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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

a pint, or three


it's apt to be posting this on the day i'm officially done with first year. went by the carriage with some friends after our last class in the middle of may. the last two weeks have passed in a flash. and for now, we're done with school. results come out in a week (eek!) but ignorance is bliss. 

in other news, we get married in three weeks.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

tea sutra

 after the OSCE on friday, we headed out for some tea therapy. this little hidey hole had the ambiance of a japanese tea garden, complete with tatami-esque floor. naturally, it was shoes off and crossed legs :) the tibetan drum n' bass in the background added to the eclectic feel of the place. loved the wide selection of tea and i finally satiated my craving for genmaicha. yesyes, not the most refined of teas but my peasant's palate loves the taste of roasted rice.


you can't tell but S is pouring her chai out of an elephant shaped teapot!

and here's J checking my suspected mitral regurgitation. funny how the cardiovascular exam only brought out the hypochondriac in me. hope it's just sinus arythmia but will dutifully go to the GP to have it sussed out all the same.  doesn't he look so very professional? top marks for making like a doctor!


Monday, May 28, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

jubilee weekend

one exam down, two to go and my mind is already in the atlantic ocean. so much for spending jubilee weekend in the lakes. my abysmal grasp of geography and distance meant i didn't realise it was a good five hour drive from london. i like road trips. i like when kai's driving but we figured seeing how we'd a good four (!!!) days to play with, we should really be flying somewhere. my first instincts told me to go paris but hang on a second... kai's in paris for work the following week and in my little scheming head i've decided to tag along. teehee! 

and then i spied with my little eye, the channel islands! also, as i enjoy feigning an interest in politics, i thought it'd be pretty funny to celebrate the diamond jubilee from the crown dependency. as it's as close as we could get to our former-colony home. the other politically incorrect place to celebrate would be northern ireland but the giant's causeway has to wait. i've mixed feelings about colonialism, best shared after a stiff drink or two so i shant bore you with the diatribe. suffice to say, the last place i want to spend jubilee weekend in is london. no anglophilia here!

but back to jersey :) had my heart set on walking in the lakes and to my sheer delight (again, being a geography noob is really not in my best interests) i realised that jersey was made for walking. and there are lovely gentle routes that take only an hour. because i am unabashedly wannabe geriatric, that works just fine.


oh and there's a michelin starred restaurant where we're staying. just sayin' :) annual dose of stars hehe.

the exams couldn't be over sooner!

always singaporean at heart


i cannot shake my addiction to kaya toast. it's become a little ritual for me to have it at the airport just before i leave. and each time i leave, it's for a longer time. blessed to be where i want to be, doing what i want to do but a part of me feels the pang of leaving the country i call home behind. and i've come to realise that home is a transient notion. of late, home is where kai is. now to learn how to make kaya toast, liang li soft boiled eggs and milo with lots of condensed milk to replicate the warm fuzzy feeling killiney kopitiam in all its various shapes and forms never fails to rouse within me.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

mothers' day

in addition to the wedding and puppies, it was also mothers' day wthe weekend i was home. so we took the sampan (mum and porpor too!) for a spin. i've missed the sea :)



and when we got back to the marina, i saw this little boat that reminded me so much of my glorious time in stockholm in 2009. can't wait to see team oz at the wedding!

Friday, May 25, 2012

ulterior motive

so in the previous post i said i went home for my cousin's wedding. well... not entirely. i did only book my tickets after confirming that my darling rottie was preggers. and thankfully, things went according to plan and when i arrived, she had these lovely two week old bundles waiting for me.




teeheehee!

Thursday, May 24, 2012

heartiest congratulations!


so this was the very special occasion i alluded to. didn't realise i could when i first started school but oh yay i managed to make it home for their wedding :) was thrilled to be part of their big day and it was a lovely wedding to say the least. i only have 3 cousins (dad's an only child, mum's only sibling has 3 girls) and having already missed #1's wedding to climb machu picchu (oops!), i couldn't possibly miss #2 as well. and seeing how #3 is likely to get married while i'm still based in the UK, there was no better time than this to show that i'm not as emotionally detached as my gran thinks i am. speaking of grans, she sure has struck the grandchild lottery. with grand-daughter #1 expecting the first great-grandchild, grand-daughters #2 and #3 getting married this year, and 3 lawyers, 1 doctor, 2 doctors-to-be and 1 lawyer-to-be from her 6 grandchildren, she gets to brag about her very boring family.

rounding up the grandchild count!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

snapshots of london

i don't know about you but vertical gardens fascinate me :) here's one at the edgeware road tube station.

a more conventional garden, i.e. hyde park

can't wait till we've dimsum here. the last time i was there, i accidentally dressed just like my host. i.e. black turtle neck, scarf and skinnies. while she's an immaculately dressed lady, she's also a good 30 years older than i am and i was horrified to have been a mini-me.  so from then i swore to only shop at primark kids.


Tuesday, May 22, 2012

bicester


K was an absolutely sweetheart and offered to take us to bicester for some retail therapy. truth be told, while i'd gone to new york to buy my wedding gown, the manfriend was still suit-less. well actually, we bought his wedding suit in milan but he couldn't resist wearing it, and has worn it on such high rotation that it's no longer special. so we'd to get him something new. which we did, among other finds, and now he's not allowed to wear his wedding suit #2 till the actual wedding. 

and while the manfriend was shopping up a storm, K and i chilled at the pub because we are shopping-averse. that's it, you heard right. i don't like to shop :)


a corona! at last!

Monday, May 21, 2012

our first home!

so we now live in a converted bus depot, as you might be able to guess fro the high ceiling, sky light and strange beams. it's more than we expected before kai relocated and we're really happy to have so much space to ourselves - quite unheard of in london. we joke that maybe we'll upgrade to a disused train station next but can see ourselves here for awhile. thank you God.



a little peek of what's on my bedside table. a bubbly nightcap, jeanette winterson (her memoir fascinates me!) and our laura*ashley lamp haha.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

home is where the chai tow kway is


stopped by bea's@bloomsbury for some sugar en route to the cinema. and as if the avengers on their own weren't enough for a winning night, we were in for a treat! K, a super value-added housemate of our friend's, invited us back for some home-cooked goodness. in the span of literally 10 minutes, he magically whipped up chai tow kway (below), bak chor mee and steamed egg. by the end of dinner, i was ready to move outta our home and into theirs. speaking of which, will be posting some photos of our first home in london tomorrow, if you'd like to see.


Saturday, May 19, 2012

wild honey

the manfriend found this lovely little place for our first friday night together in london. it was nothing like the singapore version (ugh) and the eponymous dessert was life-changing. a little polarising initially, with its natural bitterness and bite but the malty aftertaste had me hooked. not forgetting the bits of honeycomb. so good!

the menu changes constantly but on the advice of the couple at the next table, we went with the steak for two which came with amazing gratin. in a perfect world, i'd live on white carbs, cream and cheese.


and funny story about the neighbouring couple! we sat down and suddenly the guy looked at the manfriend and said, 'kai...?' turns out they were schoolmates since secondary one. and his fiancee happened to be my water polo captain's sister! small small world. take two singaporean couples out of singapore and they'll find themselves seated side by side at a tiny restaurant in london. wow.

medlar

part of my litany of procrastinating tactics includes reading food blogs. and food reviews. and trying to muscle my way in on the 'in' scene. for us uncool types, every little helps. to quote tesco. but this little find was by word of foodie mouth and my dear friend K suggest we head there to celebrate the end of first year. so i've read all about and around it, made a booking and helloooo fantastic london meal. am such a nerd to book a fortnight in advance but my inner kiasu singaporean is alive and kicking. and with all new entries to the faddy food scene, i don't know how long the prices will stay the way they are, or how popular it's going to get as summer approaches. 

also, i've a soft spot for former anthropologists...

Friday, May 18, 2012

yumchaa



a little slow on the uptake for this student staple and i'm sure it's more than well-documented across many a student-in-london blog. but! better late than never and i went nuts at the wide selection of tea. while i'm a new coffee convert, tea has always been my first love and i live on litres and litres of the stuff every day. in fact, tiny confession: i don't drink water because it's too plain (yeah, i know. ridiculous right?) but i drink tons of tea instead. so oh well. to each his own. was unimpressed by the cake selection and the manfriend's chai latte was strange. hit and miss.

local tourism

one of the nicest things about having kai here is the weekend getaways i can plan. sure, there's leave to take and the continent to explore but these short holidays are a shot in the arm for my flagging wanderlust. and having only just been bitten by the outdoor bug, i'm all for long walks in the country. we're headed to the lakes in two weeks, and to the cotsworlds later in summer. with exams next week, all i can do is drool over these photos. thank goodness for sweet booking websites and sweeter deals. 

staying at the lake house (naturally!) in the lakes


and at king hotel in the cotsworlds. that creepy stone man in the bath does freak me out a little!


(photos from the official websites of the respective hotels)

Thursday, May 17, 2012

patisserie deux amis





chanced upon this adorable cafe near west end and fell in love with the bubbly lady boss. we were spoilt for choice but decided on the baguette with duck rillet and apple sauce. the bread was crusty and rustic, and i later learnt exactly why! the cafe imports these baguette babies DAILY from FRANCE. because, as the proprietress quipped, "damn english water. we can't make bread like that with our bloody water." well it was well worth the cross-channel commute, if you ask me! enjoyed the coffee too. so much so i had three flat whites and a cappucino in the course of an hour. hm. not wise... and especially not when i'm drinking flat whites in a vain attempt to reduce my dairy intake. damn asian genes. it's not just asian alcohol flush but lactose intolerance!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

so much for hiatus

and so much for keeping my head down for some mega revision. haven't been able to resist the siren song of all the fantastic cafes in london. the manfriend and i have made it a point to visit a different neighbourhood every opportunity. usually on the weekend but we've made the most of the may bank holiday and ventured as far as bicester for some retail therapy. have a couple of posts lined up so do check back for some cafe finds and what happened when i went home for all of 72 hours.

and after this little posting spree, which should take us all the way to the end of the month, i'll be back with real time posts of life after first year. well, more like summer of first year, which stretches before me in its four month glory. oh yeahhh :D can't wait.


completely unrelated but here's a photo of M's birthday cake. victorian sponge ftw! and it's G's hands in the photo, although she's way too pretty to be only a hand model. incidentally, she's got five (!!!) children aged 2-12 so i'm guessing it takes plenty of mama practice to light candles that fast ;) 

do check back for the cafe posts :)

Friday, May 4, 2012

hiatus

back to singers for a very special occasion then it's full steam ahead for the year end exams. can't believe that first year will be over in a mere three weeks! shall leave you with this cute little beer batter recipe xx



Thursday, May 3, 2012

PH


one thing i absolutely cannot live without is PH - that's reason plenty to stay in london (and happily so!) having been slow on the uptake, i now wonder how i ever got by without these little babies. omnomnom and off we go!

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

burnham beeches hotel



if you ever happen to be in the area, and looking for a lovely hidey hole, this is it! beautiful hotel, beautiful rooms decked out in laura ashley so if the surroundings weren't convincing enough, you'd know from the interiors that you're truly in jolly ole england. the service was impeccable and i'm a sucker for heritage buildings with modern refurbishment. was almost tempted to transfer our wedding ceremony here, but the manfriend shot me a look that said, 'don't you even think about it'. and i shelved the thought. 

now to convince someone else to have a wedding here that i can gatecrash ;)

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

not an every day sight

we made for the country almost as soon as the manfriend arrived in london. have to admit that i'm not the biggest fan of the old smoke and couldn't wait for some fresh air. stayed with friends who, get this, have alpacas running all over the lawn. we'd not seen alpacas since we were in peru in summer 2009. if memory doesn't fail me, these alpacas we were acquainted with later became alpaca steak :) but the beautes we befriended over the weekend were spared similar ill fate.