Carly, our Canadian house mate, is heading off to OZ, so she decided for her last hurrah to have an international dinner. This was pretty cool as everyone bought a dish from a different region. We were a bit slack and made nachos, but the problem was we had been online booking stuff for the way home and lost track of time. We basically missed the mains and have the nachos ready for the dessert course, opps. No one seemed to mind although we missed out on Chris’s stella pork chops which smelt amazing.
Sun - Spitalfield Mkt, brick lane with New Mel
We headed to Spitafields markets with with Mel2 who is new to the house. She is friends with one of the other girls and is from Malasia/New Zealand. We had the intention of getting some sort of memento of our time in London. Spitifeilds generally has a bit more arts and crafts stuff than a lot of the other markets. The only problem is that Christine is so fussy! She likes lots of the clothes, handbags and jewelry but not the art works. Very frustrating! My favorite part of the market trip is always lunch. We headed over to brick lane where they have a food stalls with Moroccan, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Greek you name it. The problem here is there is too much choice and everything smells great. It takes ages to decide what to have and then your never sure if your happy with what you have or if you should have got something else. Sampling everyone else’s is always good though.
Chinese New Year – Mel (new) Sun 6/2/11
London’s celebrations of the Chinese New Year is supposed to be the biggest outside of Asia so we decided it was worth having a look at. Mel came with us to Trafalgar Square where there was an opening ceremony with crackers and a lion dance. We unfortunately stood downwind of a homeless man, a mistake we won’t make again, but this was the only place we could see from. The whole square was packed! There were lots and lots of speeches of notable people in the London Chinese community saying how fantastic it was to have so many people there, boring! Finally the firecrackers began, lots of cracking and smoke. There was another ceremony of dotting the dragon’s eyes then a dragon dance which was kind of cool. The best part of the whole fiasco was the Lion dance. This consisted of a couple of guys under the one costume jumping across raised platforms. It was quite impressive.
We left Trafalgar Square and headed to the stalls to try and find some Chinese food. After fighting through the crowds we managed to find some awesome Chinese Pork Buns. These tasted home made and defiantly filled a hole. We continued on our way and got stuck in the crowds. There were just so many people, including mothers with massive prams, that it was hard to move. There were people pushing to get through but there was nowhere to go. We decided that Chinese New Year in London was way overrated and started to try to head home. We finally made it out of the masses and onto the tube ready to head home.
Mon – Mel (Brisvegas) arrives Heathrow
Our friend Mel from Brisbane who went home before Christmas last year decided she wanted to come back to London to see out her Visa. Christine’s B’day trip to the French alps put a bit of a firecracker under her and she made the decision to come with us. Christine, working near Heathrow airport, was able to surprise her at the airport so they had a long catch up on the way home. I had made a huge Curry the night before so it was leftovers and wine for dinner. It is great to have Mel back as we have been missing her heaps. Deans Court wasn’t the same without her.
Sun - Spitalfield Mkt, brick lane with New Mel
We headed to Spitafields markets with with Mel2 who is new to the house. She is friends with one of the other girls and is from Malasia/New Zealand. We had the intention of getting some sort of memento of our time in London. Spitifeilds generally has a bit more arts and crafts stuff than a lot of the other markets. The only problem is that Christine is so fussy! She likes lots of the clothes, handbags and jewelry but not the art works. Very frustrating! My favorite part of the market trip is always lunch. We headed over to brick lane where they have a food stalls with Moroccan, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Greek you name it. The problem here is there is too much choice and everything smells great. It takes ages to decide what to have and then your never sure if your happy with what you have or if you should have got something else. Sampling everyone else’s is always good though.
Chinese New Year – Mel (new) Sun 6/2/11
London’s celebrations of the Chinese New Year is supposed to be the biggest outside of Asia so we decided it was worth having a look at. Mel came with us to Trafalgar Square where there was an opening ceremony with crackers and a lion dance. We unfortunately stood downwind of a homeless man, a mistake we won’t make again, but this was the only place we could see from. The whole square was packed! There were lots and lots of speeches of notable people in the London Chinese community saying how fantastic it was to have so many people there, boring! Finally the firecrackers began, lots of cracking and smoke. There was another ceremony of dotting the dragon’s eyes then a dragon dance which was kind of cool. The best part of the whole fiasco was the Lion dance. This consisted of a couple of guys under the one costume jumping across raised platforms. It was quite impressive.
We left Trafalgar Square and headed to the stalls to try and find some Chinese food. After fighting through the crowds we managed to find some awesome Chinese Pork Buns. These tasted home made and defiantly filled a hole. We continued on our way and got stuck in the crowds. There were just so many people, including mothers with massive prams, that it was hard to move. There were people pushing to get through but there was nowhere to go. We decided that Chinese New Year in London was way overrated and started to try to head home. We finally made it out of the masses and onto the tube ready to head home.
Mon – Mel (Brisvegas) arrives Heathrow
Our friend Mel from Brisbane who went home before Christmas last year decided she wanted to come back to London to see out her Visa. Christine’s B’day trip to the French alps put a bit of a firecracker under her and she made the decision to come with us. Christine, working near Heathrow airport, was able to surprise her at the airport so they had a long catch up on the way home. I had made a huge Curry the night before so it was leftovers and wine for dinner. It is great to have Mel back as we have been missing her heaps. Deans Court wasn’t the same without her.
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