48h in paris

now i've to be a little careful about how i phrase this for fear of drawing disapprobation. let's just say i fortuitously got a friday afternoon off owing to some administrative oversight. and i found out while on the tube to work. so what's a girl to do but to plan an escape strategy? contemplated going north as i'm wont to do but figured i'd OD on friends the week before and didn't quite want to subject myself to the train journey. plus it was faster and cheaper to hop on the eurostar heh. was lucky to find eurostar tickets last minute, and get a good deal on a sweet hotel in a decent part of town. admittedly indulgent and hedonistic, plus the terrorist threat in paris isn't one to be taken lightly. but hey, why live in fear, you know?

so i sort of broke free from hospital as discreetly as possible at a respectable time, nipped home to pack an overnighter and was at st pancras before i knew it. had some time to kill so had yo! sushi tea before the 2h20min ride. 

my plans for paris were few. basically wanted japanese food and to be on my own. there's something restorative about one's own company and i often get introvert hangovers where i need to shut down and recharge before subjecting people to me again. told a friend about this recently and he said he was the opposite and being on his own for 48h was his idea of hell! 

but i mean how amazing is the thought of doing exactly what i wanted, when i wanted? not like i don't already in london heh but if i want to zz at 7pm, i will! if i want to have the same udon twice in two days, i will (and did!) and i walked in the tuileries, had berthillon ice cream, watched the boats along the seine the whole afternoon just lost in my thoughts. it was great :) came back really refreshed.

dins for one at sweet bistro that pierre hermes of macaron fame had his wedding party at. if it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me!

and a friend suggested i attended mass at montmarte which i'm glad i did although in retrospect if i were so inclined to blow things up, this would've been a prime target.

best udon ever. better than in tokyo. better than koya in london.

had the biggest tauhuay craving and after a disappointing mr bean in singers this last trip (never again!) i was gobsmacked to have such authentic silken tauhuay and tounai in the chinatown part of paris. the only downside was that it's smack in the middle of mainland chinese hooker*land and crawling with dirty old frenchmen :/ so unpleasant. and because i'm in need of a hep B booster, i did get a little freaked out by potentially dirty crockery and cutlery :(

forays north

found myself in edinburgh on the last weekend before starting work. or sort of the first weekend of work, can't quite remember. there was unpaid shadowing at some point and it all blurs into one. it's a city i've a soft spot for and maintain that in a perfect world, that's where i'd have loved to live and train. there's just something about it and i fell in love with the place when backpacking in summer 2008, and later visits have reinforced this amazing affinity for the city i want to call home. london? pfft. who needs it :P granted, i agree that scotland as a foundation school is pretty scary because i could end up in the outer hebrides but uh given how the current foundation school i'm in is traditionally oversubscribed 20:1, maybe it wouldn't have been so hard to get edinburgh... or even if i got isle of bute (?) i'd be happy with the coastal scenery and sheep. grow where one's planted, you know?

went up scot's monument and wandered in the gardens and gallery. such good art and fell for the skating man. now how do i incorporate him into my flat...

returned to england via the chain bridge and honey farm, with the necessary stop at the bus cafe for a scone. it's got to be the prettiest border (and trust me, i've been to most of them because i'm nerdy that way!) plus the H furnishings don't hurt ;)

dins with dippy

summer ball at the natural history museum was such a novelty! was running late (was on the train back to london frantically trying to beat rush hour traffic) and there was definitely some hurried gussying up back home. but all good and still managed to catch the clowns outside the museum, even though they may have shown us less tricks as we were hurried in to catch the opening address. amazing how they managed to pack so many tables into the ground floor, there was almost no space to move. and it was hot and stuffy (london! summer! can't cope!) and the next table kept stealing our standing fan, they played the pregnant woman card then we played the pregnant woman card and it was quite comic because our pregnant woman wasn't looking very pregnant just yet.

hinds head and harwood arms

on the way home from cliveden, my mother had the brainwave to ask the question at the hind's head in hope that they'd be able to take a last minute reservation. as they say up north, shy bairns get nought and we were thrilled with the spontaneous lunch. the food was excellent, and better than i remembered it to be when we last went with M and A. the scotch egg was out of this world and well worth the hike on its own. i had an unadorned steak (runny egg yolk, medium rare steak, really not complying with doctor's orders...) which was so good on its own and pea soup before the steak. strawberry tart for dessert and was too busy stuffing my face to take a photo of what my parents ordered.

and because we were on a hedonistic roll, we were further spoilt with more michelin starred gastropub goodness that same night. lucky to live a stone's throw from harwood arms and while i thought it might be too much of a good thing, i was impressed my lean and mean folks managed to put away a second pub meal in 7h.

cliveden

funny story here - after graduation my folks wanted to do a roadtrip, presumably to the cotswolds. so after telling everyone i was going to the cotswolds, imagine my disappointment when i learnt father dearest balked at the 3h drive from london, decided 45min drive to maidenhead was sufficiently heroic and off we went. didn't have the heart to tel them that we were really only 40min from my flat and it didn't quite count as a staycation. but as the adult child i got the pull out bed which my father gallantly slept on and i got the big bed. perks of being the first born :) also, he couldn't have chosen a prettier place to stay. grand old house with lots of good walks and pretty towns near by. 

do think their ulterior motive was to get me to exercise and we explored the grounds from morning to night, or it felt like that but i do remember having a long nap every afternoon and they were sweet not to wake me at 3am when they woke to reply emails / work.

back to london

 

and all too soon it was back to london. fell back into the cycle of thai takeaway (pad thai!) and then scrambled eggs at LPQ / hally's for breakfast. it was nice to have a few lazy mornings to settle back into things before graduation and grad trip v2 with my folks.

 

was also wondering why it was so cold in summer and first order of business was to buy trousers because my summer daisy dukes that had served well in the far east just weren't cutting it anymore!

and there was also the night we went a little crazy after dins at the home club (?) and found ourselves at maddox...

hello and goodbye

so before i left for medsch, had a little farewell party with friends. it felt only right to invite the friends who'd seen me through five years of medsch, and the new friends made along the way, to celebrate finally being done with uni v2. my incredibly talented and generous friend W kindly contributed the most beautiful cake. vanilla buttercream with seville orange curd which was almost too pretty to eat.

organised tables, chairs and a few vendors who were absolute crowd pleasers :)

it was great to seee everyone again and also sad in a way that i'll be london based for at least two more years.