Free Day

Since I'm on a roll, might as well post up some photos of Thursday, when Derek, Yan and I decided to venture out to Trafalgar Square to check out the National Gallery and try some Japanese yakitori in Soho.

Trafalgar Square & National Gallery:

Trafalgar Square

National Gallery

climbing off the lion

entrance

inside the museum - not sure if i was allowed to take a picture, oh well

Now for the food pictures, my specialty ;)

Bincho:

kim chi pork ribs

delicious

my yakitori-don

samurai sampler

menu

soymilk donuts with vanilla ice cream

And later that night, Charine and I were convinced to go out and we went with Jeff and Sean to a bar called Roadhouse, which at first I wasn't very enthused about the music, but it turned out to be pretty good in the end. Let's just say that the night resulted in quite a few priceless photos, some of which will never see the sun again as I was told to hide them forever, but it's all good. Now you can only imagine just how great those photos were :p

this fishbowl drink that we had... not bad

let me just tell everyone right now that sourz is the best drink ever

charine is challenged by jeff and dan to walk in a straight line...

I'm pretty sure my abs were sore the next day from laughing so much that night. Big thanks to Charine for the entertainment and Jeff and Sean for convincing us to actually go out.

As for me, my throat's been killing me every morning ever since we got back from Amsterdam. Everyone's been getting sick these days and I think the germs are just being passed around by all the students here in London. Think about it.. we don't even have dishwashers and I doubt a sponge and a little dishwashing soap is going to disinfect the germs when everyone washes their plates and utensils off after a meal. And seeing as how we have 9 girls living in our suite, I wouldn't be surprised if our germs just got passed around the suite. Oh well, what can you do. I just hope this sore, scratchy throat will go away soon because I'm sick of swallowing phlegm every 5 seconds and clearing my throat lest I suffocate and die.

Now, it's time to commence the essay for our dreadful required course before the suite heads out to Ministry of Sound for Wolfgang Gartner tonight. Hopefully it'll be fun, but hey, no high expectations, especially after what happened at Skrillex right?

Amsterdam and the In-Between Bits

I'm getting a little lazy here with the blogging... it's almost been like two weeks and still no post. Allow me to fill in the in-betweens and whatnot from last post til now.

Last Thursday, Charine, Lynn and I decided to finally go and check out the Borough Market. It was pretty good, but we probably went a little too late so there weren't as many stands and it wasn't as bustling as I thought it'd be. But, the food was still yummy and I definitely recommend it to anyone who's in London :)

entrance to the market

coffee from monmouth coffee

map of the market

That night, we all packed our bags and headed down to King's College for a weekend trip to Amsterdam. Everyone is astonished by the fact that we took a 10 hour bus ride there instead of a 2 hour plane ride, but it really wasn't that bad. Here's a recap of what we did in Amsterdam in photos:

Friday - arrive in Amsterdam, pancakes, Anne Frank museum, club

world-renowned coffee shops of Amsterdam

salmon, tomato and cheese pancake

chocolate, banana and nuts pancake - heaven

the anne frank house was hauntingly interesting

the free club event that we decided to go to..

let's just say that long island ice teas are a good investment

oh, and here is what our hostel room looked like - prison cell much?

Saturday - Heineken Experience, I AMsterdam, Van Gogh Museum, indonesian food, red light district

Heineken Experience

samples

I AMsterdam

Van Gogh museum

indonesian food.. very spiced/curried but the chicken was really good

red light district, eerie and disturbing yet arguably the most beautiful part of amsterdam. oh the irony.

test tubes

photo yan doesn't remember of us eating ribs

the Hansbrinker Hotel, where we called home for those two nights

And Sunday was our journey back to London. Good thing we snagged the best seats on the bus -- the ones on the lower floor of the bus -- so we didn't have to listen to that one British girl who pre-gamed for both bus rides and would not shut up the first time. We arrived safe and sound back at Byron Court in the evening and that ends our lovely trip to Amsterdam :)

Afternoon Tea and a Day Trip

Hello everyone.

SO the two most exciting things I did this week was going to afternoon tea at the Lanesborough Hotel and going on a day trip to Stonehenge & a cute little town called Bath.

On Thursday, we headed through the drizzling rain to Hyde Park, where the Lanesborough is located. Apparently it was Michael Jackson's favorite hotel. I don't blame him, because it was really nice inside. After checking in our coats and wet umbrellas, we were led into the dining room where several other tables of people were already enjoying their afternoon tea and snacks to go along with it. It was kind of awkward, because the waiters pulled out our chairs for us and put our napkins on our laps for us and everything. I was definitely not used to that kind of treatment. Here are some pictures:

The group

"pre-dessert" of some cream, chocolate, and raspberry layered on top of each other

The Lanesborough Afternoon Tea blend - it tasted pretty good

our tier of sandwiches and pastries!

group photo

our tea :)

super sweet macaroon half with cream, apricot, chocolate

After tea, Charine, Derek and I decided to go and explore the nearby area a bit. We went towards Picadilly Circus and met an interesting guy on the way there. He is apparently a "renaissance man" and is an artist. And he gave us his name so we could add him on facebook... definitely not adding him. He was kind of creepy and even invited us over for dinner lol. Anyway, we explored a little bit between Picadilly Circus and Oxford Circus, and we stopped by a place called Zebrano because a lady was giving out cards for 50% off drinks. Too bad it was kind of awkward because everyone was 25+ years old and all had their own parties at their own tables. At least the drinks were good? After that we headed home and Charine made us watch a movie called "Perfume" which was interesting but really weird at the same time, and the ending was kind of lame.

Hyde Park @ night

jumping pictures, all day every day

trying on hats at Fortnum & Mason

The next day, we had a full day trip to Stonehenge & Bath. We had to get up at 7am for this and it was a three hour bus ride. Pictures:

Stonehenge... not as big as everyone makes it seem

the crescent in Bath

Park in Bath

the Roman Baths - so pretty, I wish we could've bathed in them :p

And that ends my post for today. The week flew by so quickly, it's already Sunday... sigh. Let the homework begin.

Paris, je t'aime

Wow, it's already Tuesday and Paris feels like so long ago. Here's a recap of what I did in Paris with Jocelyn, Kathryn and Lynn:

Thursday: I sent out some postcards and after everyone came home from class, we decided to head to the train station.Unfortunately, we all thought the train was supposed to leave 20 minutes later than it actually was, so we were on a time crunch when we got to St. Pancras International Station and were ushered by the workers so that we would make the train. After finally getting on, we were all separated since we didn't buy our tickets together but we all made it onto the train safely and two hours later, we were at Gare du Nord in Paris! We found our hostel, the Young & Happy Hostel and went to have our first dinner at Le Pot de Terre, which was delicious.

The Hostel

Dinner @ Le Pot de Terre

Friday: We started off the day with the Louvre, where we saw the Mona Lisa and all of the other famous works displayed there. After that, we headed to the Notre Dame Cathedral, which was really pretty. We had lunch at a cafe nearby and the waiter was super nice and we had a great meal. I had a ham and cheese crepe and we all had a dessert platter afterwards with coffee. It was delicious. Then we took the metro to the Eiffel Tower where we didn't actually go on top but just took pictures of it from the ground. And we spent a good hour figuring out how to fit the entire tower in our pictures. Next, we went to the Arc de Triomphe and paid six euros to climb to the top. The view from the top was nice, and afterwards we walked around Champs Elysees for a while and stopped by the huge Louis Vuitton store. After a long day of doing touristy things, we decided to try fondue for dinner. Apparently, the French like to have white wine mixed in with their cheese fondue which was a little too strong and bitter for us, so it was the least enjoyable meal we had in Paris (and quite expensive as well). Then we went back to the hostel to get some rest and to plan the next day.

The Louvre

Group Picture at the Eiffel Tower

Saturday: This day was a little more laid back. We didn't wake up as early and our first stop was the Sacre-Coeur, which was quite beautiful but littered with hundreds of tourists and annoying beggars and street performers. However there was one guy on the steps in front of the Sacre-Coeur who was playing the harp, which was a beautiful combination with the surroundings and the church. Since it was close by, we went into Paris's gypsy district to find the Moulin Rouge building, which was pretty cool to see. Too bad tickets were 80 euros and up, or else we could've gone to see a show! C'est la vie. After that we ventured over to the Longchamp store to fulfill our main goal of coming to Paris... just kidding? Lynn, Kathryn and I all bought bags (for only $101 USD!) and proudly carried our green Longchamp shopping bags with us for the rest of the day... lol exaggeration much. Then we stopped by a small cafe and had a relatively normal lunch, complete with mac and cheese, cheese burgers, and Jocelyn and I ordered a tiramisu that actually turned out to be homemade and was served to us in a jar. I've never seen tiramisu served like that before! Next, we ventured back over to Champs Elysees to check out Laduree, a French gourmet pastry restaurant that Serena and Blair actually "bought" macaroons from in one of their episodes in Paris. It was super cute, but we weren't prepared for the long line shooting out the door so we decided to come back the next day for brunch. We did a little shopping, then headed back and had crepes for dinner. We decided to try and see what the Paris nightlife was like by walking down the street and checking out a couple of places. Good thing our hostel was located on such a convenient street; there were at least 10 different bars but we only went into one and sat for about half an hour. Jocelyn and Kathryn wanted to dance and according to the French people at the neighboring table, there was a dance floor downstairs, so we ventured down only to find that French people indeed smell.. and not the good kind of smell. It was a blast of human b.o. and sweat. Nasty. When I went back to the room after I showered and everything, and I was literally right about to crawl under my covers, this cranky old British lady who moved into our room at the hostel that day basically scolded me for "making an awful lot of noise for the middle of the night." Correction: it was 1AM and you're in a youth hostel. If you're a light sleeper, you better give up on getting any rest because there are going to be at least 10 groups of young people coming back drunk and speaking loudly. She even had the nerve to tell some girls who were in the bathroom across the hall from our room to quiet down an hour or two after she yelled at me. Please lady, if you want to save some money next time don't try to save it by staying in a youth hostel.

Sacre-Coeur

Our new bags!

Salty crepes.. super cheesy

Sunday: We woke up relatively late but our train was actually later than what we had originally thought so we left our suitcases behind and went to Laduree for our brunch. They seated us at the bar and Kathryn and I shared a meal complete with coffee, juice, eggs, fruit, and a variety of bread and pastries, which were all delicious. The line for the pastry takeout (where you get those cute little green boxes and bags) grew longer while we were sitting and eating, but we wanted our macaroons so we had to hop on the end of the line and wait it out to finally get them. Then we killed some time at H&M and headed back to the hostel, picked up some food, took the metro to the train station, and took the train back to London! And that ends my journey in Paris :)

Our brunch at Laduree

Grapefruit juice! Yum

My beautiful macaroons :)

Today: My biggest accomplishment was going to the gym today with Kathryn and trying a new class called Body Attack. Well let me tell you... my body certainly was attacked, like WWII nuclear bomb status. Everyone was sweaty besides the instructor who looked perfect and barely tired by the end of the hour long class, but it was a very rewarding experience and I definitely plan on going to that every week from now on. I expect to be sore all over tomorrow morning when I wake up.

On that note, going to finish my episode of Pretty Little Liars when it finally decides to finish loading and head to bed as I am pooped! Au revoir.