St. Albans & Newspaper Appearance!

Hi everyone! So I went to St. Albans recently to visit my aunty for a week. The weather was amazing and the sun was shining constantly - a rare occurrence in the British summer. We went out a lot: perused the charity shops in St. Albans and West Hampstead (managed to find a navy suit, Bally shoes, a couple of books and a stripy cardigan); played frisbee; went out for dinner; strolled through the park to feed the ducks and just generally had a really lovely time. St. Albans is such a lovely little town with lots of lovely buildings and I can't wait to go back again soon!

1. Having afternoon vanilla coffee at my aunty's flat

2. Pretty bike on the street

3. Out for a big meal at the Harvester
4. Street signs in St. Albans
5. Union Jacks and British spirit
6. Playing frisbee in the sunshine
7. Fry-ups for breakfast
8. Verulamium Park on a lovely sunny day
9. Lavendergreen shop - taken for Jasmine of Lavender's Green :-)

Onto some other news, sorry to have been such an absent blogger, but I've been in Manchester, Liverpool and also on my Sixth Form residential! More about that later, but since my last post about my GCSE results, I got some very exciting news the day after results day!
I was in the national newspaper, The Daily Mail, because of my grades! I mean, it's the Daily Mail and it's the first (and most likely last) time I've ever bought it, but it's still a pretty cool achievement. I've deemed this my claim to fame :-)

 


Soooo yeah, that's me. Anyway,  I'm back to school on Monday and dreading schoolwork. :-| But I'm just gonna grin and bear it, I guess. Hopefully, blogging won't fall to the wayside again! Happy blogging!


Chloe xxx

Taiwan, Pt. 4 (& GCSE Results!)

Hi! So this is the last of my four-part Taiwan photo diary. I hope you've liked seeing all the photos from my trip. Now that the Summer is slowly drawing to an end, I can't help but look back and remember the very best parts of this holiday. I really miss the weather, the ease of travelling around the city, the night markets, sights, cheap food and clothes... Ahhh, I love Taiwan!

 

1. Hanging out in Ximen, Taipei
2. Ximending (like the Shibuya of Taipei)

3. With the family!

4. No trip to Asia is complete without karaoke!
5. Having dinner cooked in front of us at Shihlin Night Market
6. A day out at Taipei Recreational Centre

I love taking loads and loads of photos so that I have them to look back on one day. I've been doing a lot of that lately actually. :-)

Anyway! Onto some other news, I got my GCSE results today! I managed to get 12 A*s and 1 A at GCSE. My single A was in Art which I was super disappointed with since I basically spent my life doing Art this year, but no-one in my year got an A* and our Art teacher has complained and is appealing against the re-moderation of marks so hopefully the marks will go up! But other than that, I am super pleased with my results (as well as the 3 As I got in my AS-levels last week) and it just goes to show that hard work does pay off! Overall, it's been such a great day to have all those 5 years of work validated and to come out with great results at the end of it.

I'm off to Liverpool and Manchester tomorrow for a few days which will be lovely and a nice way to spend the remaining few days of Summer! I'm gonna miss having all this free time! :-( I hope that everyone who got their results today is happy with what they got! Have a lovely week! Happy blogging :-)


Chloe xxx

Taiwan, Pt. 3

Hello! Another post bogged down with photos from my holiday in Taiwan. I love looking back over photos and reminiscing. I'm definitely missing the warm weather, night markets and everything being so cheap! I'm banning myself from buying anything when it comes to clothes... Apart from maybe the odd charity shop. :-D The ones in West Hampstead are the best. Anyway, here's another set of photos and then one last one in my next post.

1. Standing in Taipei Main Station
2. Eating at TGI Friday's - food was so cheap! :-)
3. Getting ready to have a load of hair cut off!
4. Chilling with siblings and cousins
5. Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, Taipei
6. Statue of Chiang Kai Shek
7. My fave place in Taipei, Shihlin Night Market :-D

Onto other news... Hopefully those of you who received their A-level results on Thursday did really well! I'm only in Year 11 and so will be getting the bulk of my results on Thursday 23rd, but I also studied a few AS levels this year so got my results for those. I got:
English Language AS - A
General Studies AS - A
Maths FSMQ - A
So yeah, I was super surprised that I managed to get 3 As, especially in English Language which I was sure that I'd flopped in, but I managed to scrape an A by 3 marks which is amazing! It's been a great start to my results so far, but I'm still really nervous for GCSEs next week! Wish me luck! How did you all do in your results if you received any?

Hope you're all well. I'm trying to make the very most of my last 2 weeks of the summer holidays... Where has the time gone?! Happy blogging :-)

Chloe xxx

Taiwan, Pt. 2

Hello! Apologies again for the distinct lack of blogging, but I've just spent a week with family in St Albans, so have been somewhat removed from normal routine. Anyway, here are some more photos from my trip to Taiwan. I've got another 2 sets of photos for the next two blog posts too, so hope they're not gonna be too boring!

1. Riding the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) train in Taipei

2. Taipei 101 - the second tallest tower in the world!

3. Dress from Portobello Market, sandals from Office

4. With family in front of Taipei 101

5. Jumping photos are always fun

6. MRT again on another day

7. By Taipei Railway Station

8. Top from Taipei market and denim Levi's shorts

9. Amazing lights!

Just looking at these photos makes me miss Taiwan sooo much. What an amazing place! The weather was amazing last week here in England for the last few says of the Olympics. Sadly, both the warm weather and the Olympics has come to an end. What an amazing summer it has been. I've got less than 3 weeks left before I'm back at school. How has it gone by so fast?! :-(

Chloe xxx

Taiwan, Pt. 1

Hello! I got back from my 2 week holiday in Taiwan on Monday and I had an absolutely amazing time. It was a nice big family holiday and it was great to spend time with them since I don't get to see them often. The weather was amazing, averaging about 35 degrees every day. Taiwan is such a great place, the people are so friendly and the streets are very safe too. We went to the night markets quite a lot for late-night shopping and eating until about 1 or 2 am, which was so cool! Everything is so much cheaper over there as well, so it was nice being able to eat out literally every day and buy lots of cheap things. :-) We went and visited lots of touristy places which was cool and overall, I had such a great time there. I now definitely have a severe case of post-holiday blues and really miss it there! I'd love to make it back to Taiwan again at some point in the future. :-)

Here are some photos from my holiday:

1. Shihlin night market!
2. Chilling on the layover at Shanghai Pudong airport
3. McDonalds breakfast with family
4. Lunch at the Grand Hotel, Taipei
5. Dinner at Skylark restaurant
6. Bowling!
7. Sashimi and other Japanese food at Watami
8. Waiting for the MRT at Shihlin station

Hope you like the photos! I've got loads more tucked away (I took over 800 photos in Taiwan!) so will be posting a few more over the next few days. So far, I've just been getting back into my normal routine, but I'm off to St. Albans tomorrow to visit my aunty for 6 days. It'll be nice to be nice to chill at her flat and do some baking, relaxing, drawing and I'll also be helping her with ideas and planning for her wedding next summer!

For now, I'm gonna chill and watch some of the Olympics. Loving watching the Games! It's a nice feeling being British right now. :-) Gymnastics is my absolute favourite to watch, whilst tennis and basketball are great too. I can't wait for the athletics to start as well. :-) Hope you're all well and enjoying the Games too. Happy blogging!

Chloe xxx