Saturday, July 19

London

What I loved about London
1. The weather- crikey, you sure you went to London? Yes it was breezy and sunny- the perfect Spring weather.
2. Meeting up with Aizhen and Edward
3. Farmers' Markets
4. The Gloucester-South Kensington-Knightsbridge-Chelsea area. I could really pack at and move there like -er- right now.
5. Marks & Spencer Simply Food. Remember my 'Supermarket Fetish' ? I loved Whole Foods too but it's imported LAH!

What I'm uh-huh about
1. Oxford Circus and High Street Kensington. I loved these places as a kid / teen but now the see-one-see-all soon-to-be-IPOed mass appeal labels bore me.
2. Underground tube.
...2.1 I'm sure we have all done the 'Pick Your Nose' test and found the air beneath to be slightly less than clean. Just slightly.
...2.2 On my first MRT ride back from London, I was struck by how wide our MRT carriages were, I could actually do a cartwheel or split jump in an emptish carriage. The only thing stopping me is I can't actually do a cartwheel or split jump. Moving on!
3. Crap Chinese food in Chinatown

Food Mob
1. China China at Chinatown. Nasty- don't do it.
2. Royal China at Bayswater. Expensive Chinese dinner, which was good but I could fall alseep blogging about Chinese food. Sorry.
3. Bugis Street at Gloucester Hotel. Singaporean. Enough Said.
4. Harrods Rotisserie at Harrods*
5. Laduree at Harrods*
6. The Brass Rail at Selfridge's*
7. Seina Cafe at Selfridge's*
8. Borough Market*
9. Spitalfields Market*
* blogging about them

What I wished I had more time for
1. Borough Market
2. Spitalfields Market
3. Camden Town
4. Nottinghill Gate

What I would return for
1. Gastropubs
2. Canteen at Crispin Place, Spitalfields
3. Gold Mine at BayswateR. I don't care for Chinese food but I would have liked to try this just to check out the hype.
4. A picnic at Hyde Park
5. The Anya Hindmarch sale

It was a good trip. It wasn't exactly 'Discovery Channel' because growing up, I visited London many many times. However with my parents, we always went about the same few places... Oxford Circus, High Street Kensignton, Convent Garden... This time round, I checked out Chelsea, Borough Market and Spitalfields, and what a world of difference it made to my experience!

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Hyde Park

In my opinion, Copenhagen is the kind of place where feel-good saying ‘there is more to life than money and material goods’ rings loud and clear; however in London, it is simply the case that ‘there’s no life, if there ain’t money’, and the only things ringing harder than the doorbells are the cash registers.

Money can’t buy you happiness? That depends on your definition of happiness.

The summer sale was going on and women were going absolutely crazy at Harrods, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols. Gaw-, I swear some of them are trained in combat.

Me? I didn’t shop that much. I think the one thing I forgot to leave at home was my ‘voice of reason’. Argh, I was ready to bruise my credit card (having applied for my own so that I wouldn’t have to rely on dad’s card) but everytime I thought my heart skipped a beat, my voice of reason intruded.

Do you really really need another tulip skirt? Or patent-beige pair of heels?

No.

People like me are the retailers’ worst nightmare. It’s not that we don’t we shop (we do!), it’s just that we got to make them beg, grovel and jump through fire hoops before we part with our money semi-willingly. HA.

What a long post. I'm gonna stop here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great to see Borough Market featured so high in your lists. I fell in love with the place and moved nearby and then started to work for one of the stalls online. I have recently put together a list of those stalls that have a website/ecommerce that you might be interested in...

Borough Market stalls online

Jonathan

yixiaooo said...

hey jonathan, thanks for the visiting. the website looks amazing!