The weekend that was!
[WJ here again!]
Presenting…
THE WEEKEND CELEBRATING WY’S 22ND BIRTHDAY!!!
And what a celebration it was! If this is what it’s like, then I wouldn’t mind celebrating her birthday every month!
= F R I D A Y 1 6 T H =
Woke at an ungodly hour to make the 20 minute walk to catch the bus - it was FREEZING COLD and nearly PITCH BLACK …and a nice peaceful hour to go for a walk for, actually! Anyway, caught the bus without incident, got to London without incident and after I got my London bearings back, found my way back to WY’s flat.
Met up with Suz for lunch - we had a whole pizza and hot chocolate for £3.60 each at some Italian restaurant recommended by her sister. Not bad at all for London prices, and especially considering that the last pizza I had was some vegetarian concoction I made myself, it was nice to have REAL thin crust pizza again. Even if they were really stingy with the pepperoni…!
We then proceeded to wander around central London to shop and admire the Christmas deco which was now officially being put up - although Christmas displays had already begun emerging in shops since August…
Suz with her “Percy Pig and Pals” gummies that she bought from Marks & Spencers'
I love Marks & Spencers'! Well, to be more precise, I love window shopping there! It makes me feel so… hungry! But I resisted temptation there and instead gave in at Primark instead, since I reasoned that warm clothing would yield longer-lasting utility than chocolates and biscuits and gummies and things waiting for me about a month away back home…
And yes, I confess, I gave in and bought a hat and a hoodie. But only because I really DO need them! I swear! And they were pretty cheap (by London standards at least… I spent £3 on my knit hat and £4 on my velvety hoodie jacket)…
After Oxford street shopping, we embarked on the journey back, admiring the scenery along the way because we kinda got lost in taking the scenic route…
I love my red coat! I blend in with telephone boxes!
We decided to act unabashedly touristy and take photos of everything! (I’ve spared you though and posted only the most interesting shots here...)
London’s idea of Christmas comprises fake giant paper chains…
And I’m not entirely sure if a fake giant plug has anything to do with Christmas but it’s green and I’m red so yeah…
Suz had to leave for her church camp retreat thingy in the evening though, so I made my way over to Covent Garden (I love Covent Garden! I really wouldn’t mind working or living there in the future…) to meet up with WY for dinner.
Covent had some pretty awesome Christmas lights
We had dinner at an Italian deli, whereupon I had real quality meat for the first time in a month! We had a bread and meat selection (basically lots of slices of different hams or salamis or whatever they’re called along with lots of slices of different breads with some salad) and a lamb rosti (which was lamb steak with potatoes and salad). WY had a peach & green tea drink while I had grapefruit & passionfruit.
Ahhh BLISSS!! We were so busy eating and talking and generally having such quality time that we didn’t even take any photos!
As if that were not enough, WY decided to go all extravagant and treat me to Hagendaaz as well! The poor uni student in me nearly went into fits at the thought of how much we were spending but then again I’m not going to protest at free food…
Briefly bumped into her work friends who were going to watch the 3D movie Beowulf in Leicester Square but we didn’t stick around long to chat since we were hellbent on getting into Hagendaaz…
As you can see why:
Mango Margarita - consisting of mango sorbet, raspberry coulis, two raspberries, a strawberry, and either vodka or tequila or cointreau or probably even all three… AWESOMELY SINFUL!
Caribbean Chocolate - Hagendaaz brand hot chocolate, whipped cream, scoops of Hagendaaz ice cream with macaroon bits in them topped off with a small jug of molten Belgian chocolate to drizzle on… THIS IS TO DIE FOR!
Close up on the Belgian chocolate!
Close up on the margarita!
After that, went back to the flat and found that Lay Ping and Shanci were back by then… had a second round of dessert in the form of Marks & Spencer Mini-bites (which, as Suz said, taste so good it’s not even funny). Good food and good company to the wee hours of morning… this is the way to really live!
= S A T U R D A Y 1 7 T H =
Woke indulgently late to tag along with WY for dimsum at noon with her uni friend Stephanie and her work friend Martin. (I suppose it’s only common sense after all, not to mention economical - meet ‘em all at once rather than separately for each group of friends!) Had an excellent variety including char siew pau, egg tart, siew mai, har gow, won ton, lotus leaf glutinous rice and chicken feet especially for Martin, who never tried it before!
After dimsum, we parted ways - I met up with Sarah first and had a good catching-up session over enormous mugs of hot chocolate in Starbucks before meeting Simon and Julie later.
Since we wanted to go sight seeing but were too cheap to spend much, we decided to wander around Portobello Market, which is apparently a must-see for its antiques and quaint trinkets and whatnot. (In other words, a cleaner and more classy-looking Petaling Street!)
Portobello Market! Note how dark it was despite being barely 4pm at that time!
I’m loving the colourful houses; aren’t you?
Mince pies, mulled wine, corn on the cob, hot dogs, silverware, old rare books, vintage scarves and bags and clothes, old colonial-y furniture and household items, watercolours, jewellery… there was so much there to offer!
Guess what that shop was selling? =P
And there’s no real way to capture the market in photos at night with my camera, so here’s a short video clip:
I loved all the antiques and was pretty tempted to do Christmas shopping there and then, but decided that impulse shopping with only about £20 in hand (meant to last me the rest of the weekend!) wasn’t the way to go. Besides, I had to go back pretty soon so I made my farewells to Simon and Julie and took my leave.
…To another of my favourite places - Chinatown!
Met WY and Lay Ping in Chinatown to do steamboat shopping - the whole place was seething with people! Even the grocer we went to had insanely long (though fast and efficient) queues. Luckily, managed to get everything without much fuss and went back to prepare the steamboat.
Setting it out in WY’s room…
Starting off with the clear soup and meatballs!
Bubble bubble toil and trouble!
The other food waiting to be cooked
The hungry people waiting to be fed!
Sui Seng taking pictures of the hungry people
L-R: Lay Ping, Christine, WY, Yijin, Shanci
The herbal spice chicken… sort of done beggar’s chicken style by WY
The Marks & Spencers' cake!
And a photo of all those in attendance courtesy of the self-timer option on my camera!
And again, this time in video:
This is what you call “eat so much until I wan to die oredi!!”
We had a LOT of food - fish balls, pork balls, sotong balls, crab sticks, vermicelli, cabbage, shrimp, won ton, mushrooms, pork, seaweed… I think we managed to satisfy EVERYONE and still had lots left over! I couldn’t even manage to last to the tom yam stage…
The aftermath!
After that, we generally just sat around and chatted and had cake and ba gua and expensive quality chocolates and slept. All in all, a very good night!
= S U N D A Y 1 8 T H =
I didn’t think it was humanly possible to eat better or more after those two days but I was again proved wrong! Woke up indecently late again in time to join WY for lunch with her work friends.
We met Esther and her boyfriend Danny as well as WY’s work friend Fred at the tube station. Fred then took us on a bus which was headed to the restaurant where he said Yannan was waiting.
Imagine WY’s surprise when it turned out to be not just Yannan but a whole group of her work friends along with flowers! Plus it was a really nice place - it had a sort of American-style atmosphere like Chili’s, with the sports TVs etc, but this place was focused on seafood like Manhattan Fish Market.
And the portions, when we finally ordered them, were GIGANTIC! WY and I wisely decided to order one to share between us…
The MONSTER whole Atlantic crab that we ordered!
It might not look that huge, but the claw was literally the size of my hand!
It was fantastic! It was just cooked in a simple butter sauce with lemon to squeeze on but that was more than enough to bring out the taste of the huge crab! We also had deep fried calamari to complement the crab.
Yannan and Fred ordered one to share too… but not just one crab, but one PLATTER…
Fred and Yannan’s platter! Half a kilo of steak, one giant lobster, potatoes and other assorted tidbits…!
And Yannan still wasn’t full enough and ordered another crab for himself!
When we’d all finished (with the exception of Yannan who was still fighting his crab), the waiter came with a beautiful flower-shaped chocolate cake studded with candles!
22 is a LOT of candles!
All those in attendance!
On the left, from front: Danny, Fred, Yannan, Martin, Aaron
On the right, from front: Esther, me, WY, Tee, Matthew, Tee (yes, there were two Tee’s!)
Esther, being the medic, performed surgery on the cake after we’d sang happy birthday and got the birthday girl to make her wish and blow out the candles. She did it accordingly too…
Yannan shown here with his slice of cake (the mound nearest to him) with a normal slice for comparison…!
That was truly an unforgettable meal (and another free lunch for me since they insisted on paying for WY and I had shared with her…)! After that, we had to part ways and go back - WY had to drop by her office first though, so I took her flowers back to her flat to arrange for her.
WY’s flowers from her work friends along with her Kenzo Flower (perfume) from her Camb friends!
WY didn’t have time to enjoy either for long though, since she had to rush off to the airport to catch her plane to Edinburgh, since consultants tend to be jetsetters. So that left Shanci and I chatting for a while longer in the flat, enjoying WY’s flowers and having WY’s leftover chocolate cake for dinner before I too had to leave behind London and one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve EVER had and go back to uni and STUDYING! =(
And that would have been the end of my tale if not for the fact that when I set foot on campus, it was swathed in the first snowfall of the season and was a magical world of whiteness! It wasn’t too cold either, since I was well-wrapped-up. That was quite a nice way to end my little weekend adventure - walking back through the quiet snow-blanketed landscape at 1AM, knowing that hot chocolate, a hot shower and a warm bed were only a 20 minute walk away!
And so that was my weekend!
…But stay tuned for more as I go to EDINBURGH next weekend! =D
Presenting…
THE WEEKEND CELEBRATING WY’S 22ND BIRTHDAY!!!
And what a celebration it was! If this is what it’s like, then I wouldn’t mind celebrating her birthday every month!
= F R I D A Y 1 6 T H =
Woke at an ungodly hour to make the 20 minute walk to catch the bus - it was FREEZING COLD and nearly PITCH BLACK …and a nice peaceful hour to go for a walk for, actually! Anyway, caught the bus without incident, got to London without incident and after I got my London bearings back, found my way back to WY’s flat.
Met up with Suz for lunch - we had a whole pizza and hot chocolate for £3.60 each at some Italian restaurant recommended by her sister. Not bad at all for London prices, and especially considering that the last pizza I had was some vegetarian concoction I made myself, it was nice to have REAL thin crust pizza again. Even if they were really stingy with the pepperoni…!
We then proceeded to wander around central London to shop and admire the Christmas deco which was now officially being put up - although Christmas displays had already begun emerging in shops since August…
Suz with her “Percy Pig and Pals” gummies that she bought from Marks & Spencers'
I love Marks & Spencers'! Well, to be more precise, I love window shopping there! It makes me feel so… hungry! But I resisted temptation there and instead gave in at Primark instead, since I reasoned that warm clothing would yield longer-lasting utility than chocolates and biscuits and gummies and things waiting for me about a month away back home…
And yes, I confess, I gave in and bought a hat and a hoodie. But only because I really DO need them! I swear! And they were pretty cheap (by London standards at least… I spent £3 on my knit hat and £4 on my velvety hoodie jacket)…
After Oxford street shopping, we embarked on the journey back, admiring the scenery along the way because we kinda got lost in taking the scenic route…
I love my red coat! I blend in with telephone boxes!
We decided to act unabashedly touristy and take photos of everything! (I’ve spared you though and posted only the most interesting shots here...)
London’s idea of Christmas comprises fake giant paper chains…
And I’m not entirely sure if a fake giant plug has anything to do with Christmas but it’s green and I’m red so yeah…
Suz had to leave for her church camp retreat thingy in the evening though, so I made my way over to Covent Garden (I love Covent Garden! I really wouldn’t mind working or living there in the future…) to meet up with WY for dinner.
Covent had some pretty awesome Christmas lights
We had dinner at an Italian deli, whereupon I had real quality meat for the first time in a month! We had a bread and meat selection (basically lots of slices of different hams or salamis or whatever they’re called along with lots of slices of different breads with some salad) and a lamb rosti (which was lamb steak with potatoes and salad). WY had a peach & green tea drink while I had grapefruit & passionfruit.
Ahhh BLISSS!! We were so busy eating and talking and generally having such quality time that we didn’t even take any photos!
As if that were not enough, WY decided to go all extravagant and treat me to Hagendaaz as well! The poor uni student in me nearly went into fits at the thought of how much we were spending but then again I’m not going to protest at free food…
Briefly bumped into her work friends who were going to watch the 3D movie Beowulf in Leicester Square but we didn’t stick around long to chat since we were hellbent on getting into Hagendaaz…
As you can see why:
Mango Margarita - consisting of mango sorbet, raspberry coulis, two raspberries, a strawberry, and either vodka or tequila or cointreau or probably even all three… AWESOMELY SINFUL!
Caribbean Chocolate - Hagendaaz brand hot chocolate, whipped cream, scoops of Hagendaaz ice cream with macaroon bits in them topped off with a small jug of molten Belgian chocolate to drizzle on… THIS IS TO DIE FOR!
Close up on the Belgian chocolate!
Close up on the margarita!
After that, went back to the flat and found that Lay Ping and Shanci were back by then… had a second round of dessert in the form of Marks & Spencer Mini-bites (which, as Suz said, taste so good it’s not even funny). Good food and good company to the wee hours of morning… this is the way to really live!
= S A T U R D A Y 1 7 T H =
Woke indulgently late to tag along with WY for dimsum at noon with her uni friend Stephanie and her work friend Martin. (I suppose it’s only common sense after all, not to mention economical - meet ‘em all at once rather than separately for each group of friends!) Had an excellent variety including char siew pau, egg tart, siew mai, har gow, won ton, lotus leaf glutinous rice and chicken feet especially for Martin, who never tried it before!
After dimsum, we parted ways - I met up with Sarah first and had a good catching-up session over enormous mugs of hot chocolate in Starbucks before meeting Simon and Julie later.
Since we wanted to go sight seeing but were too cheap to spend much, we decided to wander around Portobello Market, which is apparently a must-see for its antiques and quaint trinkets and whatnot. (In other words, a cleaner and more classy-looking Petaling Street!)
Portobello Market! Note how dark it was despite being barely 4pm at that time!
I’m loving the colourful houses; aren’t you?
Mince pies, mulled wine, corn on the cob, hot dogs, silverware, old rare books, vintage scarves and bags and clothes, old colonial-y furniture and household items, watercolours, jewellery… there was so much there to offer!
Guess what that shop was selling? =P
And there’s no real way to capture the market in photos at night with my camera, so here’s a short video clip:
I loved all the antiques and was pretty tempted to do Christmas shopping there and then, but decided that impulse shopping with only about £20 in hand (meant to last me the rest of the weekend!) wasn’t the way to go. Besides, I had to go back pretty soon so I made my farewells to Simon and Julie and took my leave.
…To another of my favourite places - Chinatown!
Met WY and Lay Ping in Chinatown to do steamboat shopping - the whole place was seething with people! Even the grocer we went to had insanely long (though fast and efficient) queues. Luckily, managed to get everything without much fuss and went back to prepare the steamboat.
Setting it out in WY’s room…
Starting off with the clear soup and meatballs!
Bubble bubble toil and trouble!
The other food waiting to be cooked
The hungry people waiting to be fed!
Sui Seng taking pictures of the hungry people
L-R: Lay Ping, Christine, WY, Yijin, Shanci
The herbal spice chicken… sort of done beggar’s chicken style by WY
The Marks & Spencers' cake!
And a photo of all those in attendance courtesy of the self-timer option on my camera!
And again, this time in video:
This is what you call “eat so much until I wan to die oredi!!”
We had a LOT of food - fish balls, pork balls, sotong balls, crab sticks, vermicelli, cabbage, shrimp, won ton, mushrooms, pork, seaweed… I think we managed to satisfy EVERYONE and still had lots left over! I couldn’t even manage to last to the tom yam stage…
The aftermath!
After that, we generally just sat around and chatted and had cake and ba gua and expensive quality chocolates and slept. All in all, a very good night!
= S U N D A Y 1 8 T H =
I didn’t think it was humanly possible to eat better or more after those two days but I was again proved wrong! Woke up indecently late again in time to join WY for lunch with her work friends.
We met Esther and her boyfriend Danny as well as WY’s work friend Fred at the tube station. Fred then took us on a bus which was headed to the restaurant where he said Yannan was waiting.
Imagine WY’s surprise when it turned out to be not just Yannan but a whole group of her work friends along with flowers! Plus it was a really nice place - it had a sort of American-style atmosphere like Chili’s, with the sports TVs etc, but this place was focused on seafood like Manhattan Fish Market.
And the portions, when we finally ordered them, were GIGANTIC! WY and I wisely decided to order one to share between us…
The MONSTER whole Atlantic crab that we ordered!
It might not look that huge, but the claw was literally the size of my hand!
It was fantastic! It was just cooked in a simple butter sauce with lemon to squeeze on but that was more than enough to bring out the taste of the huge crab! We also had deep fried calamari to complement the crab.
Yannan and Fred ordered one to share too… but not just one crab, but one PLATTER…
Fred and Yannan’s platter! Half a kilo of steak, one giant lobster, potatoes and other assorted tidbits…!
And Yannan still wasn’t full enough and ordered another crab for himself!
When we’d all finished (with the exception of Yannan who was still fighting his crab), the waiter came with a beautiful flower-shaped chocolate cake studded with candles!
22 is a LOT of candles!
All those in attendance!
On the left, from front: Danny, Fred, Yannan, Martin, Aaron
On the right, from front: Esther, me, WY, Tee, Matthew, Tee (yes, there were two Tee’s!)
Esther, being the medic, performed surgery on the cake after we’d sang happy birthday and got the birthday girl to make her wish and blow out the candles. She did it accordingly too…
Yannan shown here with his slice of cake (the mound nearest to him) with a normal slice for comparison…!
That was truly an unforgettable meal (and another free lunch for me since they insisted on paying for WY and I had shared with her…)! After that, we had to part ways and go back - WY had to drop by her office first though, so I took her flowers back to her flat to arrange for her.
WY’s flowers from her work friends along with her Kenzo Flower (perfume) from her Camb friends!
WY didn’t have time to enjoy either for long though, since she had to rush off to the airport to catch her plane to Edinburgh, since consultants tend to be jetsetters. So that left Shanci and I chatting for a while longer in the flat, enjoying WY’s flowers and having WY’s leftover chocolate cake for dinner before I too had to leave behind London and one of the most enjoyable weekends I’ve EVER had and go back to uni and STUDYING! =(
And that would have been the end of my tale if not for the fact that when I set foot on campus, it was swathed in the first snowfall of the season and was a magical world of whiteness! It wasn’t too cold either, since I was well-wrapped-up. That was quite a nice way to end my little weekend adventure - walking back through the quiet snow-blanketed landscape at 1AM, knowing that hot chocolate, a hot shower and a warm bed were only a 20 minute walk away!
And so that was my weekend!
…But stay tuned for more as I go to EDINBURGH next weekend! =D