Portobello and the London Freewheel

Its a Sunday, and its sunny... A good day to go out and enjoy! I went to Portobello Market in the morning. They have dozens of little antique shops, colorful buildings, restaurants, clothing shops, souvenir shops & stalls selling 2nd hand stuff here. We had fun window shopping, and I bought 3 postcards to send to my dear frens back home. Too bad some of the shops are not open on Sundays.


portobello market signage


a shop selling wallies decorations


Lush Times - this is the shop that impressed me most. They sells bath and hair products. The smells are so sweet, and they make the products just like food... haha.. i almost tempted to eat the soap bars :p


antiques


colorful buildings

After Portobello, we took a bus to Piccadilly, and walk to St James Park for the Hovis London Freewheel. Today Londoners get to cycle around London's famous landmarks with peaceful minds (the roads are closed to motor vehicle). This event is actually aimed to encourage more people in London to cycle. Hmm, but for me, I think its just too dangerous to cycle in the city centre.


thousands of cyclists participate in this festival, seeing them reminds me of someone, hehe...


cycling acrobatics performance


panda cycling???


a guy doing a test... but i am not sure what it is... hee..

London

I am here for 3 weeks plus already... just cant believe it. I have fun here holidaying everyday. Weather has been good for the first two weeks since I arrived. No rain, and we have sunshine almost everyday. Now, autumn came and the weather starting to get colder and colder. I already feel very lazy to go out :p Dont know what will happen to me when winter comes, hee. As for food, I enjoyed their sandwiches (which I bought from Tesco, Marks & Spencer or Sainsbury) at first, but after a few days, I started to look for asian food. Luckily, the place I stayed at that time, which was Bayswater, offers lots of choices on asian food. The famous roast duck is there. So far, I have tried the roast duck and fried rice in bayswater; Briyani rice at Khan's; nasi campur & meehoon goreng in Malaysian Hall; wanton noodles, rice with curry and sweet&sour pork in Chinatown; even go as far as Oriental City in Colindale for nasi lemak ;) Now, I am running out of money and since I stayed at a friend's house now, we cooked quite often.

Below are some of the places that I visited:

Trafalgar Square at the background- a place always packed with tourists and pigeons.


Piccadilly Circus - my sis told me before I came, this is not a circus, its a roundabout! with the famous Eros statue in the middle


Chinatown- we had our lunch at a Hong Kong char chan teng, which served very delicious seafood curry with rice.


Kensington Gardens - so peaceful


Royal Observatory at Greenwich - where east meets west


Malaysian Hall at Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater.


Tower Bridge - taken during sunset. Its very windy on the day we went to tower bridge, but we still waited from afternoon till it gets dark, so that we can take the different looks of tower bridge ;) This is also the 1st day of the London tube strike. No train for us to go home after our little day tour.


a street performance at Covent Garden. This guy is imitating the scene in the Matrix.


London Eye - took the ride during sunset. The view is worth the £13 we spend.


Big Ben - We walk across the bridge to big ben after our ride at london eye.


Buckingham Palace- for the changing of the guard.


Camden Town - lots and lots and lots of shops selling all kind of things, especially weird things, haha.


British Museum - Not really enjoying myself here, coz I am not a museum person, haha. They have mummies here and lots of ancient sculpture.

I will be visiting Oxford next monday.... yoo hoo..

the Children I met @ Siem Reap

One common sight around Angkor temples... is the children. We met a lot of them at each temples trying to sell us books, postcards, water, and some just asking for some donations. I would say some are really charming, they don't really disturb you after you said no to them, and their face immediately lighted up when I handed out sweets to them. I love giving out sweets to them, seeing their smiling faces brings warmth and joy to my heart.

The only bad experience we had is at the floating village where a bunch of kids came near our boat to sell us bananas. SC decided to buy one from one of the kids, soon after she paid the little girl, the other girls starts to cry and shout louder "banana, one dollar... banana, one dollar..." and all swamp to SC like asking her why you didnt buy from me??? Believe me, their voices are really loud till our ears can still hear the echo when our boat starts to move :p

As usual, here are some pixs to share.....with the subject - Innocent Faces :)


this girl pose for me and ask me to take her picture when she saw me with my camera. I think she looks beautiful.


at floating village...banana, one dollar....


two little boys at Beng Mealea temple... they kept asking for more sweets ^_^


Mom with her kid. We bought some candies which is super sweet and some utensils made fr coconut from mom.


hmmm, why do you look so sad, little girl???

Viv on holiday....huh Again??

Hmmm, Viv seems to have lots of holidays recently. After Mount K, Viv went back to work at site, where she got to stay at a beach resort, then move to a golf resort (envy leh....kekeke), & after that, a company's trip to Tioman Island. On the last day of viv site work, viv happily packed all her stuff, & drove her old loyal car to Mersing, which took her about 2 hrs drive from Sg. Rengit, then another 30 min drive to Tg Gemuk Jetty at Rompin to meet all her other colleagues... They had fun at the treasure hunt (organised by Berjaya Tioman), snorkelling trip to Reggis Island, swimming in the pool, playing pool, cycling, drinking & dancing by the beach at night =) & the most unforgetful & tiring event... is the drive back from Mersing to KL, which took viv about 6 hours :((

a ride at Desaru

Viv borrowed a bike from generous W-LJ and brought it to the place where she work, on and off about 1.5 month already ;) Here is a good place for cycling, many singaporeans come here to cycle during weekends. When Viv is staying at Desaru last two week, she took the opportunity to cycle along the desaru stretch. It was a fun ride... under the sun, sea breeze, soft white sand beach, nice blue sea, cheeky monkeys, greenish golf course, fresh air... where can we find all these in KL huh???


the bike in my room


a nice holiday spot


the beach.... & the bike, of course... hehe


viv went for a jog too, along the beach. these are her foot prints :p


some ppl went there to fish


some playing water sports


some sharing their precious moments


while boring Viv make sand turtle... kekeke


finally, the wonderful collage :)

wonderful Mount Irau

was first introduced to Mount Irau by our Mr 001, who is also our guide for this hike ;) Before this, I dont even know the existance of Mount Irau, hehe. Mr 001 went in Jan and upon his return, he kept telling us how nice it was, so a trip was planned. On a beautiful April morning, a group of 13 young men and women start their journey to Cameron. Mount Irau is famous as mossy forest, and the trek starts near Mount Brinchang. We start our climb at about 8.30am and reach the peak at about 1pm. It was a long climb for us, coz we took our own sweet time to pose to the cameras, and avoid the muddy spots, hehe. I heard the experience ones can climb within two hours ;p Anyway, its not an easy climb, and its muddy all the way. Nevertheless, i enjoyed the climb, the view is magnificent, weather is cool, there's no leaches, mosquitos, etc... and the climb is challenging :) So, here comes the photos...


the view that greeted us en-route to mount brinchang


our clean shoes...


mountains and clear blue sky


half of our journey, break time for some goodies


the difficult climb ahead (* legs shaking *)


this is what i meant by mossy forest


smile :)


a monkey took his photo here last time, hehehe


the best pitcher plant pix that i managed to take. Some are really small.


finally, we reached the top. Actually, there are no nice view from the top. Most importantly is to enjoy the journey up.


chocolate mousse shoes


pix courtesy from mr Pitt. cant resist to put this photo here, hehe, pretty young ladies and handsome young guys. oops, one missing... & tats the famous mr pitt.