Marty has gone home.

I hate goodbyes. Makes me so very very sad...

I know it's not going to be long before I go back and after a few days i'll be used to my life of a swinging 'bachelorette' sort of but still, saying goodbye was so hard.

On a brighter note, I'll be going to Bristol for work tomorrow night and putting up at the Marriot there. WooHoo! Phil's going to bring me around and show me the sights or at least I hope he will. Pity it's only going to be a night.

Hopefully will be able to get tickets for a weekend getaway in Paris. Am thinking of going back early after work ends here. I feel like Spain and Italy can wait until Marty is here to travel with me.

Thursday night met up with K, marty's cousin and neilson who are here on a holiday. I'm so inspired to move to London now.

We met K's friends Rashmi and some other guys who are from Perth and it appears that earning £500 a day is the norm here. OH~MI~GAWD!!

These guys have been working for a month and travelling for 3. No real responsibilities. That's what I call living it up. Now to convince Marty to come here asap.

In other new, Marty bought us tickets to avenue Q last night. It was the best musical we have seen so far! Check out samples of the music :)

http://www.avenueqthemusical.co.uk/the-show/audio-clips.php

The cast included muppet characters and real people. Who would have imagined that muppets and people on stage together would work but it did! The first few minutes were a little weird as I was unsure if I should focus on the muppets or the puppeteers. But after a while, you just get the hang of it and pretty soon, it felt like the most natural thing to have a muppet with and human/actor body. Seeing is believing anyway.

I arrived a couple of minutes late and was furious at the bitch at work who made me late but after a few minutes into the show, I had laughed my troubles away. My the interlude my foul mood had dissipated!

With funny songs like 'Everyone's a little bit racist', 'The internet is for porn' and 'If you were gay', it was hard to stay upset. Definitely a must see!

After the theatre, we had dinner with Rich and Anna at a french restaurant recommended by Anna. It had excellent food and we were seated in the basement of the restaurant which felt like a cellar. It was very cramped but cosy and all the waiters were french.

We had so much food - fresh baguette with pats of butter, pate, spicy calamari for starters, fish stew for the girls, steak for richard, coquelet for marty and for desert, we had les fromage (3 cheese platter with baguette, creme brulee and un pot chocolat which literally was a cup of chocolate with two cookies. What decadence!

It's been a hectic few days!

Over the weekend, Marty and I went to a pub to catch the boring FA cup finals. After which, we went to Richard's place in Ealing. It was impressive how Richard did up the place. Looked like a home I'd expect to see in a decor magazine. We went out for an Indian dinner in the area and ended up staying over because it was too cold to go back home and plus it was late. Didn't really feel like risking it seeing as how crime in London is quite high.

Sunday met up with some uni friends / pwc ex-colleagues for dim sum. After which, went to the 2nd hand book market near home to buy 2 new novels, one of which The Incredible Lightness of Being, I'm quite excited about.

Ever since the tax exam, I've had an incredible urge to exercise my brain, maybe because I have gotten use to working it quite hard. I have been voraciously reading anything I can lay my hands on from the various daily free newspapers, to online newspapers, to novels and even to advertisements (which I usually block out) but I still feel restless. Books I have gotten through in the last couple of weeks were Norwegian Wood by Murakami and A piece of cake by cupcake brown. Unfortunately, neither were very fulfilling. I've decided I've had enough of Murakami and also drug addicts.

Nothing seems to pique my interests. I'm searching for a though provoking book. An unusual book. A book that invoked emotions like how Life of Pi or the Windup Bird Chronicle did but such books tend to be few and far between. Fingers crossed for the 2 I've bought.

Marty and I have watched 2 musicals in the last 2 days and he's looking to watch another musical matinee on Friday... It's quite exhausting. I'm BEAT! There was a lot of hype over Les Mis and it came heavily recommended from a few friends here but I must say I was not impressed. The music was unhappy almost all the time. I guess I shouldn't have been too surprised given the title but still it was depressing. Also, there were too many subplots and too many characters so it was hard to develop affection for any single one.

FAME i felt was way more entertaining with great dancing and occasional great vocals. Most importantly, it left me with a warm fuzzy feeling. Envying the performers their jobs which pay them to dance, sing, and act happy. Sounds like my dream job! We walked back after the musical, with a tune in our heads and a bounce in our steps. Even though the singing wasn't as good as Les Mis, the fact that we felt happy after the muscial was a sure sign the show was a success.

It's the Champions League match tomorrow night. We will probably be heading out to watch it at some pub. And then there's the potential dinner with Marty's friend on Thursday. UGH!!

I'm TIRED!

Marty and I went for stand up comedy tonight. They were giving out flyers at Leicester Square offering 2 for 1 for £7. What a bargain it seemed. I was however a little apprehensive as I imagined this seedy smoke-filled joint with amateurish comedians. Oh how I hate unfunny comedians!

I was partly right.

The part that I was wrong was that the decor of the place was quite nice. Marty and I got front row leather sofa seats which were extremely comfy. Also, the first comedian out of 4 was very very good. That however raised our expectations for the rest of the night which then fell short.

The bit which I was right about was 2nd hand cigarette smoke that permeated all around including any and every crevice. Ugh! I can't wait for the 1st of July where it will be officially smoke-free in night spots here. All my coats and jackets stink of smoke because here, people are allowed to smoke every where. Even restaurants!

Another bit that I was right about was the hit and miss nature of attending stand up comedy in a comedy club when you haven't heard half the names of the acts. The compere was finger nails against blackboard cringe worthy. One did not even feel sorry for him. You know how you sometimes feel sorry for unfunny people who seem like they are trying their best right? Well, for this guy, all you really wanted was for him to be dragged of the stage and shot.

And then there was this leprechaunish looking guy with a tiny voice. Poor him. Every single sentence that came out of his mouth was punctuated by fuck. At least his antics were amusing.

The worse thing was there were quite a few weirdos in the audience.

The first weirdo was a cake girl in the front row who insisted the comedians try here philosophical cake which may or may not exist depending on how you looked at it. Egad! How do comedians put up with weird shit like that from the audience. A hand gun would do nicely in this case I'd imagine. One clean shot between the eyes.

Another guy just would not shut up and kept trying to hackle each comedian. and no amount of eye rolling from any of the comedians or insults would stop him. Things got really awkward whenever he opened his mouth. we were really freaked out when he plonked himself in the sofa next to mine. There was a bit of tension then between him and the comedian and you know how some people seem quite capable of being pushed over the edge, well this guy definitely was one of those. I had this fear that he would just turn violent cos he did behave quite drunk. Now, mind you, this guy wasn't a beef cake jock. He was an old guy with a big toothy grin, quite short as well. Nothing to be worried about you'd think but because he had this psycho vibe, even though he was really quite puny, you could just see how things could very potentially turn quite quite ugly or embarrassing.

There was also this japanese/korean girl who piped up as well. Which would have been ok had she spoke coherent english. Alas, she didn't. Her comment threw the comedian who had no clue what she was trying to get across. Well, we were all bewildered. An awkward silence ensued for a brief moment as the comedian tried to make sense of what she said. Argh!! Awkard awkward awkward...

And as a grand finale, this girl whom might I add was wearing a bright red and black cocktail dress with bright red lipstick, a face of a tranny and sequin red heels (to a comedy club??!!) snatched the mike away from the compere as he was ushering out the audience after the show.

Overdressed tranny look-a-like: Hey! You forgot about me!

(at this time, all the audience still left behind stop their packing up and wondered if it was part of the show. myself included. The compere snatches the mike back from the crazy girl who has a wide smile plastered on her face)

Compere: Sorry guys, whatever she has said, the show is OVER. Goodnight!

By this time, the girl's grin goes a little lopsided as she tries to maintain her composure. Everyone realises it's just a crazy woman talking shit and continue to leave the room. The compere ignores said woman and the mike is turned off. 10 minutes later as Marty and I make our way out, the crazy girl is still standing in front of the mike explaining to a friend what it could have been.

Overall a really weird awkward night. Not a good introduction into the world of stand up comedy clubs. However, it was still nice to be able to have a night out with Marty. Something we rarely rarely ever do. Reminds me of my life in Singapore. Late nights, smokey clothes and talking shit!

I feel young again!

Had another good day with Marty.

We woke up at about 9 sunday morning but lazed around in bed for more than an hour surfing the net and reading before deciding to get up and make a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, spinach, baked beans and buttered toasts which we ate on the tiny coffee table in front of the telly whilst watching an interview of some loser from the Labour Party wanting to contest Tony Blair's replacement Gordon Brown.

The interviewer was some razor sharp journalist and you'd think the contestant would have been pretty glib as well but it wasn't too long before it became apparant to the interviewer and very soon us as well that this guy just wasn't destined for greater things. Although his facial expression never changed to give away his nervousness, his answers were vague and made little sense. The interviewer upon realising what a loser this guy really was got so excited he almost leapt out of his seat as he shot out question after question. Towards the end of the interview, the contestant even made the statement that Gordon Brown was the best candidate for prime minister. What a laugh!

But that reminded me a bit of the ridiculous labour party ex-leader Kim Beazley whom Marty talks about sometimes. I don't keep up with Australian current affairs because the newspapers can be quite thrashy but my impression of Mr Beazley is, much like Bush, he is in the habit of making serious gaffs. Like for example, when one of Autralia's famous talk show hosts, Rove McManus' wife passed away, he issued a public statement offering his condolences to Karl Rove, a white house strategist. And I thought politicians had to have the gift of the gaff, oh i mean gab.

Anyway, what i then realised was that if all your political parties are shit, then even if you had like 10 to choose from then that wouldn't really be a choice anymore. For example, in Sydney, there's the 2 main parties, the Liberals and then you have Labour (yay beazley!) and then you have the democrats, the greenies (read: tree huggers) and other tiny parties.

and alot of people actually end up choosing the insignificant small parties because they can't bring themselves to choose either the labour, the liberals or the demorcrats! So where's the choice in that? It seems to me that one good party in that case would be much better than having many shit parties.

Anyway, the loser dude whom even the newspapers labelled the 'unknown person' pulled out the very next day. poor guy. his political career quite finished after this embarrassment.

Moving on, Marty and I went to the British museum after brunch and had a late lunch at a pub around the area there. It was a really nice english pub and the decor felt quite old and cosy. It had high tables and high chairs in dark wood, red carpets, low lights and a fantastic steak and mushroom pie served up with mushy peas and mash drenched in gravy. It was a cold and grey day out, perfect day to be hiding from the rain in a pub with hot comfort food. mmm...

Marty pointed out that day that I have adapted really well to London and I suppose that is true. For someone who hates the rain and the cold, the grey weather that's been lingering for the last week and the cold hasn't really fazed me much. Life still goes on when it rains and I am now quite indifferent to it. London seems to be mainly positive to me so far.

Plus, I feel really comfortable with the English. More than I can say for lots of Australians at work anyway. I mean, I've been in Sydney for more than 2 years but have not made any good friends at work. Marty reckons it could simply be the culture at PwC because everyone there seems really fake sometimes. There seems to be a lot more emphasis on networking in OZ. It's hard to explain it but there is a lot of subtle politics and elitism and sucking up to people with power.

For example, if a particular manager is seen as a high performer, then there appears to be a tendency for junior staff to clamour for his/her attention. Sucking up seems to be more blatant and acceptable than in Singapore or London. I think that's the main reason why I feel more comfortable in London. I don't feel a pressure to please people anymore than I would feel comfortable doing so anyway.

A couple of Aussie colleagues here have lamented how thy dislike London because people here seem cold and I guess compared to Sydney, but of course. They say English people are cynical and my response was 'Cynisim is great!'.

One example of how I think I'd get along so much better in England is the fact that I've made one good friend even though I've been here for such a short time. I mean, I've only worked with two audit teams here so far. Each for less than a week. But I've already made one good friend here with this girl Clare I've only just met yesterday. It seems we have so much to talk about even though we come from completely different backgrounds. She's only 23 but it doesn't feel like we have an age difference. Anyway, I invited her to have coffee with Marty and myself after work but was a little disappointed when Marty didn't appear to enthused about her although he denies that *narrows eyes*

Anyway, so far, i've only got positives to say about London, cept for maybe the level of crime, speaking of which, witnessed this guy being chased by a group of people and eventually being tackled by a group of bullet-proof vested police officers just outside starbucks below my apartment. :

Marty and I had a good dinner tonight. to celebrate our anniversary yesterday which I had forgotten. He met me yesterday with a bouquet of roses and had side-parted his hair. He hates his hair side-parted and I hate it centre-parted. Anyway, didn't notice his hairstyle ;P and he had to remind me all these were for our anniversary... awww... he's sweet!

So today, the day after our monthly anniversary, we decided to try out this gastro pub near my place. It was recommended by Clare who heard about it from a friend. We got to the pub but it looked too busy so we decided to try another restaurant in the vicinit and settled for a Spanish restaurant with a redecorated pub interior. It looked as if the restaurant was a converted English pub with orange walls and some spanish art work. Otherwise, there was a bar in the centre with tables all around it and high chairs. Along the walls, there were high tables and high chairs too. Probably leftover furniture from pub days. The food was good but not great but the ambience was good. The buzz of conversation all around made the restaurant feel alive but conversation was still possible without the need to shout and half way through dinner, a spanish guitarist got onto a tiny stage/platform and entertained the diners. The price was reasonable as well. Dinner cost us about £30 for 4 tapas dishes, 2 beers and a diet coke.

The weekend is coming soon. Hopefully the weather will turn a little better. There will be a jazz performance at the national art gallery this friday and hopefully will be able to go to that without braving the rain. assuming that it will be outdoors.

What we've been up to thus far...
Tate Modern ->


At the tate Modern... Look at the ample space. The Tate Modern from the outside is the most hideous looking building ever! Apparently it used to be a power station. It reminded me more of a prision but it sure was fun inside!













At the Borough Markets having a roast pork sandwich for lunch.
Brought Marty to Monmouth for proper coffee. Fang Fang recommended it but I think Marty and Aussie mates think the coffee is just ok... :
I mean, I can see why they'd think so... the standards in Australia are so much higher I suppose. I'm beginning to forget what good coffee tastes like :( Anyway, who should i see there but Singapore's very own steven lim serving up coffee at Monmouth. I was like OMIGOD when I hear this Singaporean accent describing the various coffees served at Monmouth. Instinctively turned my head to check out the fellow countryman and my jar dropped when I realised it was our local 'celebrity'/actor. I put celebrity in inverted commas because, as I tried to explain to Marty, Singaporeans do not idolise actors. Anyway, I insisted that Marty sneak a shot of him just so i can post his pic on my blog and tell the world he's serving coffee at the Borough. Far out!

The Fake Globe Theatre!! It's good enough for me knowing that the grounds used to hold the real Globe theatre. Somehow, a rebuilt version of the original isn't as appealing

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Went to the National Art Gallery with Marty Friday afternoon. Entrance to the national arts gallery is free and this gallery holds works of artists from between 1200s to 1700s.

A brochure available at the front desk will inform you of the various highlights exhibited at the gallery. One of which was a painting by Hans Holbein (German renaissance artist) - The Ambassadors - which was incredible.

Looking at the painting, you will realise that a skull is painted at the bottom of the painting using a technique known as anamorphosis, such that when viewed from the right, the skull now becomes less distorted. Give it a shot! It's cool!

Up close and personal, one has to admire how much skill it took for the artist to paint the furs on the fur coat, the mosaic tiles on the ground, the damask drapes, the inscriptions on the dagger, the details on the globes, all of which obviously isn't visible from the picture I have uploaded but take my word for it, it is amazing!

There were other fantastic artists as well but we didn't finish touring the art gallery. I've decided that the artists in the period of 1200 to 1500 were all talented but had little originality. They all painted the same religious themes and used similar techniques. In a way, it was a pity they were all housed in the same gallery because it negated their skills by emphasizing their lack of uniqueness. I meam, there's only so many different ways you will want to see how Jesus or Mary can be depicted in a painting. Plus the tone of the pictures were always sombre and sometimes even reprimanding.

By the time we were nearing the end of the 1200s to 1500s gallery and about to move on to the 1600s to 1800s, I was over it. It was too depressing. I decided to leave the rest of the art gallery to another day even though I think the paintings then would have been a lot more lighthearted what with Monet, Van gogh and Renior.

And then on Saturday, Marty and I went to the Tate Modern.

I have decided that even though i greatly admire the skills of the artists featured in the National Art Gallery, I still prefer modern art. Had so much more fun at the Tate Modern.

I saw my first Dali painting and was quite proud of myself for recognising his style even before reading the little description card at the side. And there weren't even any melting clocks!

Finally understand why Marcus was a great admirer of Dali. The picture books definitely do him no justice at all but I guess the same could be said for any other artist. After yesterday, he has found a fan in me.

Other interesting art we saw was a urinal titled Fountain by Marcel Duchamp whose idea it was to de-deify the artist. The original for this is now lost but Duchamp commissioned several reproductions of the same piece. Pierre Pinoncelli apparently attacked two of the copies with his own piece and claiming in his defense said Duchamp would have appreciated his performance art! Hah!

Will definitely be going back again soon!

I didn't realise it but I lost quite a bit of weight during the intensive exam study period. It wasn't until the day of the exam when I noticed my ribs sticking out. Not very attractive =P

The strange thing was I was having quite a number of meals a day. I'd feel hungry every 2.5 hours or so and could end up having ham and cheese sandwiches up to 5 times a day and instant noodles other times.

Anyway, now that Marty's here, meals have been more wholesome. I realise that when I'm just living myself, I'm not that fussed about food and am pretty contented rummaging for whatever food I can find in my sparse pantry. It just feels really pointless to be cooking up a banquet when there's just only going to be me enjoying it.

I guess that's why I have fallen sick AGAIN.

Seems that lately I'm always in a state of illness. Not fun at all. Migraines, cramps and the latest, FEVER. Migraines are pretty common for me but fever??!! The last time I had a fever was when I had chicken pox 2 years back.

The worse thing about being sick with Marty here is that everyone at work thinks I'm skivving BUT I'M NOT. I wish i was! At least I'd feel well enough to go out and have some fun. And now I even feel guilty for being sick and not turning up at work. NO FAIR!

I'm lousy at being sick. I think if ever I had a bad illness, one where there would be a lot of pain and discomfort, I'd much rather die. I have no fighting spirit whatsoever. In fact, just the last couple of days with the fever and all, the idea of dying did feel appealing at some points. Especially when I had little spasms going through my body cos I was sooo cold. brrr...

So glad Marty was here to take care of me. Otherwise I'd probably feel even more sorry for myself. Anyway, fingers crossed that tomorrow will be a better day. I wanna go to Borough markets for lunch!

Marty is here!!

I have been going about life here without him and having him here now, against the London backdrop seems a little surreal. It feels familiar (well obviously) but yet also not.

We almost didn't manage to catch each other at the tube station. I gave him specific instructions to meet me at the south bank exit but as luck would have it, the south bank exit was closed. There were two other exits at waterloo and I did a quick assessment of the situation and decided that the only other plausible exit would be the one nearer to the south bank seeing as how if that was shut, one would then logically go to the next nearest one right? Wrong!

I carefully calculated the time it would take to get from heathrow to waterloo - an hour, and when more than an hour had passed, I decided I had best head to the other exit just to be safe and check it out. Thankfully, spotted a mushroom head with a silver suitcase just about to disappear around the corner of the main road. I ran after dear marty arms and legs flailing and after the 5th attempt at yelling his name, he finally heard me.

It's good to see him. He seemed cuter than I remembered even with his mangy looking hair. =)

We went trawling through the city today, notting hill, portobello market, hyde park, high street kensington oxford street etc... poor boy was jetlagged but struggled to stay awake til 8pm after which he promptly feel asleep after dinner. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for him.

I'm so excited. Marty will be here in just another 34 hours. I'm not sure what I'll do til then because i'm so full of anticipation but I do have a list of to-dos tomorrow. Pity the weather report on the news has indicated a very grey long weekend ahead and unlike the useless Sydney weathermen, the english weathermen have proven to be accurate.

Well, I guess it's going to be cuddling in bed for the both of us then.

I went to Borough Markets again today.

I don't think I could get sick of that place. well not for a very long while. It's so near to my office and there's a great coffee place there that serves excellent coffee. FINALLY! Coffee here is so shite!

Over dinner the other day, new found friend Fang Fang mentioned that Monmouth serves excellent coffee and the next day, after lunch with Xenia, we decided to have a coffee there. The coffees there are not served in your standard coffee cups. No siree... They are HUGE cups but not big enough to be un bol de cafe. They have huge fruit bowls filled with fine raw sugar and jars of open jam for you to have toasts with on a big communal table. It's all really rustic with a warm atmosphere. I just love cafes with character. However, at £2 a cup, it feels rather pricey, especially if you consider that you could get a pub dinner of musselfs for £7. Anyway, I have successfully weaned myself off flat whites (forced after a few horrible experiences) and can manage very well on just tea and instant coffee these days.

Back to Borough markets again. Went there with Jess from Sydney and Belinda from NZ. It should have been a lovely lunch had Belinda not tagged along. She gives me bad vibes. She seems nice but somehow, underneath her seemingly warm facade, I sense someone with little tolerance for others. It was not a good feeling. I would have enjoyed lunch more had I just gone alone :

There's so much food at Borough that it can be really hard to make a decision. We settled for a turkey cranberry bagette which we got from a tiny shop. I think one of the reasons why the Borough market experience is so good is the food just looks so inviting on a cold day like today. Oh to see the steam rising from the freshly cooked food. It's times like this I wish Marty was here to share it with.

I've planned out a whole host of possible activites to amuse us. Jazz clubs, free jazz performances at the national art gallery, picking up some food at borough market and then picnic at hyde park, musicals, shopping having dinner at a spanish restaurant, groccery shopping and making dinner together at home. YAY YAY YAY

I've packed my day full of activities tomorrow otherwise I know the day will pass really slowly in anticipation. I'm going to visit portobello market and then maybe knightsbridge, kensington high street and then earl's court for a wax ;) and to end it all, dinner with William and Aifeng