beloved bel

The big thing now - protests due to the G20 Summit here in London..! We have no idea what to expect for the next few days.. none of my colleagues know what to expect either except that the last time something like that happened was in 1999 and the protests were already quite bad at that time. Our company had issued emails on tightened security esp during the summit days and we are allowed to dress down this week... well nothing really happened yesterday and today. Today lunchtime I walked down to Bank area with Kathryn and saw some peaceful protests outside the Royal Exchange. We were thinking it might be blown out of proportion until I saw the evening news.. hmm... not very optimistic. We also saw the map of the targets in the city. *gulp* and people are boarding up their shops?! wahh.. looks serious We'll know in a few hours' time when we go to work... fingers crossed!

Easter's coming.. all of us are looking forward to the two days of public holidays :)) Stores and supermarkets are all selling easter eggs everywhere and yesterday I went into Hotel Chocolat during lunch with my colleagues... just couldn't resist buying 4 easter eggs! They look so yummy! And no, in case you are thinking, I am not finishing them all. Gave the hazelnut praline egg to Shany last night so missing one here.. don't they look good?!

Sandy's here to visit and last Sunday we went for a really lovely picnic at my fav Kensington Gardens together with Yeelin... sunshine, bagels, chips, grapes, choc bites, sparkling juice.... it was one of those perfect days :)

Have been enjoying some "me-time" since Cynthia went back last Friday evening.. actually feels quite good. Not that I mind staying with her, but u know, being alone once in a long while and just spending time on my own is pretty nice. Never had a chance to do that back home. People here value their own personal space a lot so I think this is one aspect which I've changed my mentality towards. Never thought I could be like this but.. now yea, I think personal space is pretty important! Just went picnicing in Kensington Gardens today and yup, pretty flowers are blooming everywhere! So yup, been just chilling and doing nothing much. Relax.. taking it easy... plus spring is here, flowers are blooming and the glorious sunshine.. beautiful. Again, marvelling at God's wonderful creation. :))

Emmanuel Jal was born in Sudan when civil war broke out. His father joined the army and his mother was killed by soldiers loyal to the government. Thinking he could receive education in Ethiopia, he joined thousands of children travelling there, only to find they were to be conscripted into their military training camps, trained to be child soldiers. They were trained to fight and kill as many muslims as possible. He was put into battle carrying an AK-47 that was taller than he was. For 5 years, he was a child soldier till it became unbearable that he, together with some children, decided to run away. Thankfully he met a British air worker Emma who rescued him and smuggled him into Kenya where he could finally receive education. Along the way, Emmanuel started to sing to ease his pain from his childhood, and became active to raise money for the needy. He fell in love with hiphop music to publisize his story and lobby for a political change. His songs in his album Gua illustrat...

Thanks to Cynthia's friends who are here on holiday, they introduced us an ultra easy Italian dinner which we can cook. What's more, it's using my fav fish - salmon. Tonight I just used their leftovers in the fridge and... tada! Here's the dish: Salmon with spinach & ricotta tortelloni and potato salad The amazing thing is that I can actually use my mini toaster oven to bake the salmon! Drizzled the salmon with some olive oil, put some chopped garlic, black pepper, pinch of salt, top it with a stalk of fresh dill for that herb-y taste, and wrap it up with aluminium foil and put it in the mini oven for 5-6 minutes. And it's done! Tortelloni reminds me of our chinese wonton heehee (yes it's ready made so I didn't make that from scratch in case you're wondering ;) ) and according to cooking directions, just cook them in salted boiling water and at the same time, I pan fried some mushrooms so when the tortelloni's done, I put it in the pa...

We have been rather greedy these few days, hunting down fine dining places. Well we found out these two weeks is known as the "London Restaurant Week" so many top places are offering great promos/ discounts. Last Friday night, the group of us had dinner at restaurant 140 Park Lane at Marriott Hotel in Mayfair. We all shared the crab & prawn cake for appetiser; I ordered the venison for mains, finished by sharing belgian choc cheesecake, and followed by post dinner drinks (each of us ordered a different cocktail). Hmm overall it was so-so, we didn't think it was fantastic... but as usual, great company so that makes a difference! Saturday I met Wenwen for a day out downtown. Being Jap foodies, we decided to check out authentic Jap food place and ended up in a small Tokyo-like diner where waitresses are all Japanese at Marylebone Road. I finally tasted my fav Unagi-don in London! It was such a generous serving of two huge pieces of succulent eel, we were so f...

Sunday was our second time to this Roman city of Bath. Time flies, we were there almost one year ago! Remember we tried to go two weekends ago but train tickets were cut throat? This time we bought tickets way in advance plus Cynthia's friends are here so we managed to get group save as well. Bath Abbey Weather was super erratic I have to say. We were dismayed when we realised it was gonna be a rainy day and boy was BBC accruate. It drizzled when we reached about 1pm, stopped for a while, sun comes shining thru', and then suddenly it drizzles again. And then there was sleet shower for a few minutes interval. It was like this on and off, and as forecasted, about 5ish there was hail (something like solid water droplets that bounces off my jacket haa). Anyway I thought it's more erratic than London :/ Not to let weather deter us, we still walked around this small and lovely town. My intern recommended us Sally Lunn tea room. This is the oldest house in Bath and sup...

Both Cyn n I intended to cook a nice beef steak dinner since V day but as we were too tired from shopping that day, we ended up eating microwave takeaway instead haha.. finally tonight we had our postponed meal. Happened we saw this ready mix mushroom sauce for steak from Tesco and used that to pour over our steak (which we pan fried with butter and I even pounded some black peppercorns in for the added peppery taste). Did a side salad as well... ooh two thumbs up! Shared a soffiato with vanilla ice cream for dessert haha don't even remind me about my diet plan! Grandma was asking if we are still cooking our dinners coz she says I seldom post pics of home cooked food anymore so here's some for her :) mee rebus - before you go "fwahh", let me clarify this is from a Prima Taste box haha so it is super simple to cook. We just added prawns, hard boiled egg and green chilli and it looks pro like anything. It was so yummy, we gulped down in 10min flat. And couldn...