Birthday and Christmas market ☆

Since I was ill and busy during the last days, I wasn't able to write any blog entry ... _ _! I'm sorry for that! But of course, there were some things going on which I wanted to write about anyway - so please enjoy my short summary ^_^  

Well, as some of you might know, it was my birthday on November 19th (just one day after I came home from the fashion show, you remember? ☆ ). Unfortunately, it was a Monday, so I wasn't able to celebrate D: But some of my friends came to visit me anyway ^^ I didn't get lots of "presents" due to my wish for some money... (It's because I really want to visit Japan again soon to see all my friends over there and practise my Japanese skills (^^ゞ　).

Because I really liked the game "Heavy Rain", my friends decided to prepare a "story" about a little origami fox |D Anyhow, it was cute... ^^; By the way, the fox had my name, surprise!! 

Additionally, they made some very delicious sweets and cakes for me ;__;! Thank you so much for all this!! By the way, the "sparkly skull" is an insider |D It's because there is a glitter-skull as a stamp within my purikura-app, which I used to .... well, use often. So, someday they even started complaining if I didn't use it! (*´∀｀*)；；；；

For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant (and yes, actually it's really an Italian restaurant, not a "pizzeria"!), but as you can see.... we almost ordered pizza anyway |D But it was so delicious!! It's been YEARS since I visited this restaurant, so I was totally happy to be able to eat there. 

Talking about "celebrations" ... it's getting closer to Christmas!! When I visited Bonn this week, the Christmas market had already been completely built ☆　And there are even already some hints of Christmas in our university~ (^^♪

During the last few years, I wasn't into Christmas due to some - let's call it - "bad" experiences. But somehow I'm really looking forward to this year's Christmas time. It's not that I don't or didn't like Christmas in general, by the way ^^ I actually really love the atmosphere. Maybe Christmas is the only time I can stand cold weather (^^ゞ　

Today, I went to a cute little bistro/café with Caro to have some lunch in our break time. We had some "potato sandwich", which actually sounded weird, but was totally delicious!! ^_^

And afterwards, we had a walk across the inner city, where they held the Christmas market - and bought some hot spiced wine (in Germany, we call this one "Glühwein". It's very popular during winter time! ^^). But because we were running out of time to head back to University for our course, we had to take it with us ... it was kinda weird to drink an alcoholic drink while sitting in the lecture (・・;　

I'm kinda sorry that this post seems to be quite "random"... _ _!! I think that I will write something useful next time, such as a review, since I bought some stuff which might be worth one ☆　

I'll leave you now, headin' to bed and trying to sleep because it's already getting quite late (^^ゞ

Good night! ❤

"Show one, show on" fashion show

Geez, my weekend was quite vivid! I went to Trier to visit a fashion show, in which one of the most lovely people I know participated ❤　

We went there by train, because as a student it was totally cheap traveling with my student's train ticket (I knew that SOMETIME I'd stand to benefit from this, finally, haha!). Anyway we had a 5-hours-travel, which was kind of ... exhausting? I think it's interesting how traveling by train can be exhausting anyway, even though it's actually only sitting around doing nothing. But it was (^^ゞ　

Fortunately, there weren't any delays (whohooo!! This is totally uncommon, regarding the German trains! ) so we arrived as scheduled. We had a lot of spare time and decided to get something to eat before leaving to the location. The only "restaurant" (if you want to call it like that...?) which was on our way was McDonald's close to a clearway, and even though it was close to an adventure we finally arrived to get some small snacks there.

As for a McDonald's restaurant, this one looked kinda fancy, I think! I personally had some "Chicken TS"-burger, I don't remember the explicit name, unfortunately...^^;; Anyway, when we arrived at the location ("Bobinet", which will be turned into modern offices and lofts in future), we already were able to meet "Sam", our friend ☆

[By the way, please check out her new and official Facebook page and leave a like!  I think she really deserves it! ❤ ]

She was so nervous..! And to be honest, we were like that as well. We saw some of her sketches before, but she worked really hard during the last months to realize lots of her outfits, just for this show... so I think you can imagine what the atmosphere was like. 

 

Every visitor got a program and some chocolate praliné, which was chocolately-chocolately |D Inside of the program there were some short introductions of the attending designers and - of course - also some photos of their works (since my scanner doesn't work that properly at the moment, I will hand them in later... I hope you don't mind! (/_;)).

Before I start explaining too much, I decided to just upload some of the photos I took during the show :) 

I'm sorry that the solution is quite fuzzy, but we just had second-row seats and the light wasn't that good for taking photos with a mobile phone... _ _! If you want to view some quite pretty shots, just visit ArtEO's facebook gallery, since he had the possibility to take some professional shots during the dress rehearsal. Anyway I will edit some of the photos during the next few days and add them to this entry - I wanted to do this today, but I was at University until late and now I must confess that I'm just too tired and lazy to do so .___.!

But... well. It was so touching to see Sam's pieces being presented, since I know she worked so hard - and it finally paid off. It just felt like a huge happy ending.

Afterwards, we decided to go to her home instead of partying at the official after-show party. We had some spaghetti for dinner - and Sam bought some beer to celebrate the evening when we called it a day ☆

Since we all had important schedules the next day, we decided to skip sleep and to stay awake until our train left. Which was 5:44 a.m. (!!). Lucky, we didn't have a long walk to the station （*´▽｀*）　

Inside of the train, we all tried to sleep, which... kinda failed, to be honest, haha...! But at least Sam had some time to relax and sleep until she had to get up to help dismantling at the backstage.

Düsseldorf with Caro and Raya ☆

My weekend started quite ... strange and annoying, to be honest. Actually, we planned to have rehearsal today, but we couldn't realize that because both Raya and me were quite busy. As for me, I had to manage some things that dealt with my freelancer job as a news writer for an online game magazine. And to be honest, I wasn't amused about that. Especially when I heared that they wanted to change the team, without telling us ANYTHING about that. Everybody but one from our team will quit posting for that site. But there's a problem with that: they refuse to credit us for our postings when it was decided we'd leave =A=' What cheek....!! 

Because of that, I didn't have to write any important news anymore, even though I already started several papers which should be posted within the next week, which were "urgent", actually...... Of course, now I won't do it. I just won't hand them in -.-' But since I finished the discussion with my boss late at night, I didn't think I could re-invite the vocalist we wanted to test... because I can't assume him to be available again just after I said I'd be busy. 

Nevertheless, 

therefore I was able to enjoy some "freetime" ☆　So I went to Düsseldorf with Raya and Caro (●´ω｀●)

(I already look tired in this one, don't I ? x_X) 

We met at the station and went right to "Maruyasu Don", which is a Japanese restaurant. Actually I wanted to eat a Gyoza set menu, but unfortunately, they didn't have enough in stock. And because Caro also wanted to eat some, I declined and chose "Torikara set menu" <3   ("tori" means bird or chicken). It was totally delicious as well! .w.! 

(It was torikara, some salad, rice and miso soup <3)

After that, we decided to take some purikura. I didn't take any since visited Japan in March this year (・・;　

Caro and Raya look so cute! .w.  Unfortunately, I look kinda tired in all those pictures, and I failed looking into the camera, too.... xD Fail fail fail, I thought purikura can make everyone prettyyyy...? ;A; 

Before we left, we went to the asian stores in Düsseldorf to buy some random stuff |D As for me, I bought frozen Gyoza, because I still was kinda sad that I couldn't eat them at Don ^^  I already bought them once, so I know that they're delicious anyway. Buuut, I also bought some random stuff (●´ω｀●)

Haha, as you see, I bought some Hello Kitty Jelly-Drink. It's apple taste. I actually wanted to buy some drinks by Weider, but they didn't have any in stock, unfortunately... so I bought this one. ... I already drank it |D But it tasted great, though :'DD
And about the can... isn't it just great?? ;A; It's Piccolo from DRAGONBALL, and it contains orange soda ☆　I'm totally looking forward to try it! There are several other motives as well, but I just thought that Piccolo would be the coolest one to have (；´∀｀)　(Sorry for being such a fanboy xD).

At our way back home, we met some "almost drunk" girls who were actually kinda nice xD They said they'd love to add us on facebook, and because they were nice, we just thought we could give it a try anyway ^^; I mean, I don't see a huge risk in doing so. 

When we arrived at Cologne, we noticed that our train back home was already gone because our train has been late... so we decided to have a drink at Starbucks ☆

I had "Java Chip Chocolate Cream" (without lactose ^^) and Raya had some Strawberry Cream shake! By the way, Cologne Main Station already looks so... sparkly! They started to decorate the station with lit strings! It's so obvious that we're getting closer to Christmas!!　＼(^o^)／　 (I'm kinda looking forward to that... I didn't do so since a few years, to be honest! That's kinda instresting ^^;; ). 

Well, it's already half past 1 (a.m.), and my head starts to hurt... I think it's because I'm lacking of sleep (/_;) Anyway I reeeeally enjoyed my unexpected free-time ☆　Thank you, Raya and Caro, for spending it with me!　I hope we can repeat this　(^^♪　

Cafe/Bistro CARTOON or: "Forever alone in Bonn"

Geez, maybe today was the most difficult day for me within this whole week. Everyone I know is ill at the moment (and so am I, actually...). The bad thing about that is, that most of those people are on sick leave (/_;)　It's not like I can't entertain myself when I'm alone, but it's hard to do so if you're at the cities and if you HAVE TO spend 2 hours alone, waiting =A=;;

Lucky I know that I will at least meet two of those people again tomorrow (my last busy day for this week, obviously! *_* ). 

Nevertheless, I spend my time at "CARTOON", which is a little restaurant/bistro/café at the town centre in Bonn. I just feel like I want to recommend this bistro to you, because I enjoyed my stay even if I was all alone~ [*insert dramatic music here*]. 

The bistro is kinda styled like a typical "milkabilly"-bar from the 50ies, which I totally like ☆ Too bad they didn't really transfer this "image" to the upper floor as well, where I took a seat (it still looks kinda "american", though. Unfortunaltely I didn't take any pictures of the interior, since I felt strange being a lonely guy taking photos from the interior at this bistro... |D Excuse me! Haha ^^; )

As a drink, I only ordered some water (because usually I just drink water for meals), which really was served totally fast! I think it didn't took 2 minutes. And of course I was asked what I'd like to eat, too - so that's what I ordered!

On the menu, it said "Tropical Salad", which actually sounded quite more ... tropical than it is, to be honest |D  But I read the description before, so there were no bad surprised for me. It said it'd be a mixed salad with chicken, tomatos, button mushrooms and 'fresh fruits'. Even though this combination sounded rather weird for me, I thought that I should give it a try, since Cartoon didn't let me down until now ^^
And I should be right. Usually, I'm not quite fond of mushrooms in general, but I think they did a nice job on that. They were gently roasted, so they weren't either squishy or dry, but I even liked them! ( ﾟдﾟ)！！

Unfortunately, I just found pineapple pieces as "fruits". It's not like I don't like pineapples (to be honest, I love them (^^ゞ　）, but.., well. As I said before, I kinda expected... "more" :/

Nevertheless, I want to end this little "review" with a positive statement: Because it really tasted good anyway! 

Most of the other food is rather "american style", as the whole appearance already gives away. But until now, everything I tried tasted delicious, and even the meals I didn't try at least looked delicious |D

So if you are planning to spend a day in Bonn and if you're unsure where to eat something, maybe you should try to visit Cartoon. At least for me I think it was a good choice, since I also could watch some American Football on flatscreen |DD