So I'm currently in my exam period so I have so much to catch up on for my blog, but the question is, where do I even begin? I thought now might be a good time to take a break from daily revision and catch up!
So Magic Lantern Festival? Any of you heard of it?
Well, earlier this year, I had about this festival and honestly, I was excited! The thought of attending excited me and in the back of my head I was already planning when I would be going. Best of all, it wasn't too far from where I lived - Always a plus side when you live in the middle of nowhere in Greater London aha!
Location: Chiswick House and Gardens
I think the one thing for me, was worrying about the price for ticket... It was a photographic experience which I really didn't want to miss out yet, as Asian as I am, I didn't want to spend too much for a ticket if all I was going to do was take pictures.
However... SALES! Since we decided to go sometime during the last week of the festival! And due to attending the last week of the festival, tickets were discounted and getting student (concession) tickets were definitely better than having to pay a full adult price ticket (RIP turning 18 makes me an adult - Forever still not ready to admit I'm an adult because too many responsibilities...)
Dates: 3rd of February - 6th of March
(Closed from 23rd of February - 29th of February)
We decided to go on the 2nd of March, thank goodness that college gave me the day off that day - Can't remember what reason but probably because classes got cancelled by coincidence aha!
But before we even headed to the event, we had a short stop in Chinatown got ourselves some food accompanied by desserts woop!
We stopped off at Misato, which is great for getting cheap Japanese food and big portions. Afterwards we headed off Shibuya which is located on Shaftesbury Avenue! There were 5 flavours available for the shaved ice and we picked 4 of them. The flavours available were: Kinako Bing, Mango Bing, Matcha Bing, Strawberry Bing and Kiwi Bing.
Furthest left: Kinako Bing with soy bean and red bean on top.
Furthest right: Mango Bing.
Nearest left: Strawberry Bing.
Nearest right: Matcha Bing with red bean on top.
Each of the shaved ice options (otherwise known as bingsoo which is a famous Korean dessert) were accompanied with condensed milk for you to pour over your dessert. Definitely made it worthwhile, but I've heard the food is also really good to eat at Shibuya so you should definitely check the food and desserts out if you haven't already!
Furthermore whilst we were waiting for desserts, Vince and I noticed something interesting whilst we were sitting down. Around the time we took this, it had just been Pokemon's 20th Anniversary (27th February 2016) so it was honestly a funny sight to see.
Here's a close up for you guys to see if you couldn't see it before. We managed to work out that it was a Pikachu, Charizard and Snorlax! Super cute!
Moving on! We finally headed to the location of the Magic Lantern Festival! Thank god for signs, we honestly looked like tourists attempting to find the location with Google Maps aha... It got to the point where we were trying to work out how we were meant to cross a big road and had no idea how to get across it. We were fortunate enough to get some help from a car driving on the road telling us that we needed to walk down under the bridge to crossover to the other side...
I literally love pandas, and even Jenni requested for me to film a part of our passing of pandas because of how much she loved them aha! I am not alone with my love for pandas gurl!
It got to the point where I got so carried away taking so many pictures that I had fallen behind with my group... There was so much to see that I literally couldn't keep up, but it was amazing - aesthetically pleasing indeed!
We had a quick stop during the middle of our route, where we stopped by to toast some marshmallows. Honestly, I've never had a chance to do this but I've always seen it in movies and whatnot and it looked amazing, and we were fortunate that there was a fire as well to toast our marshmallows so it felt like a full experience.
Featuring my marshmallow holder, Jenni! Thank you aha! But 3 out of 4 us decided to get a marshmallow to toast. For me, I decided to get "Strawberry and Basil" - I'm like a massive strawberry fanatic if you didn't know already, you can tell by my choice of shaved ice earlier on aha!
When we actually started toasting the marshmallows, I wasn't sure what to expect. The fire was really cute and when I toasted my marshmallow the melting feeling after it had been toasted after you put it into your mouth was amazing. I definitely want to toast marshmallows again at some point!
As we were nearing the end of our adventure, what I found really cool was when they had lanterns for each of the Chinese zodiacs. Honestly, I wish I had film each of them rather than taking individual photos of each of them... Trust me the amount of times I was left behind because I was taking pictures of each of the zodiacs... OTL
We actually arrived at the venue earlier than we thought, yet we managed to start our slot earlier which was really good for us. However, I kind of wish we went a bit later because around 5-6PM it was still quite light outside as you can see from these pictures, and we hoped to come back later to retake them but as there's a set route we weren't able to come back after exiting the venue.
And thus our adventure began! Well... I mean I sort of forgot to print off my ticket despite reminding others to do so... Fortunately I showed them my ticket on my phone and they printed it off for me, thank you so much aha...! But anyways, we began our adventure following the route leading us pass various lantern attractions.
I literally love pandas, and even Jenni requested for me to film a part of our passing of pandas because of how much she loved them aha! I am not alone with my love for pandas gurl!
We had a quick stop during the middle of our route, where we stopped by to toast some marshmallows. Honestly, I've never had a chance to do this but I've always seen it in movies and whatnot and it looked amazing, and we were fortunate that there was a fire as well to toast our marshmallows so it felt like a full experience.
Featuring my marshmallow holder, Jenni! Thank you aha! But 3 out of 4 us decided to get a marshmallow to toast. For me, I decided to get "Strawberry and Basil" - I'm like a massive strawberry fanatic if you didn't know already, you can tell by my choice of shaved ice earlier on aha!
When we actually started toasting the marshmallows, I wasn't sure what to expect. The fire was really cute and when I toasted my marshmallow the melting feeling after it had been toasted after you put it into your mouth was amazing. I definitely want to toast marshmallows again at some point!
I managed to capture some of my marshmallow toasting in action! Thank you Tom, for quickly editing this for me with the minimal footage I had - I appreciate the song choice, BTS' Save Me is literally my song right now aha! If you haven't checked out their album "Young Forever" you definitely should. Funnily enough, the night version of their album is the group surrounded by a campfire so the song choice is rather appropriate!
Back on route, we continued our journey through the Magic Lantern Festival and honestly I thought it couldn't get anymore awesome, but there was definitely some awesome attractions to see!
Need to give credit to Vince who had an idea to take pictures like this. The river which was standing in between the lanterns created a really cool reflection and of course it was a worthy photo opportunity. The effect created looking amazing.
Featuring our very own Cinderella Lantern attraction. The one thing I remember about this attraction was when Vince got really hyped over this and we were all very confused. Turns out, it was because his girlfriend is in love with Cinderella so he wanted to get a picture of it for her - how cute aha!
As we were nearing the end of our adventure, what I found really cool was when they had lanterns for each of the Chinese zodiacs. Honestly, I wish I had film each of them rather than taking individual photos of each of them... Trust me the amount of times I was left behind because I was taking pictures of each of the zodiacs... OTL
Can you recognise which Chinese zodiac is yours? Mine is the Ox, which is the second one of the list. Tom and Vince are the year of Rat which is the first in the lineup. Whilst Jenni is the year of the Dog!
We were drawing the end of our journey with a few other sights here and there. Even as we got to the end there was some really lovely lanterns to see just as we were about to exit.
It's quite cute how the last attraction I took a picture of was related to love. I feel like this adventure is something that would be really nice to go as a couple - probably why Vince was so eager to take his girlfriend aha! But even going as a group was a lot of fun!
Fun Fact: I found out despite this Magic Lantern Festival occurring probably for the first time at Chiswick House and Gardens, I found quite a lot of these attractions also appeared at the Kew Gardens Winter Trail. It seems like they must of reused some of these attractions for other things.. Ah well, anyways it was a fun and interesting experience and I got many worthwhile pictures!
Thank you for reading, hope you guys enjoyed looking at the accompanying pictures! Nowadays I feel like I've improved my photography as I've gained more experience but I still believe I've got a long way to go...
