That Blue Door

So I went to the famous area called Notting Hill - yes, the one where Hugh Grant falls in love with Julia Roberts behind that blue door and in the bookshop. Except I never saw the blue door, which is apparently black now, or the bookshop, which is apparently no longer a bookshop? I will have to go back and see if I can find the locations.

But I had other things to entertain me like the Portobello Markets! It stretches on for miles and miles with everything from antiques to food to fashion. This was definitely my kind of market (no emo or goth in sight!) :) It's like Carribean Gardens back home... only much bigger!

It was a beautiful day to go to the markets! The sun was shining!

For lunch, I tried Portobello's famous and very popular paella. They have these huge pans (as you can see above) where they cook 2 different types of paella - chicken and seafood. Some people just stand there for the entertainment as its fascinating to see it cooked in such large quantity! But the saying 'quality not quantity' doesn't apply here... they give you the best of both!

My yummy chicken paella!

No, they don't give you the whole pan (lol) but they do give you quite a lot for 5 pounds!

For dessert I had a banana and nutella crepe!

After I had spent 3 and a half hours at the market, Jake told me to have a stroll through Kensington Gardens which was a few minutes walk away. Parks and gardens over here are absolutely beautiful! I can't wait till summer here, I'm going to visit as many parks/gardens as I can!

I even met the queen there! :P

Second Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavour - yummy if you like banana flavoured ice cream :)

To Market, To Market

Yesterday I visited the famous Camden Market... well I thought it was only one market...

but then I found another...

(this market is built in the former Midland Railway stables and horse hospital. If you're not interested in the stalls, its still a great place to learn about the history and admire how they've kept all the old stables and structure of the underground arches used by the railways. They have magnificent statues and sculptures of horses and stable workers, reminding us of the former uses.)

and another!

There was another small fruit and veges market that I didn't take a photo of.

I was slightly disappointed with these markets as even though they had some good stalls and shops, they were all pretty much the same. Selling the same clothes (and trust me, there were a lot of clothes stalls), same jewellery, same souveniers, same chinese take away food, same handbags... etc. But having said that, there were some outrageous yet unique (in a weird way) stalls that I didn't expect to see there like: different coloured and sized bongs (?), tatoos and piercings, punk clothes shop with disco lights and music blasting out of their speakers, goth and emo clothing that looked like it was from Buffy the Vampire or the Matrix with accessories to match, vintage styled home furniture and clothing and random stalls like a '15 pound per hour piano lesson' stall. Some areas of the market smelt of incense burning which came from the tribal, hippy stalls selling tie n dye clothes, plaited headbands, hemp necklaces and more.

I definitely prefer Spitafield Market where nearly every stall is unique but definitely not weird. Camden markets is better if you prefer the gothic, emo, punk, hippy, alternative culture :) which unfortunately is not my cup of tea. But Camden Markets, if anything, is definitely considered a tourist attraction so its worth going there at least once... even if only to be entertainment by some of the bizarre yet interesting things you may find there! Who knows, you might just discover your inner goth or hippy self and get a piercing or two! :P

Ben and Jelly... I mean Jerry

So I've been feeling a little... well maybe more than a little... homesick lately. It's been a month and a half since I've moved to London and I'm definitely missing the people back home. Little things I see, eat or hear around London remind me of specific people, for example:

Star Wars books - my younger brother
Creative designs - my older brother and Ernie
Thai restaurants - Kelbie
Ballet accessories - Jojo
Malaysian food - my parents
Alisha Keys songs - Marlisa
Statues and clothes with rabbits - Sara
H&M stores - Mel

And the list goes on. So to add to my list, I found this the other day...

... and it reminded me of Jel :)

England's Past

So I finally made it to the Tower of London on Saturday. There was so much to see and do there that I spent nearly a whole day walking around. Here are some of the things I saw:

Reenactments

Around the Tower of London, people dressed up as significant characters from England's history. These children were being dubbed as knights by a king. The little girl in the red jacket got scared and ran to her mum when he was about to dub her with the sword! hehe

This reenactment was about Lady Catherine Grey and Edward Seymour.

The Bloody Tower
Was originally known as the Garden Tower as it was a way through to the gardens but after many murderous events occuring there, its name was changed.

The White Tower

It was said that in this tower, two princes, who were declared illegitimate and sent to the bloody tower, disappeared after the summer in 1483. Nobody knows the truth about their death but speculations show that they were either murdered or just died in the tower. Skeletons of bodies were found during renovations of the White Tower but were made up of human and animal bones.

The Waterloo Barracks

The most guarded part of the Tower of London for it contains the Crown Jewels. I've seen photos and pictures of these magnificent gems but nothing compares to standing only a few centimeters in front of them. It is simply breathtaking! The intricate details and significance of each piece is unbelievable! Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos but even if I could, it wouldn't justify what they looks like in real life.

The Ravens

People believe that these ravens play an important role in the Tower of London. If ever the ravens should leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall. It has been such a strong belief that they have made it into a law that at least 6 ravens must be kept on the premises at all times! They currently keep 8 ravens, just in case! :)

My Yeoman tour guide
These real Yeoman Warders (also known as Beefeaters) live in the Tower of London.

I highly recommend you go to the Tower of London if you plan to a trip to the UK!

An Unexpected Taste of Asia

I've started a routine here. Weekdays are mainly made up of working, looking for accomodation and the odd one or two grocery stops. On the weekends, I usually find at least two things to explore in London.

This morning I hadn't planned anything for the weekend and asked for suggestions via facebook. I had many great suggestions and hope to do them all eventually but one of my colleagues suggested to go to the Tower of London. I researched it and discovered that they have so many things for you to see and do all in the one place! I was very excited by this and chose this as my one of two weekend explorations.

So with the intention of going to the Tower of London, I had to change from the Central Line to the District Line in order to get to my destination. Little did I know that there would engineering works and therefore the line would be cancelled. They had buses in place but I didn't want to take a bus in case it dropped me off somewhere I didn't know. I like to plan ahead :) So I decided to go shopping in Oxford Street instead. Even though I didn't really need to buy anything, at least I knew the tube line to get there was working.

It was past lunchtime and my tummy was telling me I needed to eat. While walking up Oxford Street, I turned down an alley way that had little cafes and shops. So I walked down the street, didn't see a cafe that I liked so turned and walked down another street. I continued to walk down different streets for about 40mins (it didnt feel that long) looking at the different shops and for a good cafe until I saw red laterns hanging, lots of asian people and chinese writing on the shops. Yep, I had found myself in China Town!

I was so excited when I stumbled across Rasa Sayang, a malaysian and singaporean restaurant. It had all the traditional hawker foods like char kuay teow, beef rendang with roti, haianese chicken rice etc. I felt like I was in Malaysia! I ordered nasi lemak, as I had a craving for rice, and teh tarik. I made friends with the waitress who I thought had an Australian accent but as she spoke to me more, I realised she was English. She was born in Ipoh but moved to London when she was very young.



Not only was China Town great for decent asian food but they also had my some of my favourite asian desserts and sweets!

Mine and dad's favourite, ondeh ondeh - the green balls covered in coconut.

Dragon's beard candy - the bunch of thin white hair-like strands with peanut sugar in the middle

Pandan cake - the big fluffy green cake

So although I didn't make it to the Tower of London, that will definitely be on my itinerary for next weekend! :) For tomorrow, I will be putting on my dancing shoes (literally) to explore how Londoners do the salsa! I've been wanting to take up dancing again for so long and found a place just off Oxford Street, called Danceworks. Hopefully I'll make some new friends there! :)

A Walk in the Park

Lately I've felt like I've been eating and sleeping quite a lot here so to make myself feel a little better, I went for a run, well more like a jog and walk, around Victoria Park.

It was a huge park so I only jogged for 10mins and power walked for the next 20 minutes. It wasn't the best day to go for a jog as you can see from the gloomy wet looking photos. It was also freezing cold (I wore my ski jacket which kept me super warm) but Audrey and I had been stuck in the house all day and needed some fresh air.

Happy Belated Birthday Bros!

So on the 27th and 28th of January, my brothers turned another year older. It was sad not being at home to celebrate their birthdays. I enjoy our family birthday dinners as we get to spend time as a whole family (usually there's one or two of us out and about). And especially now, spending time with the whole family is becoming very rare as we all seem to have caught the travelling bug!

So anyways, because I couldn't be there for my brothers' birthdays, I decided to make up for it by going on the hunt for some meaningful cards and presents. I spent 2 days looking for unusual and unique cards that my brothers would appreciate and hopefully my efforts paid off. I'm not even sure if my brothers have received their cards yet. I sent them last week.

I wasn't in any rush to find them a present as I knew I wouldn't be able to send it back to Melbourne knowing how expensive it would be (not that my brothers aren't worth it). But my mum is coming in April so I'll give it to her to take home.

So first present was found when I went to Spitafield Market the other day. I found something that not only my older brother would like... or at least appreciate the process in which is was made... but it also matched his card! Quite ironic! I won't reveal what the present is here as I want my brother to see it first. But I did take a photo of its packaging :)

After the markets I went to a store called TK-Maxx. It's a factory outlet for all the clothing brands. Audrey loves this place as the prices are between 60-80% off! I'm not a brand person myself but they have some pretty cool stuff for very cheap (compared to RRP). I was browsing for a little while until a black hoodie caught my eye in the menswear. And again, this present matched the card I got for my younger brother! This one I will show you what it is as he won't be able to wear until mum takes it home for him!

It's a Star Wars Storm Trooper hoodie from Marc Ecko!

Most of you would think 'Huh?! What's so good about that?' but if you knew how much my brother is into Star Wars, you'd understand! :)

Happy Belated Birthday Ant and Dave!