I'm back!
Spent the last couple of days unpacking, packing, washing, washing and washing. Oh and watching TV. Heh.
The weather is actually ok; I'm not feeling like I'm melting or anything. In fact it is rather nice not to have to depend on the weather forecast to dress to go out!
Ok, back to packing. It's really crazy how much stuff I have. I should just stop buying things altogether. Unless I can buy a house to store them. Haha. Ok, nuts I am.
I'm going to miss this place, that's for sure.
The Thames.
The walks along the Thames.
The runs along the Thames.
The ever-changing view along the Thames.
The people along the Thames: lovers and couples, families and friends, baskers and tourists, peddlers and stall holders...
The bridges across the Thames: Tower, London, Southwark, Millenium, Blackfriars, Waterloo, Hungerfort aka Jubilee, Westminster, Lambeth and Vauxhall. I'm proud to say that I've crossed them all!
The view from my window. (ok, to be specific, Room 1202 of Wolfson)
The parks: Hyde, St James's, Regent. Hyde's got to be my favourite.
My friends from hall: Peter, Eun Sun, Jamane, Holly.
The lovely blue sky... when it is clear!
The shops we frequent: Tesco, Sainsbury, Boots, Upper Crust, M&S.
The list probably can go on, but these are the most salient things off my mind now.
But then again, it'll be nice to go home.
Hang on, I'm coming home!
It was a cool trip! The best part of Scotland has to be the spectacular scenery and the awe-inspiring views of the sea.
The first day we went along the Royal Mile to see the "wynds" or the undulating little streets and then ended up at Holyrood Park, hiking up Salisbury Crags and maling it all the way up to Arthur's Seat. It's 250 m above sea level and the view from the top was well worth the scrabbling and scrambling up the last lap on all fours. Heh, amateur rock-climbers eh. cy's judicious question saved us much grief; if not for it we might not have gotten to the Seat this trip!
The second day was rather slack, mainly because it rained most of the time and also because we were all unwilling to fork out money for admission into Edinburgh Castle and Rosslyn Chapel (yes, the one in "The Da Vinci Code"). So like all good tourists, we took photos outside and were happy with those. We did go for a Scotch Whiskey Tour though and I had my first taste of the very strong brew. Highlight for the day was probably the very nice lunch at The Mussel Inn. But I didn't have mussels... ok, I had one.
On the last day, we visited the Museum of Flight for "The Concorde Experience." It took us about an hour and a half on the bus to get to East Lothian Airfield, where the museum is located. En route we passed by North Berwick which boasts an award-winning seaside. cy and I spend the time waiting for our connecting bus taking pictures while the other 4 experienced an award-wnning toilet and hunted down pastry. The beach makes us think of "The Old Man and the Sea." On the return journey, we had lunch at a teashop called "The Pantry" in Haddington where a middle aged couple approached us and remarked on how "quiet" and "gentle" we were through our meal. They are Haddington residents and had apparently been observing us eat. Oh, they first asked where we were from. Haha, they must have had some nasty experience with rowdy Asian tourists in the past. After lunch we headed back to city centre and had time for a little retail therapy along Prince's Street before catching our train back.
The train ride back was very pleasant and comfortable... because cy and I had a lot of leg space! Heh.
All in all, a good trip!
Phantom last night:
For some reason, the theme for today was 'art'... and I didn't orchestrate it though! Heh.
When I was out running, I saw this group of girls sprawled in front of the Tate Modern doing pencil sketches of the Millenium Bridge. They looked like they take some sort of art class.
Then I decided to go visit the National Gallery in the afternoon. On the way, I passed these 2 groups of people also sketching some part of the view in front of the Tate Modern again. Don't the little group of retirees look so... happily retired? Heh. How nice to have time for leisurely pursuits like this and to have a group of like-minded companions to share the hobby with!
I like the National Gallery. I didn't want to look at the Renaissance pieces today, so mainly I looked at paintings from 1700-1900. These included the impressionists like Monet and Manet and also painters like Degas, Renoir and Cezanne. I rather like Cezanne's works and some of Renoir's paintings. And I like many of the paintings of that period depicting the French countryside.
My favourite one has to be "Bathers at Asnieres" by Georges Seurat. I like the pastel but luminous colours he used that gave the scene a sunny and pleasant feel. Isn't it lovely? (the real thing is definitely loads better than this.)
People seem to kiss more frequently, spontaneously and passionately these days. Must be the summer heat!
Horse Guard at Whitehall:
"Toy Soldiers" at Buckingham Palace:
... ok ok, sentries at guard boxes.
Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace:
Spent an hour squashed up against the Palace gates to catch this (and many video snippets). The Military Band played Abba! Haha. The whole thing was quite entertaining.
Serendipitiously, caught the rehearsals of a "Military Spectacular" at Horse Guard Parade when I went back to St James's Park to get flower pictures:
The little old lady near me was so happy to have caught it as well. It was "fantastic" and she had "a lovely afternoon". How very English!
My trophy photo for today:
Summer has dawned on London fiercely and brightly the past few days. The sky's been the colour of cornflowers and in Peter's words, "it's so clear it's ridiculous." The sun just beats down and everywhere there are people taking advantage of the precious rays. It's as though all the sunshine that didn't penetrate the thick clouds all winter is being spilled over the city in a single dash. I do so love the sunkissed feeling on my skin.
We took advantage of the first light (it was warm but not clear on Friday) on Saturday to go on the London eye. The view was wonderful and since we took the Discovery Flight (it's not a ride but a flight because British Airways is a partner of the Eye), a guide provided us useful nuggets of information throughout the 30 minutes. 
One of the most interesting tidbits is that Westminster Bridge is painted green and the Lambeth Bridge red because the Lords wanted to cross a different bridge from the commoners to get to work at the Houses of Parliament (which, in as you are not aware) is divided the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Correspondingly, the terrace outside the Houses of Parliament are colour-coded with green and red awning so that there are separate eating areas as well. Aristocratic snobbery? You bet!
Then it was off to Hyde Park! I love the place, not just because of the flowers but because the park is really a lovely place. That said, the flowers DO drive me crazy. Wild daisies peek out all over the grass, roses of all varieties bloom left and right on bushes and vines. I stopped to smell one that was in full bloom and it was lovely. Bees buzzed around, busy with nectar collecting. On top of that, there are many many kinds of flowers I didn't recognise.
People do everything and anything at the park to take advantage of the good weather. There are people playing frisbee, playing soccer, picnicking, eating ice-cream, cycling, roller-blading, jogging, reading, sun-tanning, rowing, sleeping... There are families, friends, couples and singles. And there are really people who lie down on the grass in their bikinis. It's just like East Coast Park... minus the sand. My favourite part is that there is actually a deck-chair rental service! It's just so amusing. I've got to admit it's good business acumen!
On Sunday I went for a walk along the river. The weather was still great.
I originally only planned to catch Tower Bridge lifting, have lunch along the river then go back.
But one thing led to another and so after the lift:
...I had lunch on one of the ubiquitous benches along the river with a book. And then I strayed to the book market under Waterloo Bridge:
I was planning to get back to hall to call home but then my mum called while I was out. Serendipitious, heh. So after talking, I went on walking.
There was a spontaneous party taking place below the bridge. There was actually a bit of "beach" (it's the river back) as the tide was out.
And this is one of the ice-cream trucks that's sprung up with the good weather. This one has a really cute license plate though!
There's this really cute saxophone-playing boy outside the National Theatre. Really, he can charm the skirts of any woman! Heh.
I crossed Hungefort Footbridge:
...otherwise known as the Golden Jubilee Bridges. While on it, this little old man stopped to talk to me. He thought we've met before but we haven't. Still he was really pleasant and he left me to my shutters after we bade each other good day.
I then strayed to Trafalgar Square and there was a demonstration taking place:
After that I decided it was too good a day to be indoors and so didn't go into the National Gallery but went on to Leiscester Square/Chinatown/Covent Garden before heading back via Waterloo Bridge. I was going to go up Kingsway but the shops were mostly closed on Sunday, so I didn't.
Then when I got back, I got locked out after leaving all my barang in my room. But that's another story altogether. The lock's fixed now. Or rather, the handyman took out a strip of my doorframe, sawed off the bolt, threw out the old lock and put in a new one. He says since my floor's going to be refurbished this summer, it's ok (and easier) to hack the doorframe out. Haha.
I've been locked out of my room cos the lock has decided not to be friends with the key anymore. So I'm spending the night in an "emergency room" before the handyman comes and fix it tomorrow.
Sigh.
But at least this is not the exam period and I don't exactly have big plans and important appointments to keep this evening or tomorrow morning. And it has been comfortably warm this few days, so I won't need my warm clothing. And I have food in the kitchen, which I can access. So I guess it's not that bad. And people have been really kind to lend me stuff.
I was actually planning to blog about the perfect summer day I spent yesterday. I guess it'll have to wait. zhen shi ren suan bu ru tian suan!
Yesterday's lunch at Kintaro:
It's saba shio rice (grilled mackerel with salt) and it was actually very nice. I like the fish.
And this is today's lunch at Assa:
From left to right: fel, eunsun, me and pw.
Fel's flying home tomorrow and then she's going to San Francisco to do art next year. So no more kcl for her. Eunsun is hoping to meet her conditional offer from Birmingham, so now she's studying really hard.
Kim chi fried rice. Spicy and nice. But I forgot fried rice means ALOT of oil. Oh well, hopefully I walked it off already. If not I'll just run like mad. The weather's supposedly good till Tuesday. Whee!
And by the way, I found zong zi today! How crazy. Saw them in See Woo, this Chinese supermarket that we didn't enter yesterday. They were labelled Hong Kong style and they looked and smelled exactly like what we get at home. So Hong Kongers do eat them afterall! I didn't buy it though, cos it's not duan wu jie anymore... and each cost 2.20! So that's that.
Zong zi doesn't exist here! So sad. I think Hong Kongers probably don't eat it cos when pw asked one of her HK coursemates, she hadn't even heard of them before! We scoured the all the restaurants and dim sum places and the closest they had was mini glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf. Which turned out to be lo mai kai in lotus leaf. We had jap food for lunch instead.
Heh, then ld and I went shopping along Long Acre. But I didn't buy anything. I was greatly amazed that H & M (and possibly other stores) allow customers to take up to 10 garments into the changing room. 10!
Ok off to top up my oyster. The next time I blog I would have a Korean lunch under my belt!
