As promised, this is going to be a travelogue post about my time spent in London during Christmas last year.
the dirty window does not do justice to my photo, hmpf! Anw, this was taken in the train from soton to london.
Day 1:
Headed down to Gerrard's Corner the next day for some dim sum at Chinatown in Leicester Square.
Loving the colours in this photo, orange light gives it a vintage feel.
woots, tifanny came down from notts just to spend time with us for 1 night...but ditched us to spend the rest of the holidays in finland..roar! But then again, she is coming down for cny next week...haha.
my mango pudding, haven't had it in such a long time, a pity that they didn't give more carnation milk for it.
carrot cake which I don't usually order unless with my parents but have somehow taken a liking to it..hehe.
century egg porridge which up till now, I dislike eating it.
and of course, the mandatory har gao, siew mai, lotus leaf glutinous rice and liew sha bao!
Finished our dim sum around 3ish and when we came out on the streets, we were welcomed by the dark skies. Life in winter.
Straight ahead with the christmas lights is Regent street, a shopping street adjacent to Oxford Street which is further down. Carries slightly higher end brands like a massively huge Burberry store and all.
Snow globe! Which literally died the next day from the strong winds. Thankful and lucky to be able to capture a shot of it but sad that it didn't last till christmas day.
ootd, gonna look pretty much the same in the other photos despite wearing different clothes inside...winter fashion.
A must have in London, buns from Golden Gate Cake Shop in Chinatown.
That was end of the 1st day in London. Purely eating and a little bit of sight seeing down the shopping area.
Day 2: Christmas Eve
was spent with qiang lin from Leicester!
Assa Korean restaurant was our lunch stop for the day. We actually visited the branch at St Gile's High Street initially but it was full and we were greeted by really rude workers so we decided to go to the one on Romilly Street which was much bigger and the staff there were really nice.
missing this right now ): this is budae jjigae (army stew). This dish is perfect for winter, can you imagine having a hot pot of stew in the cold winter, sounds great doesn't it? This stew is not bad, had alot of different ingredients and meat inside which is pretty worth the money and the soup base is good too.
Tried out other dishes like kimchi jeon (kimchi pancake) and bulgogi (stir fry marinated beef). The kimchi jeon was that nice to be honest, it didn't have much kimchi inside and it was a little bit too oily. The bulgogi was not that fantastic either, not much sweet flavouring to it. My take on this restaurant: it is one of the more decent korean restaurants I have been to so far in the uk so I might go there again if I visit London although the price ain't that cheap but then again, food in London is not cheap.
Met up with the rest of the university gang who came from all over uk as well as canada for christmas meet ups. Group photos not in my camera unfortunately.
Day 3: Christmas Day!
No chance for a white christmas sadly, but it was sunny, so a pretty good day for sight seeing despite no transport being available.
Was staying over at my aunty/cousin's place during my time in London and this is the view from the balcony, nice weather!
Spent the morning photo taking in the balcony in just normal clothes and no coats...hahah. Wasn't really cold actually.
Selfie! Natural lighting is still the best for photography.
I could live here for a long time..haha. The place was so warm even without heater on..striking contrast to the place I am staying at right now in Soton.
Headed out for sight seeing after breakfast and the streets were so quiet and nice. Walked along River Thames towards London Eye and Big Ben which can be spotted in this picture!
blue skies in winter reminds me of melbourne winter, somehow.
my travel buddy cum housemate cum batchmate cum dongsaeng..haha.
say hi to big ben.
continued walking along the river till we reached the Millennium Bridge. Started off at Vauxhall bridge, try searching the map and you can see how far we walked..crazy I know. As we walk, you can see the change in weather, from bright blue skies to gloomy clouds.
ootd shot on the Millennium Bridge.
Quiet streets, simply peaceful.
Despite coming to London twice before this trip, we have never visited the Tower Bridge and finally we managed to! Gave up walking halfway and decided to 'rent' the barclays bike..so awesome riding bikes on christmas day.
Its 2pounds for 24 hours but you have to dock the bikes every half an hour otherwise they will direct charge to your debit or credit cards. Pretty worth it and it was quite easy to find a bike station, there are many of them along the river.
Finally I get to take picture with you Tower Bridge! Reminds me of Triumph Into The Skies 2.
Don't know what street this is called, but the architecture is really nice for some pictures.
Cycled back after that for christmas dinner with the cousin.
Turkey and potatoes roasting in progress. My cousin pretty much did most of the job or marinating the turkey and doing up the stuffing(:
Starters included brussels with bacon
Pigs in blanket..yum
And here is the main course: TURKEY! If you are wondering why this turkey looks weird, the drums are missing and funny is we didn't figure until the turkey was roasting. hahaha.
Roasted potatoes and parsnips.
Our Christmas dinner, couldn't have asked for more, simply satisfying. Cooking runs in the family..haha.
Day 5: Boxing day
Boxing day was spent shopping on oxford street and regent street with most of our time spent in selfridges and also went down to Harrods in the evening. Not exactly a really productive shopping, or maybe I didn't exactly want to shop for anything, went down more for experiencing how massively insane boxing day is like in London..haha. I would say, it wasn't that bad, there were crowds but I thought it would be so bad that you can't even move..yeah. Because of that, I didn't bring my camera down..
Day 6:
Went down to Chinatown area again for some ramen. I swear for the entire trip, we have been down to chinatown and oxford street everyday...HAHAHA. Anyway, Shoryu ramen was our pick because we wanted to dine in the day before on boxing day but was closed by the time we reached. It closes around 3ish I think, so yeah.
the prices are pretty standard and perhaps a little more pricey then those back home in Singapore.
I ordered the spicy soup version, cannot remember the exact name of it. It was definitely good after such a long period of ramen deprivation..haha. Although I feel that Ippudo in Singapore is still better.
and to top up the ramen is gyoza!
Went down to Winter Wonderland at Hyde Park after that to meet up with the rest!
It just snowed! Kidding, fake snow..haha.
looking good, sinful at the same time.
Churros for anyone?
This was da bomb!
Group picture before the thrill begins!
Before the ride!
After the ride, the joy on our faces, awesome! We were on the side that went up first so we had a good 5mins of breath taking view of London.
so pretty! decked with candy canes around it.
moving dining carousel
So engrossed in the game. haha. One of my friend actually won a soft toy from this game.
Honestly didn't feel like I did much in my 1 week there, slept in almost everyday, waking up only around 10-11ish. I guess it was a well rested 1 week before heading up to scotland on a tight schedule. It was a great meet up with the rest as well, after not seeing them for almost a year, glad that most of us are in uk(:
Time to close of this post, more travelogue coming up in the next post!
Till then,
xoxo
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