The West End In Weekends

When I was in London years ago, I would buy food that was hilariously disgusting to put in my mouth (believe it or not).   The price of a one-day travelcard brought on the vapours, but I would still choose to go into the city, just for a sniff of it. 

You would ask why when you know shopping has never been my domain.  

West-End Musical/Play/Comedy, nonetheless is (even if it costs me an arm and a leg!)

 

The reason I took this photo of a CD rack in HMV, was because it'd help me tally count in an orderly fashion, of the ones I have watched.  

1. Avenue Q
2. Beauty And The Beast
3. Billy Elliot
4. Cats
5. Cirque Du Soleil
6. Evita
7. Fame
8. Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
9. Les Misérables
10. Lion King
11. Mamma Mia
12. Miss Saigon
13. The Phantom Of The Opera
14. Riverdance
15. Stomp

There are still certainly numerous in my wish list.  

I went for the furry, dubbed "pants-wetting funny" Avenue Q last week.

It will be Chicago to add to the exhaustive list - in 3 days' time, and I can't wait. 

In Remembrance of A Great Artist

She could have easily been made famous should her wits in Chinese Paintings and Calligraphy been unearthed in her earlier years. 

This marvellous piece of painting is one of the many that was hand-painted by someone I genuinely and deeply admire - someone who is no longer with us today.  

Digging this piece out has its way of reminding us of her spirit of kindliness and generosity which, I am sure, will strive in all our hearts in years to come.

What is it about LEGO?

For those who knew me since young age, you'd know LEGO bricks have long been my favourite toy at home.  

All these years of playing with these Danish plastic blocks has nonetheless taught me a thing or two regarding - directions.

First, it taught me how to 1) follow directions - when I think about it now, it appears as real handy training material for assembling IKEA furniture, helpful in making sure your table won't fall apart!

It also taught me how to 2) discard directions -  i.e. build something creatively from scratch, tear it down and put some order into the chaos again.  It is terribly similar to re-writing rejected project proposals at work isn't it?

I recently came across some of the LEGO projects at my friend's house and started reminiscing this good old pastime.  Till this day, I still blame my mother for donating all my LEGO sets when I went boarding.  I think my love affair with this coal for the imaginative fire, will never cease to die.

Are you with me?

The 4-Legged Londoners

As a follow-up to my previous post on Elephant Parade London, here's an account of what a fantastic (not 1 but 2-day) I had, out elephant hunting in Central London.

Below are a few of my favourite 4-legged representatives: 

• One of my favourite designers - Paul Smith, 
• Best known for the astronomical fare in the world - London Black Cab, 
• The very iconic Union Jack, 
• The London Police which we all love and hate, 
• The criss-cross map of the London Underground and
• My beloved Fish n' Chips

The fun things about the hunt was I got to see a fair bit of London, some I have never visited before all these years.  Feeling terrifically accomplished was another, having managed to catch over 120 out of the herd of 260!

Special thanks to the Monkeys who drove me around.  Burnt like a lobster I was under the Sun, I have to say that was quite an absurd yet memorable pursuit afterall.


 

A Beady Eye For Oasis?

Liam Gallagher finally figured something out and it's Beady Eye??

Announced yesterday via the Oasis's website, this is going to be the new name for the band that their suffering fans are going to be adjusting to.

Is this ALL they can come up with - a good 9 months after his brother Noel quit Oasis just literally hours before the concert began in Paris last year?

Surely I will be getting his latest compilation when it's out in July, which promised to have all Oasis's smashing hits, but I just can't bear to think this new name is not ridiculous!

Feeling Naked?

London's Airport just installed security body scanners that produce naked images of passengers when they go through security checks. 

As you can imagine, many are against it and are placing the Human Rights issue on the table. 

When you think about it, the whole problem with Human Rights is that, they tend to contradict with one another.

In the circumstances, I feel that we must all be prepared to surrender our rights to privacy so to preserve our rights to liberty and personal security.

When a person is murdered for instance, photos of the naked dead are circulated among the jury in the court.

That to me, could be far more intimidating than that body scan - which I might get a chance to go through it later on when I leave the city.

SATC 2

Grab your stiletto, call the girls cuz....

THEY ARE BACK!

Can't wait to catch up the fun, the fashion, the friendship that moved on and see how on earth the girls' heels ended up in the middle of a desert!

Before that, it's DVD night on SATC 1.  

A Touch of London

This is not a prank. 

This is an official "hot weather alert" notice found in one of the underground stations in London today. 

Ah.....how very sweet!!

Don't you just love London!"

Fans Go Bladeless?

One of the annoying problems with my PC at home is the noise generated by the internal fans and I always thought a miniature blade-less fan might be a step towards silent computing in future.

Apparently, great minds do think alike.  

James Dyson must have the same idea when he came up with this blade-less table fan that is not only silent but safer too - no more nasty blades to get fingers caught up in!

This latest invention from Dyson looks super cool in the store, but when it comes to the matter of price: £220 - I'd say it is quite a steep entry fee for the very gentle breezes that emanate out of this plastic wind tunnel.

Got kids and fearful of fan-related injuries?

The name Dyson can't do no wrong. 

For £220 though, I'd want the thing to fetch me a cool drink too!

Here's a video from their engineering team.

Jamie's Italian

I am checking one thing off my to-do-list in London.  Been there done that with Jamie's Italian today.

The experience has largely lived up to the lovely-jubbly expectation and the prices of the food were incredibly competitive, with antipasti costing from £2.50 to £6.50, and mains from £9 to £16. 

Jamie's idiolect is all over the lengthy menu; from the "top Italian breads" and "lush basil pesto" to the "good old grilled steak" and "loadsa herbs", about which Jamie is so famously doolally.

I kept looking around to see what other tables have ordered and what caught my eyes at one point, was this piece of toy they provided to kids.   

I nearly asked for one myself!

What I did asked daringly, was how often Jamie appear in his restaurants.

"Really busy, really not much."

 

Bubbling with Anticipation

Thanks for those who have kept their fingers crossed for me.

I have just checked in, scrapped the last aisle seat available and off I board the big metal bird, en route to London in half an hour!  

Gruelling from work for the entire week, I finally feel the vacation mood gradually kicking in from the moment I dropped off my luggage. 


Haven't plan things out yet, but I heard there will be fantastic weather awaits me.  Think I will just drift with the flow in the next few days, taking things nice and easy.    

Can I take some days off the blog as well? 

 

A High-Definition Window

I have almost forgotten how spectacular the harbour view looks like right out of my window as haze and smog have been dominating the sky for I lost track of how long.

The toxic cocktail masking the whole atmosphere has somehow become an inescapable part of life over here.

Just as I was starting to get used to the blurring and veiling effect of it all, thanks to the abrade by the torrential rain earlier on, this refreshing skyline returned with a vengeance.  

Can The View Be THAT Distracting?

Are you supposed to be doing something else right now?

You are probably in the midst of replying your emails and planned to just take a minute to send a tweet or update your Facebook status.  Then you came across this article and figured you want to read what I have to say about distractions. 

Hot Suzy in a basket of muffins, and I have successfully distracted you!

Don't you go away now please...continue reading!

It is perfectly okay of course, to be distracted. We all get distracted sometimes. 

In an office environment for instance, the most distracting factor in my opinion that affects my productivity, is noise distraction.  I did not know, however, that having a view behind your desk in an office can be considered distracting too. 

This scenic view, which they claim, is so potentially distracting (trust me, I have had much better view than this one before), that they have to put up partitions to block the windows.  That will of course be blocking half of the natural sunlight from coming into my office as well.  

Tell me I am not the only one disagreeing to this act.

Taobao...I woulda coulda shoulda

Taobao.com won't come alien to you if you are a shopaholic.  

You would have likely owned an account with them already if you are a shopaholic that shops online.  

And I can say it with certain degree of confidence that if you are a shopaholic that shops online and lives in mainland China, there's a high chance that you'd have purchased something from this eCommerce Goliath already. 

I have always been amazed by Taobao's wealth of products on offer. Their range is simply humongous and you can find virtually ANYTHING from aged collectables to the latest tech gadgets.  They recently went an extra mile to enable international shipping and payment and that was exhilarating.  I could have long tested the shopping experience myself, if only the site contents were in English, it would have been more inviting. 

The very exciting tie-up from June 1 between Taobao and Yahoo Japan Shopping will see Japanese consumers shopping on Yahoo Japan in a new section called “China Mall”.  

This C2C unit is no doubt a gem for Alibaba.com and I am saying woulda coulda shoulda bought their shares long time ago....with Taobao going international, I think this is still a valuable stock to keep an eye on. 

A clever drip from Japan

I just have to marvel at the design of this 'Mon Cafe' I had this morning.

Not only could it sit firmly above my coffee mug, it is head and shoulders over instant coffee... at an instant with no mess and no fuss!

Where else on earth but Japan can you find such a clever drip brewing system, complete with a unique coffee blend, on-the-fly? 


If the Japanese culture can be summarized in one behavioural phrase, it ought to be "attention to details."  Any half-baked execution in there of any sorts simply does not exist.   

A Genteel Pastime

Did you know Hong Kong has now attained the highest horse-racing turnover in the world?   I have no idea since when the game has creeped into one of my family's Sunday pastimes too.

Picking our favourite horses could not get any easier these days.  My father often places his at the Jockey Club's fully computerized betting terminals, I'd choose to do so at my finger tips online and my uncle always prefer the human touch and so he places his bet using a dedicated hotline.

Not only have we got differing channels to place bets, it's funny how we almost never end up with the same pick in each race.  So it is only typical that we each have to look out for a different Jockey Silk at the finishing line: be it squares, lines, circles or star.

I personally think nothing sets our home abuzz in the weekend quite like the thrill of watching horse-racing; with the unity made possible by the colour divergence in the horse racing apparel!

Another Plume of Ash?

The Icelandic Meteorological Office stated today that there are no signs that the volcanic eruption is about to end, with the situation remaining dynamic.

That means, apart from keeping an eye on the pound sterling exchange rate, I also have to pray for a south westerly wind to take most of any ash away from the British Isles. 

Fingers crossed.

WIIFM?

My commitment of Project 340 to have to write 1 post per day, can sometimes be a drag.  

What has been keeping me motivated though, is knowing I have an increasing number of followers like yourself as months go by and even better, when my followers like you, provided valuable feedback to me voluntarily. (No gun-pointing was there?)

The other day, I had someone told me I have a talented witty flair, which was really a huge enough compliment. Yesterday another told me she hasn't got all day to scan just anything online but because I managed to keep my posts short and simple, she reads it.  I am grateful. 

I am thankful because my readers were able to find something in it for them and at the same time, there's something in it for me too.

I endeavour to make my blog a valuable one and make it worth your while to spend time on.  

As always, please leave me comments and I welcome not just the good, the bad and the ugly too. 

Time Capsule

Every Mac user I talked to today, knew about the Time Capsule, either because they are already using it or they have heard nothing but positive comments from other Mac users.  

To have been kept a fair distance from this network storage device (already its 4th generation since 2008), I must have been living in a time capsule myself.  

Where have I been?

I say, it is probably time to reclaim and open up my senses, wake up to a new day dropping that perversely adherence to an opinion.

The first and foremost task now though, is to back up my blog, in the good old conventional way.  

Go...make an effort.  

I got it.  You pay a notch more with the Time Capsule Solution and it becomes automatic, it's effortless. 

Apple does have an edge when it comes to life's little treasures (in a chic digital way). 

2012 Doom Day ??

A simple Google search for "2012" and "the end of the world" brings up nearly 300,000 hits!

NASA is predicting a sharp increase in the number of sunspots and sun flares for 2012, very certain to cause unprecedented catastrophe. 

First of all, a polar reversal will cause the north to become the south and the sun to rise in the west. Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years!

I am not a firm believer in one or two specific prophecies, but I think we ought to be prepared for anything.  

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking.  Let us not waste time worrying about the unfathomed and just focus on making the best of each moment of life and...let come what may.

The Most Hideous Footwear

The first time I came across Crocs (not the Dutch's), I could hardly believe there existed such a horrendous design of footwear.  And that must have been, what, 3 years ago. 

A friend recently wore a pair of Crocs and I couldn't take my eyes off them.  It was like...the scene of a car crash, you did not want to look but you just have to!  Her feet are huge and her pair was in the most luminous possible yellow, which made them all the uglier (if that is even possible!).

The designers who came up with these revolting shoes must have tried their darn best to beautify them with cute colours, but sorry to say, they stubbornly remain rather ugly to me 3 years down the road.

Anyway, they are just too awful for me to even take photos of them.   Instead, I am giving you the most comfy footwear that I will miss if they come apart one day.  

I am not saying Crocs aren't comfy, but please...promise you will shoot me if you ever see me slip on one of those revolting things called Crocs.

M&S Food To Go

Classic, exceptional quality clothing is what this British retailer has built an empire on in the last century or so.  I personally think its lingerie department in particular, can be viewed as a national treasure. 


When I went to this branch in Shanghai 1.5 years ago, I was amazed by its food selection and questioned why none of the branches in Hong Kong could get comparatively close.  


Finally the long awaited British specialty food store has been officially opened in my locality today.  

Can't wait to lay my hands on their stalwarts such as prawn sandwiches, BLTs, salt 'n vinegar crisps and....pear drops!

Elephants on parade

In addition to the General Election in UK, the Elephant Parade London has just been invading London and setting the city ablaze with colour as well. 

So, apart from the hung parliament, I am also bubbling with anticipation to catch sight of these cuties. Let's see how many I can catch out of the herd of 260. 

P.S. Photo courtesy of the Monkeys.  

Plucking Low Hanging Fruits

The low hanging fruits may not be not be as ripe or as attractive as the fruits on higher branches, they are nonetheless, easier to harvest.

Anyway, for a long while, mother nature had me choose the immediate gratification of going for low hanging fruits and now, I am simply running out of those to pluck.  

Although, what is low-hanging fruit for you might be the hardest apple for me to reach.  I told myself, this should not be in any way, stop me from exploring the higher ground!

It is time to stop looking for an easy fix.  

Living In The Mirror

Scissors, peelers, tin openers, craft knives, fish knives, pencil sharpeners, golf clubs and guitars.  

What do they have in common? 

I was holding an interesting conversation with a friend about how various things in every day life (such as those above), that we, lefties find more difficult to use because of how our brains are wired.  

Left-handers are forced to learn to do many things right handed because we simply have no choice (I think we are just better at compromising really!)   

Anyway, let me present you with some examples that I bet you right-handed people probably never think about.

• Hand sliding across where we have written, smearing the ink and blackening our sleeves looking very messy
• Pick up a coffee mug and the picture side faces away instead of facing us
• Writing uncomfortably on a file where the binding is under your hand
• Writing on a cheque book where the stub is right underneath
• Pens in banks are rather annoyingly chained to the right
• Ticket barriers on tubes exits are forever on the right hand side

Just to name a few. 

I used to praise highly of HSBC (or the then called Midland Bank), where they issued cheque books for left-handers.  

I love going to Harry Ramstens obviously for the famous Fish 'N Chips, but also because I can ask them proudly to hand me a left-handed fish knife with no questions asked.

I have been searching high and low for this left-handed Officine Panerai which is no longer being produced.  Somehow, owning that I feel would really make my life complete!

Define: Wine Pairing

While I was doing some homework preparing for an Italian wine pairing dinner which I have been looking forward to all week, I came across this sublime description of wine pairing that I must jot down in record immediately in here before that got slipped out from the back of my brain compartment.  (Inevitable after several glasses no doubt).

"Food and wine pairing is like two people having a conversation: 

One must listen while the other speaks or the result is a muddle".
 

First of all, this is such a romantic way of describing it for a starter.  And to the point, this brings to my attention that either the food or the wine is in fact the dominant focus of the pairing, with the other serving as a complement to enhance the enjoyment of the first.

This might help explain why in times, the harder we try to bring to perfection with both, the more unsatisfactory the result of the pairing can be.

I think this description is a golden rule that fits to a tee - definitely worth putting in your pocket.  

Second thoughts, this is not only applicable to wine pairing, to relationships in general too.

Shanghai's mother of all World's Fairs

Expo 2010 in Shanghai is officially opened on May 1.

My sister has been saying how we can't possibly give that a miss after her 10-hour long visit on the post-trial day.

I am personally not that keen honestly, when all I could think of are being in the midst of grilling heat, participating in the queuing ordeals and be part of the organised chaos. 
 

My family is planning to go check that out in a few months time, if there will be standing structures remained by then, I might just give it a bit of consideration!

I Hear The London Calling

If I am going to be a tourist, I am going to ride the river, admire the views from that crazily slow Ferris wheel and wander the markets till my knee bones click - how very British!

If I am saying anything at all, I am simply bragging about my upcoming trip to the city of lords and chimney sweeps!

If I am to say one more word, it will be a heart-felt "thanks" to you, you and you! 

The Ecstasy of being paid?

Payslips are funny things.

We yearn for them, and yet when we have them in our hands, we don't often know quite what to do with them.  How ever much we said we look forward to them, you would be surprised how many immediately goes into the bin. 

Employers are legally obliged to give their employees an itemized payslip whenever we are paid (15 days after pay day in my case) and while I was expecting an email on day 15, I finally received it - in paper form today. 

Am I supposed to feel more of the ecstasy of being paid, with that piece of paper as opposed to an email, when all I could convince myself was paper payslips are such a thing of the past?    

So long as I see my bank account stays black - that's all matters.  

Eat breakfast like a king

I am sure you have heard of the phrase:

"Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper."

Breakfast is exactly what the name suggests - Break Fast and it is supposed to be breaking the fast your body, the first meal after waking up.   

A new study has found evidence that suggests eating a high-fat breakfast may help prevent metabolic syndrome, according to researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), published online on March 30 in the International Journal of Obesity.

So, there I went to have my Sunday breakfast like a king...a FAT king!

With sausages, bacon, ham, fried eggs with cheese on a French toast!  

Please also take a look at that pretty slice of chocolate cake at the background - I actually had a bite of that to break-fast!   Simply divine and I needed that!

Iron Man II

Even though the role of world saviour weighs heavily on Tony Stark and while he was facing his own demise, he still wants to party!  

I just love Robert Downey Jr.'s character in it.  I had no idea he can be sooooo cool and I guess surprise comes often when you least expect it to be.

There is certainly scattered of silly entertainment throughout the movie that takes pleasure in making me giggle. 

If I don't mind watching it again, it proves to be a money-grabbing film that sees nothing but the box-office take.