A Summer Punch Up with Kotki Dwa

The last time I ventured into Homerton in Hackney was when I went for an interview to be an intern for Satoshi Date over 2 years ago. Reason this tone to head to this part of London this time round was that my friends band Kotki Dwa were performing in a National Trust building and launching their new album "Staycations". The timing of releasing this is perfect since 2012 in Britain has been very patriotic with the likes of the Queens Jubilee and now we have the London Olympics around the corner. 

I really love the concept behind it the album, as we are still in The Recession, many are penny conscious, so Staycations are the answer to the holiday getaways! They managed to get the National Trust to be associated with the album and the band recorded the album in various National Trust buildings to get the right feel for the music.It's really lovely to hear the band developing and growing with their music 

To be honest I didn't think London had any National Trust buildings but there's actually three! The venue that is Sutton House is quite a lovely Tudor building, a little gem 

buried in Hackney borough, it was just such a lovely building <3

In typical Kotki Dwa style, there was free food at their event consisting of lovely picnic foods - sandwiches, Scotch Eggs, pork pies and an array of cupcakes (-^.^-) there was also exciting beverage concoctions of Summer Punch relating the theme and mood of the event and the most exciting thing of all was the Ice cream with Pimms sauce!

Music was really good, bands playing folky electro music in the hall room of Sutton House with true Britshness decorations of the Staycation feel of hay bails, binoculars, flip flops little things that give a typical British holiday vibe, so eccentric but I love it! I found it funny when Alex was announcing the support bands were about to start in the 

court yard where majority of people were having their conversations, it felt like we were getting rounded up lol XD

A very lovely evening with good music and was quite intimate; catching up with friends 

and adding another piece of my London Mind Map

Jazz, Blues and Rock ‘n’ Roll

It started out last Sunday when spontaneously a friend of mine asked whether I was up for lunch at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho for her birthday as there was a spare ticket. I didn’t bat an eyelid to say no to the opportunity!! Very spontaneous, fortunately I was up from an evening out the night before and the clocks rolled forward!!

Was quite interesting and different in a good way to attend a Sunday lunch event in a Jazz Club; the venue is very dark, cozy and intimate plus the tickets are cheaper compared to a Friday or Saturday night (yay!).  Elaine Delmar with Brian Dee’s Quartet was the act for the afternoon; her voice is amazing, and easy listening. A very impressive songstress for 73 years old!

Near the end Elaine actually forgot the words to a song and shouted, “oh shit!!” absolute lol though I suppose accidents happen to the best of us! Fortunately there were no kids! This was my first time attending to a live Jazz gig, and personally I prefer the more up tempo tunes, the more slow soulful numbers were too smooth, I was drifting >.<

Next was Saturday night just gone, my good friend Mimi came down to London for the weekend. She wanted to go to a Jazz venue, I told her that these kind of venues are very niche and involve tickets in advanced for the gig, there aren’t many pop in sit in venues, (well I haven’t found any yet). I suggested this Blues club I keep passing on the way to work in Camden called The Blues Kitchen.

We went in with an open mind, only £5 entry after 9pm, which I find is quite reasonable, there’s a live band that plays covers, and DJ playing a mix of Blues, Soul and Rock “n” Roll. It was very fun, we all had a good time, drinks were not extortionate compared to Mayfair and good deal they had, Jagerbombs 3 for £10, Happy days!!! ^.^

Dancing the night away, with an eclectic mix of people and doing the twist, though Mimi said I danced like a Hamster (-.-“) oh well, I was having fun!! I was impressed with the band, with their lead guitarists rift solos and the Jazz player; very talented bunch

I would definitely recommend this place as a somewhere different away from the typical clubbing scene, a bit more relaxed and cheaper on the wallet!

Cream Puffs in London!!!

Whenever I went to London fabric shopping during uni days, I always loved going to a place called Beard Papa on Oxford Street for their delicious cream puffs in many flavour -^.^- But now I'm so sad as it closed 2-3years ago :'(

As I was making my way down to Embankment to cross the bridge to do a spot of Egg Hunting on Southbank, I noticed a cream puff shop!!


This shop is called Chewy Junior, there are quite a few flavours of their cream puffs and they do mini ones too!! ^.^ 


Though the Puff itself isn't as light compared to Beard Papa's, the flavours are quite inventive and the Puff is indeed a bit chewy in a good way, Hence the name Chewy Junior


Definitely recommend getting minis so you get to sample the many flavours in bite size pieces (^.^ )


Cream Puff!! ^.^

London's Big Egg Hunt 2012

Two Years ago it was The Elephant Parade, this year in the lead up to Easter it's an Egg Hunt!! Over 200 eggs designed by many artists scattered around London, fortunately in the Zone 1 area compared to everywhere with the elephants!

There's also an Egg based on Where's Wally that moves around London, fortunately I've found him thanks to my friends on Day 3 ^.^ 

This is a very fun and fit activity to do which is free!! (o^^o) it's also great to do with friends and family, good way to bond

Problem I'm finding with the eggs, they will not only be on a Stand, they'll also be hanging/ suspended in the air, so you'll have to literally keep you eyes peeled and search high & low!

All for charity, if you text the code on each plaque with the egg, you also get put into the prize draw of winning the 500g Faberge Egg worth £100,000 

Happy Hunting to those taking part!! I've already managed to find over 100 eggs after 4 trips out, I'm going to do my best and get as many as I can!!

http://www.thebigegghunt.co.uk/eggs

London Carboot Sales

Yay I have now moved into my new home, so from Zone 3’s SW17, now in Zone ½’s SE17 ^.^

However the limitations to none in accessing internet at the flat have been a pain in the bum & haven't been able to write >.<" 

The last weekend in my Tooting flat, I was busy packing up my stuff as the man with the van was to come on the Monday. So I thought I would take a trip down to Wimbledon Stadium to check out the carboot sale; the 2 ½ years I have spent in this property the carboot sale is only 10min walk away! However I would usually have been having a lie in or feeling the after effects from the night before to make a trip down there in the morning =.=

Usually when I’m back in Exeter Sunday morning is always a tradition where my parents and I usually head down to the cattle Market in Marsh Barton, where there is the largest carboot sale.

So Wimbledon Stadium’s carboot sale is the biggest one in London, which is pretty kool, but does vary when it comes to weather, they say there can be about 2000 stands on a Sunday. 

I also went to the carboot sale over in Pimlico at the Pimlico Academy small but still good and can grab a few bargains, plus I was also checking out what my friends had for sale in their stalls. 

Was a nice little Sunday trip for me hunting for bargains towards the flat, but I’d definitely do another trip or two when the weather gets warmer, and I’ll also want to take part in setting a stall down Pimlico once I get enough clutter to sell in Summer ^.^

New Year upon us and the trouble with the Zebra Crossing

Indeed a weird way to start off writing for 2012, but I need this off my chest and has pissed me right off:-


Last night as I was getting home off the bus and needing to use the Zebra crossing to cross the road; 2 cars zoomed across without stopping until the third did stop! How rude! I bet they didn't get their licence in the UK. This has happened to me quite a few times now in London and has really ticked me off.

In Britain you're suppose to STOP and let pedestrians was across the Zebra Crossing, not just zoom without stopping!! :@ Even my driving instructor hammered it into my head when I was learning to drive that you must STOP at the Zebra Crossing, in the test if you don't you fail!


This is Britain people where's the courtesy?! The Crossing isn't place at a stupid place either!! But I suppose this is London, everyone's in a rush to get to some place, compared to Devon, the pace of life is indeed slower and people are a bit more courteous on the roads, unless they are boy racers racing around with the music turned up down the country lanes.


Sure when I was in China there are zebra crossings but the drivers don't care and won't stop, as they're a guideline spot for pedestrians to cross. Maybe they should just have traffic light crossings instead to make it easier.


There's my little bit of ranting for 2012, I'll move on. Unless next time I'll just cross the Zebra Crossing willy nilly if the driver hit's me, they're at fault & get their assed sued!! 

The Experimental Cocktail Club

I received an invite to this gathering 3weeks in advance. I was so confused but intrigued.

Confused because my this was quite an unusual group of us, though the organizer does know the other friends from doing a walk in the Peak District at the end of Summer, but I generally knew them from different circles.

Intrigued because this bar sounded very interesting and hidden in Chinatown, out of all the places.

As June and I were early we were trying to find the bar I remembered the number of the building so we were searching for that door. I instantly recognized the door from the website.

As we went up the stairs into the bar, it was such a quiet relaxed environment; the staff welcomed us and took us to our booked table. I was really loving the Speak easy vibe of the bar dimly lit and playing classical music across 2 floors, however they only kept to the 1st floor, 2nd floor leading to toilets was closed/empty. Who knew above Chinatown there was such a bar such a contrast! The majority of the customers were Caucasian, my friends and I were the only Oriental group. The cocktails had some very interesting names, “Winne the Pooh”, something blank. The prices of the cocktails were about £11-11.50, shame there was only 2 pages of cocktails and the flavors were quite sweet to sour or bitter.

One of my friends chose a cocktail which came in a medicine bottle, pretty interesting, but did have a bit of a medicinal after taste to it >.<" Mine tasted sour and had grapefruit zest in it, another friend had one that had absinthe in! Pretty strong cocktails that are definitely sipping only than gulping!

  

But we all enjoyed the gathering playing Trivial Pursuit (other boardgames to play also available), and drinking, very chilled for a Sunday, but usually I don’t drink on a Sunday, just a personal don’t do but since it was Christmas and a belated treat from my friends why not ^.^  

Definitely recommend people giving this place a try to escape Chinatown hustle and bustle and unwind to a relaxed environment. Just need a fireplace!

http://experimentalcocktailclublondon.com/

Discoveries of London

Many of my friends know I have a tendency to go out, explore and sometimes get lost; it's not necessarily a bad thing, as I was always encounter a new discovery ^.^

This weekend my friends and I decided to explore Angel as we anted to explore this Christmas Market that is opened for the next few weekends. But before we went to the Market, we headed over to Camden Passage for some breakfast.

This little area is just divine. This street has so many lovely little shops selling alsorts of antiques, like a mini Portobello.

However the other market we went to with all the Christmas things was kind of disappointing, there were not that many stores and I suppose the weather didn't help as it was so grey and bitter winds blew frequently >.<"

I thought, as we were in the area, I suggested to my friends of us taking a trip over to Hackney to explore Broadway Market; a bus ride away from Angel which is all good ^.^

So we arrived to Broadway Market, one of the many market gems in London, this place is only opened on a Saturday bare in mind if you want to visit. The crowds are the young professionals who are also influenced by art and love their vintage, as there were quite a few stalls in the market that sold vintage clothes; good for them, but vintage clothing isn't really my cup of tea. Of course not only clothing but FOOD many food stalls at this market including some pretty amazing Vietnamese sandwiches called Banh Minh (don't know if I've spelt it correctly)

I really enjoyed the this place, was nice to hear this busker who was singing away soulfully <3

Food porn pics from Broadway Market ^.^

Distant Worlds Final Fantasy

Well instead of the traditional trip pit somewhere to watch the fireworks in Bonfire Night, I decided to head down to Albert Hall to watch a concert. 

I nearly forgot I had these tickets as I brought them so long ago, thinking it will be something pretty interesting to watch.

So Distant Worlds finally came to London to perform at a perfect venue to. Consisting of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Voices performing music from the Final Fantasy games. 

It was just very beautiful as the first song played with the harp, was quite emotional. They also had screens either side showing clips of the games; it was interesting to see how much the game has evolved since 1987.

I was happy we had pretty decent seats in the upper circle for £25, netter than £10-15 for the gallery where it's standing! 

The crowd were definitely a mix of a few kiddies to adults, there were some serious fanatics at the show, you could tell their look - computer geek chic to people making effort dressing up as their favourite characters, bit of an Anime convention with music!

It was great to see the Japanese composer Nobuo Uematsu attending this concert in his Japanese head scarf, tabi socks & sandals, was so cute!Then at the encore, he joined the choir to sing Sephora

I will say my favourite games were VIII, XI and X because of the story lines, but the music I loved is mainly from X ^.^

The visuals of the game were interesting with the scenes of live game play, mini story clips and of the drawn illustrations of the character on watercolour, was simply beautiful. It made me remember when I was a kid I used to love drawing characters; makes me want to het back into drawing! 

I was happy they played this song, was so beautiful and emotional ^.^

Billingsgate Fish Market

November time, waking up at 3.30am with some friends to leave the house just past 4am, still dark outside As British Summer time has ended. Why are we up and out the house so early? A trip to Billingsgate Market of course!!

I've heard my friends mention about this place is great to buy fresh seafood cheap; businesses get their stock from here and it's been a place I've wanted to visit since being in London, as I'm quite the foodie and enjoy seafood, however getting there has always been the challenge as well as getting up so early in the morning, though people have suggested me heading there after clubbing... NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!(O_o) 

Fortunately I managed to tag along with friends to the Market as they needed to venture to buy for a Hot Pot session. 

So from SW to E as Billingsgate is based in the Docklands, with an extra pair of hands to Carry the seafood -^.^-

I couldn't believe when we arrived to the Market before 5am there were already quite a lot of cars and buyers. A lot of seafood - fish, lobster, crabs, squid and molluscs. 

Interestingly quite a lot of stalls were selling oysters, must be in season ^.^ we ended up buying a large box of about 25 oysters for £15, not too bad, trouble was shucking them! 

There was so many different prawns of shapes and size, mussels for ￡5 for 2kg amazing!!

Def need a car to get there, might bus will just be LONG! Was great to check this place out. I couldn't believe as we were leaving the place, the car park was so full！

A great place for seafood lovers -^.^-

Welcoming Autumn with the Thames Festival

The weather has definitely changed this week, as Winds from a Hurricane somewhere are effecting the English water, so Britain's getting a bit windy lately, less daylight moving on to Winter ~.~

But I do love Autumn- leaves change colour, temperature gets cooler, light knitwear to layered styling and the weekend just gone, I decided to join my friends and check out the Thames Festival on Southbank:-

I haven't really explored it these past fee years, so it was something nice to see, and Mark Autumn arriving.

Fortunately we went out later as we wanted to see the fireworks in the evening, otherwise we had ALOT of time to kill!!

Typical of a festival, there were a lot of stalls selling assorts of things along the Southbank- clothes, ornaments, music, books and of course food & drink from around the world. It was nice to walk around Southbank, along the Thames in the evening, the feel was so relaxing and enjoyable, minus the congested crowds of where the food stalls were.

Other reason we wanted to go to the Thames Festival, we wanted to see the Korean section by the OXO Tower (^.^) 

There were quite a fair few stalls too and a stage for the Korean Culture performances including music, dancing and martial arts. Wish I checked the Korean area the evening before as they had a K Pop event!

Was quite surprised to see a stall devoted to K Pop Karaoke! My friends wanted me to do it, but I don't know all the lyrics, mainly the choruses to the songs they had! (^_−)−☆

They even had this song by Shinee on the Karaoke ^-^

We unfortunately missed the carnival parade as it was on the otherwise of the river, so wondered around to find a good spot to see the fireworks. Despite The fireworks being delayed by 15mins, we didn't see them let off till 10pm, Boris must have rambled lots of there was a speech involved! (z_z)

But it was a very enjoyable display, seeing the rockets so close let off from the tug boats on the river, was worth the wait (^^)

Good way to lead into Mid Autumn Festival (-^.^-)

Keep Calm and Carry on

I am having trouble in knowing what to blog lately as I've been really busy, stressed and not sleeping well. 


As many have seen in the media or maybe around them, UK has been suffering riots and looters this past week that has gone so out of hand, it has actually been causing me to lose my concentration at work (-.-")

The riots and looters have really angered me having kids as young as 8 years old taking part damaging their community and stealing from it. It just gets out of hand, where innocent people got swept into this mass destruction and have been injured and killed because of it. 


UK I feel is becoming soft, evil thoughts have sprung to my mind such as bringing back the death penalty! Or even at least be like countries such as Germany or Korea where people age 18 have to take part in the army for 2 year, then they can have some form of direction to life and become well disciplined and learn respect


I am pretty pissed of how some people can act, especially in a country I was born and brought up in. 


I suppose as the saying goes, we need to try keeping calm and do our best to carry on and not dwindle 


I am so glad that people are getting involved with helping to clean up the mess, and an epetition has been made to revoke all benefits from any rioters involved, over 100,000 people have already signed it, more support is needed 


Click to read and sign the petition

  

Night in the Zoo to B&Q (well not really)

Instead of the Science Museum for a change, my friends and I decided to venture to London Zoo after work on a Friday evening. We couldn’t help taking up the opportunity especially Groupon doing the deal for £9, absolute bargain!!

I have never been to London Zoo before and was definitely one of those places to go explore in London. I think what puts me off the zoo is the cost, finding the company and of course what every London dweller in conscious of, time and weekends tend to be overcrowded with families.

I find the problem with going with a big group of friends is that you need to wait for them, especially when you’re coming from work, everyone is based in all parts in the M25 Bubble, so of course we were a bit late, didn’t get into the zoo till about 7.30pm, the animal rooms were opened until 9pm, so we had a lot to go through.

We decided to split up in twos to make it easier; unfortunately I didn’t get to see all the animals, gorillas my friends said were really amazing and there was drama in their room as there was a bit of a scrap with the male vs. female gorillas.

Seeing the animals were very fascinating especially the giant ants, birds of prey and the new enclosure for the penguins, they were so cute!! ^.^ It’s a shame I didn’t manage to get to see the meerkats, giraffes and nocturnal animals as they were on the other side of the zoo!! >.<

Good thing about late night events, no kids! The ability to walk around without any bulky prams, children screaming, and allowed to take alcohol around apart from some areas like the bird cages as the birds may knock it off your hand! Bonus with the late night events is that they have the silent disco as well, I didn’t bother going as I’ve been there and done it, but it’s a definite experience very fun! Wasn’t so happy with the cost of food and drink; however it was nice the individual tents serving different varieties of food, funny bit was the hog roast that was actually not far from the bearded pigs!!

This trip is definitely worth going but the duration of 2½ hours in the zoo wasn’t enough for me, should have got there about 6.30-7pm!!