Scar Tissue

So... last week I finished Scar Tissue, the autobiography of Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of red hot Chilli Peppers. His raw and candid way of telling his story is incredibly compelling and makes it hard to put the book down. His stories about growing up in Hollywood, meeting his band mates at high school and his constant battle with drug addiction is unreal. I feel as though I vicariously lived through him throughout the book! 

You know when you're seriously sad that a books over? Yeah. I'm feeling that right now. A seriously good read. Pick yourself up a copy if you can!

Anthony & Flea in the 80's bestiesss

Cake fail

So a few days ago the internet got cut off at our house (still down now) we were bored and my housemate asked me to make her a cake. Since we had no internet to look up recipes on I was being spontaneous and started throwing the following things into a bowl:

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons greek yogurt
• Juice of half an orange + its zest

We also have a gas oven which makes baking incredibly hard because we still haven't bothered to buy an oven thermometer to know the exact temperature of the oven. 

Anyway, it actually tasted delicious, nice and orangey BUT the texture was a total fail. I also think I shouldn't have used yogurt as heavy as full fat greek LOL. Oh well I'll know better next time!

Check out my cake fail below.

Then a few days later it was my housemates birthday and she wanted a lemon drizzle cake. Now that baby came out spectacularly (thank god!) Such a simple recipe and it was so so nice!

• 100g butter
• 150g self raising flour
• 4 tablespoons milk
• 150g sugar
• 2 eggs
• Zest of half a lemon

Then for the drizzle:

• juice of 1 lemon (heat up in microwave for 30 secs) 
• 4 tablespoons of icing sugar

When you take the cake out of the oven poke holes into it and drizzle with the lemon juice while it is still hot for optimum result!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEIS!

GoPro

Not that I'm an extreme sports nut or anything (actually, I'm quite literally the opposite, I'm a girl who is terrified of rollercoasters) but this video really caught my eye. GoPro is a company who always gets on awesome marketing campaigns and this video just went viral. They work with great extreme sportsmen (JT Holmes, Kelly Slater, James Rispoli, and the list goes on...) and their videos just get your pulse racing! Kinda makes me want to get on a kayak and go white rafting, well, sort of.

Check out their latest video promoting their newest baby, the GoPro HERO3. 

Beachy Head

Last Sunday when the sun made a glorious little appearance we took total advantage and went to Beachy Head near Eastbourne, around 45 minute drive from Brighton. We had nothing planned that day, just lounging around like any other lazy Sunday (watching the lazy Sunday video is compulsory after that reference) and we thought hey why not go on a little sight seeing road trip? So we hopped in the car and got going!

While it was one of the most beautiful sights I had seen in England it was also quite eerie knowing it was a suicide hotspot. While we were up there my friend pointed out that you can understand how anyone would feel so insignificant on those cliffs and how it only takes one millisecond of not thinking to jump. We then proceeded to a dark debate whether you'd prefer to jump off those cliffs or a high rise skyscraper in a city- we agreed on cliffs. Apparently, there are an estimated 20 deaths a year at Beachy Head and there are people constantly patrolling the cliffs throughout the day which was sort of strange. 
Oh yeah also, when I was writing this post Wikipedia informed me that Beachy Head was where the Quidditch World Cup was filmed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It was alsoused in the opening sequence to the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights, even thought it was meant to be Gibraltar.

ANYWAY enough about suicide and enjoy the pictures from our glorious little day out. We obvs made a pit stop at KFC on the way home. T'was a GREAT DAY!!!

 EAST SUSSEX YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL! Can't wait to explore more of you- sorry it's been a little (2 years to be exact) overdue! More adventures to come fo sho.

Booked!

AWW YEAAAH. So I've booked my flights to NYC this Christmas & New Years! The very first time I went to New York City at the tender age of 7 I remember thinking to myself "I'm going to live here one day".  Even as a kid I saw the potential of an amazing life on this buzzing little island they call the BIG APPLE. - I vividly remember sticking my head out our limo's sun roof, first trip to FAO Shwartz, (it was the biggest toy store in the world at the time) and adding about 10 new Beanie Babies to my already impressive collection. I have only fond memories of that trip, despite my father just passing away and my mother travelling all the way from Tokyo with 3 young kids and around 6 months pregnant with my youngest brother and moving us all to what would become my new hometown, Marbella. For some reason, mother dearest thought it would be awesome to hit a few destinations ie Hawaii, NYC before starting our new lives in Spain.

ANYWAY, since that first trip I have been fortunate enough to go back there on many occasions, mainly because my best friend in the world's father lives there and I somehow became the weird adopted sister who tagged along every time she went to visit him- nuts how he just put up with me like that. I also spent 3 months of my gap year there before coming to uni. MOREOVER my sister has just moved there to take her modelling career to the next level. SO I have put my pennies together so that this Christmas I can spend 10 whole days back in my second home with my sister and my best friend and her family (practically my family now too obvs). This is going to be the BEST.CHRISTMAS.EVER. I am so excited :-) 

My bestie and I - Christmas 2004

My favourite spot in all of NYC... there is this special little spot on the East side of the reservoir in Central Park which overlooks the West side. I took this around May 2010 (spring time there is simply incredible) yes, it really looked this beautiful.

So yeah, thought this was an important piece of news I had to tell all my followers (yes, all 3 of you).

Hope you have had a nice weekend! I know I did, I spent it in London and saw my London & Marbella friends and my brother! I think it was a successful weekend indeed. Off to do some laundry, how glamorous. I'm outty! X

Catwoman

Catwoman being a boss! Love this chick.

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

Some stuff I've randomly been saving onto my desktop over the last few months

OLYMPICS

SO since I didn't post pretty much throughout the entire summer (again, soz) I didn't get the chance to tell y'all that I was super into the Olympics & Paralympics. And I even got the chance to go see the Paralympic swimming which was so incredible. It made me feel like the most useless human being afterward but it was truly inspiring. The best part was that I went with my brother and my sister just before she moved to NYC- they are the best. Groove Shimada for life!

La princesa Elena de España

GOLD for Team GB!!

Someone should really

.....stop me from doing stupid things. Has someone invented some sort of device which sounds when you are about to do something very silly? Maybe I should just hire a adultsitter (like a babysitter for adults). Anyone up for the job? I will pay in great meals and a hug or two.

A healthy life

This infographic shows how the healthiest people became well... the healthiest people. Given that I am half Japanese I'm hoping to live to at least 100 years old. So I think the secret is- Water. Fish and regular walking. That's doable, I think. 

BEAR HUG?

New Slang

I swear there is something about New Slang that manages to make me feel like everything is going to be okay. Might be Natalie Portmans smile in that particular scene in The Garden State. But when all else fails just play this song- it's all going to be okay.

Is it weird that...

I have an old man crush on Gary Oldman?