beloved bel

I didn't think I would be that excited about the royal wedding. I thought I'd be more excited about the fact that I don't have to work (which is true to a certain extent). On Wednesday morning when I left my house, I saw that two of my neighbours have the union jack flying proudly on their front doors, including pictures of the royal couple that caught me by surprise. And then there are the news and newspapers. Reporting non-stop about the wedding. And then I hear from friends saying that London streets are all pomped up for the wedding, decked with union jack bunting, flags, and what have you.. so with all these combined, I couldn't help but become very excited. So much so that it did cross my mind to venture down to Westminister for a peek on the actual day haha.. ok eventually I held back coz my logical mind took over. It would make more sense to watch it on the telly with my friends in the comforts of my living room. Today after work, I arranged to meet ...

Camden Market is one of the well known markets here in London and yet I've never ventured there before. It's known for the weird and goth looking people (think Amy Winehouse- she lives in Camden). Finally last Saturday I arranged to explore Camden Town with Dorothy. We met at Camden Town station, and was greeted with such a big crowd of people. We didn't know where to start. Although it's Camden Market we wanted to go to, we didn't realise that it's much more than Camden Market. Besides that, there is Camden Lock, Stables Market, and many quaint little stores lining the whole area. Yes we saw many weird looking people, but we were more drawn by the place itself. left: Choose your desired size of bean bag! right: yes we bought similar straw hats :) Ironically we didn't walk into Camden Market, but we walked around Camden Lock and went to Stables Market (since 1854! where it started as a horse stable), and then we continued walking (well ...

Regent Street, London The royal wedding is in 4 days' time and working folks like me are looking forward to having another day off.. whoop! Because of the many bank holidays dotting these 2 weeks, you could potentially take 3 days off this week, and get a whole stretch of 11 days off work! How awesome. So apparently Regent Street is now decorated with British flags, all geared up for the Royal Wedding. The other day I was getting my groceries at Waitrose and saw that they have a special section dedicated to the wedding. You have chocolates, champagne flutes, party accessories donning the Union Jack. This is as much British Pride you can get. K my fav Brit girl, doesn't understand the big fuss over this royal wedding. She is annoyed looking at all the hype surrounding this. Seems to me the older generation, the likes of her gran would fully appreciate things like that. She tells me her gran never misses any of the Queen's speech every year, and would be irritated if ...

Brighton is the beach nearest to London and I've never been there even though it's just 1h away by train. I guess UK is not really known for the beach and I wasn't too fussed about it. Every year Hillsong church organises a Baptism Saturday here in summer and still I never made it for one reason or another. For some weird reason before going, my impression of Brighton was quite a "sixties place". Think a typical British summer.. fish n chips and beer... chilling out on the pebbled beach... the amusement park... candy floss and balloons... people walking around with big hair and big round sunnies wearing bell bottoms hahaha Why this interpretation I don't know! However, one thing I do know is that if I go there, I want to hunt down the rows of colourful beach huts. Beach huts were a relatively foreign concept to me . It is a small wooden hut, usually painted in bright colours and people buy or rent one to store their beach stuff (BBQ pits, deck chairs,...