‘Going places’ travel blog: Orlando, Florida pt 1

On By konnichiwakitty-Hannah IRLIn TravelLeave a comment
Heading off of our travels! The most exciting of times

Travel is something I’m extremely passionate about, whether it’s a beach holiday, sightseeing in cities, exploring tourist attractions, travelling off the beaten track or sampling local culture and foods, travel just brings me so much joy and always has done.

In recent times we’ve been restricted on how much we can travel due to my illness and on top of that saving to become homeowners but no matter how hard I try I can’t get the idea of travel out of my mind!

In this mini series of blogs I’ll be covering historical trips I’ve been on; sharing information for trip planning, itinery ideas and ideas of how to cut costs without minimising your experience. My first blog is going to be about Orlando, Florida. Possibly (ok, definitely) one of my favourite holidays to date and the holiday where my partner ‘popped the question’ so it’ll always be such a special place for me.

Clearwater beach-pier, Florida

When to travel? It’s really based on personal preference

We’re both big on Halloween so going to the spiritual home of Halloween, the land of haunts and hayrides, where you can never be too over the top; America seemed the perfect place to go and what better time of year than haunt season. We decided that we would go from mid October until the beginning of November. Florida would be out of the hurricane season and still very warm, with average temperatures around the mud to high 20s whilst humidity wouldn’t be such an issue (as if my frizzy hair needed any help being more wild).

You can get your face airbrush painted in Universal CityWalk to add to the HHN fun!

Planning your flights and accommodation

When we decided to go to Florida we spent a lot of time weighing up how best to book the holiday. There are a heap of options as far as travel agents and all they all cater to different kinds of holiday makers. We knew we would be spending the majority of time out of our accommodation so only needed a clean, comfortable base in which to shower and sleep so looking for an apartment or villa with a heap of amenities wasn’t a priority on this trip. So this ruled out a Villa holiday or bed and breakfast, half board or full board options. We decided on a suite which had a living area and kitchenette/dining area in addition to the bedroom and bathroom. We knew we would have long days as our itinery plan was already getting very full, so it felt important to have somewhere we could prepare quick breakfasts, small meals and snacks especially at the end of a busy day. Havingthe kitchen area also meant we could save some money by grabbing a quick breakfast before leaving for the day too. We stayed at Celebration Suites in Kissimmee for the duration of our stay, Which was clean, comfortable and air conditioned. Was it the most modern or luxurious suite? No. But it had everything we needed for our base including a decent kitchen set up, a bath to rest your tired body after a busy day and a safe for your valuables. There was also a pool in the complex although we didn’t get chance to use this as we were so busy!

In terms of flight options, there were SO MANY. We decided to fly from London Heathrow as it wasn’t too much of a trek to get to and it offered the kind of flight times we personally would be best for us. Our flight had one stop/change point; London- Atlanta and onwards to Orlando from Atlanta. Whilst this did make our flights somewhat cheaper I wouldn’t ever consider booking flights this way again! Atlanta is a HUGE airport and navigating our way to the next gate in a very limited time was a nightmare. We almost missed our connecting flight and the rush really did make us both feel very stressed. The gate was closed by the time we got there and by some sort of miracle we got on the plane. In hindsight, we may of saved money but I would rather pay the extra to have a direct flight. When we went to Florida we didn’t haveour son then so although it was stressful there would have been no way we would have made the connecting flight as a family.

Where to stay in Central Florida

Our first step was to decide where exactly we wanted to stay in Florida. We decided to make Orlando our base a most of the attractions and activities we wanted to do were in that vicinity. The main hot spots for tourists to stay in Orlando (in hotel and apartment style accommodation) are Kissimmee, Celebration, Lake Buena Vista and International Drive. If you are looking to stay in a Villa expect to be a little further away from attractions and entertainment in the Davenport area. On this trip we chose to stay in the Kissimmee area, on hindsight we should have had a car, especially staying here. On the map it looks in fairly close proximity to attractions, however without a car expect to be paying more for taxis and ubers as well as a fair bit of time waiting for transport or shuttles. If you’re staying at a hotel or suites that doesn’t offer shuttles expect to travel to one that does offer this service and potentially pay for your return journey. This leads me on well into the next section…

Transport options in Florida

The first thing we wish we had arranged in hindsight was a car. It is definitely worth hiring a car for the duration of your stay as everything is so spread out in Orlando. Getting from A-B can at times be a little frustrating if you are waiting on shuttle buses, ubers, taxis etc. Whilst waiting on transport may be tedious, Central Florida traffic is horrendous and at times chaotic. The main interstate is beyond busy. So both public transport and hire cars have their flaws, but if we were to return we would most definitely hire a car (especially as we have a child now) for the ease of getting out for breakfast before a day in the parks or for picking up groceries etc. It is also worth bearing in mind that parking fees can soon add up whilst visiting the parks (it is around $20 on average for a day’s parking). Most Disney hotels offer their guests free parking in the Disney parks and most hotels in the Orlando area offer shuttle busses to the main attractions.

Most hotels and suites offer shuttle services to the parks or a hotel complex close to you will. If you are in the International Drive area it is worth using the I Ride trolley. You can buy a ride all day style pass which works out very cheap as you can ride all day on the route so it’s great for exploring the international drive area.

Visiting the Central Florida Theme Parks- good to know information

Wait times

One of the main draws to Florida for us, as well as thousands of other people, were the theme parks as well as the huge number of other attractions and activities available. It is well worth trying to plan your trip outside of school holidays to be able to visit the parks outside of peak times. Waiting in line, often in the heat can put a downer on your holiday at times, especially you have small children. In terms of wait times in the parks, we went at a time where we still had to queue, however the wait times were vastly shorter than in the peak summer months. We can’t comment on the Disney parks as we didn’t plan to visit those on this trip (I know, I know sacrilege), but the Universal parks wait times were no longer than 40 minutes for the big attractions and Busch Gardens attractions were all but walk on and the longest queue was only 5 minutes!

As Universal Studios was open on select evenings for a separately ticketed event, Halloween Horror Nights, the wait times were significantly longer, our longest time in the standard (not express) queue was over 2.5 hours for the walking dead house.

Universal Studios entrance, all ready for Halloween Horror Nights

All parks to my knowledge offer their own fast pass/express pass options but these are at an additional cost to the ticket price so the park tickets can become significantly dearer if you opt for these, however if you have young children it’s very likely to be worth the money to save any tears. Guests with additional needs and/or disabilities can also speak with the park’s guest services in order to obtain a pass which allows direct access/express queues. I haven’t got a heap of knowledge on this area but a letter written by your GP or care professional would be extremely useful to take if you wished to opt for this pass.

Park tickets

We purchased all our park tickets prior to travelling as this gave us the option to pay monthly in the run up to the trip AND not have to pay gate prices which were much dearer. We used a couple of different sites for these tickets Attractions tickets direct and Florida tix. Both were great prices, offered multipark tickets and we received paper tickets well before our travel date. I’d recommend checking both sites as the prices can be a little different between the two.

We opted for the SeaWorld parks tickets which included SeaWorld, Aquatica, Busch Gardens and Discovery Cove. We also opted for the Universal Parks bundle which included Universal Studios, Universal islands of adventure and wet and wild (this park has now been replaced with volcano bay water park).

The beautiful Discovery Cove

We also purchased Gatorland, Kennedy Space Centre, Halloween Horror nights and a 2 day one night Miami and the Everglades trip too via Floridatix.

Get scarily close to nature in the Everglades
Meet new friends at the discovery centre in the Everglades

It was good to know that all these activities were paid for in advance and that the spending money we took would be used for additional attractions, food and drink and most importantly souvenirs!

The park ticket prices fluctuate yearly so what we paid in 2014 will be different from the park prices today.

That’s it for this blog- in the going places blog: Florida pt 2 I’ll be looking more in depth at the attractions Florida has to offer and how to make the most of your trip regardless of how long you have.

Remember- life’s short, stay cute

可愛いままでいて

The big switch: making the transition to a Korean and Japanese skin routine

On By konnichiwakitty-Hannah IRLIn BeautyLeave a comment

Let me start by saying that historically I’ve never had terrible issues with my skin. I never experienced a huge amount of acne in my teens, I never really had issues with my skin at all, but I also never really had much of a skincare regime either. I wasn’t shy of using a baby wipe to take off make up, I’d slept in make up on more than a few occasions, I never even thought of the importance of daily SPF; I mean if I wasn’t sunbathing or out in direct sunlight I was ok, wasn’t I?

Well after having my baby boy in May 2016 my ‘no problemo’ skin disappeared along with the pregnancy glow. What I was left with was horribly sensitive, hyper reactive, dull, dry and spotty skin. My skin was honestly a mess, make up seemed to exaggerate the dryness in little clumps. The dullness looked like I hadn’t slept in forever, despite having a new born baby who was a great sleeper. I needed to take care of my skin but just felt at a loss of how.

I began using products specially formulated for hyper sensitive skin and continued to try different brands to no avail for the next 2 years! From Superdrug’s own affordable sensitive range to the more expensive LaRoche Posay and Avene in the hope that spending a little more the product might have a better formula for my difficult skin. Nothing worked. I was fairly sure this was my skin now and I was stuck with it.

I began to see vloggers/bloggers and magazine articles mentioning Korean beauty products and the hype surrounding them, I dismissed these claims as just that, hype. But as always, curiosity got the better of me and I found myself reading into Korean skin care brands as well as Japanese ones. I couldn’t argue with the before and after pictures I saw. The difference in these people’s skin was the definitive proof that these products worked (or the individuals writing about them were being compensated well for their reviews; What can I say I’m not easily sucked in by marketing ploys and am especially dubious about ‘miracle’ products). I couldn’t find anything less than glowing reviews, no matter how hard I tried! I decided at this point I had nothing to lose and threw myself into finding the product for me, but which brand or product was going to be the most effective ? Would I have to wait forever for overseas shipping? Would it be too expensive to maintain this kind of routine?

I soon found the brand I wanted to try after reading nothing but glowing reviews on it- Pyunkang Yul; a range of products developed by the renowned Pyunkang Oriental Medicine Clinic in Korea.

I found a UK stockist of Korean beauty brands called Beauty and Seoul and I couldn’t have been happier with their incredible service. Within 2 days of having placed my order I received the two ‘grail’ products as well as a number of free sample products and an adorable compliments slip, it really felt like a personal touch from someone who really cared about customer happiness and who truly believed in the products they were stocking. I’m 100% a returning customer now based on my experience shopping with this company and have signposted family and friends to them too as I believe they will have the products needed to help them achieve their skincare goals too!

I finally narrowed my choices down to the Essence toner (100ml 9.50GBP) and the Moisture ampuole (200ml 22.00GBP) in conjunction with a sensitive cleansing soap bar from Simple (not K or J beauty but something I already had).

Pyunkang Yul Essence toner and Moisture ampuole

I committed to the following routine initially;

AM

  1. Cleanse face with simple soap using the Magnitone Barefaced2 cleansing and toning brush (currently £30 off via the link)!
  2. Apply essence toner using patting and pressing techniques to get the product fully absorbed
  3. Apply the moisture ampuole over the essence toner in the same fashion as the essence toner
  4. I would use two sheet masks a week in conjunction with this routine on a Sunday and a Wednesday (Malie Systems sheet mask bundle from Amazon).
Magnitone Barefaced2

The difference I felt was almost immediate; my itchy,dry and ANGRY looking skin felt less tight, looked less red and blotchy and spots seemed to settle within days. Within a couple of weeks I didn’t recognise my skin. I felt comfortable going make up free (which very likely helped my skin too) and when I chose to wear make up there was no clumping or drying out on top of my skin. Instead my skin felt prepped to have make up applied.

I maintained this routine over a month or so before I decided to add an additional step/product. I had read amazing reviews about the Hada Labo premium lotion and ordered this from Amazon to use post cleansing and before using the essence toner and moisture ampuole. This product seemed to amplify the effectiveness of the Pyunkang Yul products by allowing them to absorb even more, my skin felt bouncy and looked glowing. It was like having a pregnancy glow back again but even better!

Hada Labo Premium Lotion

This routine was effective to say the least but I felt I wanted to switch more towards a 10 step skincare regime. I would double cleanse by first using a micellar water I already had prior to using the simple cleansing bar and barefaced2 brush. This was often just at night but occasionally in the mornings too just depending on how my skin felt. I will be swapping micellar water for Korean beauty water once I have used up my current bottle and decided on the right product for me.

Here is my current full skin care regime;

AM and PM

  1. Cleanse face with simple soap using the Barefaced2 facial brush (double cleanse if required)
  2. Apply essence toner using patting and pressing techniques to get the product fully absorbed
  3. Apply the moisture ampuole over the essence toner in the same fashion as the essence toner
  4. Two sheet masks a week in conjunction with this routine on a Sunday and a Wednesday (Malie Systems sheet mask bundle from Amazon).
  5. Apply Strivectin SD to forehead, ‘crows feet’ and ‘laugh lines’ areas as a preventative measure (although currently researching Kbeauty and Japanese alternatives- if you have any suggestions I’d be pleased to hear them)!

So that’s it, my full skin routine, for now any way. It’s a more condensed version of the Korean 10 step routine due to some double action type products I use. I cannot stress enough how adopting this routine has changed my skin, I was overwhelmed at the difference it has made and truly believe that these products are miracle workers, I’m looking forward to the changes another two months of use brings.

Bare skin selfie. No make up, no worries. I’m also terrible at selfies 🤷🏼‍♀️ I’ll post an updated skin blog to show further changes to my skin on the path to glass skin

What’s your Korean and Japanese beauty recommendations? What products can you not live without? Let me know in the comments.

Stay cute 可愛いままでいて

Hannah (^_^)

Side quests you may have missed- Fallout 4 ‘Diamond City pt 1’

On By konnichiwakitty-Hannah IRLIn Fallout 4, Gaming, UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s the game that just begs to be played and replayed; I should know, I’m on at least my 6th play through. My current run feels like a completely new game (despite being released in 2015), but each time I’ve discovered new areas, new NPCs to interact with and new quests. This game is the gift that keeps on giving.

View from vault 111, in game footage KonichiwaKitty5 2019

This time (post main story-line completion) I’ve made a point of THOROUGHLY exploring the Commonwealth to seek out all there is to be seen and done; It’s a time consuming task but i’m willing to take it on. Join me for part one of ‘Side quests you may have missed- Fallout 4’.

Entrance to Diamond City market Konichiwakitty5 gameplay 2019

Part one is going to focus solely on ‘The great green jewel’, Diamond City. Diamond city is a warren of shacks and outbuildings full of residents and more than a few NPCs offering jobs in return for fairly generous payments of caps. I’ve spent some time wandering the streets of Diamond City in order to find some side quests you may have overlooked. Now many of these tasks are often fetch and return style quests so nothing mind blowing BUT if you’re looking to really explore the depths of what the game has to offer there’s a certain satisfaction in finding and completing these quests you may have otherwise passed by. I’ll be looking more in depth at these quests and where you can go to initiate these quests without giving away too much information

Diamond City, world map view Konichiwakitty5 2019

Confidence Man- Dugout Inn

When you enter the Dugout Inn you’ll overhear a conversation between the proprietor Vadim and his brother. They’ll set you the task of helping Travis (from Diamond City radio) to be more confident. Not the usual fetch and return set up you often find as a side quest but a chance to have a bar fight, try a little matchmaking AND take on a heap of unscrupulous raiders too; all in aid of increasing Travis’ confidence. This quest offers XP (300) and up to 300 caps if speech checks are met.

The Gilded Grasshopper

By picking up the case file for Nick Valentine’s former partner, Marty Bullfinch in the detective agency office you will trigger the start of the ‘Gilded Grasshopper’ quest. The quest will lead you to Faneuil Hall in search of Marty, meeting super mutants along the way and ultimately in search of hidden treasure. There’s some notable loot to be found in this quest so it’s well worth completing.

Nuka Cola for Sheffield

Not a quest as such but an easily bypassed encounter; Sheffield appears to be a homeless man staying within the walls of Diamond City, He asks you in passing for a Nuka cola. If you complete the good deed there’s XP to collect as well as being in favour with your companions (although it’s worth being aware that some companions will dislike you showing compassion to Sheffield). Upon returning to Diamond City later you will be able to recruit Sheffield for one of your settlements.

Botany class

Solomon is the oddball chems dealer residing in Diamond City. He runs the chems store and if you strike up a conversation with him you’ll be offered the opportunity to run am errand for him to fetch some mutated ferns. A fairly simple fetch and return quest but with a few ghouls thrown in for good measure. Not the biggest reward but a quick task to bump up your XP a little.

Solomon the chems dealer Konichiwakitty5 gameplay 2019

Pool cleaning

By seeking out the water purification system in Diamond City you’ll meet Sheng Kowalski, a young boy who’s business is purifying water for the masses of Diamond City. Except maybe after this task you’ll want to rethink accepting Sheng’s water?? Not a huge task by any means, and definitely very little in the way of a reward. It’s more of a hidden encounter, but an amusing way to pass a couple of minutes.

Nuka cola Quantum power armour. Konichiwakitty5 gameplay 2019

Well that’s it for now, pt 2 of quests you might have missed- Diamond City coming soon. Have you found other quests hidden away in the Commonwealth? Which character encounter do you think is worthy of a mention? Let me know.

Until next time

Hannah

Life’s short- Stay cute 可愛いままでいて

Who is Konnichiwa Kitty?

On By konnichiwakitty-Hannah IRLIn introLeave a comment

Where to begin? I’m Hannah and this is the beginnings of a blog I’ve spent a long time thinking about and an even longer time putting off.

Konnichiwa Kitty is my first ‘full’ blog; although I have been micro-blogging through images using Instagram for a number of years but often felt restricted in the amount of content that I could share to followers. The logical thing to do was either begin writing a blog or start a YouTube channel. Blogging won. Whilst it’s not completely off the cards to begin vlogging I feel more comfortable at present using a blog platform to share my content, but never say never!

Why Konnichiwa Kitty? It’s a play on my favourite character, the fashion icon and shining beacon of cuteness and all things adorable, Hello Kitty.

A little about me as hopefully we’ll get to know each other more in time. I’m 32, from the UK, more specifically the South West. I am a mother of one wild, bundle of fun boy (3) and a wife to be. What floats my boat? Well I’m a a lover of all things kawaii and adorable, I am studying and learning the Japanese language via the Duolingo app and various other online resources (because of my love of Japanese culture, food and fashion), I’m a self proclaimed Disney aficionado, avid traveller, gaming obsessive and beauty fiend (especially Korean and Japanese skin care and cosmetics). I love crafting and art, so usually have a number of little projects on at any one time. I’ve very recently set up an online kawaii store selling custom kawaii goods and pre made items called Cutie Patooties but I’m sure I’ll get into that more later but in the meantime come say hi and have a browse over at www.cutiepatootiesuk.etsy.com or visit the Facebook page by searching ‘Cutie Patooties’ or ‘Cutie Patooties Store’ on Instagram. It’s definitely a work in progress and my other baby.

In the December of 2016 I was diagnosed with Cauda Equina Syndrome and life has changed significantly since then ( and continues to change to this day )! More recently I’ve been diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and a series of other issues too. It’s become a part of who I am but I’m making a point not to let this be a defining feature of ‘me’. Learning to adapt has been and continues to be difficult but I’m a tough cookie, new challenges are there to conquer.

I’ll be using my blog to share beauty finds,hauls, gaming reviews and fun, lifestyle posts, art and crafts projects, travel profiles/trip posts and Cutie Patooties updates. Though this isn’t exhaustive it’s my initial brain storm of what my Konnichiwa Kitty blog will become or at least start out as.

I’m excited to start this journey and for you to share it with me- Stay cute 可愛いままでいて

Hannah (^_^)