Summer Beach Holiday

The best way to enjoy the summer is to go to beach and enjoy the sun. UK actually has a lot of beaches and sea-side towns, because it is a big island surrounding the sea. Since we are living in Yorkshire, Scarborough in North Yorkshire is the best holiday beach destination.

We drove 2 hours to reach Scarborough. My first impression of it was ” wow, my god, it was so stunning pretty”. We walked alone the beach, and saw that people were sunbathing, kids were making castles in the beach. It was an amazing to relax and be with your family.

You can easily buy any sea food such as lobster or big crabs for under £5. I forgot to buy one when we were back home. We ate really fresh cod fish and chip for lunch. The fish meat was so tasty and fresh, and I who was grown up by the coastal city girl, could tell the difference from sea fish and normal fish.

John said while we were in Scarborough, we could also visit Robin Hood Bay and Whitby. Robin Hood Bay is even smaller than Scarborough, just a small coastal village. Luckily we saw some dance performances of old village tradition. It was amazing and fun to experience.

Whitby like Scarborough is so pretty and felt like you were living in fairy Tale story. All the houses and colourful roofs, boats and yachts  did look like Scandinavia style, don’t you think? I did feel like I was in another country rather than in the UK. It was very different of architectures and atmosphere. I did enjoy North Yorkshire so much – peaceful, quite, good quality of life.  However, it properly might be a little bit bored for young people.

We drove back home from Whitby through North Yorkshire Moors, and it was so pretty inside the moors. It felt like we were in some forests and so stunning beautiful. The weather was hot with blue sky all day long, that’s why we got some amazing pictures.

You should see all the pictures we took in Scarborough beach and Whitby, and I am sure you will fall in love with them.

Summer Cocktail

It is getting hotter in July, and it feels like the proper Summer now. It is sunny all the time, and the temperature is around 18-25 degrees – perfect summer temperature for me, not that sweaty, but nice with cool breeze. We decided to do a home-made cocktail at the weekend, so we tried the Pimm’s with a lot ice, lemonade, strawberries, few orange and little mint. It tasted gorgeous and nice pretty red colour for summer drink.

It is the perfect fruity drink in Summer time. I was sitting my lounge chair in our balcony and sun bathing at the weekend, drinking the Pimm’s and listening to some chill out music.

What a wonderful weekend. We will try Gin and Tonic next week. Happy life.

Home-made gorgeous bread

John ordered a recipes book how to make bread from River Cottage because we always eat a lot of bread at home, so we thought, why don’t we make our own bread with nice organic flower and no any artificial ingredient.

As we are always focus on healthy and tasty food, so we try to home-baked and cook for every thing possible. At the weekend, we made our hands dirty and tried to kneed our own bread. First weekend, we tried to make the basic white bread – it turned out so great, and tasted even unbelievable as well. You can see it from the picture above.

Second weekend we made the brown bread with pumpkin seeds inside and outside. It looked very nice as well, but it was a heavy bread to eat. I am so happy the bread turned out so great and tasty. I think we will continually make our own bread and eat healthy.

We also will make our pasta sauce this weekend, because we cook Italian food so often, why not? Our next step for our life is to buy our own house and grow our own vegetable and herbs.

Our New Car to explore the Yorkshire

After a long discussion, we finally decided to pick Italian car  – Alfa Romeo 147 model with 5 doors and 1.9 engines. It is a great car and we really enjoy driving and travelling around Leeds and Yorkshire. The weather is quite unpredictable at the moment. It comes rains and comes shine all the time. Hopefully hot summer will be arrived soon even though we are in June.

Having a car is having the freedom to discover all the places we wanted to visit. I am currently on my 11 driving lessons, and it needs 40 lessons to pass. It might take sometimes because I only can get 2 lessons per week because the coach is so busy. I am doing quite well on learning how to drive, and I really enjoy driving, although it might be a lot of practising ahead for me to do.

I really can wait to drive our own car and practice by myself.

Our New House in Leeds

We have moved in to Leeds for two and half months now, and always add some new furnitures or decoration in the house. It feels like a proper cozy and warm home now. Compared with London, we got a lot of spaces of the house in Leeds, and it is a nice modern stylish flat with open kitchen, 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms (one for John’s office and also be a guest room and one for us with a massive wardrobe to put my shoes and clothes, which is the highlight of the flat).

We do really enjoy the location of city centre and so easy to go shopping and eat out just by walking 5 minutes. I will imagine that the house will be full of good memories for us, and we do enjoy living in Leeds so far. However, I do miss London from time to time, missing its busy,  metropolitan and my friends, and the most importantly so many choices of shopping which that Leeds can not compared with.

Metric – You rock my heart!

Metric is my one of my favourite bands, and they released the album Fantasies in 2009 is really awesome. Metric is a Canadian indie and alternative rock and New Wave band. Originally formed in Toronto, the band has also, at various times been based in Montreal, London, New York City and Los Angeles.

They didn’t released so many albums, but Fantasties and Grow up and blow away, and the EP called Eclipse (All Yours) from – Eclipse – Twilight Soundtrack are all my favourites.

I highly recommend this band for you if you like Rock, Electronic, Indie and Alternative. I couldn’t pick which one is my favourite song, because they all are. I really love their style, hope they will release more good albums soon. I just missed their concert in London, but if they come to Leeds, I am certainly will go to see them.

It always make a different day when you discover or listen a good band or good songs. 5 stars for them!

You can listen their songs in their Myspace page or Spotify in the UK for free.

Jamie Oliver Italian Restaurant Leeds

Friends and us went to try the new opening Italian restaurant – the famous chef Jamie Oliver Italian restaurant in Leeds city centre. The chef was not Jamie in person, but follows his recipes. It was opened few weeks ago, and we alway wanted to give it a try as a food lover.

The starts was amazing, like tapas style. We had one vegetarian dish and one for seasonal meats. It was like the picture – look and taste were really gorgeous with cheese and bread! And we also ordered the white wine called Trebbiano Gargenega Del Veneto (2009) was light and fruity (reason price, but good value) I really enjoy the wine and the starter.

I ordered the lamp chop as my main course and I did try others pasta as well. My lamb was perfect – not too pink, not over cook, and it provided three sauces for me (mint, nuts and basil) I really enjoyed the main course. The other pasta was not bad. However, my friend’s pumpkin risotto was a little bit runny, but tasted not bad either.

The portion was big and great, some of them we could not finish. The environment was quite posh and stylish. The service was excellent and really helpful.

Overall 4 star out of 5. I will definitely recommend it to you.

Broken Bells

Like the Band of Horses, I have never heard the Broken Bells before, until I watched TV series ‘Chuck’ last episode in season 3, and since listening this album over and over again, I really love it. The famous song is ‘ The High Road’ but I love all the songs in the album. It is label in Spotify with one my my favourite bands Mew, and no wonder I like their style, just not as rock as Mew.

It’s worth mentioning that ‘The Ghost inside’ sounds like from The Dandy Warhols album  – The Dandy Warhols are Sound

I highly recommend this one, 4 of 5 stars. Currently, they are performing in London this month, shame that we are not in London.

You can listen their album in their MySpace or Spotify

My Friends Visiting Leeds

Eileen and Miwa came up to Leeds this week and stayed with us for 3 days. I miss them so much and all the good time we spent in London, and I haven’t seen them for 3 months since we moved to Leeds. Sadly the weather was terrible – raining and cold while they were here.

I showed them a little bit Leeds City Centre, and went to Jamie Oliver Italian Restaurant in the evening, and had a such a wonderful dinner, then went to the Sky Lounge in City Inn for more wine and chatting. It did feel like we usually see each other and catch up in trying good food in London.

In second day, Melanie joined our group too, so we drove them to York. Unfortunately it was raining so we saw the raining side of York. The positive side of raining is that all the trees and garden were so green and we had the fresh air. York is always lovely to visit. The only downside of York is too expensive on food because it is a tourist town, and everything is over-price.

After touring around York, we drove back to visit Temple Newsam. It was such a historical house and full of histories. I love big old house like that, such as Henry VIII’s Hampton Court in London, and Chatsworth House in Derbyshire. It always make me think what if I were living in that era and what I would be, or doing what things? I am always fascinated about 14th -19th Centuries histories and culture.

Friends were back to London on Weds, and I felt like we are not being apart that long, just doing our normal life in London, rather than in Leeds. I miss them and doing girls things while we were in London.

First picture was in Jamie Oliver Italian Restaurant, and second one was that I made Gong Fu Tea for them while they were playing the Ipad.

You can see more pictures in York and Leeds here.

Band of Horses

I haven’t heard of this band before, and I heard their song while I was watching TV series “Chuck” in last episode of season 3 – On My Way Back Home. Then I found their album in Spotify.

Band of Horses’s style like Miike Snow, Kent, Kings of Leon and Death Cab for Cuties. Their new album ‘Infinite arms’ is pretty cool. I give it 3.5 stars

My favourite songs:

  • Factory
  • On My Way Back Home
  • Infinite Arms
  • Older
  • For Annabelle
  • The Funeral (from The Road Mix 2007 Soundtrack)
  • The End is Not Near (from the O.C Mix 2006 soundtrack)

You can listen their music in MySpace page and see whether you like them.