A Pocket Full of Sunshine

Hello! Here I am trying to fight jet lag by attempting to blog about my Europe trip hahaha. A bulk of my pictures come from London!! I'll see if I can break it into London Part I / London Part II + Poland (just a bit of Poland) :)

London is amaazing!! This is my second trip to London and I enjoyed myself a lot more because I had more time to enjoy the tourist attractions and walk at my own pace + go on a mega megaaa shopping spree >< Hahahaha! Transport around London is pretty fuss-free, they have an awesome Underground Metro Line (which has been around for 150 years!!). It can be quite a little confusing sometimes but you just need to take a look at the underground map! Or go to http://www.tfl.gov.uk/ for the fastest way to get to your destination! :)

I arrived at Heathrow and took the metro to Shrimp's place, which was about 1 hour away! It was quite a frantic moment for me because well silly me mixed up the date of arrival and I arrived one day earlier -.- Thank goodness there was a payphone which accepted credit card and thank goodness I have my awesome Shrimps in London!!!! Hahaha only I will be able to pass off this stunt la, first I booked the date of departure wrongly and now I got confused with the date of arrival! Grrr.

Anyw, I'll break down this travelogue into places that I visited in London for Part I, and food places that I think was pretty awesome in Part II! :)

*edit* I couldn't fight my jet lag very well because after I typed these, I fell asleep -.- 

1. London Bridge

Well if I am in London, of course I had to see the London Bridge! But actually the London Bridge is literally just a normal bridge!! The other Bridge which is much much nicer is called Tower Bridge! From London Bridge, you can walk over to Borough Market. :)

2. Borough Market

Borough Market is the largest and oldest food market in London, and sells wholesale and retail food products! I was looking forward to Borough Market, but I was kinda disappointed because I didn't really see any superb food or saw anything spectacular! And the market was kinda small! ): 

 London has pretty quaint cafes, and this was one of the cafes along the street to Borough Market

  

Welcome to Borough Market!! 

The area which you see above had small stores set up to promote their products. There were jams, nuts, cupcakes etc! :) 

 An array of homemade pies!

 And as you walk further into the Market, you'll pass by St Mary Overie's Dock with a ship!

 Aloha! Let's set sail ~~

As you walk further in you'll see the seafood section and loads of fresh produce being sold! Vegetables, seafood etc.

 Scallops and crabs

Mushrroooommmms

 

And more mushrooommmsss!

Fresh oysters!!! I didn't get to try them though ):  

I dined at Fish! Kitchen to try their fish and chips. I didn't really quite like it even though the fish was really fresh! It was a little tasteless to me, I am probably accustomed to the high MSG in Singapore's fish and chips lolll hahaha. 

You can't miss out on this bright signage!

 Ready fried fish fillets

 I liked the chips more than the fish hahaha :p

 Smoke-free signage which had pretty font on it! If only Singapore signage could be as attractive as this :(

There's Monmouth coffee at Borough Market too! Monmouth coffee is this superbly awesome coffee place in London! I bought a few packets last year and it was really good! :) I don't have much pictures here, but you can choose from a wide wide array of coffee beans!

I stopped over at Konditor and Cook to purchase a brownie! Actually I was attracted to their cupcakes displayed hahaha. 

 Yeah brownieee ~~

$1 Treat for the day!

 I am at Disneyland!! Just kidding hehe

 I attempted to try to shoot a selca of myself with the Tower Bridge at the back, but obvious I failed ;(

As you walk further down Tower Bridge, you'll pass by a huge castle and you can purchase tickets to enter the castle! I didn't go in though because the queue was pretty insane :\

And from the Tower Bridge, I walked down to Big Ben and London Eye! :) 

And so here's Big Ben!! Sorry about the misty photo because my camera lens was blurred due to the condensation from the cold weather! :( Big Ben is much more magnificent in real life! Really tallll hahaha.

You have got to be careful along Big Ben because this person here randomly came up to me and asked for a photo, and then asked for payment for it -.- 

From Big Ben, you can walk towards London Eye, which resemble's Singapore's Ferris Wheel right hahaha. 

The queue for London Eye is insane, just look at the amount of people!! :oo

The highlight of my trip to London Eye was Jubilee Gardens! I think it's called Jubilee Gardens, but there's a nice street along the way where street performers perform and buskers parade along the streets in their pretty cool costumes! 

 Gold man with elongated arms hahaha

And the photos below show the buskers hovering in midair!! I could never figure out how it was done, but a video was posted on facebook and it showed that they were suspended in midair with the help of the stick that was stuck to the ground! It was attached to a small chair! So smart of them. ;) 

 

 This girl could sing really well!

There was a main street performance that attracted a lot of people! These performers could twist their bodies into any shapes, and they were really flexible omgosh. 

 This guy above was turning the two metal pots on just one finger alone!

 Flexibility for the win!

 And no that's not flexible enough, they really showed how flexible he was in the stunt above! :o

 Balancing a pot on a stick with his mouth

The following act was pretty crazy because one man carried 3 men around him!!

And they managed to squeeze one of them into the metal pot!!! My goshh haha. 

 I look tiny here! But yes my eyes were closed hahaha :p

I bought a visitor's guide book for $3.50 and went on tours myself! Haha. I started with the ancient tour. You'll see it once you turn left at the great court. There won't be much captions for the photos below because..well I can't really remember what each relic is for and I don't wish to give an inaccurate version of history haha.

 Relics telling the history of Egyptians and how men used to communicate

 This was like a part of the entrance to one of the king's place or something, if I don't remember wrongly ><

Then I went on to the Enlightenment Gallery! It looked alot like Harry Potter's library when I entered it. Had an English feel to the whole gallery!! :) 

This was a display on the Greek Gods

And I went on to the Asia and Islamic tour, but I skipped the Islamic tour and went straight to the Asian one! I preferred learning about the history of Asia than Europe, simply because I am an Asian and I believe that we should you know, be true to our roots <3 Proud to be an Asian!!

 

 Love the intricate painting on this blue glazed hardware

 This is so pretty, isn't it?

 Lotus of golddd

And I went on to the Japanese section! 

 This is actually the size of I think two one dollar coins? But I zoomed in on it :p Reminded me of the Monkey King!

 I am forever attracted to paintings/pictures of cherry blossoms <3

 Last selca shot before leaving the Museum!

 7. Apollo Victoria Theatre

There's plenty of musicals in London to watch, and YOU HAVE TO WATCH ONE IF YOU ARE GOING TO LONDONN, for a simple reason that it's just tooo good to be missed. If you are not one to favor musicals, just watch one! I promise you'll not be disappointed!

I really wanted to watch Matilda, but because it's so popular that I couldn't even book the tickets one week before, I attempted to queue up for their $5 tickets in the morning! But sadly I still didn't manage to catch it. ):

In the end, I watched Wicked instead! I actually watched it in Singapore, and I thought that the Singapore's version was really similar to London's one! Not much differences. :) Phantom of the Opera is coming to Singapore, and it should really not be missed! Go catch it!!! <3 

Anyway, Victoria Theatre is near Victoria Tube Station! If you have a valid student pass, you can buy the highest priced ticket for only $27.50! :) 

Wicked Ticket! (Like literally hahaha) 

 

 The musical was really good! Lots of fun moments, and my favorite song is for good or for wicked <3 ( I think it's called that haha) 

8. Oxford Circus

Okay if you are here to London to shop, you definitely shouldn't miss Oxford Circus!! There's plenty of shopping here! You can find Topshop, American Apparel, H&M, Dorothy Perkins, Miss Selfridge, New Look, Primark etc etc. Basically it's shopping haven!!! :O

 This is like the Watsons in London. It has EVERYTHING YOU NEED haha ranging from perfumes to cosmetics!!

 Alight at Bond street if you wish to head to Primark first! :)

Okay! That's the end of Part I for London! There's not alot of places, but I do hope that it's interesting enough for you to want to visit London! There's other places likes China Town, Covent Garden etc which you can explore as well! 

Special thanks to Shrimps for putting me up at her place hehe. <3 :D

Formspring me at http://www.formspring.me/bertillawong !

Till the next post! :)

Helloo!! I am back from my Europe trip! 

Just wanted to say hi to this little space and prevent myself from procrastinating my travelogue blog entries for Europe!

I spent a majority of the time in London, so the bulk of my pictures / post will be there! Have already drafted 1/3 of the first part of the travelogue hehe. But I am feeling quite tired from the long flight, so I am going to leave with a few pictures (which will hopefully entice you to check out the other posts haha).

Watch this space! :) 

 Cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery 

 The beautiful Tower Bridge in London 

 These 6 kids are too adorable! :') 

The super worth it Chirashi bowl from Atariya