Cardiff Extravaganza

Yesterday myself and the animation girlies (Jess, Bryony and Vikki) all went into Cardiff for some Disney shopping! (We are somewhat obsessed!)
This was sparked from the need to check out the new merchandise for Up.

Originally, my boyfriend and friends, Dale and Paul were supposed to join us, but they went later to go to the cinema to see The Invention of Lying.

So anyway, we checked out the Forbidden Planet shop in Cardiff which was INCREDIBLE. It was full of any Marvel, DC comic, figurine and manga you could think of and had a good range of posters, T-shirts and books. Just browsing the two floors of goodness could take days! Unfortunately, it was hideously over-priced! Most of the items there could be bought for half as much online, so we didn't buy anything. :(

Next stop, lunch! Jess had recommended this Japanese-style restaurant called Wagamama, and it was stunning. It was in this beautiful glass library and was so clean and stylish. There were rows of tables and you get chopsticks! Most of the food was the usual ramen soup, noodles and rice dishes, but the portions are really generous and it was absolutely scrummy!

We took pictures of our 'victory poses' as the food was so much it was quite a task to eat it all! It was a really awesome meal until I managed to pour a whole glass of water onto my tights because we were taking pictures through glasses at one point. Sod's law that I should pick up the glass with water in it!

So after a really nice and not too expensive meal, it was off to find the Disney store! It was a little tricky to find as we hadn't explored the area before but we got there eventually and took pictures outside (we must have looked like really crazy tourists). It was AWESOME! It was about the same size as the one back home in Chester but seemed to have even more goodies!

I bought an adorable Stitch pin, (apparently Disney pins are a big collecting craze, especially in America!) a Lady magnet and a fluffy Eeyore plushie (because I love him and haven't had a cuddly toy of him before!). There were some Up toys there too, but the range wasn't great and the cuddly toys didn't seem very well made (the Kevin toys got the colouring all wrong!). There were some lovely magnets and I wanted one of Doug but sadly they were marked and dirty. :( You could get an Up pin there, but you needed to present a Vue ticket to prove that you've seen Up at the cinema and we saw it at Cineworld--NOOOOO!!!!

So in the end, we dropped in at The Works on the way back and I bought a great hardback A3 sketchpad with 80 pages for life drawing and it was only £4.99! I also found the most adorable Up storybook with full colour illustrations and a lovely squishy hardback cover. It was supposed to be £9.99, but I bought it here for £2.99! Bargain!!! <3

After an awesome girly day out, we got back at about 7:30pm after a train and taxi back, absolutely exhausted. I got back to my flat to discover one of my flatmates was having friends over and that it would be "noisy". A couple of hours later, music is blaring out and people keep accidentally stumbling into my room thinking it was the bathroom (until I locked the door).

I went out for a snack after they left to go drinking in Newport and the kitchen was trashed. It wasn't just beer bottles and cans and tops everywhere, but food on the floor, spilled drinks on the table and playing cards and sweet wrappers all over the place. Yuck!!!

So I stayed at my boyfriend, Alex's for the night 'cause I didn't want to wake up to that in the morning! Fortunately they have tidied up a bit today and I have been told by Rachael that they will clean up properly later *fingerscrossed*!

Anywho, I have some work to do for next week and we have curry night to prepare for today, although it will only be Alex, Dale, Paul and I as everyone else went back to Wrexham for the weekend! Next Friday I'll be heading home with Alex for our birthdays, which I'm really looking forward to! :)
Love Gemma xxx