Reached london waterloo and alamak! No pounds and absolutely no pennies to buy the subway ticket. Haha. Guess that's how the phrase "absolutely penniless" comes about. They called it the metro "the underground" there. Haha. Sounds like some Hong Kong secret society eh? Drew some pounds and felt my heart ache as pounds is SGD times three. Our money is so small there! Sigh. Checked the metro (prefer using this word as underground is too long to be typed) lines and bought a single trip ticket as I was too lazy to read more to buy the all day travel pass and differentiate the zones. What's more! I have no idea if I would be taking the train a lot. Thus settled for the single trip. Imagine! That's £3 for a single trip. You can just shoot me now. £5 for a whole day travel pass. I was an idiot. But nevermind that for now. It's the most expensive train ride I could have ever taken in my life! Imagine nine sin dollars for three MRT stations? Do you know I can take the cab from ang mo kio to tampines for 10 dollars?! London! Everything costs an arm or a leg. Just kill me. Period.

Contacted yz and was so happy to see her at the Hyde Park Corner station! It's kind of surreal seeing your friend in this kind of setting. I don't meet up with her often and to think that the next place we met was in london! It was still heartwarming to find a familiar face in an unfriendly city. Londoners don't smile. Period. Save when they want to earn your money. But then again, even shopkeepers don't smile! What is atrocious is that the price of stamps is not constant in London! Yes! It can change according to the whims of the vendors! What kind of rubbish is this? one might ask! The vendors with shops in the underground stations were shady and unfriendly. Not exactly the friendliest city in the world.

Had a little problem with the accomodation as the hotel yz checked in was too shady and we had to do a hotel change. We went to get her luggage from the room and yes, it really had pink, green and white fluorescent light simulating geylang! The hotel is a small establishment with musty red carpets and indian smells and yes it is run by an indian. The person at the counter was super unfriendly and lazy and no one helped with her luggage. Imagine the first night there, she had to drag the luggage three floors up by herself! Such rubbish! However, yz is a strong girl! And she carried luggage, laptop and handcarry all by herself, walking through the streets of london and taking the metro. We checked in at the Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly Circus in which I booked for the next night. It was massive, albeit old but was centrally located. Haha. Come to me if you want to find economical and good hotels next time as yz said I had a good eye for hotels. Well, Regent Palace is not the best that I have stayed in but it's also not the worst. Considering the value and the location, it's a good investment. The rooms were clean just that it looked like a maze in there with its labyrinth like corridors! Not too bad, not too bad! Being near Regent Street with its many high end shops and restaurants, Shaftsbury avenue with its many theatres and near Soho with its kinky shops and chinatown being so near the corner,it's a good investment quand même!

Had lunch at Garfunkel's before checking into the hotel at 2pm as the friendly but impersonal staff there refused to make allowances nor promises. There was no question that we could check in earlier. Yup, the whole family of human beings bundled with bags was there at Garfunkels. Suitcase, laptop bag, bags and us. Luckily I travelled light and had one bag only although I went home with two. Haha but that is a different story. Heh.

Looks yummy? Yeah. LOOKS.

Calzone- folded pizza. Savory but too salty!

Well an average meal in London costs £10 and that's what the above cost us. Remember there is VAT in London and having it in the restaurants costs more than takeaway meals. There is also service charge which is 12.5% but it differs from restaurants to restaurants I guess. This lunch was unsatisfying but what to do? London is not known for its cuisine.

Harrods is next! It's amazing! This ultra posh commercial building! Shopping centre sounds too cheapskate to even describe it. A grand luxury shopping arcade is more like it. It's one of my favourite places in London as there are so many things to see and buy! So many cute bears, softtoys, cuddly fuzzy little things! Mind you, I'm not really a softtoy person. However, seeing the wide array of the cutest softtoys in the world at Harrods just make me feel like buying and buying and buying. Alas. Pounds is not really my strong suit. Thus, pictures were taken to replace the craving to buy. However, presents were bought for kiba and family and I am sure that I'll return in Winter to do some christmas shopping!

The Harrods bear is a trademark and if you have not heard of it, you must be hibernating in some cave in honolulu. Just look at the size of the bear below! Big is not enough an adjective to describe it! It's what one will call "humongous"! Arghh! I want to have one in my house!! Isn't it über cool?

yz, miao and the big Harrods bear!

Big cute bear minus irritating woman who walked into pic

Harrods is really nice! The food section is filled with wondrous chocolates, cakes, mini cakes and all the saliva inducing goodies that will make us put on ten pounds at least! Oh! The prices! The prices! Why must everything in London be so expensive? Well, if it isn't so, it probably wouldn't be London! I looked at the prices of chocolates in Harrods and thought of the prices in Belgium. The latter is definitely the place to buy! Nevertheless, the softspot for chocolates still exist and I bought a box of Bendicks mint for Kiba! (Cuz I know he will share it with me too!) Yum yum! I love Bendicks Mint Chocolate!

The cake above decorated with little flowers and roses! Awwwww! I will never bear to eat it! In fact I will not eat such a creamy cake anyway! Will display it forever! Haha! Well See I so nice, take a pic for your viewing pleasure!

This many tiered cake is so magnificent! So beautiful and creamy and pure! Dream wedding! Well well, the effort the bakers put into these beautiful creations. I stood in front of it for while, admiring the intricacies and the whiteness of it all. Awww. Reminds me of Christelle's wedding and all beautiful french things. Of course, I didn't look at the price tag of this tall, tall, tall, tall, tall cake and I certainly don't want this kind of cake for my wedding. First, it's too creamy and I don't really like cream cakes. Haha. I will probably have a many tiered chocolate truffle or chocolate mousse cake for my wedding banquet in three years time! Haha. Funny. Imagine walking down the aisle again! Think I'll attend some of your weddings before mine!

A couch full of Harrods bear!

After Harrods, we took a little walk with our shopping bags around the shops and finally settled down in a kind of patisserie cafe, by the terrase, sipping our earlgrey and mixed fruit tea. Drinking tea and looking at tourists and Londoners passing us by is really a piece of heaven. Writing postcards, affixing them with the Brit stamps, sending our best wishes to the people we love. What a leisurely afternoon and did I mention that I love travelling?

yz enjoying the simple joys of life :)

The art of drinking tea (cha dao)

What simple joys we can get! Nothing beats drinking tea with good friends in terrasses and talking about nothing in particular. We took our time in our leisurely fashion before meeting yz's friend at Bayswater for dinner. Guess what we had?

Kiasu. Ran by a Singaporean with a Sg and Malaysian chef

The menu ranges from kuay pie tee, nonya curry chicken, char kway teow, bak chor mee, nasi lemak and all the Singaporean delights! I had an immense craving for bak chor mee as I ate it so many times when I was working in Tampines at the Eastlink foodcourt! That was really cool! Yummy! And so we ordered nonya curry chicken, char kway teow and bak chor mee to share! yz's friend, xz ordered coke whereas the two of us ordered lemonade! Please! I'm always being cheated in Europe when I ordered lemonande as I expect to see a yellow drink with a piece of lemon in it. As always, it appeared as a white bubbly liquid and I realised that lemonade in Europe is really Limonade which is a bubbly softdrink that doesn't really taste like anything! Guess how much each dish cost? £7 per plate! Arghhh! Imagine a plate of bak chor mee going at SGD$21 dollars! I nearly fainted! We must be eating gold!!! Argh!! But well, we are in Europe! Who are we to complain! The waitress cocked up and told us later that they ran out of curry which sent us into a fit. How can they not know that they have ran out of curry in the first place instead of taking our orders and told us half an hour later that they have no curry left! Rubbish. We took the next best alternative which is kari ayam and of course the dishes took some time to arrive. This is Europe. No one seems to be in a hurry to serve. Fortunately, all the dishes tasted surprisngly good and it quell any displeasure that we might have had over the curry fiasco. Ahhh. Cravings satisfied. The bill came to about £12+ per person. Well, at least a satisfying dinner nevertheless.

We took a long walk around Bayswater and it's really a very hyped place with lots of restaurants and pubs. Lots of foreign cuisine. Asian, Italian, Middle-eastern and the list goes on! I even saw two Mustafas along the way! Haha! Bought some cream from Boots for my ankle as I was bitten by a spider on the subway that morning and by then had kind of swelled. If I can survive a trip with a swollen ankle, I can survive anything! So cheerios!

We walked towards Notting Hill and along the way saw apartments which looked like Singapore's HDB flats! Haha! So funny! Imagine HDBs in London! Wonder what they called them here. Even the shelters downstairs and the lights along the corridor look exactly the same! Heh! There were lots of small hotels along the way with banners advertising that there's vacancies. We walked past Hilton too and boy does it look posh!

Walking by night in London is cooling and there are many things to see and observe. People spilling out of pubs, dining in at posh restaurants and beggars by the street. A cross section of the society and everyone doing their own things. We walked all the way to South Kensington before taking the subway back. Of course we did not bathe as the shared toilets sucks since our room was not an ensuite. Apparently we stumbled on a disused one and was utterly disgusted by it. So ends a long day with good Sg food, good Sg friend and brit spider bite!

Day 2

We did a room change early in the day to a single as yz was leaving this particular night. So sad! Why must she leave so fast! Sigh sigh! Time is precious! If only she could extend her leave and come to France as well! Well, I'm sure she'll come back soon!

Started our day sipping hot chocolate, croissant and doughnuts at a cafe. The weather was chilling. Drizzles with cold draughts of wind. The hot chocolate really brought warmth into my stomach and was really comforting. Having it in the cafe cost us additional VAT of about 12%. Really must get used to this system of additional charges!

Yz wanted to go to the Tate Modern Museum and off we went! It houses modern art and has a huge collection of art books. We went to view the UBS Openings which had photography from the UBS Art Collection. European and American trends of contemporary art were showcased in this exhibition. We are actually artistically inclined you know! Haha! We also went into halls that displayed paintings with surrealistic inclinations and some paintings of Picasso. It was their huge bookstore that we stayed the longest! They have some of the most amazing art books I have ever seen! Found a gothic book that I liked a lot as I've studied some of the themes in theatre previously. Also found a very interesting book on Dadaism. Ah.. nostalgic. Barnard Turner will be so pleased to know that his ex student still holds a keen interest in the subject. However, each of this book cost £29.99. Think I'll try to find them in Singapore. I can't imagine myself spending $90 on a book unless I find a really high paying job! Read about the life story of Claude Monet and browsed through his paintings in a book about him. Ahhh.. the essence of art.

Along the way to and fro the museum, we took some amazing pictures by the Thames and here they are!

By the riverside

Gloomy day with slight drizzle prevented us from walking on London Bridge (not shown above)

We went back to the hotel for a shower and this time the toilets were pleasant enough. Felt refreshed and went to one of London's most expensive restaurant, Sketch, for high tea. Of course, at that time, we did not know that it's one of London's most expensive restaurant! This my best restaurant experience in London! Look!

One of the most expensive restaurants in London

The grand entrance

There is a restaurant on the second storey and the ground floor is for high tea. The scones set caught my eye as it's the first on the menu with a really cool description! We were in London and of course scones were not to be missed! Their chocolate cakes looks mouthwatering and so we placed our orders and wait in anticipation for them to arrive. In the process of waiting, let me show you around the place.

The restaurant is posh in the non intimidating way once you are inside. Comfortable with big couches strewned all over the place, it's the perfect place to lounge about and be lazy. The waitresses wore English blouses with little flower motifs and long skirts and looked very pretty. They were courteous and warm which was an added bonus.

The decorations can be quirky in the odd corners but somehow as a whole ensemble, it's very pleasing to the eye. The relaxed atmosphere shared by the people sipping tea in the late afternoon proves very calming to the senses. After a refreshing bath, one can almost doze off in the tranquility of the place but of course, I was too excited and kept my eyes peeled for my surroundings.

Me looking every happy! Who wouldn't be?

Sitting by the window overlooking the street

see what I said about quirky deco?

And the much anticipated arrival of the food...

Quaint!

A piece of sweet indulgence

Scrumptious scones

Tempted?

xz was with us and told us we should really go and have a look at the washrooms as they were really campy! Well well, I will leave you to judge for yourself! To me, they were really really lux but a bit over the top! Nevertheless, it was still rather cool although sadly again, it reminded me of geylang due to the red lights!

Enjoyed the afternoon immensely and really felt that I'm living a day in the life of a tai tai.We talked about life, work, me escaping from the countryside into town and things in general. glad to speak Singlish and codeswitch to Mandarin as and when I liked. Feel very deprived here and yearn for taiwanese variety shows. At least I spent a fine weekend speaking all the Mandarin I want! I'm still rather Chinese at heart. Haha.The generous yz treated me to the above amazing high tea and I was so touched. It's so heartwarming to have such good and generous friends.

We crossed the street and went to a large toys department store where it happened to be yz's last place as she'd be leaving for the airport straight after. Sob sob. Quite sad that she's leaving so soon but was comforted by the thought that I'd be watching Les Miserables at Queen's theatre later in the evening. :)

If only she could have watched it with me. Due to the lack of planning, she did not manage to watch theatre as there were no matinees on Monday. Don't worry! There will be other chances! Mary Poppins or Phantom of the Opera next time ok!

The department store sells all the imaginable toys. The merchandise ranged from little toy figurines to scrabble and cutesy stuffed teddy bears. There is even a section where you can stuff the bear and match it with the accessories yourself! So cool isn’t it! We really should have a budget in London or else we will end up overspending most of the time. By this time, my £100 was almost gone!

There was this really really TALL giraffe which was going for £3500! Later, I asked kiba who will buy such a thing and he replied “Some idiot who has £3500 to waste!” Hahahaha! SGD$10,500! It was almost as tall as the escalator in the store! Think London’s department stores have a fetish for TALL stuffed animals! LOL.

I bade goodbye and bon voyage to yz as she got through the gantry gate at the underground station. Such a short reunion. Only two days and one night! That poor girl deserves some rest as she had been working really hard since she got here and was coupled with various misfortunes! Bravo to you girl! You have a strong spirit indeed! Will see you in SG during Chinese New Year! Really have many things to thank you for! Your warm company, your interesting stories about Japan and Taiwan and so many good wonderful things! You are the first SG friend that I have met up in Europe and I hope this will be a good succession to many others! Thank you for your shower foam and company in the scary looking toilet at the end of the corridor! Many, many heartfelt thanks! Will love to travel with you again!

Heh! Well after yz abandoned me, (kidding), I took myself to Shaftsbury Avenue to recce the theatre! Wouldn’t want to miss my first theatre performance! Walked around with the help of the map provided by the underground and finally located Queen’s theatre! By this time, I had ran out of pounds and can’t be bothered to draw more as I wanted to be strong and keep to my budget! If I started drawing, it would be a never ending story!

London by night is bright, noisy, colourful and amazing! More variety than Orchard Road in Singapore! I saw people going into the theatre as early as 6.40pm but that is too “kiasu”(afraid to lose) in my point of view! Wandering around on my own, I saw happy faces in expensive restaurants and smelt the amazing smells of cooking! Haha! I finally understood how the little match girl felt when she wandered around cold, tired and hungry! To stop the thoughts of hunger, I went into the theatre at 7pm to explore and see the interior. (Note: I am not punishing myself, just exercising my principle of keeping to my budget!) See, I am a true theatre student indeed! Will choose theatre over food anytime!

The theatre is a proscenium arch and is about the size of Kallang Theatre. My seat was the third row in the circle and it offered a good view! The interior is kind of old but still cosy nevertheless! The band was playing after which lights dimmed and the play began!

………

Les Miserables in London! What can I say? It was really wonderful! The range of vocals of the performers! The talented young actors and the wonderful acting! It’s no doubt that they do this for a living! Classics like this can only be performed by Caucasians I feel as Asians with their black hair will totally betray the text! How can we ever suspend our disbelief if Cosette is an Asian girl with black hair and speaks with a Singaporean accent? Never! The British accent is very heartwarming as well. The clear diction and articulation of the well trained actors! The magnificent set! Oh my! There is really no budget for theatre in London! It’s budgetless! The set is awesome - wonderfully crafted and the turning stage which portrays all the temporal elements – time and distance. The lighting! No amateur feat I tell you! There is really, really a difference when you do theatre for a living and when you dabble with it as a sideline! The NAC should really set aside more budget if Singapore theatre is going to rise to such great heights! However, Forbidden City is already a very good attempt! I love that too!
The musical of course, scored a standing ovation! Imagine! Standing ovation! Everyone whistled, shouted and screamed as they gave all the performers a hearty round of applause! Such spontaneity! Such camaraderie! The grace of the performers as they took the curtain call! Ahhhh… theatre! It really reignites the passion in theatre in me. I may not be a good actor, but I love theatre all the same!
Walking back to the hotel after the delightful musical gave me a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart. I’m hungry but I’m hungry for more theatre. My next aim is to improve my French to such a level that I can watch Les Miserables in Paris! Victor Hugo was such a genius! Such ingenuity! Sometimes, I just can't help but be awed by these amazing playwrights!

Kiba managed to reach me via the reception as my handphone had no network coverage all of a sudden! Haha! I felt amazingly happy. Before that I was still rather worried as I couldn't reach Kiba and vice versa. I was drifting through the dark and scary labyrinth of corridors in search of reception for my phone before deciding it was enough and to stop giving my heart too much pressure. If a shadow had leapt out, I would have had a heart attack! I am really not what you’d call a dim corridor person. I talked to Kiba till 1am with all the lights and TV on. Dozed off on and off and woke up a very ruffled and tired miao!

DAY 3
I decided to visit Citigroup at Canary Wharf to see the conditions that the Citigroup people in London work in. The metro ride was long as Canary Wharf deviates away from the centre of town. As it is, Canary Wharf is like Raffles Place – Full of Office Buildings and people in power suits and ties. I caught sight of exclusive shops below the office buildings in my scan for the Citigroup Logo.

There it was! Alakazam! Right in front of my eyes! The offices are huge, fat skyscrapers and I had to arch my neck all the way back to see the trademark red umbrella and the words “Citigroup”. It is incredible! Two huge buildings standing tall and proud. Beside Citigroup is the gigantic Reuters building and behind lies HSBC! Okay, so I've seen Citigroup UK in the flesh. The area is too businesslike for my liking as maggoty black business suits walked about.
Smokers gathered outside the building smoking away just like in Citigroup Sg. What's new? Everyone looked solemn as a new work day commenced while a sleepy tourist (moi) walked back to the subway station. A commercial zone holds no interest to me whatsoever.

Hunger pangs urged me to draw some pounds at last and in the end I decided on a twenty. I went back to the hotel for a shower before heading to Bayswater for lunch. Yz told me that the Four Seasons restaurant in Bayswater sells one of the most delicious duck rice in London and I was determined to try!

Upon minutes of walking out of the hotel fresh from the shower, I perspired again. I wanted to take some more pictures which I had missed out the night before. Who says one never perspire in London? Went into the subway at Piccadilly Station and took the usual circle/direct line to Bayswater. However blur me just took for granted that the train will go to Bayswater without checking the panel which showed which terminus the train is heading to. Ended up lost at West Brompton but was redirected to the right path again by a Richard Gere lookalike and a nice British lady. They were the only two genuinely friendly Brits that I have met during this trip. Found my way to Four Seasons and ahhhh hungry hungry hungry!

Four Seasons looks like any other Chinese Restaurant with the round tables of ten seats. Individual or twin diners have to share the table as there is only one twin table in the whole restaurant. I sat down and ordered roasted duck rice since it’s the restaurant’s signature and thus the wait began.

Goodness gracious me! I waited close to forty minutes for my food to be served. Sigh. One tip here: Don’t wait till you are super hungry before you go into a restaurant in London. Your stomach will be screaming for attention way before your meal comes. A free pot of Chinese tea was served in front of me and I had to sip it slowly for forty minutes before there was a sign of my duck rice. I asked for a pair of fork and spoon and was made to wait five minutes. Total waiting time: 45 minutes. It really made me wonder why they had to take so long.

To be fair, the roast duck was excellent. It was plump,juicy and very savory. The rice and gravy were a big disappointment though as they were cold. Sigh. It was not exactly a good feeling to be made to wait so long just to eat cold food. The gravy was slightly sweeter than the gravy that we find in Singapore. However, the chilli sauce was excellent, excellent, excellent! It came up to £5.20 for the meal and was really quite fulfilling as a matter of fact. The folks should just step up on the food being served hot part.

Hunted around for WHITE maltesers but to my dismay did not find any. Sigh. Tough luck. I was really too tired and lethargic to walk any longer and thus decided to go to Waterloo early to check in. My voyage to London has come to an end and I couldn’t wait to go back to France. The smiling French guy at the French immigration brightened up my tiring day. It really felt as if I were back at the Singapore Immigration with the Singaporean custom officer saying, “Welcome home”.

It has been confirmed. French are generally friendlier than Londoners. Foodwise, there is ABSOLUTELY no comparison. But then again, I will return for theatre and of course, Harrods!

Ok! Blogger decided to function normally today! And tada! We are on the Pont Normandie! Very cool right? Of course it better be cool, it cost us 5€!

The beautiful seaside

The ocean and the cove... natural erosion over time

Bird's eye view

A french film was filmed here and treasures were hid in the cove

A confident seagull perched on top of the world

So so small in the scale of things..

Nico and Christelle

Snapshot of Christelle :)

Kiba and his best bud nico

Kiba posing in the cave

The little boy by the "window"

Enjoy the pics peeps and have a good day! Will be off to lunch as usual *wink*

At the grocery store, acting like goons. Don't we look like characters out of Dickens?

So we left Mont-St-Michel and went to buy some groceries for the night and drove one more hour to Granville where the campsite is. It's amazing. There were many caravans and tents there and it's obviously the kind of leisure camping site equipped with excellent facilities! People set up mini marquees for them to eat breakfast, drink their tea, or just simply sit in the open, enjoying the fresh air and reading the morning paper. There were a mini playground for the children, toilets and shower rooms for the campers to bathe in.

The other caravans

As I advanced further with the rest of the gang, I saw something from a distance.

Hm...wonder what it can be?

Close up (Tada! Our territory)

In the caravan

I was ready to give up bathing as it was 9+ pm and getting too cold. However, since being stinko was not in one of my options, I went along with jess and was greeted with pleasing conditions.

The toilets and showers were clean and there was hot water. One learns to appreciate hot water a lot over here! I'm really a toilet person. Think of it as a figure of speech. The toilet makes or breaks the place that I am visiting. Being greeted by a shower with warm water already makes me warm fuzzy enough to give the campsite a good appraisal.

Fresh from the shower, we cosied up in the warm caravan, waiting for our sumptuous dinner!

Kiba cooking spaghetti bolog

Dishing up the dish!

Happy faces

After our sumptuous dinner, greg insisted to take a walk on the beach. I thought he was kidding as it must have been 11+ pm and all I wanted to do was to hibernate in the warm caravan. But bros-in-law are always pesky. Thus I was dragged out with the lot.

It was windy, windy, windy! Cold, cold, cold! Teeth-chatteringly cold! The sea breeze... well, I will not even call it a breeze! It was so strong! Nonetheless, the sky was beautiful, beautiful, beautifull! Littered with stars and really really nice!

Armed with a torch, we made our way to the beach and set off fireworks that we had brought along with us! So cool! So many first times for me! Setting off fireworks on our own. Seeing and going into a caravan, not to mention sleeping in it for the night. Camping under the french starry skies in their wonderful campsite. It was no training camp at all. Did I mention that Jess' dad set up a fridge there? Cold orange juices. What more can one ask for?

It was far from the camping days of maggi mees, canned food and red or green bean soup. However, the memories of training camps of the past are nothing but very fond ones. The companions were different. The contexts were different. Around the campfire, outdoor cooking, backwoodsman. Ahhh.. those were the days. Memories of the past and more memories are going to be made. Life is beautiful.

Kiba.. praying? Greg.. pulling sword? Girl..accidentally walked into my frame.

Just look at the number of cars!

The flying buttresses (on top) and one of the beautiful facades

Being naughty!

Beautiful pic of two funny kiddos

Behind us on the right is the rock of Tombelaine. We called it the Mount-St-Michel No. 2. It is also formed from granulite. One of the french kings destroyed everything on Tombelaine as it was the property of one of his corrupted financial ministers. All that is left today on that rock is a sedentary for birds. Well, might as well that it remains in his purest state.

As it's time for lunch once again, camping entry will be postponed yet again. Pardonnez-mois messieurs-dames. Till we meet again.

• Kissed by the Wind
• Journey of Self Discovery
• Miao Can Cook!
• HAPPY NIU YEAR, PULL UR EAR!
• Pre CNY Blues
• What a day
• Snow
• New Year Countdown 08
• HOT WINE
• Hello 2009


Credits
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Inspiration: DamnBlackRose
Rest by: vivianrawks
Image from: deviantart