Tuesday, June 14, 2005

I feel like Bridget Jones- the calories, the fixations, the silly sense of awe

Alrightey, hello finally after yonks of not blogging. The previous 2 entries were written in Spain, but I couldn't find one of the symbols in my login name on the Spanish keyboard haha... So here I am, more than a week later, blogging again.

Oh yes, before I forget, the night before we left for London, we watched a soccer match in Valencia. Timing's always perfect for us here (well, for Weiming anyway, at least). We always manage to catch important matches during the time we stayed in places they were being played in. The last game of the German league in Munich, and now the Spain/Bosnia game in the World Cup qualifiers was held the last night we were in Spain. So there we were, in a stadium bathed in red and orange, and hot-blooded Spanish fans. We got tickets from a tout, double the price but it was still quite reasonable. Twas quite an experience! Though I had to keep pestering him about what was going on in the field, and in particular, what an offside is. (Yes I still haven't figured it out, even after so many years of being surrounded by soccer nuts) The atmosphere is nothing like the quiet matches we're so used to in Asia, and the almost empty stadiums at normal S-League games.

Merry old England this time. Well, London, to be precise. It's back to cold weather again, after 2 full weeks of sunshine in Southern France and Spain. I'm pretty happy with the prospects of digging up my sweaters and jackets from the bottom of my luggage, I've grown to dislike the sun and heat. Looks like trouble when I get back to Singapore. :(

So I've been here since Thursday, staying in Steph's room. She was really nice to let us have her room to stay in. Checked out the normal accomodation prices in London, and they are on par or if not even worse then Swiss ones. Exhorbitant. Her place is at Waterloo, which is so near King's College (why oh why is my Candice not here??!) It's pretty close to a lot of the places in the central area, and the Metro Underground takes us everywhere in a jiffy.

We went to see the Stella Artois Tennis Championships last Friday, it was held at the Queen's Club. The price of a ticket to the central court (where aces like Andy Roddick and Hewitt, and not-so-ace ones like Tim Henmen were playing) was SIXTY POUNDS! Blimey! SGD180! Generally I try not to do the triple conversion too often here cos it can really kill, but that was really too damn much. So we settled for side-court seats for 12quid, and I think we got a pretty good deal too. We watched the final match of the Junior Singles, and it was won by this guy from Great Britain. And we also watched the Semi-Final Singles match between R. Gasquet and R. Stepanek. Gasquet's from France, and Stepanek's from the Czech Republic. So you can see I was pretty happy when Stepanek beat Gasquet in the end. And the last match we saw was a Doubles game between Bryan/Bryan of the US and Grosjean/Clement from yes, France again. I felt a wee bad for wishing Grosjean and his partner would lose the game, because the poor bloke had already been defeated in a Singles match earlier in the morning. But well, the US brothers won, and the younger one was quite cute actually. Haha :)

We also went shopping at Oxford Street and Bond Street. Didn't buy anything, because it is so expensive, and poor student tourists like yours truly don't have fat bank accounts like the rich and famous here. I've been reading a lot of those brill Brit tabloid magazines and celebrity gossip editions, so hearing about their latest Matthew Williamson skirt, Roberto Cavalli gown or Collette Dinnigan camisole makes me a little green that I am so unable to spend anything in London. Well, I did find a Dorothy Perkins bohemian A-Line skirt for just 10quid, and I was quite happy about that. :)

We also visited Camden, which is a totally punk hangout! There were people with gravity-defying spraypainted hairdos and piercings everywhere. It was quite a sight. Camden also had the largest flea market I have ever seen in my life! It spans several streets and they sell everything there. Clothes, sex toys (I even saw a metal head clasp promising orgasms when clamped around the temples), I-Love-London stuff, books, food, bags, shoes, piercings, fishnet stuff, punk leather bits and paintings.

Food here is so expensive too, but my eyes (and succumbed stomach) have been feasting on everything around. On Saturday, we went to Borough Market. It was the most fantastic street feast ever! Meng had a huge pork burger- a huge juicy patty spilling over the side with gerkhins, runny egg yolk and relish. I had really good hot cheese sticks and carrot cake with the most amazing cream cheese icing I've ever tasted. The Dark Sugars bakery stall was a humongous sin. The blueberry almond tart is so good, and there are brownies, petite chocolates, countless iced cakes, pies, tarts and haevenly fudge squares. We also had fried broad beans dusted with cheese and BBQ powder, that dyed our fingers orange. And chocolate coated coffee beans and sugared cashew nuts were just fantastic! The chinese food here is not bad too, though I had a bac experience at Four Season's, this famous place at Bayswater. I ordered 'Malaysian style horfun' only to find it was a plate of oil and flour. Euch! But Meng enjoyed the roast duck there, he said it was fantastic. I also love the egg fried rice at this chinese takeout at Waterloo, it's so nice and sesame-oil scented!

For normal lunches we normally eat on the go. Pret A Mager is a wonderful sandwich place that fixes it sandwiches fresh everyday. The egg and cress was wonderful, but the crayfish and rocket quite a letdown. I've yet to try the Krispy Kremes at the Harrods store at Knightsbridge. That is a very high priority on my agenda. :)

Ooh what a mouthful that was. I think London's really nice, and I'm already looking forward to dinner. Steph's flatmates are bringing us out to dinner tonight, and my greedy tummy can't wait! :)

--And oh yes! There are sooooo many Adrian Mole books by Sue Townsend here. I am positively her #1 fan, I would shamelessly admit. :) I am a happy camper!


Laid bare at 5:24 pm
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