Eating my TOES

Food, food, food.....I have been eating "toes" lately. Lots of them. Tomatoes, potatoes as my dinner and lunch.

These seems to be the staple winter diet here. In the smaller supermarkets, tomatoes, potatoes, onions(in all their varieties), make up more than half of the "vegetable section". The rest of the space are taken up for guess what- carrots and all the rest of the "roots", parsips, turnips and beet roots. Yeah, there is also the cabbage family-lettuce, red, savoy and just cabbage taking another 10 percent or so of the vege section? "Siao pai chai", if available, usually takes up a coveted top shelf. Two of these heads sell for 1.29£, yeah, that is more than £5.00/kilo. Hmmm, i wonder if the price search engines like kelkoo or price runner does a price comparison on grocery.

You just cant escape from these two ingredients-potatoes & tomatoes in every meal you have. Oh yes, onions too! I think I must have been eating more onions in the last two weeks than I would normally eat in a year.

Open a recipe book, and you will see onions in all the soups, and stews. Onions go into my ommelette, stews, soups, mashed potatos, salads etc, and yes even my porridge.

If you want to have something filling or even just a snack, you cannot escape from potatoes. Potatoes in stew, soups and pies, mash potatoes, chips, bake potatoes, potato salads etc.....there is no escape from it.

If you are sick of potatoes and want to get some pastas for a change, you will face tomatoes. Tomatoes is also another star ingredient here. Everywhere you turn, you will see tomatoes. Even when ou decide to go unhealthy and head to a fast food centre; tomatoes will appear in your sandwich or burger, and of cource the tomato sauce! (No chili sauce, terrible!!!)

And the best part is when you are sick of all these 'western food'; you can have a flavour of the east in the form of curry. Then all your "toes" and also the onions will go in in a big nice pot. yeah, you just cant escape from it!

Maybe it is just time to learn cooking skills? recipe books or cook shows, it is time to devour these!

Let it snow let it snow

Finally the first snow of the year for London. I would have missed it if not for my SO who rushed back just to tell me that the snow flakes have fallen. Everyone was hoping mad for white Christmas, but the snow only fall on the 27th, a busy day for shoppers as the sales have started!

I went to South Kensington Palace and the gardens to see how it look like in snow. Quite nice actually, but the blanket of snow were a little too thin, and melts quickly. Many people are still on a holiday and families have came out to play, making snowman etc. I took some nice photos of this, and will upload it later. Oh ya, the palace shop has a good public toilet- free- and it comes with a toilet seat sanitizer. (Hmm.. I have a growing obsession about locations of FREE public toilets, what with all the hot coffee going down my system. You have to pay 50p for a pee in for some of them- more than enough for a meal in some countries)

The squirels were out 'playing' in the snow. One actually took me for a tree and climbed up. The claws are scratchy. Those near the palace were extremely poeple frinedly, having been well fed by tourists. If I were to be a squirrel in my next life, let me live in London, not in Asia, where I am considered as food.

more photos of south kensington garden

The autumn leaves on the South Ken Park lawn. A breeze would bring in a nices pictre of rustling leaves and some brids taking flight.

The pics below are taken on a bright sunny afternoon(rare occurence). However,they looks "cloudy", as I am using my Nokia 6100i. Give me a better camera and I give you better pics! (Christmas is coming, hint hint.)

A nice cloud hanging over the round pond. Shadows are people, looking or feeding the feathered creatures.

Below is a brighter pic. different angle. The "dots" are the fat birds, ducks , geese, whatever. (All good for dinner afetr a HOT bath an an hour in the over, according to my SO)






















This is the Broadwalk. It was once the place to be seen. there are many benches along this road, and in sunny days, can reading or simply lazing around with theird dogs here.












This is a picture with Kensington Palace at the background. The pointed spire is a church quite somewhere around Kensington High Street. There are many big "houses"(actually many are embassies) behind Kensington Palace.


This is a pic of two balding trees. Trees and turn bald in just 3-4 days. Amazing!Regreted not taking a picture of the same tree everday to show "progress"!

London: Bird fever, not flu

South Kensington Park in a crisp late autumn morning is just serenely beautiful. In just two short weeks, I witnessed the change of the colour from greenish yellow (which disappointed me- it looked dirty!) to all shades of yellow and the occasional dash of red in some trees. The lawns are composed of grass that is still very green and pattern with shades of yellow leaves which had fallen. With some “hairy” dogs (I swear the dogs here are much more fluffy and hairy) runny across them, it was a very beautiful picture.

My significant other and I headed to the Round Pond, wondering whether we will be catching someone playing some miniature controlled boats.

The pond was obviously busy, but not with boats. There were so many swans and ducks of all sizes and colours. The primitive “China Man” in him immediately thought of the sweet, tender and juicy roast goose we had at Yung Kee and wondered whether the swans would taste that good too. The fat ducks will surely be yummy, may be as good as those at Four Seasons, the famous Chinese restaurant in Bayswater. And oh, look at the pigeons, aren’t they FAT!! Wouldn’t they be perfect for a roasting!


These “rats with wings”, as Londoners call them because of the mess they make, were everywhere. Unlike us urban Asians who shy away from all things that fly and are wild because of the bird flu scare, the Londoners do not seem to be affected. In fact, the papers just reported an increase in “bird feed”- balls of seed, vegetable oil and all things that are delicious for our winged friend. If I were a pigeon, I would fly here too- where we would be fed till fat instead of being fed to some fat tummies; where people feed me with mouth watering seeds instead of salivating at the sight of our fat and feathered bodies.

Children and elderly alike seem to derive much pleasure in feeding the feathered friends (soon to be turned fiends when bird flu strikes). Coming from a place where the reports of bird flu in neighbouring countries resulted in the “precaution” through “culling” of anything (whether wild or domesticated) with two legs and feathered wings, we were pleasantly surprised and at the same time a little worried about the “ignorance” or “recklessness” of people here! Of course, SARS have not struck here and the animal activist would probably equate any of such mass culling to Auswich in animal world.

Other than some cases of bird flu in Romania, I have not heard much of it since I came here. Until the danger of bird flu become really near and obvious, I too would join Londoners in admiring these beautiful feathered creatures, and enjoy guessing which greyish white dots on the pavement is a gum and which are the pigeon “bombs”. My other delight is of course, laughing at my SO paranoia of bird shit.

I guess, I just had to enjoy the serenity before throngs of tourists come to town in spring. With the popular stretch of hotels in Inverness Terrace and Bayswater Road, the place will be crowded!

London's cold is ok. The dryness kills me!

I drink up lots of water here, much more than when I am in a country that hits 25-30C everyday.

Lots and lots of it. I can finish more than 500 ml at night, as this tropical girl is just not used to the dryness of central heating! My throat is so dry that I wake up in the middle of the night to gulp water. Thank goodness i found cheap "still" water in Tesco supermarket: 75p for 3 bottles of 1.5 litre! Oh ya,dry throat and mouth is accompanied with halitosis!

I have been mentally prepared for the cold, but at the end, it is the dryness that bugs me. The skin on my hands are so chapped. Tiny wrinkles start to form on my hands and the corners of my eyes!I can hardly imagine that it is my skin! In a week or so, I have slapped more moisturiser on myself that what i would normally take 6 months to finish. Even that does not seem to help. Things that I brought here seems to be not "powerful" enough for this English weather! (Except BodyShop's body butter)

My hair is getting dry and frizzy. Almost every morning is a bad hair day. Static, yeah. I do a revision on this topic every day looking at how my hair stands up. I have changed my shampoo, and for the first time in many years use a hair conditioner- lots of it. Even that does not seem to help much.

Boots have since become one of my most frequented shops. I bought a big bottle of Olay Beauty Fluid. (The other brands are so much more expensive here!) I would have never touch it before this because it is GREASY. Only my mum would use something like this. However it is now my saviour. My mild Fancl washing power is too drying, and could only be used once iin 2 days, or after I have been walking alot and sweating. It is this Olay fluid which I am using now to "cleanse" my skin in morning and night. I use it just like I would use my cleansing oil. (I really regreted not taking my cleaning oil along).

How I wish Christmas would come sooner. Then I can hit the shops again with my shopping list.

Moisturiser.
Hand cream.
Lip balm.
Leave in conditioner.
A really pwerful moituriser for our cracked heels.

Eating out in London is expensive!

For the average traveler, food bill can come up to quite a lot.

For a traveler who likes to eat, food bill can easily be as much as accomodation in some of the more expensive places. London is one of such places.

While we can travel off peak, like in this frosty winter and save on accommodation and flight bill, there isn’t much difference in foot bills. Most eating places in London starts from around £5 a meal. 3 meals out comes up to £15, easily not forgetting your snacks and water. The only way to save is avoid restaurants, and find a accommodation where you could do some simple food preparation, eg having a microwave oven and a small kitchenette. Food from supermarkets are cheap. Big box of cereal for about £1. 1.2 litre of ORGANIC milk for around £1 as well. I often joke that it is cheaper to drink milk than coke here. Bread is really cheap, and you can have all the varieties you would like, so is cheese, ham and sausages. If you prepare you own meals like sandwiches, you can feed yourself well for less than £5 per day, and spend the money shopping and seeing more of London!