Octoberfest

I've been very distracted lately, what with all the stuff going on at work, visitors from home and Mr KE and I trying to get ready for big changes. So I haven't been keeping up with the blogging but will try to get back to doing it regularly.

While everyone at my work was been fretting about redundancies, Mr KE and his work gang have been ignoring the credit crunch. Last month they celebrated Octoberfest at a German bar in Old Street.

I haven't messed with the photo, his friends always look like this after a few litres of beer!

The food doesn't really appeal to me...sausages and sauerkraut...urghh. I guess it's just stomach lining for the beer.

Duck Tour

Mr K-E went on a team outing last week. They went on a Duck Tour, which is a ride on a World War 2 amphibious troop carrier converted into a bus. The bus takes you round Westminster and then onto the Thames.

Mr KE said it was quite fun, especially for kids. You can join the tour near the London Eye.

He is also of the exclusive :) "over and under club" which means he has been over and under a bridge in the same vehicle.

Thames Festival: Sunday

We had such a good time on Saturday we went back to the Thames Festival on Sunday for more. We watched more free-running under the London Eye.

It wasn't as packed as Saturday but it was still very busy.

There was a Night Carnival which started at 6:30. We were right at the front so Mr KE took lots of photos.

Apart from the floats, children in costumes, puppets etc, there were also lots of scantily clad ladies dancing along the route. For some reason Mr KE took lots of photos of these ladies ...hmmmm.

One of the best floats: dragon and rider.

It was a bit cold standing on the roadside while the floats went past; but it was worth it. We went home tired but happy.

Thames Festival : Saturday

Last weekend the Thames Festival was on.

Mr KE spent both Saturday and Sunday at the South Bank. We started off on Saturday with a visit to Borough Market.

We had lunch at this place near Southwark Cathedral.

Look at the big dish of paella (spanish seafood rice).

I had paella and Mr KE had a burger.

We walked past the Golden Hind.















There was lots going on; shows, food and special events.

As part of the festival there was boat race on the Thames and we watched the boats from the South Bank.








It was really interesting with all sorts of boats racing; dragon boats, big boats and little row boats.

The bridges along the Thames were packed with spectators. This is Blackfriars Bridge. If you click on the picture, you'll see the crowds and a London Bus going past.









There was lots of free entertainment, like this martial arts show sponsored by the Korean Tourist Board.

This show is called Jump, and it has travelled around the world. Hooray, we saw it for free and it was very funny.








Food stalls were everywhere. There was literally food from every corner of the world.

This was a French/Creole/New Orleans type stall. We were impressed by the giant pots.











We saw this guy on the outside of the Tate Modern.

Specially commissioned graffiti. I hope you can appreciate the scale, because he is huge.

These guys were there too.

This is a close up on the "brain" from the photo above.

The detail on the graffiti is incredible.

By the time we got to Waterloo, it was dark.

We watched some free-running (parkour). It was not bad, lots of youth groups trained by the guys who did the stunts in Casino Royale.












As night fell and the tide went out, there was a big party on the shore of the Thames.

I'm sure you will agree, it was lovely day out.

Good Food / Bad Food

On Thursday night I had dinner at Benihana on Sackville Street, in Piccadilly. It was a work do, with some colleagues from Sweden and their top Clients. It is a teppanyaki restaurant i.e. a Japanese hotplate with the chef cooking all the food fresh in front of you. Very tasty, fresh and healthy food; the chefs are entertaining and do lots of tricks with their knives, tossing things around etc...well you get the picture. The main drawback is that you end up smelling like fried food when you come out!

That was definitely good food. Unfortunately I was in work mode, so no pictures but I came home tired but happy.

Tonight (Friday) Mr K-E and I met in the West End after work and we had dinner in town before coming home. I actually wanted to try a Mexican place called Wahaca, but the queue was tooooo long. TGI Fridays is just across the road from Wahaca, so we went in there. My suggestion = big mistake.

The food was bad. We haven't been into TGiFridays (or any of the others i.e. Hard Rock, Panet Hollywood etc) for more than 12 years and now I realise why. I had chicken wings, fries and onion rings while Mr K-E had his usual steak fajita. Everything tasted of salt. Or sugar. The steak didn't taste like beef. The onion rings weren't onion-ey. *sigh*

The best thing about the meal was our shared starter (a chicken quesadilla). Even Mr K-E's beers weren't cold enough. Tasteless food and expensive too!! How annoying .......Ggrrrrr.

Selfridges, Birmingham

Mr K-E was in Birmingham earlier this week because of work and he had a look around Selfridges while he was there.




It's strange to see a building with no windows; but it makes perfect sense because it's a retail building. Retailers don't want any natural light.

The facade is unusual; normally architects try to break up the facade into sections that give the impression of windows, even if they are fake windows. Maybe impart a sense of scale to the structure. (I'm not an architect myself, so I'm only guessing) For example, if it wasn't for the two people at bottom of the photo, it wouldn't be easy to gauge the size of the building.












Detail of the facade.

















The interior continues the "rounded" theme.















I think this looks organic. Mr K-E thinks it looks rude.

Mr K-E hates saxophones

Mr K-E doesn't like jazz, so I was surprised when he wanted to come along to see Polar Bear at the Roundhouse. Polar Bear are an "experimental jazz-electronic band" - not really my thing either, but they sounded interesting and I was curious to see what the music would be like.

The warning bells rang when there were two saxophonists and no vocalist. Okay. The drummer was truly awesome and no doubt the saxophonists were too; but as the performance went on, I could sense Mr K-E becoming more and more agitated. The venue was sold out and the rest of the crowd were obviously loving it. There were people shouting, "yeah man" and not in an ironic way.

After Polar Bear finished their set, they came back on for an encore and Mr K-E lost it. He said, "OMG, I cannot take anymore of this crap", grabbed his coat and walked out. I had to apologise to my confused friends and tried to leave discreetly. Not an easy task, as it was cabaret seating (little round tables) and Mr K-E was practically stomping as he left.

I guess "experimental jazz" isn't for everyone.

On a different note (geddit, hahaha) we saw this Banksy original on the way to the Roundhouse. So it was worth a trip to North London anyway.

August Bank Holiday

We kicked off our bank holiday weekend with a family dinner at New World restaurant in Chinatown, which has been a family favourite since I was a child. I met with some relatives from across the sea and we had a lovely dinner.

My favourite sister :) and her husband were in London and stayed over too, so that was an added bonus.

Then on Saturday, after a full English breakfast, we waved off sister and husband, before heading off to the South Bank...one of my favourite places in London.




We went to see Psycho Buildings, an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. It was described as "artists take on architecture"...and it was good. There were only about a dozen installations but they were all original and thought-provoking.











Our favourite installation was snappily titled Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title by Gelitin. They had created a "lake" with rowers on the roof terrace on the Hayward Gallery. The best thing about it was that the public could participate; although we had to queue for an hour to participate for about 5 minutes.






I hate small boats so I was really nervous. This photo shows the rickety floating platform that served as the alnding area.

I was also paranoid that we would actually row off the roof...to a 3 storey drop below.

Aaarrgghhh.

Mr KE loved it.






After all that excitement, we had an early dinner at Wagamama.

Mr K-E had Chicken Katsu Curry and I had Yaki Soba (fried noodles). We also had some gyoza (little dumplings) and tori kara age (fried chicken pieces).











Then we were off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.

(The summer production at the Royal Festival Hall)










We weren't allowed to take photos of the set, but here's a photo of the Hall before the show began.

Mr K-E had got us seats in the 3rd row (clever Mr K-E!) so we had a great view of the performers and orchestra.

The Royal Festival Hall is a brilliant venue, not stuffy and poky like the theatres in the West End. It opened after a complete refurbishment last year, and it is super-duper. It has proper air-conditioning!! (My number one complaint about theatres in the UK)

Lost in London

On Thursday night I was out on a girlie night with other women from my team. We were defying the credit crunch. Yes, spend your way out of the recession :)

We went to Meza in Soho which a pretty cool place to hang out, although we all thought the food was over-priced. The cocktails were super though, so that made it worth it. In the basement, there is a Cuban place called Floridita where you can dance the night away. I left after dinner but the others continued into the night.

Anyway, we had a really interesting discussion during dinner about our "local communities". There were 4 of us : one Bruneian (me), a Korean, an Iraqi and one Bulgarian. We are all about the same age; two married and two single. One thing we all had in common was that we didn't hang around with people from our "home communities" in London - in fact, most of us actively avoided them.

Although it's nice to meet people from home sometimes, I just don't think it's worth the hassle because (I've found) that they can be the most nosy and judgemental. They will ask you lots of questions, not because they are genuinely interested, but because they are trying to weigh up your income, your husband's income, your lifestyle etc.

As my Bulgarian friend said - the killer questions are : Where do you live? In a house or a flat? Where do you work? What car do you drive?

You can practically see the wheels in their brain turning while they try to calculate your "standard" ..... whether you live in a four bed penthouse in Chelsea (envy) or a one bed council flat in Croydon ( oh dear).

My Iraqi friend added that the worst is when people judge your lifestyle and drag your family into it as well.

This is why you will never find me hanging around in Brunei Hall or tramping around the streets near Bayswater/Queensway. I like being lost in London.

Park Life

We have a few local parks near us but last Saturday Mr K-E and I decided to walk to a park about a mile away. We are quite lucky that this area of South London has lots of parks, but somehow we have never been to this particular one.

It was lovely day, warm and sunny. We had ice cream in the park and watched families picnicking, sunbathing and playing games like football and rounders.

Looking at the photos, it's hard to believe that we were in "inner city" London.

Monkey!

Yesterday, Mr K-E and I went to watch Monkey:Journey to the West at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

The music was written by Damon Albarn (of Blur) and the visuals were developed by Jamie Hewlett (who did the Gorillaz). Mr K-E was really excited about it because Monkey was one of his favourite childhood TV shows. I don't think it was ever shown in Brunei, but the legend of the Monkey God is familiar to most Chinese people I think.

We had an indulgent afternoon, eating out before and after the performance. We had lunch at Zizzi's where I had a delicious seafood risotto. Then after the show we had drinks and dinner at Browns.

The show was completely sold out and there is only a five day run, so we were lucky to get tickets. It was a combination of chinese acrobatics, martial arts, opera, animation, dancing and original music. Sounds like a mess, but it very good.

The Royal Opera House is a beautiful building, inside and out. I'm already thinking about dragging Mr K-E to an opera or ballet later this year.

Skin and Bones

Last Saturday we went to an exhibition at the Embankment Galleries in Somerset House.

If you are interested in fashion, architecture or design in general, I would definitely recommend it.





Somerset House is often used in film shoots because of its cobbled streets and stone facade buildings.

There's only one film I can think of at the moment - Sleepy Hollow with Johnny Depp.






We saw these interesting mermen outside the Seamen's Hall.

I love London

We spent last Saturday wandering around the South Bank. It was a lovely afternoon and there was lots going on.

Despite all its problems, I really love living in London because of the diversity and wealth of cultural experiences available - free!

Like this dance troupe entertaining the crowds queueing to get into the Hayward Gallery.







This is Appearing Rooms, an "aquatic sculpture" by Jeppe Hein. You can walk through rooms formed by the water jets.

You can see the London Eye in the background and Big Ben too, if you look closely.









There was live music outside the National Theatre and people were square dancing.













There was giant furniture there too, which Mr KE loved.

"Grass" sofas, armchairs and coffee table.
















This is "art" too, but I didn't really get it. Something about music and light responding to human movement.














This is the "Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef".

All the coral is actually crochet, which I thought was pretty cool.









Underneath Waterloo Bridge there are long tables set up with second hand books for sale. I have spent many happy weekends browsing here while Mr K-E watches the skaters a few hundred meters away.