Vivid Sydney + Guylian cafe outting with mom (PICTURE HEAVY)

HELLO there everyone, hope you're all doing well~

Last week on Wednesday 29th May 2013 I decided to take my mom out and drive to the city to see the Vivid Lights Sydney event at Circular Quay since we've been hearing about it on the news about the lights being set up and displayed and my mom has never actually been, so I took this opportunity to let her experience it.

Left the house at around 4.20pm and started driving up to the city which usually takes around 45minutes on average with low traffic, but we decided to leave the house earlier to avoid the peak hour traffic in my area. BUT we ended up facing heavy traffic towards the city area, and legit I mean super heavy traffic to the point where only 1 car could go through before the traffic lights hit red again because of the traffic on the other side not moving. ANYWAY at around 5.45pm we finally reached the underground parking and got parking and instantly went to find some dinner and a toilet since we were busting because of traffic haha! 

Mom and I ended up dining at Ichi Ban Boshi at the Galleries, mom got the Tokyo Ramen and I got the usual Chicken Karaage Curry with Cheese. My all time favorite here since it's the only place that does Japanese curry with cheese. Unfortunately I didn't get to take any photos because we were so hungry, the food was delightful and delicious as always and now it was time to heard down to the harbour. 

My good friend and also fellow cosplayer told me that there were fireworks at Darling Harbour at 6.30pm but unfortunately we were still at the restaurant eating and didn't get out till 6.45pm so we missed out the displays at Darling Harbour. 

After eating so much at the restaurant, mom and I decided to just walk to Circular Quay which is a 10-15minute walk from where we ate (I think the walk was further but it didn't feel long because we walk fast). Using this time to exercise and digest the food. The weather was extremely nice unlike other days where it was super wet; nice cool 17 degrees celsius weather with no winds. Whats funny was that mom and I were dressed extremely warm to the point we sweated abit haha!

Finally got to Circular Quay and can see the light displays and the lights shun on the Opera House and also hear music. Here are some pictures that I took, unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to take pictures of the names of the displays to credit them. .___.; Also there were a couple more displays that I decided to not include in the blog entry for privacy sake due to the faces of random people were seen. And also some pictures had children in it and I don't want to be suspected as some creepy male stalker as seen on the news about males being highly suspected ;A; 
PS: If you feel a certain picture is inappropriate please comment or email me to remove it. Thank you :D

Small tunnel of light

These were so cool! They vibrated (that sounds wrong) and you can hear the flower bells rattling next to each other

Lights shun on the Museum of Contemporary Arts syncing  to Dubstep music

Another building which shown lights that reminded me of Transformer. Syncing to electro music

Awesome seesaw that synced according to which side was heavier. Also awesome LED background screen. Hope I'm okay with uploaded this pic with these folks.

Awesome display that looked like a fish and synced with the rhythm of the drum. Yes the kid is there because kids love the drum and light interaction, I'm not being creepy- I SWEAR :O

Piano where lights synced when its being played.  Bad crop since the girl who was playing beautifully was very visible and yeah :(

Mom and I call this the Fish Scales Cos it does! .. well now that I think about it, fish bones.

Synthesizer that synced to an actual synthesizer

Wasn't sure what this display was but I think you could build your own. Not sure since it was crowded

Awesome display of white milk-crates :D

That's it for the pictures I'll show. Did miss out on some since we wanted to sit in a cafe and chill out abit; so we decided to go to the Guylian Cafe. Actually short funny story why we ended up there- 

Mom and I was walking around to find a cafe and she spots the Guylian sign and she asks me "Isn't that the chocolate brand?" I was really surprised that she knew and took notice of it so I said yes and her reply was "LETS GO THERE." 

And that's how we ended up at the Guylian Cafe. Neither of us have been there so it was a good opportunity to try it out despite on the pricier side. Walked in and the waitress brings us to our table. The cafe was somewhat crowded and customers kept coming in and out. Ordered my mom a large cappuccino and I got myself the 100% Pure Pleasure dessert.

The large cappuccino was presented beautifully with the coffee art and served with a chocolate truffle on the side. In terms of taste, both mom and I was actually quite disappointed. The cappuccino wasn't really a cappuccino, more of a latte since there was only a thin layer of frothe. WORST of all, it was warm-cold. Something you wouldn't expect from a more pricier end cafe especially with a large chocolate trademark name. It would've been forgiveable if the weather was extremely cold, but it wasn't and the service brought it to us instantly as soon as the coffee was made. Big downer. Luckily the price was standard like any other regular cafe (I think it was $5.80AUD for the large).

My dessert comes out and it's presented gorgeously. This is the 100% Pure Pleasure, a chocolate mousse with a almond panacotta filling, covered with dark Guylian chocolate with brandy snap pieces, served with some honey crumble, chocolate swirls and raspberry coulis.

 This dessert indeed was heavenly but I definitely wouldn't call it 100% Pure Pleasure.. maybe 99%? haha! Then again that's only me being picky. Reason being is that the almond panacotta as stated in the menu, didn't taste like almond at all. Just tasted like white chocolate mousse with a slight gelatine texture. But overall it was extremely enjoyable, even my mom who isn't a fan of chocolate enjoyed it. Price was around $16-17AUD

After chilling at the cafe for around 30-40minutes, we decided to walk back to the car and head home since it was already 9pm. Got home nicely without traffic around 9.50pm and that was the outting with my mom.

Hope you enjoyed this post, Will post my OOTD for the night tomorrow.

Until then, stay well & take care!

Relaxing destressing BBQ at the park (Photoheavy)

How's it going everyone, hope you're all doing well :)

Last Friday I toook & hung out with a fellow cosplayer (Mogu) who needed a change in atmosphere since she was really stressed from uni so decided to take her to the park that I had my casual photoshoot with the tiger printed vest to have a BBQ, relax and take some photos for fun.

We met up at around 12.40pm at the shopping centre closeby to the park to go grocery shopping for food for the BBQ. We end up getting a pack of beef sausages, honey soy chicken wings, potato salad, caesar salad, baguette bread stick, sauce and drinks. Mucked around in the store for abit especially with the baguette stick but yeah haha! Was good. After that we zoomzoom'd to the park.

Upon arriving the entrance of the park, it was hella PACKED and CROWDED with families and kids because it was school holidays. Drove around the parking area for abit  but eventually got a spot and then zoomed to check if there was any free bbq-hotplates for us to use. Thankfully there was quite a few hotplates free and we tried choosing the one that was more in the shade so we don't get sunburnt.

Settled down with all the grocery, and started preparing and cooking the food. Was such a nice day, more on the sunny side but was great. Though the weather was slightly a tad too hot for us to be walking around with wigs but yeah, somehow managed the wigs until later we took it off after we ate.

Cooked ALL the food we bought and settled to the bench closeby to our hotplate and started eating! :D Funny thing was that most of the food that I cooked was what we called "cancer sticks" LOL! Because most of it was slightly burnt on the outside since I wanted to be sure the meat was all cooked. STILL EDIBLE! But yeah, as Mogu-san says "CANCER IS HEALTHY" LOL!

Honey Soy Chicken wings and drumsticks

Herb & Rosemary Beef Sausages

Potato and Caesar salad on the plate made by Mogu

After both of us finishing our salad plate and devouring half the sausages and chicken, we were already on the verge of dying because there was just too much food LOL! Splitted it and packed it between us to take home. Cleaned up the BBQ area, put our things back into the car and then it was time to browse the place and take some photo.

By the time we finished eating, it was about 3.30-4pm which was perfect timing since we wanted to stay and wait for golden hour to capture some photos.

Mogu-san being a creeper photographer LOL

It's my second time going to this park and I just absolutely love it as it has such a combinations of scenery that can be used such as old cranes and traintracks, waterview and scenery, small boat dock, water features, park views and scenery, and a playground.

Here are some photos I took at the old tracks and cranes scenery:

Mogu's Camera

"Fantasea" ferry

the small pier/dock

One of the water features close to the restaurant there

Left the old tracks and started heading towards the playground area in hopes to play with the water feature. By this time, it was close to golden hour which would be great to capture around the playground area.

Here's a picture of Mogu's outfit *A*)/

As we got to the children playground area, we were disappointed by the fact that the water features have already been turned off as the water stops at 4pm. Nonetheless we explored the park and played on the playground with us getting our bottoms wet because of the wet grounds and me slipping on the steep hills. 

We even challenged ourselves to go climb this tall hideout-thing that was opened since we are both afraid of heights. 

This hideout thing was really high and involved alot of climbing. The climbing wasn't bad to be honest, the bad thing was that it was crowded with kids running up and down causing the tower to slightly shake which scared us HARD. There was this particular room as you can see in the picture above with the metal framing where three quarters of the ground was netted ropes which looked super scary. We didn't dare to step into the rope floor since it looked really dangerous especially with us holding our valuables that can drop. 

Came across this rope bridge which was netted more closely than the other room so we survived cross thing this. Thought it looked really cool. Going on it was slightly uncool cos the kids were running which caused it to shake >_<;

Finally got out of the tower and sat down near the water features and talked abit hoping that the water features would turned back on and whilst waiting for golden hour to hit. No water. :(

But at least golden hour finally striked and we got up and captured the scenery with the beautiful sunset its' golden rays breaching across the area.

Lay down on the grass to take some selfies and then we went to play on the playground. So many funny encounters with children and especially Mogu-san on this dragon-shaped rope swing which was hilarious. 

The sun went down really fast and it was already getting dark, so we decided to leave the park and head home.

Dropped off Mogu-san at her home and I went home as well. Only to realise that I unfortunately lost my phone whilst at the park, most likely either when I was lying down and taking some selfie photos or when I was on the slide and it fell out. Luckily the phone is sim-locked and it didn't have my sim card. I made a trip to the park early morning arriving the park at 6.45am in hopes to find my phone but no luck. :( Hence the lack of photo posting on instagram. But oh well.

Overall it was an awesome relaxing fun day. Thanks heaps to Mogu-san for joining and making the day happen :) 

Please check out Mogu-san's worldcosplay page at http://en.worldcosplay.net/member/46782/ and her Deviantart page at http://kimusensei.deviantart.com/ 

That wraps up for this blogpost.
Hope you enjoy it!
Until then stay well & take care~