Beautiful Bath

Went to Bath Spa over the weekend. It is a beautiful beautiful place. As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words. So I shall let my pictures do the talking. Alas, there could have been more, had my camera batt been more cooperative. Must be the cold! Moral of the story: lug the charger around!

1st Day: 25 Feb

On the National Express Coach to Bath



The River Avon





The Royal Crescent at Sunset


This is my favouritest place in Bath. I need a helicopter to do the view justice.

Caramel Apples!!
I SO wanted to eat it. Yes yes, it's just an apple coated with caramel and chocolate bits. But looks sell! But I didn't la. Haha, the rational mind was still stronger.



2nd Day: 26 Feb

The Roman Baths





My Sally Lunn Bun with Lemon Curd


This is not any old bun ok! It's a must-eat at Bath. Comes with many toppings.

The Abbey



Along Sydney Place (where houses are a million pounds each o.O)


Jane Austen stayed in one of the houses around this area too when she visited Bath in her time.

Really idyllic way to spend a weekend! *bliss*

Snow and Duck

It snowed this morning!

Well, it wasn't the first time I've seen snow, but it was the first time I'm seeing it in Central London. I was totally exhilarated when I realised that it was not rain. Laughter just bubbled out of my entire being. I felt like a little brook burbling (ok I made this word up) and gargling with excitement. I felt like a small kid. So I called pw and woke her up just to tell her that it was snowing. I HAD to tell someone!

The snow didn't come down in delicate flakes or pretty white fluffs; it was more like little pieces of ice. If you don't look carefully, it may even pass as rain, just that the pieces land and hang around on your coat for a while before melting. Though cold enough to snow, it was not cold enough for it to accumulate, so the ground wasn't white but wet. Anyhow, the snow came and went, so it was alternating snow and rain. Luckily there wasn't wind, so it was not nearly as cold.

The wetness is really testing the limits of my shoes. Let's hope they hold out and remain water proof!


6 of us went for Four Seasons duck today for dinner. It was really quite good. Very different from the roast duck that I usually get (and do not like). The meat was soft and the skin rather crispy and nicely flavoured. I ate it up, fat and all as that was what I was paying for. But I think I'll walk it off in a few days. And anyway I'm beginning to exercise, so no problemo ;P The gravy that was served together went excellently with it.

Besides duck, we had 罗汉斋，calamari and a chicken dish. All the dishes were good. pw was thoroughly contented after dinner! heh.

The Delicate Art

Londoners should take a month out and travel to NUS to observe bus 95 and 96 just before and just after lecture hours. Or any of the internal shuttle buses. It is my sincere belief that they have yet to master the fine art of packing themselves into an already packed bus. It doesn't help that that bus driver just will not allow anyone to stand near the front door, because of regulations.

Basically there is a lot of frustration and angst all around! Tsk tsk. Maybe they just resent being pressed up against one another. But then, there is also THAT much space in the bus right. So.


On another note, the London cyclists are doing very well. They all follow several rules that protect themselves and other road users:

1) Wearing reflective strips/vests
2) Wearing helmets
3) Having blinking lights on the bicycle; some even have them on their bag straps
4) Giving hand signals
5) Following traffic rules

The reflective strips/vests and blinking lights really do a lot to improve the cyclists' visibility to motorists. That, I think, is very important, since London traffic is such a maze!

Dinner, milk-thieves and Hailstones

Dinner on Wednesday was a cheery affair. Peiwen unleashed her herbs and cooked 六味汤 for us. It took her 2 hours at the stove babying 9 drumsticks in 2 pots. I contributed by slicing up a mountain of baby cabbage (and in the process generated many red shreds of IKEA cutting board) and cooking them till soft. Or as soft as I could get them.

Dinner is served!




After the main courses, we ate grapes (that Lian Dee bought) and oranges (that pw wanted to get rid of) and chocolates (that I saved! the minibites! XD). When we were done, Lian Dee said, "这样才像样!" Heh, yes, she's getting sick of lousy Brit hall food.


Someone's been drinking my milk! Not just once, mind you. At least twice. The first time I thought I was mistaken. But this morning I made a note of the milk level and then checked it during dinner. It was definitely lower. The bottle certainly didn't drink it!

Having a thief around is quite terrible. People are also losing crockery. It's really bizarre. Hallo, if you borrow stuff, at least have to decency to ask and then wash and return right. Don't pile them up in your room and take a new one everytime. How rude.


On a totally unrelated note, I experienced HAILSTONES today! How exciting is that I ask you! One moment it was pattering raindrops and the next it was ice chips! pw realised it first when she felt pain when the stones hit her. Then she grabbed my hand and we ran for the bus stop. The hailstones were small, thankfully, less than 1 cm across. It stopped stoning (haha) after a while and reverted to rain. That put an end to our plans to go Chinatown. So we caught RV1 home. THEN, the sun came out and it became brilliantly bright. Talk about unpredictable weather!

Anyway it was a good decision to come home. Because although the sun came out, the wind was still up and it was rather cold. pw's down with flu already, she doesn't need more aggravation.

On the way back, we saw Starbucks giving out free coffee at London Bridge. This man strapped a tank of coffee to his back and there was a hose connected to the tank to pipe coffee out. It was rather interesting to watch!


On yet another unrelated note, the queue outside the Dungeon is really nuts. Is it that good? Maybe it's just the holidays.

Weekend News

I got ambushed coming out of the shower! It was only supposed to be a surprise Knock-Knock-Open-Room-Door-"Wah, Happy Bday!" thing, but my good timing in having a shower resulted in greater amusement all around.


And this was after "Prize Presentation"! Heh. There was M&S Irish Cream Liquer Mini Rolls, a bootiful pendant from Camden Market, a CD of fq's singing and piano-playing and a card signed by my floormates. Very very happy!


Yummy!

So presently my food stash stands as such:






Ok I digress. Next up HC Night!



We were scared of the cold lar. Hence the jeans. Haha. And i was in sport shoes. Practical considerations you see. Hurhur.






It was basically like a mini prom thing. There was also the pre-requisite videos, singing of hc songs and mass dance. Not bad la, quite a pleasant evening. That there was a lot of chocolate along the way helped *grin*