alice

Ah, now it gets rolling. Okay, so this is the day we’re having a mini meet-up in Leeds with other fellow Musers, such as Inn, Gem, Kev and Paul. Wince was going to come as well but she couldn’t afford it I don’t think, and Kazzie was also going to maybe drive up, but she dropped out as well which was a shame.

Anyhow, Bob, Inn and myself decided beforehand we’d go for a sushi lunch at Little Tokyo (“this Little Tokyo… just how little is it?”) today, as Bob wanted a nice meal out to celebrate his first at uni. The plan was to meet at 12 in Leeds, then head to Little Tokyo for some sushi action, lounge about for a bit until we meet the others, then the evening was bingo time!

On the train to Leeds Inn phoned to say she’d be a bit late. We asked why, and she replied “oh I set off late” haha. We were nearly at the station at this point so Bob and I bought a pack of cookies for Inn from Millie’s cookies and then we decided to go to Caffe Nero, for something to do whilst waiting, but no sooner had we settled down with drinks Inn phoned to say she was here. Bob had a frappe so he was okay, but I stupidly got myself a hot coffee to stay so we both drank it as quickly as we could, without burning our throats, and headed back to the station.

And lo and behold, we found an Inn waiting for us

We hopped in the car and drove up to the uni where she parked (free) for the day. Inn as staying at Kev’s for the weekend so that was that bit sorted really. Then we walked to Little Tokyo in the city centre, near the Corn Exchange. We went pretty much straight there and settled down with some menus. Mmm had green tea, it’s all good. I didn’t really know what to have, I’d only had sushi once before so I’m a noob at this sort of stuff. We decided to get a starter set first of all, which we’d all share, and then afterwards I finally settled on a half nigiri set and a half vegetarian set (not that I’m vegetarian or anything… it just looked nice…). Bob ordered a Bento box with lots of seafood I think, and Inn had a full nigiri set and some vegetable tempura.

And we got to eating!

There was one bit of the nigiri which Inn and I both had, but we weren’t too sure what the fish was on top. Bob insisted it was eel, and that the thing as a whole was in fact unagi (cue fingers to side of head à la Ross), which put me off a bit! Haha. Inn and I both agreed we’d eat these ‘eel’ nigiris at the same time, so I left it til last in the hope I’d be too full to eat it (oh no what a shame), but nah I ate it anyway. Inn and I both didn’t think it was actually eel, tasted smoked to us both, but oh well. Eating eel is cooler!

After finishing our food we hung around for a while drinking more tea and battling on the DS’. I played Inn at Mario Karts because apparently she refuses to play Bob as he’s awesome and she’s not so good at it. But this was pretty cool as I am the worst player ever at this game, so me and her started the battle! She won though

We left a bit after and wandered around town, thinking of something to do. Inn suggested we maybe go and stalk Katie in her bead shop, see if she recognises anyone, so we headed off there hehe. We went in and pretended to be looking at all the pretty beads, though we were secretly looking out for Katie, though there was no sign of her. We were about to leave when out she came and started tidying loose beads up around the shop. In order to delay us leaving we did decide to buy some beads, so we gathered some yellow and black little wooden beads up to make some bumblebee bracelets for Bob. After having paid for these (and some elastic) we were on our way out when Inn goes up to Katie and says “excuse me, but do you recognise any of us?” to which Katie looked terrified! She said “noo… am I being stalked?!” She guessed pretty soon that we were off the boards but she didn’t recognise us, so Inn introduced herself, to which Katie immediately gasped and hugged her. Inn next introduced me and Bob, though she doesn’t really know me haha. She had a bit of a chat with her, before deciding to leave and go sit down in Starbucks next door.

Once in Starbucks (with tasty strawberry frappecino thing) we contacted Gem and Paul to let them know where we were (they were due to appear at any moment). We made our way upstairs to where the comfy sofas are and made our way over to sit down. On the chairs/tables next to us was a group of guys who were staring at the huge boxes of Krispy Kreme doughnuts we were carrying. They looked amazed haha, and asked us where we got them from. I said they were from London, and they looked really disappointed, maybe they’d hoped there was somewhere in Leeds selling them?! Bob offered to sell one to them for £2 though. They did not accept his offer.

We then settled down and started making the bracelets. We had enough elastic and beads for two, so I made one for Bob and he made one for me (although he couldn’t tie the ends right so I tied them for him hehe). We took some photos and lounged around.

Not long after, we heard from Gem and Paul saying they were on their way, and sure enough sooner or later we spied them from the balcony, walking down the Arcade together towards Starbucks. We went all paparazzi on them and snapped their photo from above as they approached

Once they joined us upstairs with drinks and a cookie, Gem set about immediately writing on her hands. I was a bit confused as well, until she held up her hand to us and said “this is MY muser tribute photo”, with her hand that said “fuck off” haha. Her other hand said “I hate photos”, so, as she explained, she was prepared for us attacking from all angles.

We lingered in Starbucks a bit longer, chatting away, before we thought we’d go back to Katie’s bead shop and give her a cookie. We were going to give her a Krispy Kreme but Bob was rather attached to them and couldn’t bear just giving one away hehe. So cookies it was. Gem and Paul chatted to Katie for a bit, and another girl working in the bead shop was transfixed by the Krispy Kremes we were carrying. She asked if we had got them in Leeds, but again was disappointed when we said they were from London. She said they were “the best doughnuts in the world” haha.

Time was getting on so we thought we best leave the shop and wander round a bit, before meeting Kev at bingo later on. Me and Paul needed to go to a cash machine, and then we hung around outside WHSmiths for a bit, while Gem talked to the Gouranga monk. I had nooo idea what the hell “gouranga” was, Gem tried explaining it but I really didn’t get it to be honest. Anyway she called her “favourite” monk over and had a nice long chat with him, while we all ate some more Krispy Kremes (we were trying to empty the boxes so we wouldn’t have to carry the damn things anymore haha. By this point they were a little squished…

We heard from Kev after a bit and so decided to head off to bingo! I didn’t know where it was, so the others led the way. It wasn’t too far, kind of near the Corn Exchange. I had never been before so I needed to register, and Bob decided to reregister as he used a fake name last time. The others waited outside while we filled in our forms and got us a bingo card (had to make do with a crappy paper “temporary” membership card as they’d run out of the proper plastic ones). Anyhow moving swiftly on as that’s boring, we went back outside and soon after Kev and Lindsay arrived on the scene!

I’d never met Lindsay (Kev’s sister) before, but she was really really nice (hehe she referred to Kev as ‘Kevin’… made me giggle). Anyhow we went in, bought our tickets and all, and set about finding seats for all seven of us. The middle ones were set in blocks of 8 so that was cool. Bob and Inn had vouchers for free paninis from the bakery, and they decided they just couldn’t wait any longer for them. We went and picked up these free paninis. Oh yeah. Bob got a chicken and something one which I ate a bit of, wasn’t toooo bad, just a bit chewy. Inn got a cheese & onion one which she left to get cold and then said it was horrible haha. But she ate it anyway, because it was free!

I hadn’t got a clue about playing bingo to be honest, Gem was explaining it to me across the table, but it all sounded horribly complicated. Each page in the booklet is one round in the game, and a number is called out by a guy at the front. Each column on the sheet has a different set of numbers, for example the first column is numbers 1-9, the second column is numbers 10-19 etc, so you know which column you need to be looking in for each number. I was worried that it’d go too fast and I wouldn’t find the numbers in time to dab them out!

However once we got going (with my trusty brand new love heart red dabber) I found it quite straight forward. A couple of times I lagged a bit with dabbing and had to speedily get back on top of things, but in the main part I think it was all under control. All of us were enjoying the bingo immensely, and at one point an old lady got up from the next table and came over and told Bob off for being too loud hehe.

All was going so well: Kev had won £25 by getting a full house on one round, and Bob also had vouchers for free drinks, and we tried to get the most expensive drink, to get the most out of it, so we shared a glass of wine together. Inn used her voucher to get a glass of coke. This is where things started going downhill haha.

It was a break inbetween rounds, I think just before the final booklet was about to start. Inn, who was sitting opposite Lindsay, was photo-taking, and as she stood up to reach over for something, she accidentally knocked the glass of coke all over the table and Lindsay! Nobody moved for a split second, before crying to rescue not Lindsay, but the bingo tickets! Inn scampered off to the toilets to grab some tissues, while we grabbed the tickets and moved everything else away from the wetness. Gem, Paul and I set about peeling apart the booklet, to try and save it (what if it was the winning booklet?!) but it was soaked through. We did peel it apart though, but it was sodden.

It was pretty funny though to be honest Inn and Lindsay moved to the next table as theirs was all wet now, and got new, dry booklets from somewhere (don’t know where, maybe someone gave them new ones?), so we divided these wet ones between us and set about trying to play bingo looking at more than one ticket! It was soo hard, every time they called a number you had to then dab it on your own booklet and then quickly check the other ticket for it too. At one point Kev nearly missed out on winning again because he was concentrating so hard he didn’t realise he also had a line on one of the pages haha. So that was another tenner we won.

We finished bingo about half 9 and walked back into the centre. We were trying to decide what to spend our glorious winnings of £35 on haha. In the end we settled on going to a pub/bar and getting a round or two for us. We wandered up to the top of town, tried Fab but they were ID-ing and as usual I let the side down with being a mere 17

So we wandered up to the Drydock, the pub slash boat. Inside we got a drink and settled down on comfy chairs, while Gem and Kev played more bingo on the gambling machine haha, bless them. The pool table behind us became free so Bob and I had a game. I very nearly beat him, but in the end twas he who won

About half 10 Bob and I decided we best be off, our last train was at 11.08, and it’d take us a while to get down there, even though we were getting a lift in Inn’s car to the station, as the roads in the city centre loop weirdly and confusingly.

Train journey back was full of horrible drunk/loud people, and I get really uneasy round busy trains with a lot of drunken-ness going on, so Bob and I had some DS tetris battles hehe. We got off at Halifax and I rang Alan to see if he fancied coming to give us a lift home (no night buses here). Waiting for him we took some night photos (mmm, long exposure) of the station/car park etc.

Another day done Home with the lovely Bob.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 14th, 2007 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Being out and about, Friends, General news, Good news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.