The Chinese Meat Market

Alisha and I had a cracker of a night (on Wed night)...hehehe

10 out of 10 for entertainment value and not good for anything else.

Please read Alisha's blog, in particular the post titled 'Asian Night (a.k.a. I am Australian!) '. She tells the story much better than I ever could.
http://peishapan.blogspot.com

Hanging at the cricket with Brian (cont'd)

I forgot to mention a few things in my first post.

-Chin brought a gourmet picnic lunch for us to share. It was awesome with cold meats, cheese and some Bollinger bubbly. We certainly dined in style.

-There was an english chap sitting behind me who was wearing his tuxedo. I knew Lord's was posh but sure you don't need to wear your tux. Actually I think what really happened is he never went home after a big night on the town the night before.

Hanging at the cricket with Brian

On Sunday, Chin invited Phui & I to the cricket. England was playing the West Indies at Lords ('THE' HOME OF CRICKET). It was day 4 of the test. England was batting in the 2nd innings - and had a comfortable lead. I think they were playing for the draw. In the whole days play, we only saw 3 wickets fall. By the late afternoon, the crowd was getting a little bored and started doing the mexican wave. The mexican wave is exactly the same as the one at the MCG....everyone boo's when the wave gets around to the stuffy posh 'members'.

The ground at Lord's looked quite small. The boundaries seemed quite close, compared with the 'G'.

Whilst wandering the grounds, I saw the legendary Brian Lara in the flesh. He was in town for the new Brian Lara exhibition at the Lord's museum and also to watch his fellow countrymen play in the test.

The first bowl of Soup

Wow...what a jam packed weekend it was.

On Friday, Emily invited a few girls over to her place for a home cooked chinese dinner. There were 4 dishes and some nice wholesome Chinese soup. I think this was my first bowl of soup since arriving in London. Man, was it good.

Emily lives in a studio flat in Russell Square. We had to sit on the floor Japanese style because she doesn't really have a dining table.

Thanks Em!

Browsing the supermarket shelves

One day I found myself browsing the supermarket aisles at Marks & Spencer. The Brits sure love their pre-packaged food. You can basically pop into the supermarket after work and bung a meal into the microwave. Voila, dinner is ready. I haven't been game enough to try these meals yet, but they are quite expensive. The thing that disgusted me the most is the fish and chips. All you do is take it out of the packaging and heat it up. Simple as that.

Phui & I have searched high and low for a Chinese grocery store close by. It seems we have to trek all the way to Chinatown to get our hit of Chinese groceries.

Let's talk about the weather

Well...it is now mid May and the weather in London is still quite chilly. Something tells me I brought the rainy Melbourne weather with me to the UK.

Most days you still need to wear a light coat. London has not disappointed...it has rained alot in the last 3 weeks. At least I am making good use of my brand new umbrella, which I paid 15 pounds for! hehehe...

People tell me that the European Summer is brilliant. Are they pulling my leg?

More pics

Pic of the girlies at dinner one night last week. Jamie H, Alicia, Angela, Liji, Mel. We had Jap pancakes

Joey and I did some sight seeing in the miserable weather. This is Big Ben. Also see the tents on the lawn - they were protesting about peace or something.



Nutella Crepes in Covent Garden. I can't wait to go to France to have the real thing!

Another housemate

On Sat morning, whilst eating my brekky, I met another housemate. People staying in my flat just seem to keep a very low profile. I was beginning to think that I was the only person living in this flat.

Anyways, Mai is also from Melbourne. See! I told you there were too many aussies in London. She also knows my cousin Faye...hahaha what a small world.

A random haircut

In case no one noticed, Phui & I both had our hair cut last Friday.

Last Thursday night, I finally met another one of my mystery housemates. I had been living in this flat for 2 weeks and had only met 1 housemate (out of 5). Rebecca was from Cornwall and had come to London to do a short course at the Toni & Guy academy. It just so happened that both her appointments on friday cancelled on her. So Phui & I offered to be haircut models!! The students at the academy have to approach strangers on the street and ask them to be haircut models. The haircut was free, but there is a catch I suppose. My haircut took almost 2 hours and Phui's took about 3 hours!

Yummy chocolate pudding

Saturday was a fairly busy day as well. There are just too many Melburnians in London. I've now been in London for 3 weeks and I am now dying to meet some English people! haha

Phui & I went to the Borough markets for lunch. It was the second time for both of us. We had some nice gourmet sausages in bread, then finished it off with some nice sweet pastries & coffee. Please read the poem on the green banner!

Then for dinner, I caught up with Fern, a friend's friend that I knew from Melbourne Uni. We had dinner in a pub near Fulham (apparently heaps of Aussies live there). For dessert, we both had the chocolate pudding. It was absolutely divine.

Then after dinner I cruised back to Angel and joined the party at Chin's place. It was the usual suspects: Chin, Chean, Emily, Phui. There was plenty of wine and food too!

Ribs

On Sunday, Jackie & Peter took us out to lunch at Bodean's to have American ribs. Thanks Jackie & Peter.

Life as a CA in the UK

Wow, what a jam packed Sunday. Life as a CA in the UK is better than I expected.

Alisha & a few others managed to get free tickets to Lionel Richie thanks to ICAA! Wow, that is where all our subscription fees go to!

The concert was awesome. Surprisingly there were quite a few young fans at the concert. Lionel did a half hour encore.

Lionel is looking very good for his age too!

Lionel was playing at Wembley Arena, which was right next to Wembley Stadium (pictured above)

Chip Sandwiches...well almost

Yesterday (Wed), I had lunch at a cafe in one of the Department stores (on Oxford St - the main shopping strip). I have now been in London for over 2 weeks and haven't really had much true English food. So for lunch I ordered an afternoon tea set which comprised of 2 massive scones with cream and jam, a cup of tea and some smoked salmon sandwiches. When the sandwiches came out, I got 4 small triangles of smoked salmon sandwiches but served on the side were some potato crisps! I heard it was very english to have crisps with your sandwiches. I just thought it was strange haha. Well, it brought back memories when I was in primary school where my friend Helen Barker in grade 6 always had chip sandwiches. I always wanted to swap my sandwiches with her because chip sandwiches were awesome!

Sorry, I forgot to bring my camera cable. Will upload a pic of the scones later.

The ultimate rice challenge

The challenge: to cook rice the old fashioned way (ie in a saucepan!). Well I did it, the rice was edible! haha but a bit loose. I think I will blame it on the pommy rice. I cooked some salmon. The other dish was chicken stir fried with bok choy. I trekked all the way to Chinatown to buy the vegies and also 2 pairs of chopsticks!! Phui just got back from Amsterdam .

Windsor Castle

It was the bank holiday long weekend. Most people went away.
Jamie J and I went to Windsor Castle.

Pic of me standing next to a royal guard. He had the job of taking pictures with tourists all day and had to stand very still, and do the occassional march.

This is Windsor Castle. It was very grand and quite impressive. I think the Queen lives here on the weekend.

The gherkin

Sorry. I haven't worked out how to rotate the pic. But this is the gherkin. There are very few sky scrapers in central London.

Tower Bridge

Meet Joey! We went to Tower Bridge last Saturday. I also went to the Borough foodies market with Jamie H for lunch.

Buckingham Palace

So I finally managed to do some touristy stuff. Here is my mate Koko the koala at Buckingham Palace.

Football on a weeknight

Football (aka soccer) is played on both weekdays and weeknights. Last night, Liverpool played Chelsea in the semi-final for some important cup (UEFA I think). Kristen & I watched the game at her mate's place. The match was intense, with still no result after half an hour extra time. It came down to the penalty shootout. Chelsea choked under the pressure and missed 2 shots. Liverpool now go through to the final.

Yum Cha in London

Who said the UK doesn't have very nice food? I had a very nice yum cha lunch on Sunday. It was quite authentic. The har gaos were much better than the ones I had at yum cha just before I left. Caught up with quite a few of the gang (Chin, Chean, Emily, Phui) from Melb. Phui came back from 2 weeks in Italy all very nice and suntanned. After 2 weeks of pasta, pizza, panini, pasta, pizza, panini, all Phui wanted was some steamed rice! heheh

Record heatwave in April

All the newspapers have been saying that UK has had a record heatwave in April. The last couple of days have been reaching a high of 21oC. Hmmmm some heatwave huh? At least the sun is shining I suppose.

An English Breakfast

Over here in the UK, English Breakfast consists of eggs, sausage, bacon, baked beans and tomato.

Back home in Oz, English breakfast is a cup of tea.

So just a tip, just remember which country you are in when you ask for an english breakfast. It brings back memories from our first counselling breakfast at Deloitte when someone asked for the english breakfast!

Yum...Donuts

Loanie, you will love this...Krispy Kremes are sold in the supermarket in London!! How convenient.