Eat and Live London

I have been treating myself good. Lotsa eating even before my course starts. Over the weekend, I was at Nottinghill – very quaint english area with lovely cafes, restaurants and the Portobello market. Well, since shopping is out of my budget, I reckon eating on the pretext of food research should be alright.

   

The ever enthusiastic and fellow food lover Liz brought me to a cafe serving English style desserts and food. Look at the cream cheese cupcake! Looks good and sure taste fantastic too. The cream cheese frosting is not too sweet and goes lovely with the vanilla soft cake beneath.

Then we had dinner at Bloody French. No, I’m not being rude but that’s really the restaurant’s name. Between the food and the company, I’d choose the latter. It was a lovely time catching up with the acn and ex-acn folks.

Bond Street Station

Day 1 – Bond Street

Day 2 – Bond Street

Day 3 – Bond Street

Day 4 – Bond Street

Yes, I know London is more than just shopping on Bond Street but let me explain…

Day 1 – went to school in the afternoon to collect my uniforms. The uniforms are cool but the pants are up to my neck:P Surprisingly, I got a knife set. Not your usual WMF set of 6 knives. Imagine a huge makeup brush folding pouch but instead of brushes, you get knives and tools for every imaginable kitchen move. I even get a cleaver! Why would a patisserie student need a cleaver? hmmm… students beware;) I know I should post a pic so you can see… but I couldn’t lug it back home plus all the uniforms. Those makeup knives weigh no less than 3 kg i assure you.

Oh yes, school is at Marylebone Lane (pronounce Mar-lee-bone). Smaller than I thought and a little crammed inside. Hope the classrooms are better.

Day 2 – More unpacking and cleaned up the house a little and went Bond street to window shop plus familiarise with school surroundings. Realised the only affordable fashion boutique is H&M. Shopping became boring after that. Found a great way to spend time for little money – read gossip magazines at borders in the instore starbucks. 2 hours of reading for 2 quid – I will do this more often:)

 Day 3 – Yay sun is out! No drizzle! Need to go school again to submit form for student transport discount card. Tube rides are costing me about 5 pounds a day and as a student you can get 30% off. I need this card badly!

It was a lucky day. I felt weak from no lunch and popped into the nearest Pret a Manger for a sandwich. Sandwich is 3 pounds (3×2.7 = 8.1). Okay, I will take half a sandwich (1.50pd). To compensate for my loss, I shall buy a latte (1.8 pd). The customer before me at the counter had a wrong order and there was an extra latte which was offered to me free. My lucky day!!

Decided to head to Green Park for some sun and relaxing fun…

Found a little spot and started to read my London guide, listen to Jay Chou and eat my KrispyKreme.

A middle aged couple (guy had a balding patch) 10 metres away proved to be distracting. In between turning my pages, they have moved from fervently locking lips- to hand on breast – to woman on top. To top it off, a passing tourist found it so amusing he stood grounded on the spot 2 metres away from the couple and stared for a good 10 seconds. At least have some discretion – wear sunglasses/pretend to read book/sit at least 10 meters away. Heh heh heh…

Day 1

After 13 hours of aching knees, 2 toilet breaks, 2 meals and 1 movie, I am finally here!

For the privacy of my very kind host, I will not post photos of my apartment. But I love it! My room is quite big actually. I have a queen size bed, a huge wardrobe, an ensuite bathroom – what more can a student ask for? The area’s very quiet and look at this:

My apartment block is on the left in the pic below:

It’s in the canary wharf area (bit like shenton way in SG mostly banks and finance firms) – gets very quiet in the evenings but it’s safe:)