Flowers in Bloom

Not everything was good in Ireland while I was away in China, My Granddad passed away and then two weeks later I got another phone call to say my Grandma had passed away,  My Granddad was 95, and it was not really unexpected, but my Grandma was only 83 and nobody saw that coming, She was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and we knew there was no cure for that, she got phenomena in the last week of her life and sadly passed away. 

A meal with my Grandma in Shelby's

Before we went to China, We packed all our belongings and moved out of our apartment, we didn't want to pay rent for 3 months, and put everything up in my parents attic, with the intention that we would find a new place when we came back, then when my Grandma passed away, my Mom had the idea that we should move into her apartment and since we were strapped for cash we gladly accepted rightly or wrongly. Heres a few pics from around the apartment 

Michael Cooking

 My first bubble bath in years (my old apartment only had a shower)

 Our Bedroom

Our Big Ass TV

Me eating in the dinning room 

Anyway my Grandma was always a very keen Garden, She used to have a huge garden in her old house and when she moved into her apartment she still kept up the Gardening to a lesser extent on her balcony, But when she passed away all her balcony plants were sadly neglected, and when we moved in to her apartment we vowed to resurrect the garden and we started yesterday, Check out the fruits of our work, we still have a long way to go though.

This wasn't our first gardening bonding experience, When we were in China we helped Michael's Mom out with her Garden, it did attract quite a few stares, at one point and old man who seemed to be a bin man stoped his little truck beside the house and stared for a good 10 minutes, This is what its like in rural China, You just get used to it. We all look so glamourous haha!

Bonjour!

Yesterday I had a French Dinner party, with my 2 French friends from work, they are both doing an internship like me, Neither of them are the rude coworker I was talking about in the last post, The last thing I would want to do on a Saturday night is to spend time with her, things have improved at work with her but not dramatically she still gets on my nerves every now and again. This week I had a realization about why she ticks me off. Its because she reminds me of my Mom, The way she talks to me is like how my Mom talks to me when she's giving out to me,

Anyway back to the dinner party, We all agreed to make one dish each and bring it, I was in charge of the starter, Laura was in charge of the Main course and Chloe was in charge of the dessert.

For the Starter I made Fish Cakes, with a little (a lot of) assistance from my boyfriend, I think if I was makeing it by myself it would of been store bought garlic bread heated up in the oven lol.

not as cute as these lol

Laura made Burritos for the main course, I had never tried Burritos before, but it turns out they're pretty much the same as fajitas without the cheese and sour cream sauce,

Then for dessert Chloe bought Terramisu, She didn't have time to cook it.. But nevermind.

We were planning to have Tequila puffs at the dinner party, but quickly changed our mind when we found out tequila costs 24.99 Euro :O:O Crazy price, so instead we had wine and Smirnoff Ice and Rum. Lets say I woke up with a bit of a headache this morning lol.

We spent the whole night listening to French Rap, The only French Rapper I had ever heard was La Fouine!!!!!  They introduced me to a lot more,


I got home at about 2 and my boyfriend woke me up at 8 this morning ouch, He had to go to work. But all in all it was a good night. :)

Did you all have a good weekend? How much does Tequila normally cost anyway?

A Series of unfortunate events

This post is a week late and its kind of referring to last weekend, I just didn't have time to write the post, with all sorts of things going on. @.@ Let me give you a quick catch up, I started Chinese classes almost 4 weeks ago,

Its something I have been planning to do for almost 2 years and a half on and off, the closest I ever got to Chinese classes before this was Rosetta Stone, I have to say despite the benefits of having a real teacher, not a computer or my boyfriend, I have to say Rosetta Stones pace is probably more suited to my pace.

So far what I have learnt is very basic, but you have to start from the bottom, to get to the top. Anyway everything was going oh so smoothly until the day after our "Commitment Anniversary" Michael gave me a Mylo and Friends duck and new slippers, He abandoned the paper theme, but i went all out I gave him eddible money, a bookmark, and a love letter and chocolate money, 

Michael cooked me a big meal on the night

Sea food chowder soup for the starter

Mash salmon and fried parsnips for the main course

Banofee pie for the dessert.

It was all yummy! We had a very nice night and felt very romantic we lit candles and drank sparkling rose wine. 

But the next day it might as well not of happened, I went up to my house to find out, my sister's boyfriend just broke up with her, and she was seriously heartbroken, 

Then I found out that my brother had gone and broken his arm, not from some macho sport like rugby or  football, but from doing a backwards running race with his friends @.@ boys are crazy!!!

wahoo I got my malaysian gifts

The morning after the babysitting, me, the French student and the Spannish student, had the most horrible lunch imaginable lol. Well I didn't, they did, First off there was no bread left, so I couldn't make sandwiches as planned..

Then the boys suggested I could make some fried eggs, I mean how hard could that be? the gas wouldn't turn on properly, and I couldn't find any oil...

Then I got the gas going and tried substituting cooking oil with olive oil. Oh dear god all the eggs stuck to pan. The eggs looked so unappetizing I just wanted to die. But the two boys ate them, How? I have no clue. After they finished I rushed to try and wash the pan before my uncle came home. I hadn't even finished boiling the kettle and in he came. Kill me now! Kill me now!

He didn't react badly, however it turned out that there was actually frozen bread in the freezer... oops, could of saved myself a lot of embarrassment, Anyway then my Uncle drove me to the train station. The Air festival was on in my town that day, The radio said that there was an 80,000 people crowd expected and to expect huge traffic jams getting into the town, so I thought the train would be the best option.

The train arrived on to the platform absolutely jam packed with people, I opened the door to the first carriage no room, second carriage no room, and so on so eventually I just had to push my way in with my rucksack on my back. I swear it was busier than any train or bus or subway I went on in China.

Anyway I texted my friend Danny when i got on the train, he was also traveling to my town today to see me and the air festival, I don't think I could of picked a worse day for him to come lol. He had to get a bus and then a train to see me.

Luckily we both made it without suffocating, and we headed to the beach and watched the air festival, then headed to Mcdonalds, where he presented me with my gifts,

A pink leather purse

Postcards of Kuala Lumpur

Doraemon comics

Then after we went back down to the seafront luckily a lot of the crowds had started to head home and then we went to the carnival and went on a load of different rides.

This was great for me because I had been trying to persuade my boyfriend to go on some of the rides all week, the most I could get him to go on was the Ferris wheel.

But anyway It was a great day :) and its decided a trip to Malaysia is definitely on the cards :)

A Chinese Feast

On Saturday I was invited to a Chinese Dinner Party, 4 Chinese friends from my college thought it would be nice to invite some of their non Irish friends to come and have a traditional Chinese Banquet. Oh my god their was so much food, you would think they were planing to feed an army! But you know thats what makes it traditional lol.

Can anyone spot me? look in the far left corner

Anyway alll the food was really delicious and we all had a great night :) and went home with a very full belly lol

Here is a picture of the 4 chefs

Jia Qi, Nancy, Ma Jin & Xiao Ji

Here are some pictures of the guests

 The German Twins JKs (Katherina & Frederika)

 Amaury, Nancy & Niamh (My boyfriend says I look a bit like Niamh what do you think?)

Finally Me & Ma Jin

Strangely even though I use chopsticks all the time when I am staying at my boyfriend's house, I still felt really uneasy and uncomfortable and clumsy using them at the dinner party. I just don't like people watching me eat lol! I even ended up droping them on the floor at one point in the night. I felt like such a newbie lol! That has never happened to me before.

One special thing at the party was using red chopsticks,  which is kind of rare. I really want to get a pair of Pink chopsticks instead of the boring wooden ones I use all the time.

Ooh! I really want to go chopstick shoping now! The last time I went chopstick shoping was way back In April, when my boyfriend moved to Kilkenny, and when he got there he realised he hadn't brought any chopsticks and he had nowhere to buy them. So I went to the Chinese Supermarket to buy them and when I picked up a packet of about 10 sets of chopsticks they all fell on the ground! :O

OOOPS!!