In London, Bingkai and I stayed with Hanyan, my lovely RJ hockey teammate while Mac & Jr stayed in a hostel just right down the street at YHA hostel...its so nice to have friends around..not so that we can save on accomm but its just really nice to meet up with friends overseas! I also met up with Wingyee- she cooked a nice lunch for me...but i couldnt make it to meet up with Whui Whui!
London was simply. Amazing. We were really lucky...we had very good weather!
We went for a free tour...you just have to give decent tips! And the tour guides are usually very good! The main guy in the third picture of the collage above is Alex, our guide for the Old city of London free tour. He looks like the agent in the matrix, dont you think?
Jinrui, Bingkai and myself...with the Tower Bridge in the background
See the teabag in the collage above..i find it so cute..i couldnt bear to throw it away! Its just like a little apron..haha. It is the Tetley brand of tea..which is really good.
We also went to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Shakespeare's birthplace...I thought it was really nice. I mean, it was a very small and quiet town but there was so much to read and see inside the houses and museums! Went to the Royal Shakespeare Company theatre as well, which was unfortunately...under quite some renovation. I bought this DVD, which im very excited to start watching when i have the time:
Shakespeare- the animated tales. (12 x 30min plays on 3 discs)
Featuring the voice talents of Zoe Wanamaker, Timothy West, Felicity Kendal, Brian Cox, Hugh Grant & Martin Jarvis.
It has: Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Othello, Twelfth night, As you like it, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The taming of the Shrew, The Winter's tale, Richard III, Julius Caesar, The Tempest...!
In the collage above, the middle picture actually shows a penny-mangling machine. Basically you can choose what design you want and put in a penny (to be mangled) and a pound (for the service) and turn the wheel......hola! you get an oblong-shaped penny with some motif...i was very intrigued by it...cheap thrill (literally!)
Another reason why i love London so is because they have so many quaint little book stores selling new/old books...i bought 4 books for 80pence each! The books are really good..not the trashy ones you see in modern stores and there are always so MANY people in these stores browsing. Fantastic. So anyway these are some of the titles ive acquired from 2nd hand bookshops or some hostel in some country along the way..
1. Village People - Paula Yates
Review: Jilly Cooper said it was 'marvellously funny', John Mortimer said it was 'enormously entertaining', Fong Lu Yi thinks its 'marvellously entertaining & enormously funny'...
...Bathed in summer sunshine and stamped with Paula Yate's original brand of humour, Village people presents a refreshingly witty view of the eccentrics and eccentricities of English country life.
I absolutely enjoyed this book...it was so funny...it made many of my bus journeys much more enjoyable!
2. Atonement - Ian McEwan
Still reading...
3. The Whitbread Stories- the first collection of stories chosen from the entries for the Whitbread prize for the best short story by a writer aged between 16 and 25 displays a remarkable range of talent and theme...
Yet to start...
4. Our mutual friend- Charles Dickens
This is book is about money money money and what money can make out of life...
***
I also went to watch Les Miserables! Oh man, the last time i watched it was with my mother when i was 6 or 7 i think! It was so so good! It was a saturday so when i went in the evening to buy tickets, they were all sold out except for standing places at 10 pounds each..SO yes maccann and i stood for 3 hours but it felt less than that cos we were so absorbed in the show! In the beginning, there was a whole line of people standing to watch the show...at the end we looked around and saw only 2 other people other than ourselves..haha!
You can get your tickets at http://www.londontheatrebookings.com/ but apparently if you go directly to the box office right before the show on a weekday, you may just get a huge student discount or even get a ticket for free!!
If i lived in london, i would never go the cinema! Watch 'wicked' too if you can!
On the first night, we met up with Hanyan and she brought to this really cool place near Leicester square for dinner...they served very funny ice creams! Like the one you see above is actually some Spaghetti ice cream...its entirely made of ice cream just that its shaped into spaghetti and all! Then we went to All Bar One, this really nice chill out bar with many different types of beer...which were huge and relatively cheaper than in Singapore...nice.
UK in general defines food in a whole new way i tell you...the serving size, how and what is prepared...SCARY >>> BIG + $$$$$$$$ + DRIPPING WITH OIL + WORRYINGLY TASTY. The trick is just to forget about converting the GBP to SGD, promise yourself that you will cut down on the next meal, aim to finish 75%, just enjoy it and not think about what goes into it...
Benjys' restaurant serves the English Big breakfast all day and it was near where we stayed..so one morning we were outside the shop checking out the prices...we must have contemplated for the longest time because when this lady came out, she said "you should just try it, its really good". So after that affirmation, we went in and ordered the standard big breakfast. As you can see, its basically unfinishable. Although i was with the 3 warriors, they couldnt conquer it too cos they just weren't prepared...haha. Actually, no...i think Mac finished it..but he didnt eat lunch & dinner after that?
And how can we forget about the buttery yummy scones and the best english breakfast tea ever? There are so many tea houses like the 'tea room' that serve afternoon high tea- you HAVE to try it in London! Marks & Spencer's 'Simply Food' is also all over UK- Weixuan, Meiyi, WINIFRED, evita...you can set up your tents inside one of them! HAHA
Not really the soccer buff BUT since we went to Manchester (where i met Mag too!), we had to go to Old Trafford!
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