Saturday 27 March 2010
Spent the morning covering the touristy bits of London with Yong, walking from Embankment by the River Thames to Westminister and the parliament houses along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, Leiceister Square, Covent Garden then tubed to Piccadily Circus and walked down Regent Street to Oxford Street, taking a bit of a wrong turn (my fault, and partly Ripley's Believe It or Not museum's fault) and found ourselves almost at SoHo cos shops with chinese names started to appear. Ended off with a brief visit of London's Little Venice area just behind our hotel in Paddington.
London Eye
Big Ben at the Palace of Westminister
Got distracted by this lamp.
Horse Guards Parade in the Whitehall political hub of London, just a few minutes walk from 10 Downing Street where a similar sized crowd had also gathered.
National Portrait Gallery, off Trafalgar Square where two lions sat at the base of Nelson's Column. You can see St Martin's in the Field church in the background.
i forgot where this was.
Leicester Square
Covent Garden
Then it was bye-bye Yong who was leaving the next day and i hooked up with HL after a late lunch. Although i had with me a google map of how to walk to HL's place from Westbourne Park station which was just 2 stops away from where i was staying the night before at Paddington, HL came to get me and we took a bus to her place cos Hammersmith line, amongst several other lines was closed for maintenance this weekend.
Portobello Road Market
Coffee at a really nice cosy cafe near HL's place followed by an afternoon walk through Nottinghill and Portobello Road (one of my favourites) before heading to Hyde Park where we strolled till sunset, well, if there still was sunset in this cold overcast sort of weather. I'm sure sunset in the park in summer would be beautiful.
Hyde Park
"shall we walk along the serpentine?"
"huh, you want to go to the serpentine? its already closed by now."
"huh? the serpentine can be closed? isn't it like a body of water through Hyde Park?"
"oh you mean that's called the serpentine? i was thinking of the serpentine gallery."
"hahahaha"
"hahahaha"
This reminds me of the poster for Tim Burton's Big Fish.
HL says that in summer, she'd walk through the park after work and it'll still be bright when she heads home after. How nice is that?
awww...
Um, sunset in Hyde Park?
Left Hyde Park at dusk when it got really cold and walked through the Royal Albert Hall to check out if there were any concerts and along the way i gawked at the aptly sited Royal School of Music campus, which looked like one of the wizard schools out of Harry Potter.
Royal Albert Hall
National History Museum. Cos we left Hyde Park via South Kensington we also passed the Science Museum on the way.
The Hummingbird Bakery. Heard they had real good cupcakes. Too bad it was closed and we never quite came across another one of these.
Stopped for beer at a typically English pub and i believe live on tv was a Man United vs Bolton soccer match. Going to pubs in London is like walking into MacDonalds cos sharing our table were two male adults and a boy no older than 12years old. It's as much a drinking place as a hangout place for the family i soon realised.
Dinner at around 8.30pm on a saturday was difficult as most of the restaurants we walked into had a minimum wait time of 45min to 1 hour and we were super hungry by then. Eventually we went back to Bumpkin's, the second restaurant we enquired at and luckily for us, they magically had a table ready.
Sunday 28 March 2010
View from HL's bedside when i woke up. Window sill lovingly cluttered with presents from friends and housemates who have since left London.
One of the many reasons why i love Europe.
St Paul's Cathedral from the road side which i'd never seen before. It was Palm Sunday that morning i believe. I told myself i shall attend Good Friday service here while stopping for coffee and sandwich at a Pret-a-Manger outlet next to St Pauls.
An imposing St Paul's standing out in the skyline looking back from crossing the Millenium Bridge to Tate Modern.
Kinda like the split ramp effect down the middle.
Tate Modern
Walked into a pitch black box of darkness installation by Miroslaw Balka at Tate Modern but chickened out halfway when realised there was no one else but us left in the box. Visited the Material Gestures gallery on Level 3 while HL went to the bookshop and found myself nodding in appreciation of how depth could be created in a huge painting of otherwise nothing but textured cobalt blue, by two dashes of random red, right at the very bottom of the painting and a lightning bolt splash of two-toned yellow again seemingly randomly, at the top right hand corner. Art. Does wonders.
French food for lunch at Villandry, in Holborn with HL's friends who've been in London for 10 over years, Ling, a lawyer and Asako, a japanese who was working for an antique collector dealing in japanese antiques. Joining us later was Jimmy who needed advice on what to buy for a friend's 4 yo kid when he visits them in Hong Kong the week after.
Walked over to Covent Garden and did a bit of shopping and then hopped into a tube headed for the east side of London, getting off at Liverpool Street Station. Checked out Spittafield's Market where most stalls were starting to close up for the day but still i managed to pick up a couple of artwork and noticed that some of the fashion on sale there looked suspiciously like they were from Chatuchak Market in Bangkok.
Cupcake and tart paintings were from Portobello Road Market, pig from Edinburgh and rose hairslide and ring from Dorothy Perkins.
Next to Spittafield's was Brick Lane Market which sold vintage stuff (i like!) and had lots of interesting people. It seemed 'messier' and edgier than the rest of London, which i tried unsuccessfully to capture in the next series of pictures.
The Gherkin in the background, otherwise known as 30, St Mary Axe, Foster's skyscraper in London's financial district.
Beer and pee-stop at another pub nearby to rest my tired feet before heading home early for dinner cos my flight to Glasgow was at 8.30am the next morning.
Check out Glasgow & Edinburgh here.
Thursday 1 April 2010
Lovingly prepared chinese dinner by HL the night i came back from my 3 day trip to Glasgow and Edinburgh. Thanks gal!
Chatted with Liping over msn in the morning for recommendations on where to go in London after HL left for work and decided on my itinerary for today which shall be the Barbican, Borough Market and the Design Museum before heading to Oxford Street for some shopping and meeting up with HL after work to watch a musical.
School kids playing soccer in the school compound next to HL's place on my way out.
First up on my itinerary for today was the Barbican cos it was on the Hammersmith line, no need to change trains, although i'd have liked to go to the Borough Market first cos um it seemed more apt to visit the market in the morning?
Map of the Barbican Estate. From what little i knew of it, it was a residential estate built in response to housing after the war and included a public library and spaces for the arts.
The Barbican Arts Centre
The interior of the Barbican Arts Centre, which for some reason gave me a familiar feeling of nostalgia of being in an office building in the seventies/ eighties era, something along the lines of the ntuc conference hall in singapore.
Paid 1o pounds for the Ron Arad exhibition where i spent over an hour going through his works which i really enjoyed and watched the videos for each section which allowed me to appreciate his works better. Especially liked the Fiddler Chair which is in the first picture below (if i remember correctly).
View of the private residential estate of the Barbican from the Lakeside Terrace. Public access not allowed.
Decided to walk to Moorgate Station instead of heading back to Barbican Station where i came from so that i don't have to change trains to get to London Bridge Station. I'm becoming an expert at navigating London's tube system.
Okay so my plan was to do brunch at the Borough Market, after all it was a food market and i was looking forward to feasting on bits from each stall but alas i overspent time at the Barbican and was extremely hungry by the time i left so while searching for Moorgate Station i skipped into yet another Pret outlet to grab a sandwich, and did what the Londoners typically do for lunch on weekdays. Not long after i settled on my stool to have my sandwich and soup, the lunch hour crowd streamed in and the place was packed, with many in business suits walking out holding take-away sandwiches in a white pret paper bag. It was all quite cute from where i was seated.
Alas, it was for me to regret that wholesome lunch at Pret, not because it wasn't yummy (it was in fact delicious) but cos i was missing out on all the yummy varieties of pies and fish soup (?!) and what have yous at Borough Market i wanted to cry. I contemplated having that curry-puff shaped cheese foldover but it came in threes and i didn't even have enuf stomach space for one. One bite maybe. Big regret.
After the savoury feast on all senses except taste (#%$!&*) i left for Oxford Street, starting at Bond Street where it rained as i made my way to Selfridges & Co., on recommendation by Liping earlier over msn, as well as to the basement of Topshop where she said was big on vintage so i went. And bought myself a pretty blouse! With all the layers i had on in this cold weather, shopping wasn't very fun and after only once, i pretty soon gave up at the fitting rooms.
Cleverly decided to take the tube to Covent Garden then slowly shop my way to Leicester Square station where i was supposed to meet HL that evening for our musical but alas it was raining even more at Covent Garden and i basically walked in the rain all through to Leicester Square cos the Covent Garden Station was packed with people taking shelter from the rain and cos i'd hung around Marks and Spencer enuf without any intention of buying anything while waiting out the rain.
Of course the rain stopped when i got to Leicester Square and i was half an hour early so sat on the dryest of all the wet benches next to Charlie Chaplin and pretended to enjoy the chilly weather.
um thats Charlie Chaplin right? i didn't bother to check.
6.45pm and it was time to meet HL outside the Wyndham's Theatre but we had to find dinner before showtime at 8pm. Had beer battered fish and chips (me) and bangers and mash with 2 glasses of beer (she) at a nearby pub.
Avenue Q turned out to be hilarious although i was a bit apprehensive at first thinking it might not be my type of humour, when deciding between Wicked or Avenue Q. The actors with muppets were brilliant, not to mention, good looking too - the actors i mean, not the muppets. Haagen-daz strawberries and cream ice-cream during intermission made it all the more fun. "It's a fine fine line between love and a waste of time" kinda stirred my heart a bit cos it echoed what i felt when he broke up with me after 8 years of being in love.
Friday 2 April 2010
Breakfast at this nice sidewalk cafe called Kitchen & Pantry where i had my quiche loraine and orange juice and read the papers while a baby boy was making friends with a 3 yo on the other side of his couch.
Then it was down Portobello Road again before taking the tube to Oxford Circus for our lunch reservation at Sketch, which had the coolest interiors and uber-cool website - you've gotta check it out and click on all the clickable items.
I think we had to change at Baker Street Station hence this picture in the mix, which i decided to take cos Baker Street Station was one of the oldest tube stations in London.
A courtyard in the shopping area at Carnaby, off Regent Street, on our way to Conduit Street which was one of the perpendicular streets to Regent Street, where Sketch was located.
Our table reservation at The Lecture Room wasn't ready so we waited at The Parlour which was originally where we wanted to go but it was only for walk-ins and served breakfast and afternoon tea. It feels like being on the set of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and i liked it very much. It's how i imagine part of my dream house to look like, esp the part on having several unique chairs that all don't match but somehow go together. Oh and also the part on having a dresser with too many drawers and compartments.
Then this tall guy in a business suit came and ushered us up the stairs, removing our coats along the way and waved them off to this chambermaid standing nearby. He was giving us some history on this place as we walked up to the Lecture Room in a rather animated way, speaking rather fast like we were friends visiting his house. I caught something about Christian Dior having stayed in this house once. As we arrived he then ushered us into the Lecture Room and asked if we had cameras and to pass them to his assistant so that he could photograph us as he knew nothing of technology, adding that he writes letters rather than email. Then authoratatively motioned us to stand together in the middle for a picture, not quite how i would have photographed the place though. But it was all very amusing and delightful.
While i liked The Parlour very much, The Lecture Room at first glance felt like a chinese banquet... until the fine dining started and dishes were served in oh-too-many plates and bowls and cutlery. Even the butter was not spared. We started with petite-du-fours, which the butler rattled the names off dish by dish, and i decided to just enjoy my meal and forget about the camera for the rest of the lunch, which comprised starters, main course, dessert & assortment of cheeses, and finally coffee and tea. I must say i concluded to my surprise that shopping and dining in london isn't very expensive if you were earning pounds. A 3 course fine dining type of lunch for 35 pounds was hardly costly i thought.
The toilet down the stairs from The Lecture Room, where each cubicle played delightful carousel music, pretty loud too.
Then it was a tour of the other rooms by the same manager who told us to take all the pictures we want.
Guess what these egg-shaped capsules are!
Here's a clue.
And another clue.
Toilet Cubicles!! came with meahhh-meahhh noises sheep made. i wanted to write baa-baa but really it's more like meahh-meahhh isn't it?
Picked up foodstuff at Marks & Spencers for the family back home after a really long 3 hour lunch at Sketch before heading back to HL's place to pack up and head to Heathrow Airport.
Last look at the courtyard from HL's apartment on the 4th floor.
Big thank-you to HL! 0h and sorry i brought your octopus card back to Singapore by mistake.
(oh haha, its oyster card... not octopus card... no wonder it felt a little weird when typing... thanks Liping!)
Having a friend in the city you're visiting simply makes all the difference! HL, thanks for the great company and having me bunk over! Catch up when you're back! :) :) :)
Next: Glasgow & Edinburgh
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