Looking for an Ocean

On Thursday, a friend and I took a day trip to Portsmouth, to find Cute Things, drink Tasty Things, and find a road named after a book...

We started our adventure at Tofu Cute, which sells Japanese stationery, snacks and really cute toys. Despite going with the intention of finding presents for people, I didn't spot anything suitable--but I did end up buying another roasted tea flavour kitkat such as I ate for my chocolate goal, a bar of strawberry chocolate, and a can of melon milk!

The combination of melon and milk sounds odd to a lot of people, but it's surprisingly refreshing!

Once we were done at Tofu Cute, we put on our Nerd Hats (figuratively) and went into Southsea with the intention of tracking down the aforementioned book-related road!
But before that, we found a bunch of swans, one of whom seemed to like having its photo taken!

As it turned out, the area with the swans was right next to The Ocean At The End Of The Lane!
This road is named after Neil Gaiman's novel of the same name. Being a fan of his work, I'd been itching to find the road for myself, so jumped at the chance to do so whilst we were in the area!

The ocean really is at the end of the lane, too.

Since we were there, we walked along the seafront to get some exercise and take photos (or, to be completely honest, catch more pokemon via Pokemon Go). Chips were had, black-faced gulls were seen, and also pastel-coloured beach huts, as found at the top of this post!

Once we were done in Southsea, we headed back into Portsmouth proper, and had a mosey around Cascades Shopping Centre (which is probably lesser-known in comparison to the shiny Gunwharf Quays). Our aim was to find Bing Bing Bubble Tea, which was outside the shopping centre, inside oriental food shop Sun Hung Chang.

I'll write about the bubble tea in a separate post, but the shop itself had a lot of tasty things! A lot of it was cheaper than similar shops in Brighton, so I grabbed a shopping basket and put together a little haul of goodies. (It could have been a lot more, but I remembered the chocolate I'd bought earlier!)

After bubble tea (and a trip to McDonalds, because we may be adults but we are lazy adults) we did a little more shopping before heading homewards!

I didn't think to take any pictures of shopping, so here's some cool street art that was near the car park!

As well as counting towards goal #39, Explore 30 towns/cities/villages, this day trip also means I've completed another goal from The List:

082. Go on a day trip (over 30 mins away)

I never imagined this day trip would be to Portsmouth, but it's great to get another goal out of the way.

Portsmouth is a great city with a lot to see and do. I'd only previously been there to see the Mary Rose when I was a kid, but it would be great to visit again and explore more of what the place has to offer!