Great Yorkshire Show and York Birds of Prey Centre

This week has been pretty good. The sun's shining and I don 't work very much so I could enjoy it, for once :D. Normally it's nice when I'm at work. I've been intentionally bad and failed to put suncream on resulting in burns. However, it's going brown and I have a bit of a tan. First time in about two years. :)

I've been quite busy as I went to the Great Yorkshire Show on Wednesday which was pretty good. I stroked sheep, cows and goats! It was fun and I bought quite a bit of stuff from there, which is bad seeing as I'm trying to get rid of stuff from my room. Oh well! :p

Rasta sheep!

I've also had Mike here for a few days. We went to have a wander around York on Thursday and we were going to go to another restaurant, that I had seen had good reviews for, but when they got there there were no tables. :( Must be good to be fully booked from about 5. We'll go next time. Instead we came home and had takeaway, a lot of takeaway ha!

Then Friday I'd found a place in York for us to go to. I'd read that it had good reviews and to be honest it didn't disappoint. It's called the York Birds of Prey Centre and was £6.50 each to get in, a similar place in Sheffield that we were going to go to was £12 each! It was only small but had about 80 birds and so many members of staff who knew quite a lot about the birds. You could also ask to hold any of the birds there.

I loved it as I got to hold a few birds and I got involved in the shows as well. They were very informative in the shows and had a range of knowledge about the history of falconry, not just the birds. I loved one of the owls that they had called Bounty which flew from bench to bench and loved to be stroked. It was amazing how close you could get to the birds.

I'd highly recommend going there and I bet it will become a highly recognised place before long, which will probably mean that the price will go up but to be honest, it's worth it. They even let you feed and play with the baby birds that they had. They hand rear them from chicks so that they are used to human contact from an early age. We got to play with baby Barn owls and a Sparrowhawk chick. Mike had an affinity for the sparrowhawk. They were cute in an ugly way and as it was quite warm they kept walking under my legs to get to some shade. They were only a few weeks old but you could tell what they were going to be.

Another plus to the place is that even though it's very new (Open about 7 weeks) they have different experiences that you can do where you can really get to know the birds and they are quite affordable. I think if I hadn't have already been and held some of the birds I would have enjoyed the half day experience you can have. It's only £39.99 and looked like it would be very good.

Tripadvisor: York Birds of Prey Centre
Website: York Birds of Prey Centre

xx

Hong Kong Wok: Chinese

Apparently, I like to eat as it wasn't that long ago that I posted the review on Ottto's: Moroccan. This time, Mike and I went to Hong Kong Wok which is a Chinese down London road near Mike's house. I like restaurants that are easy to get to plus it was a warm night which is always a nice addition :D But I do enjoy going a bit further out so next time Mike is coming to mine and I'm going to find a nice place to go in York. I don't think it's as diverse as Sheffield is so it will probably be a traditional place.

Back to Hong Kong Wok, it's a quaint place with a red and black decor and a huge menu. 20 page menu plus a set menu list! I liked the fact it wasn't filled with Chinese lanterns and dragons, it had canvases of skylines and Chinese food, I thought it looked quite modern.
We had walked past earlier in the day and had spotted a set menu that was £13 per person which sounded nice so we only had a quick glance through the main menu. Good job as it would have taken us ages to find dishes we liked it had that many items.
They gave us chopsticks and as it's been awhile since I've used them. It took me a minute to get used to them again. Mike thought he was king as he got it straight away even though I taught him how to use them! No respect :p smug git when it took me a bit longer.
Also I always think it's a good sign when there are Chinese people in Chinese restaurants. If they think it's good then it's obviously good. It might not be but I go on that :p

We went for a set menu that included:
Crispy shredded duck and pancakes for the starter. It was lovely and there was more than enough duck for the amount of pancakes we got. It also came with hoisin sauce which goes well with duck.
Crispy Shredded Beef with Chilli. My favourite dish of them all. I loved the sauce on them.
King Prawn with Szechuan Sauce. Bit hot for my liking but Mike took all the chillies off my bits so it wasn't too bad :D
Chicken with Sugar Snap Peas. I liked the sugar snap peas but the sauce it came in wasn't to my taste and reminded me off bogies. Ha! I left most of this dish to Mike.
Egg Fried Rice / Soft Noodles.
Vanilla Ice Cream. We did ask for the Chinese dessert but they had sold out, maybe next time.

Here's their website: Hong Kong Wok website
Here's the trip Advisor page: Tripadvisor- Hong Kong Wok

I love Chinese food but most of the time I get it from a take away. It's nice to actually go to a Chinese restaurant. The staff were very accommodating and apologetic when they forgot our drinks and when one server got distracted talking to me and poured most of the sauce on the table when he was cleaning up. It almost got Mike but missed, pfft, oh well :p

As a quick note, bouldering didn't go too badly :D I have acrylic nails so it was sometimes difficult to grip properly and I found it difficult to hold on and think about the next place to put my feet and hands. I'd go again but I don't think I'd make it a hobby, but you never know the more I go the more I might start to really enjoy it. I need to get a bit stronger. xx