As a continuation to my previous post, I felt I should make a separate post for the general city. It was my first time attending Nottingham, last Friday, and honestly I don't regret it. There were a few downers nearing the end of the day but that wasn't at all Nottingham's fault, more for the coach driver. The city honestly has a lot of things which I love, from Asian restaurants to great landscapes, good transport links as well as bubble tea places - woop woop!
After attending the Nottingham university open day, we decided on exploring the city life. We took the open day shuttle bus back to the train station and then made our way on the tram to the city centre. Previously, we decided on choosing between two Asian restaurants which were recommended by our friends, but also through research such as reviews. The two restaurants were Miss Korea and Pan Asia. From the two we decided upon Pan Asia as we felt the menu offered more variety although they were both similarly priced. We found it difficult the find Miss Korea as the use of the Google Maps was misleading. In the end, we had to ask the bubble tea worker at Chatime about its location.
Chatime is known to be one of my all time favourite bubble tea places. I usually go to the Chinatown, London located shop, to purchase my favourite drink. Fortunately at Nottingham, they also provided my all-time favourite drink, Mango QQ. With bubble tea there are various options to choose from. From milk tea drinks to fruit tea and even smoothies and more. You can also decide on different sugar levels and ice levels for your drink, and if you pay a bit extra you can also choose from different toppings e.g. Tapioca pearls - These are the most well known as these are considered the "bubbles" in bubble tea. However there is also other options such as rainbow jelly, red bean, coconut jelly and more. Chatime usually offers different sizes, for the Mango QQ, you can choose between a regular and a large drink. In Chinatown, London it is £3.25 for a regular and £3.95 for a large. Surprisingly in Nottingham, the Chatime was empty in comparison to London but it may have been the hour. Although, it was fortunate for us as we didn't have to wait long for our drink.
After drinking bubble tea, we proceeded to take a seat and enjoy the view in Nottingham. Once again, we proceeded to take various selfies - Come on, it was predicted being the Asians we are aha. And trust me, there was too many selfies taken, from using our phones to using even a DSLR. It felt like we were tourists as none of us had visited Nottingham before we captured various landscapes but also other pictures of ourselves with the view. Honestly the view was amazing!
After attending the Nottingham university open day, we decided on exploring the city life. We took the open day shuttle bus back to the train station and then made our way on the tram to the city centre. Previously, we decided on choosing between two Asian restaurants which were recommended by our friends, but also through research such as reviews. The two restaurants were Miss Korea and Pan Asia. From the two we decided upon Pan Asia as we felt the menu offered more variety although they were both similarly priced. We found it difficult the find Miss Korea as the use of the Google Maps was misleading. In the end, we had to ask the bubble tea worker at Chatime about its location.
Chatime is known to be one of my all time favourite bubble tea places. I usually go to the Chinatown, London located shop, to purchase my favourite drink. Fortunately at Nottingham, they also provided my all-time favourite drink, Mango QQ. With bubble tea there are various options to choose from. From milk tea drinks to fruit tea and even smoothies and more. You can also decide on different sugar levels and ice levels for your drink, and if you pay a bit extra you can also choose from different toppings e.g. Tapioca pearls - These are the most well known as these are considered the "bubbles" in bubble tea. However there is also other options such as rainbow jelly, red bean, coconut jelly and more. Chatime usually offers different sizes, for the Mango QQ, you can choose between a regular and a large drink. In Chinatown, London it is £3.25 for a regular and £3.95 for a large. Surprisingly in Nottingham, the Chatime was empty in comparison to London but it may have been the hour. Although, it was fortunate for us as we didn't have to wait long for our drink.
After drinking bubble tea, we proceeded to take a seat and enjoy the view in Nottingham. Once again, we proceeded to take various selfies - Come on, it was predicted being the Asians we are aha. And trust me, there was too many selfies taken, from using our phones to using even a DSLR. It felt like we were tourists as none of us had visited Nottingham before we captured various landscapes but also other pictures of ourselves with the view. Honestly the view was amazing!After we had taken enough pictures of the city, we proceeded to go to Pan Asia to eat dinner. Although it was sort of early to eat dinner as it was around 4-5PM when we went to eat, it didn't mean the length of time it took us to eat wasn't going to be short. It was a great time to experiment with different cuisines as well as catch up with each other after not seeing each for a long time. Pan Asia offers a wide range of cuisines: mainly Korean and Japanese although they also offered Malaysian and other Asian starters. Whilst my cousin and my friend chose to have a taste of Korean cuisine, I opted upon choosing a Japanese cuisine (I'm quite biased when it comes to Japanese as it's my personal preference - especially as I don't really eat greens and spicy food).
I decided upon eating chicken teriyaki don, which was accompanied with cucumbers and salad, with my starter as Ika-Furai (fried squid rings or calamari). Whilst my friend and cousin optioned upon a kimchi seafood pot and a kimchi beef pot. Kimchi is a signature Korean side dish with fermented vegetables and seasoning. On the other hand, the pot itself is soup based which is accompanied with a separate bowl of rice. We also took upon trying some sushi dishes which combined various types of sushi such as: sashimi, hosomaki and nigri sushi. My favourites had to be the nigri sushi specifically the crabmeat stick or prawn. The service was great, and the atmosphere was really peaceful. Even the bathrooms were appealing. In the end, it seemed like I had eaten too much and had to takeaway my dish, but the takeaway option was really good. They provided chopsticks, as well as their own tissues in their own personalised packaging, as well as providing mints for all of us after our meal. I highly recommend this restaurant if you have a bit of money to spend. The general presentation of the restaurant as well as the cuisines itself were amazing. I highly agree with all the top rated reviews.
With the variety provided from Nottingham, the experience made me want to attend Nottingham university even more. I hope to be back soon, and hoping I will be able to receive an offer from the university so I could experience more opportunities which Nottingham can provide for me.
