It’s a surprise video from his wife and children who give him a special gift… メリークリスマス！
Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Hong Kong: “香港國際機場 祝一家團聚 聖誕快樂” (HK International Airport, Celebrating/ Wishing a Happy Family Renunion, Happy Christmas) https://youtu.be/Gpqi_S9jnMU
Hmmm, I could have chosen another Hong Kong Christmas ad. But thought we’ll go with the family themes in this post. I don’t think I’ve posted about HK airport’s Christmas ad before… Here we see a father travelling from an unknown destination going back home to see his family in HK. An old couple being greeted by staff members and their family… also a happy couple who make it back to HK in time! Quite a boring ad. 😕
Geeky rating: ⭐⭐

Taiwan: TOYOTA S-FR 跟你一起歡慶聖誕~ | TOMICA小汽車 (A Merry Christmas to You|Tomica toy car https://youtu.be/0zGAInkZ1UI
OMG Toyota in Taiwan. I think this advert was made for men. Well, we’ve seen a lot of adverts involving domino blocks which wind around the room… this is exactly what happens which include some toy cars. 😆
Geeky rating: ⭐⭐

Philippines: McDonald’s “Single Bells? Keribels!” https://youtu.be/EAWVU6NWblE (Keribels is Filipino slang for “carrying”).
Right!! Are you single? Do you love junk food? And do you like this advert from McDonald’s? Did you think the Sainsbury’s sing-a-long was bad? Well wait until you see this one! It’s very different to other Christmas adverts. They’re singing Jingle Bells with altered lyric and it accepts the fact that some people will be spending Christmas as singleton. Majority of the Filipinos I know are married … 😆 Here we some Filipinos expressing their joy at being single and doing what they want to do, without the hassle of having another half… as well as eating ice cream and having frappacinos…
Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐


Denmark: Flying Tiger”Prøv vores mobile julesanghæfte og Sync Julen Ind” (Try our Mobile Christmas Singing Book and Sync Christmas) https://youtu.be/rlSUX00Wp_o

The Danish will come out with anything to amuse us. Think I had to remind myself that the Danes sense of humour is quite different and out of this world. Here’s another family gathering where they start going around in circles and sing together… The grandfather can’t even grab one of his family member’s hand… this is when the arm gadgets come in. Stick your mobile phone on your arm, look into each others eyes, and keep singing! 😒

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Spain: Spanish Lottery

Here’s a two parter from the Spanish Lottery. I’ve grown really fond of these ads every Christmas. So the first one comes from Daniel’s point of view when he goes and buys a lottery ticket, and bumps into a girl who is an alien from space and has transformed itself to understand the human world… The second video is Danielle’s view of human life… 

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

1. #DANIELLE —La mirada de Daniel https://youtu.be/-Nhk7hiaz1k


2. #DANIELLE — Desde los ojos de Danielle  https://youtu.be/oPD_cJm45lA

Korea: “Heart and Mind” https://youtu.be/NegiE0HJEqI

Please watch this advert! I was deceived by a cat and dog and thinking this was about family pets… Guess again!! Watch it to the very end. I don’t think I can spoil this advert… 😝

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐


Korea: “Baskin Robbins Christmas Ice Cream Cake” https://youtu.be/_f4_5_UG-18

Sometimes I wonder at why Koreans like eating ice cream during this cold weather. Well I had a pot of vanilla ice cream as I was craving it the other day… Anyway we see these famous Koreans who drive through traffic and then one guy just jumps in front of the car to try and get to somewhere.  The driver is one of the actors from the Korean drama Criminal Minds, and I’m guessing they’re trying to reenact a desperate crime driving scene of some sort 😆. They reach their destination: Baskin Robbins… and one of the employees is not impressed. They’re searching for these Christmas Ice Cream cakes which I have never seen before. Must be a Korean thing. 

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐


Germany: EDEKA Weihnachtsspot „Weihnachten 2117“ (Christmas Spot “Christmas 2117” https://youtu.be/aknucxb0xSo

Woah! This is an advert that would beat any British advert I’ve seen. The Geeky Christmas Award goes to this advert! 😉 Here we head towards into future. 100 years from now, where the human race is disintegrating and robots are taking over towns. One robot wanders off and notices that humans once got together to celebrate Christmas. The robot decides to make a Christmas party of its own, but found it emotionless… The robot then wanders off to unknown territories of Germany until he comes across a human house who at that time was celebrating Christmas… It’s a very cute and E.T. like advert – but no enemies appear!
I would love to know how much was spent on this ad compared to other ads we’ve seen. German supermarket beats a British store. 

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐



Australia: ALDI – “The More The Merrier” https://youtu.be/YWsG1GACH3g

Yes, I can confirm the Australians are a bit nuts. They’re crazy about everything! And cricket is one sport they are crazy about. ^_^ I like cricket too, but it does get boring once in a while. Here we see an Aussie trying to get stumped out for 30 years! That’s like from the 1980’s till now. 😱How could one play for 30 years without being stumped out…? He finally gave in when he saw his family and friends around enjoying themselves with all that ALDI food. 😅

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐


USA: AUDI – “Parking Lot” https://youtu.be/mKpfxv2_WZI
Another man’s ad! But so much better than the Toyota one! This one’s from AUDI. It’s a fight for a Christmas parking space in a parking lot between two men in two AUDI cars. It’s quite hilarious on how they control with their cars with ease but their emotions just flares! Hahahahahah!!!

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐


Canada: WestJet “12 Flights of Christmas” https://youtu.be/8WClHblmnD8

Here’s the last one for now. I can’t get enough of WestJet’s Christmas adverts. Always need to find out what they’re doing each year… This one is kind of boring… But here they ask for some children’s ideas on what they should do during Christmas. There’s 12 ideas in total… they were also giving out free flights for those who were there… (why can’t I get free flights?!).

Geeky rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Favourite advert verdict: the Filipino and German ones!!

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Christmas!! Back tomorrow with the IKEA ads. ^_^

Matalan Christmas Advert 2017 – "Creating Value in Every Moment"

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Right, so I think this will be the last one I’ll blog about before I start looking at the international ones.

I’ve been waiting for those adverts for a little while. You might have to wait until the weekend for those!
Here we go through a whole months scenario in a typical family, Christmas play, rehearsals, dressing, shopping, the family nightmares and the party night… It all happens in a good 1 minute advert. Wow. If only other advertisers could speed up their adverts just like this one. Maybe other department stores should learn the idea of short and sweet videos! ¬_¬””

Link: https://youtu.be/wyx7pmluWfo

Anyway, it’s a nice advert. Can’t complain about this one!

TK Maxx Christmas Advert 2017 – "A White Christmas"

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Finally got all the Christmas presents out of the way! Shoulder hurts, hands aching from crocheting, and I even pulled a leg muscle!! 😣 Spending money also hurts! 😫
This year TK Maxx have gone crazy. They’re offering a snow machine service. Would any of my neighbours go crazy for that? ¬_¬”” Nope. My neighbours are quite sensible.
Apart from the snow machine we see a lot of accessories and clothing being advertised… 

Link: https://youtu.be/bdD14rw1hr0

Bring back the real snow!!

McDonald’s Christmas Advert 2017 – Carrot Stick #ReindeerReady

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Moving on from the Jedward twins … can’t believe there are still fans out there 😏 … Not everyone can be their fans I’m afraid. Stick me in a freezer or send me to South Korea where there are real great singers and amazing pop idols who can sing and dance! 😛 

Today we’re resuming back into the Christmas adverts. It’s snowed in London for two days, but all of the snow has melted away.

Here McDonald’s have gone a bit soft… I guess they’re trying to encourage kids to stick to carrot sticks instead of the fries with lots of salt on top. The little girl and father sits in a McDonald’s store. The little girl insists on saving her last carrot stick for a reindeer… She gets home and her damn brother spoils it and says there’s more than one reindeer (who rides along with Santa), and so the father and daughter make another round trip to their nearest Drive-thru McDonald’s just to get more carrot sticks! OMG!

Link: https://youtu.be/5hlfrEzKLMc

Woah, reindeer! I don’t I would trek all the way to McD’s just for carrot sticks… I could buy a whole pack in a supermarket for a decent price, or even make my own!

Idea was meh.

Peacocks Christmas Advert 2017 – "#XMASFACTOR"

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Finished exams for this year… HSK Level 3 Mandarin was kind of hard… 😐 (but I’m sure I’ve passed 😛)

It’s back to Christmas adverts!

For a come back after a weeks hiatus 😆here’s Peacocks’s Christmas advert featuring Jedward and Honey G, and apparently some other X Factor stars who I’ve never heard of… Hmmm… Out of media fashion!! 😖
Thankfully this is only a 31 second advert otherwise I would have grimaced throughout the whole advert just reminiscing the time when Miss Pinky and I went to see an ITV or BBC recording and it featured Jedward… I wonder if the camera men recorded my absolute horrified reactions at the time?! 😆😆😆
It’s not a bad advert, I actually do like the rapping, the clothes and the Christmas items…

Link: https://youtu.be/8PcxywswX9g

If only Jedward weren’t  in the ad… 😖😖😖

Hyper Japan Christmas 2017 @ Tobacco Docks

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Doing my HSK 3 Mandarin exam today… Good luck to me!! (Aiming for 80 to 95%, since I’ve hardly studied!)… 😇
A few weeks to go until it’s Christmas!!
It took me a long time to decide on whether I should go to Hyper Japan Christmas 2017. I wanted to see the schedule beforehand, plus see if any other events from work and other parties were going to happen at the same time… well I had already pre-booked my time out from work a long time ago, but the Hyper Japan schedule was still not out yet!! 😑
In the end I bought my ticket for the Friday. I’ve never been to Hyper Japan on a Friday before, I wanted to see if it would be crowded or quiet…

It was a quiet entry when I entered… It was the same as the summer version where we had to enter through the car park… So first off was to walk around, I skipped the shop floor and food for a bit and walked around… Think I came at good time where no one was around!

Here’s the start of the Illuminight… There was an interview going on, so I left…

Went into the next room… I like this section, complete darkness and the room was filled with these lanterns and lit up objects…

As I came out of the room, I thought I was seeing Japanese dolls depicting The Manger scene. 😅

Next were the Goldfish lanterns… Think I was quite lucky that only a few people were about for me to take this photo opportunity. 

Entered “The World of FairyTail”, was asked if I’ve read the manga… well… Mr Sting, my brother has the first 50 books, I could lend it from him… But now I’ve started watching the animé version. 😬 I’ve watch the first 10 episodes. All I can say that it’s better than watching One Piece at the moment. 

Had a walk around before I returned back to this area for The Ramen Experience…

Entered the Artbox area… Phew… Not many people were around!! Everytime I go this stall it’s usually packed! 

Also went into Tofu Cute, but I bought things a little later.

More walking around…

And then finally The Ramen Experience!!

I took the 2pm slot because I knew I would be hungry by then. Got to drink a little bit of each soup… Shoyru and Sio were too salty, Miso wasn’t bad, but in the end I chose the Tonkotsu flavour which had less salt, creamy and tint of sweetness. 

Queued up for the Tonkotsu ramen, which was the longest queue… 😆

Itadakimasu!! いただきます！

Gochisousamadeshita. ごちそうさまでした。

Next up was to watch the live performances… This girl is from Tokyo… She usually performs in a group…

Then go back out…

Saw this guy impersonating The Monkey King! So cool!!

Kept walking around to the places that I haven’t been to yet…

Yay!! I got a cartoon self-portrait!! Wanted one of these for a little while now! (I’ve covered up my real name by the way 😜)… This was created by Mayu Miyamoto San 宮本真由さん. ありがとうごさいました！(Aterier Miyamoto Portrait)… I’m not as cute as this though… 😩

Another food break… I was determined to eat like an animé character and fill my stomach until I couldn’t eat any more…

Itadakimasu!! いただきます！

I saw a guy eating one of these whilst I was eating my pork katsu don… Had to find the stall and eat this dessert!!! It was fairy expensive too!!

Gochisousamadeshita. ごちそうさまでした。

More live action… BOO + VJ 2mo… Think I missed their first few songs…

And then I waited to see Hibiki Ichikawa (think I’ve become a fan of his after seeing him perform so many times!) and DJ Takaki. Had no idea he was performing on the Friday, as the schedules were still not out until the very last minute!! So happy I chose the Friday to come now. 😄😄😄

It was time to do my last rounds… wanted to see the lanterns and the Illuminight again as it got darker… 

Well, I had fun this year! Fewer people on a Friday… Might try that again next year!!

Website: https://hyperjapan.co.uk/

Coq d’Argent – French Restaurant – London, Bank

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
SURPRISE to my Australian colleague who will be leaving at the end of the year!
It’s 6 weeks (now 4… actually his contract ended, I hope he doesn’t work for free for the rest of the time he’s here) before he returns, but before that, some colleagues decided to throw a surprise dinner for him.

Was my Ozzie friend surprised? Yes he was! LOL. Trying to keep a secret from him was almost easy… Was actually looking at the menu at work when suddenly he burst into my office (I’m not going to miss that!).

I’m not sure how his friends chose this restaurant (although I think he would have liked a less fancy one… well I would have chosen a less fancy for him 😝), but we ended up going to a poshy restaurant – I’m sure Miss Posh, who’s still out there in the southern part of England freezing herself, would have been jealous… First off was the outdoor bar, where there were too many heaters, we were practically sunbathing in the cold. 😑 Drinks are fairly expensive… so choose a little wisely…

After surprising our Ozzie friend – he kind of high fived me because he was so ecstatically happy! 😅
We went to our tables quite late… and we also ended up looking at a completely different menu that was given to us!

Ended up sharing a bottle of red wine (I actually wanted the glass of wine that would have suit the dinner I was going to have … 😞). But this was ok! Not really a wine drinker anyway.

First came out were the starters. I had this Tortellini a la truffle… Wow… If this was a main menu with that green sauce I would have been absolutely thrilled. I wish I had some more bread to scrape it all off. 😅 Now I know what truffle really tastes like. I’ve had truffle before but as truffle dust or stuffed into something. There was a light mushroom taste to it. Exquisite.

The other starters… Crabe (crab salad and Melba toast).

Saumon fumé… basically smoked salmon with Melba toast and something else.

Right. So in the beginning of this surprise party I was going to go all pescatarian… But in the end I became a carnivore. Food chains matter in this case. 😅 I ended up choosing the Chevreuill… haunch of wild roe deer… 😑… it was either this, rabbit, fish or go vegetarian… Hmm. 
The slivers of deer meat tasted different to other meats. Smooth, chewy, almost like the texture of smoked salmon or fresh raw squid. Wonder if this will be the last time I’ll eat deer. Anyway this was a nice combo. Sauce and veggies were nice too.

Other menus, Cuisse de lapin, the rabbit leg dish… Unfortunately the person eating this couldn’t eat after 10pm…no appetite… so it was practically untouched. 😦
Dessert time! Ananas et passion, pineapples, passion fruit and mango ice cream.

Fondant au chocolat… with pistachio ice cream.

And for some reason I was given 5 of the same macarons when the menu said 6 flavoured macarons. I thought there would be at least 3 or 6 different flavours. How disappointing… I gave the last one to one of my ex-colleagues. Seemed like he was still hungry. 😆

I have no idea of what the total price came to… There were 19 of us… So predicting at least £1500-2000 😲 … well I can’t complain. My Ozzie friend paid for my side of the bill… Ah man! I did try and get it back it from him, and I wasn’t even allowed to take a peek of my bill… Predicting around £60-70 for what I had.
By the way, most of these colleagues of mine are on the high earning side… I’m a mere admin person who seems to like the high end stuff once in a while… ^_^
My geeky rating: 4.5/5 😑 (The Ozzie gave a 4/5 rating… I tried to explain I did some “Internet thing” – as he doesn’t know I blog! 😉 … he thought I gave ratings via Trip Advisor… 😅… Food was great but service was bleurgh).
Good points:
– Love my starters
– Reception and bar staff were great and accomodating
– Food was great
Bad points:
– Waiting staff were a bit on the harsh side (might be because of the French snobbery thing… guess I’m used to it)
– Disappointed I only had 5 macarons and for it to be only one flavour was ridiculous 

Address: 1 Poultry, London EC2R 8EJ

Tel: 020 7395 5000

UCC Japanese Instant Drip Coffee Mocha Blend

On By Bao Bao QiuIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Have you ever heard of dokodemo.world? I’ve never heard of them until I saw an advert pop up about them. Dokodemo is like a Japanese supermarket online that ships worldwide… Although the products are quite cheap, the shipping fee is so expensive. 😥

I was searching for a few things, but I ended up buying 5 packets of cheese mochi (might post them in a future post 😉) and this drip coffee. What’s so special about this???

Have you gathered what this is about yet?

It looks like a dressing gauge for a wound… LOL!

Ta-da! It’s a one cup drip coffee bag. LOL! I may have seen it on a Japanese drama, but I saw it in an anime where one guy is making a coffee like this… Think there’s a few versions in Japan, but this was the cheapest option on Dokodemo! ^_^ The cup is from Muji by the way!!

So all you do is pour water, and it actually drips quite quickly… Japanese people are clever at everyday technology… 

Added a bit more water… didn’t want to waste the ground coffee!!!

Well, I like a nice coffee. This was actually quite nice. Not too bitter. Tasted like an Americano…

Going to make my last 19 coffee bags last until next year… I actually have a plastic drip coffee maker with lots of filters to get through, so these will definitely last until the new year… 😁