Celebrations, Celebrations and more Celebrations

January to March is the ultimate celebrations period for Geo and me - New Years, our anniversary, Valentine's, my birthday, his birthday.. sounds like a lot doesn't it? Well, this year we had even more reasons to celebrate: first both Geo and me passed our driving test and are now proud owners of a pink (and ugly) UK driving licence and then we both found a placement for our year in Industry starting this summer. So we had a busy few months with all these celebrations and of course all the uni work we had to do in between.

Now, it's time for some rest and relaxation, as all assignments are handed in an we are on our Easter break. We are catching up with our missed posts and movie nights and preparing for our upcoming trip to Russia!

But enough talking, here are some pictures from our festivities:

Full table on New Years Eve

Trying on our new scarves...

...and moustaches

Fancy (expensive but worth it) 3 year anniversary dinner

Red theme for my 21st birthday

Bowling on Geo's birthday

Geo's lucky (very pro looking) bowling pose

IT'S CHRISTMAS BREAK ~~~ Day 2

Top of the World (sorta)

After resisting the urge to just stay in bed, we had a ticket to go the top of Burj Khalifa. 

We decided on Papa Roti (an amazing coffee bun at Dubai Mall) as breakfast just before our adventure to the tallest building to the world.

The entrance was very fancy as expected, and there's quite a bit to see before you even go up 

She's lost her mind waiting

There was a bit of waiting but soon enough we got up to the top with one of the fastest elevators I've been on.

"Make me look like a model" - Ksenia 2017

The rest of the day was comprised of just hanging out in the world's biggest shopping mall.

I'm too lazy to write more so here are the pictures of the rest of the day. (at least I'm honest smiles)

I'm a model

She Tries...

She really does...

The next morning (like 3 in the morning) we took a cab to Abu Dhabi for our flight back to good old HCMC for our eventful Christmas break.

- GK

IT'S CHRISTMAS BREAK ~~~~ in march

Not that anyone really reads our blog, but its been a while since we've uploaded anything mostly due to Ksen's laziness. Either way here comes part 2 of 3 of our Dubai Christmas trip.

Because I'm a model traveller I thought it'd be great that I wouldn't sleep on the flight to Dubai and I was practically falling asleep any given chance I had. Even with this tiresome condition, we went to the famous desert tour of Dubai....

We got picked up from our hotel on 4x4 and was pretty much driven to the middle of no where. 

Once we arrived though Ksenia got to take part in animal cruelty.

 Dubai being a desert and call the views that we got to see while waiting for our questionable group members wasn't too bad.

This waiting was followed by a desert roller coaster on the 4x4 all the way to the base camp where they so graciously offered mediocre food and decent entertainment.

After this event packed day following the long flight, we were pretty much knocked out by the end of it. We pretty much fell right to bed as soon as we got back from the desert tour.

- GK

Laziness and now Exams..

Well... as you can see our Dubai posts are far from up to date! We had an amazing trip and then a wonderful Christmas break with our families.

Unfortunately a busy schedule and loads of holiday laziness has gotten the better of us and we haven't updated the blog. Now we are back in Manchester/Leeds and while super jetlagged are getting ready for our exams...sigh...

Anyways, I don't know when but we will update the blog at some point and catch you up on all that has happened!

Till then, wish us luck with our exams!

-KK

IT'S CHRISTMAS BREAK ~~~~

Finally after painful times of assessments, essays and lab reports our time to rest has finally come!

We commenced our holidays with Star Wars: The Last Jedi on Friday night. Geo wasn't satisfied, but I didn' think it was that bad. It had it' moments (Good and bad).

On Saturday we set off to the airport, and a stressful check in and border control later we were on our flight to Abu Dhabi. Thankfully we were able to check in early and had seats next to each other. Geo mostly watched a Korean show on Netflix while I watched a movie called "What happened to Monday?" It's a new idea I haven't seen developed before which made the movie quite interesting, especially as a in flight entertainment it was perfect. Our Stewardess was painfully slow especially with our hunger increasing. When we finally received the food it was amazing, especially the blueberry almond cheesecake dessert ("better than Sainsbury's" according to Geo).

So 7 hours later - includiny 3 hours of broken and uncomfortable sleep - we arrived in Abu Dhabi. Determined to try our best but with not much hope we dashed for the exit and at a speedy pace walked to border control. We booked a free Etihad shuttle to Dubai however only had 1 hour and 20 minutes to get to it. To our surprise everything went so smoothly that we made it to the station nearly 40 minutes before our bus!!

It was time to take a breath of the surprisingly cool Abu Dhabi air and enjoy the sunrise:

Another 2 hours later we arrived in Dubai, checked in to our hotel and set off to Madina Souq a beatiful market with a great view of the Burj Al Arab. Once again we (mostly I) suffered from hunger as we didn't have breakfast and all the restaurants that would serve lunch were still closed. 

On the way to our next destination the Jumeirah Mosque it started pouring down like a waterfall (just out luck to see rain in the desert) so we changed our plans and headed to the Dubai Mall. Our long wait for food was rewarded with some amazing Lebanese food, especially the aubergines were delicious.

Now we are off to our desert tour!

Our Day Trip to York - Continued

As Geo left it to me to tell the story of the rest of the day, let me first start of with some before and after York Minster pictures:

This is us before we climbed 275 step to the top of the tower (please note how happy Geo looks, it is because he didn't realise, yet, that we are not taking the elevator XD)

This is us on top, it was certainly worth the climb! But wow was it windy.. my hair was a mess the rest of the day...

So after the Minster we started our hunt for food. You ask why hunt? Well... by the time we climbed back down from the tower it was close to 2pm and seemingly everyone in town was having lunch as we had to try 3 different restaurants until we finally found one with "only" a 20 minute wait. Well, that turned out to be even longer as after 20 minutes we had gotten a table, to then hear that it would be another 30 minutes until we could be served food... - well, satisfied with being seated in the warmth and access to WiFi, we stayed. And it was worth it! Best Mushroom soup I had had in a while.

All warmed up and filled with energy, we decided to take a walk along the river. From there we carried on along the York city wall, stopping at the old tower ruins. There were loads of grazing geese (I was really excited).

We finished the trip by eating an amazing Crepe while waiting for our bus back.

It was a good day, and while it was very windy (and totally destroyed my hair) we got really lucky with the weather. With many deadlines coming up and my dodgeball competitions starting, I doubt you will hear from us until Christmas. But we have a Dubai trip to look forward to!

-KK

Our Day Trip to York

We're Back~~~

Sorta. We've been busy in our own ways, Ksen working on her driving skills, me just working on breathing. All is good and we hope to continue to write on this blog more often. Sorta.

Quick update, I have moved into my new place and have started my 2nd year in uni and Ksen has done the same. Nothing too special has happened, just life got the best of us and we couldn't find good topics for this blog but with Ksen's reading week here we decided to go on an adventure~

York Here We Come/Went(?)

On the miserable UK morning, we hustled our sleepy selves to the Leeds Bus Station. 

As we decided to take the ZAP bus (6 pounds there and back) we had to make it to the station in just under 40 mins, so with haste we grabbed our gear (myself the beautiful OM-10 and Ksen the 700D) and dashed through the foggy depths of Leeds.

Apparently Ksen isn't a morning person anymore

Lo and behold we made it on time. 

This got us on a bus ride to York with a bunch of grannies. 

They were pretty chill and soon became our apparatus of identifying where we had to get off. 

Arrival and Our 1st Mission of the Day

As Ksen was feeling slightly under the weather, our first mission, although slightly too British for my taste, was to find a warm cup of tea.

The camera isn't too nice to me either

This one cup of tea got Ksen back to a travel ready human body so off we set off to our first destination....the York Minster.

But before that, we went through this really nice alley (York is basically a blob of nice alleys) on the way, which got us thinking..... why are there so many Harry Potter things here? oh and a doggo.

Woah..these people are dedictate

Come live me with doggo ditch your owner

After about 1 to 15 minutes of walking we finally arrive at the York Minster!

And that was it for the morning. Part 2 will be coming with Ksen's inputs yay

- GK