His portfolio is here at YCN.

"All your bases are belong to us. ... make your time

Tuesday saw us trooping all over Hoxton/Shoreditch in search of coffee, art, boutiques and space invaders. We slept in and then following the tip from the lovely baristas at Milk Bar we wandered off through the suburban and industrial landscape to find Bitter Sweet Love, a tiny hole in the wall coffee counter with two little tables and seating for a handful of people. I pulled up a pew outside, watching the flow of traffic on the main road while Si went inside to wrangle some basil & tomato baguettes and ham and cheese sandwiches and some coffees. The coffee was as good as promised and si’s coffee came with a portrait of Jimi Hendrix etched out of the foam!



After that we wandered back to Hoxton Square to mosey through the galleries and shops, stopping here and there to take a picture of the various space invaders found in the neighbourhood, from tiny little ones at eye level made from itty mosaic tiles, to the huge ones painted high up on local buildings.



JP joined us and we went to one gallery, YCN which had beautiful bunches of peonies for sale and then quirky prints hanging up behind them. You could buy the peonies and they’d wrap them in a print, but even though peonies are my favourite flowers, I felt it would be a waste to buy them to take back to the hotel room where they would wilt quickly, so opted just to purchase a print which consisted of cut out pastel coloured animals. Brilliant! I want to get it framed and hang it up in our apartment in HK. [Having got home, i stumbled upon YCN's website and was admiring a girl, Kate Hindley's work, then i clicked to have a look at more of her stuff, and realised that it was her print i'd bought. Photos of them producing the prints here at YCN's flickr.)


We then walked over to Brick lane and I stopped in at the Laden Showroom where I wanted to try on everything! They had these amazing sneakers which looked like they were made of old kimono fabric, and all these new rave dresses and hats and purses… I bought a red, white and blue dress (which reminded me of the French flag) and a green and white strapless dress (which reminded me a bit of the sound of music curtain clothes!) and a canary yellow fedora. Brilliantly, nothing was very expensive (my dresses were GBP20 and 15 respectively).



Last stop was the Spitalfields Market, which was underwhelming. We stopped at a café across the road to have tea and sammies, before doubling back to Cargo to meet up with old friends from NZ, Dave & Nick.

Dave was visiting from New York whilst Nick lives in London. We'd brought along JP (surprise!) and they'd invited an old friend Chloe (double surprise!). Dave had lived in England for quite while after uni, so he also had along some other friends, Sara and Ewen who also had a kiwi connection. We spent the night drinking cider, taking photos in the aged photo booth and gasbagging. At one point Sara told me I should go check out the bathrooms. Inside there were about 30 girls in various states of undress putting on a pound of makeup and brazillian showgirl costumes. Apparently, they were going to perform there later that evening.



Everyone seemed pretty happy. Dave was in town to celebrate his 30th and he;d popped up country to hit a friends wedding. Chloe is working in film, Nick, who is a tech genius, has carved out a niche and dating a feisty girl so he's happy. After drinking quite a bit, we bowled back to Brick lane for a curry to end the night, where much phototaking ensued.

Si outside the NZ Cultural Attache's office

Monday morning saw us meet up with JP in Soho. We started off with a coffee at Flat White, which is one of the cultural touchpoints for the thousands of kiwis in London who want a good coffee. While we waited for them to brew up our drinks, I admired the fruit stand right outside Flat White and the stall selling breads and pastries, where I was startled by two voices calling out “Hello” from behind the shelves, where the stallholders were hidden away.


We did a lap of the neighbourhood and decided to retreat back to The Breakfast Club for a bite to eat.


Then we wandered across town to Hyde Park. On our way we stumbled on Liberty Department Store. I was initially attracted by the promise of Bumble and Bumble hair products and thought it was just a fancy chemists/cosmetics shop. It turned out to be just a tiny section, and we kept discovering there was more and more to the store. First we stumbled into the section selling handbags and hats, then the small area to the side selling chocolates and boiled sweets, then a large hall selling interesting and opulent jewellery, followed by a section selling nothing but scarves! We then realized there were several floors, selling mens clothes and womens clothes. After admiring a number of silk scarves that were hundreds of pounds and that I could very easily have bought (easy on the conscience if not on the pocket), we decided not to chance looking at clothes etc and I left with a silk clutch purse covered in blue crocodiles, as I’d forgotten to bring a handbag for my friend’s wedding on Sunday.



London’s streets felt deserted after the crush of Hong Kong’s sidewalks, and we roamed up and down alleys and roads on our way to Hyde Park. When we got there, I bought an icecream and got rushed by an aggressive London squirrel. We walked past the trees and horses, and the lake where tourists hire pedal powered boats, and through the vast field with the stripey lounging chairs that you can rent to sit in.




We went to the Museum of Science and it was packed to the gunnels with families. As museums go, it is absolutely brilliant and the walls and ceilings are plastered with cool memorabilia of scientific discovery. I was particularly impressed to see Cricks and Watson’s DNA Helix, made from chemistry lab clamps and such.



Experiencing a bit of museum fatigue, we tried to go for afternoon tea, but were unsuccessful and ended up back at Newburgh street at a French café drinking a lovely white wine and devouring a wooden board of cold cuts and pates.

JP wanted to pick up some comics from Forbidden Planet, the centre of nerdiness in London, and I wanted to go to Gosh comics to visit my friend Andy, who manages the store. Only I hadn’t checked whether he’d be there and it was his day off. Blow out.
Still Gosh was worth visiting anyway, as it’s the bestlooking comic shop I’ve ever seen with a great selection of comics. The interior is tiny and packed, the walls are deep pink and there’s a wrought iron winding staircase that takes you down to an equally tiny basement level.



We then decided that we should go to the pub. As we wandered about, we came across Milk Bar, a café owned by the same guys who own Flat White, and the barista’s recommended we try the French Arms around the corner for a cider. The cider was lovely, slightly tart and vinegary.



Following this we went in search of food, and after crisscrossing the neighbourhoods and peering speculatively in many a window, we managed to find a seat in a restaurant in the middle of Soho (which had transformed from the pretty leafy neighbourhood of daytime, and was now a sleazy, man meat market complete with neon lights).

After that we were exhausted and lurched back to our respective beds to call it a night.

mmmm, Marylebone Market

If you have ever been to Hong Kong, you will know how uniformly depressing the produce can be. Typically, the locally grown tomatoes are sad, anemic looking things, which are watery and have very little flavour. Ditto the onions and don’t even think about trying to locate herbs like parsley and basil – they’re all air-freighted in from (of all places) Nelson, in good ol’ Nu Zulund. In order to make a decent western meal, you typically have to buy vegetables grown in Italy, France or some such far flung place and that simple pasta and salad can easily cost you $400-500HK dollars.

Another thing I miss, that HK absolutely lacks, is the next step in amazing produce, which is farmers markets. There’s nothing I like more than wandering through a farmer’s market looking at meats, breads, cheeses and produce on display. I particularly like picking up a snack to munch on while I’m doing this. So when we were in the UK I wanted to go to a good farmers market and gorge on things we can’t easily get here. A quick look at Timeout London and I decided on Marylebone as a market not too far away and with promising eats.

We met up with JP at Paddington station bright and early, and then made our way over to the carpark where the market is held every Sunday. On our way we walked past a number of leafy green parks, with people soaking up what passes for summer in London. That being said, it was a lovely, sunny day, but I was still wearing a jersey.

The market was quite small but we purchased a fresh lamb curry thing, a large loaf of sourdough, a fresh buffalo mozzarella, basil pesto, pain au chocolat and some leek and tomato tarts. We stopped at a local café to pick up coffees and fresh juice and then doubled back to the park to lie in the sun and leisurely consume our spoils.


Afterwards we walked about Marylebone and then it was on to Putney to meet Andy, Lynley and co as the boys were off to the football. I was impressed by how large the police horses were and like a good tourist I stopped to take a picture of them.



The boys went off to watch Chelsea play Fulham while Lynley, her sister and I caught a bus to Richmond Park. It was a beautiful day and we went for a stroll across the park and then cut back into the trees where we found a herd of deer grazing on some scraggly looking bushes. After an hour or two, we came out the other side of the park where we fell upon an ice cream van and after all that exercise we felt we deserved a treat (there's always an excuse).



For dinner, the boys reappeared and we went to a Japanese/Chinese restaurant (yes, I am always somewhat concerned about mixed restaurants, but this one was fine) called the Hare and the Tortoise or something like that. After dinner, the crew formed a committee to work out how best for us to get back to town and we went back to the hotel where we had a couple of leisurely campari's in the hotel lobby.

So, if you were to google "hedgehog" in google news recently you would've found a number of amazing news item. My personal favourite is this:
"Stuck hedgehog rescued
An RSPCA inspector has freed a hedgehog which was wedged in a hole in a garden wall in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

The animal was halfway through the hole with its front legs out one side and his back legs out the other.

Inspector Jason Finch spent an hour chipping away at the wall with a hammer and chisel to free the adult hedgehog, which was uninjured."

There was also a disturbing article in the Telegraph entitled "Hedgehogs in decline 'because badgers are eating them"! eek! As Si pointed out, this is actually a story of humans being at fault as badgers and hedgehogs have lived harmoniously for thousands of years (or at least several years) until recently with the destruction of their habitats and food sources, the bigger badgers have turned on their smaller, cuter neighbours.

And finally, Toy Story 3 has announced a new character who will be a "lederhosen wearing hedgehog" named... Mr Pricklepants. GENIUS!

Deanna Halsall via Toy.

An ant at the Tate Modern

From Borough Market, we walked leisurely down the river front, past the Globe theatre to the Tate Modern. The building is suitably industrial. Then it was across the foot bridge, past old St Pauls, down through the thoroughly dead business district to Trafalgar Sqaure.

l - "Dangermouse! Penfold! Are you in there?" r - showing cultural sensitivity.

We wandered over to Soho, and in the daytime it was not even the teeniest bit seedy! (I had been warned by the Pei that it was dodgy as bro). We walked around Soho square which was beautiful and green, nipped into The Breakfast Club for afternoon tea (a very yummy pastrami sammy and fresh juice) and then over to Newburgh st to browse through the boutiques selling edgy handbags, jewellery and pieces of art. Mysteriously, there appeared to be a bouncer outside of the Adidas store.

Soho Square

The Breakfast Club in Soho

Newburgh st

At that point we caught up with JP, lynley and Andy and briskly made our way down to the London Eye. The London eye is spectacular, but it was the warmest day London has probably ever seen (a scorching…20C) and the little glass pods don’t have aircon, so it was a very warm/fragrant trip around. Nevertheless, we found there was a small air vent towards the end with the doors (which ominously said “Don’t lean on the doors”. Looking at them, it didn’t appear there was much more than a flimsy bar about the length of a pencil keeping the doors latched shut).


Afterwards, we indulged in a gelato and then did a walk-by of Big Ben, wandered back over the footbridge, past the Globe and then by the London Bridge on our way to Brick Lane for a curry to be consumed with the cheap liquor we’d bought at an off-license (basically a corner shop/dairy that sells snacks, fags and grog).

We then made our way to one of Tor’s organized drinks at a pub in Shoreditch/Hoxton (my geography's not that hot). Tor, who has been touring the globe for some time, had organized a number of drinks to catch up with people where he had then failed to turn up, or turned up quite a bit after he said he’d be there (five or six hours, give or take).

We arrived at 11pm and I thought the bar staff were joking when they said it was last call. No, they weren’t, so we ordered a round and then the group haphazardly made its way to electric road. We stopped in at a pub called the The Old Blue Last. Downstairs were four goth/industrial emo types hunched over a desk that they were dj’ing from. Upstairs was a small room packed full of drag queens and the fashionable youth who were watching a guy who looked a bit like Prince, but sounded like a sub-average indie singer. We observed his wailing for a few minutes, than extracted ourselves. Wanting to go somewhere we could dance, Lynley, JP, Si and I made our way down to Favala Chic. But JP decided he wanted to leave then, rather than miss the train and spend 2 hours getting back to Andy and Lynley’s by night bus.



Si and I paid the 10 pound cover and shuffled inside. It was packed and the music was kindof what I imagine they’d play at the Rio Mardi Gras, lots of south American drums under pumping house/carnival music. We ordered beers and crammed into a small space to dance. The refreshing thing about the crowd was it was so different from a HK club, where everyone is there to check everyone else out. At Favela Chic there were big groups of guys drinking, a couple of girls dancing on the bar, and couples and groups exuberantly letting loose. We joined them shaking our booty for an hour, and then wandered the twenty metres back to the hotel to collapse in bed.

Si outside Borough Market

Saturday we woke up ridiculously early (HK being several hours ahead of the UK) and legged it over to the Borough Market; I wanted to get there around opening, to avoid the weekend crush.

It’s housed in a large brick hall with stalls ringing the outside and in a block in the center. First things first, we moseyed about, looking at the piles of Turkish delight, towers of chocolate brownie, windows chock full of beef, lamb and vegetable pies, sausage rolls, a man manning a giant pan of paella, cheeses, olives, breads and pastries. On an outer corner we stumbled across Monmouth, which had a large crowd crammed into their café buying coffees. Si declared it the best coffee he had had since leaving NZ.





We continued to wander about and spotted a promising stall selling delicious looking sausages. Si went for a spicy lamb number. Around the corner was an amazing stall that had huge wheels of raclette. It did two dishes, a very large melted cheese sandwich or an amazing plate of fried potato slices with pickled onions and gherkins that was served with melted raclette. AMAZING



We took our prizes over to a bench in the neighbouring church yard, to be wolfed down greasily and greedily. I then retraced my steps to the stall selling Turkish sweets and nuts and chose a few pieces of Turkish delight from the dozens of flavours (I bought walnut, nougat and rose – walnut was the pick with the sweet being a milky-ish nougat flavour complemented by the enormous walnut squashed onto it) and some pistachio baklava.

via cuteoverload.

Sprout rocks the catwalk

We've been getting a steady stream of messages from friends in NZ who've been passing through Auckland airport and spotted Si's billboard or used one of the luggage carts plastered with his face (apparently, there are millions of them).

But now Si's not the only model in his family! His beautiful sister Jess (baby sister being 6 years his junior but she's been taller than me since she was 11 and i was 17) modelled for the Carpenter's Daughters at their show today as part of NZ Fashion week. The pics above are from the nz herald.

Si, me, Lynley and JP at Tower 42.

I was dreading the flight to London - 13 hours and during the day. At least when we take the late flight to NZ, I can usually sleep 6 or 7 hours. However, we were armed with the laptop with true blood on it, PSP, Si’s Iphone with games like Bejewelled, Bookworm and trivial pursuit, books, magazines, and of course we could watch in-flight movies. I watched Adventureland (great) and then I tried to watch 'The Proposal' but found myself fighting the urge to get a plastic fork and stab myself in the eye, so had to stop after 15 minutes.

Flying Air NZ premium economy is really fantastic. I don’t need the extra leg room (unlike Si) but the food is so much better. A selection of piping hot, fresh breads served with Village Press olive oil, perfectly adequate mains and then an unlimited supply of water, cassava chips and cookie times! There was one small blip, as my default flight preference settings are for a fruit platter (which is something I set when I used to fly a lot of short haul in cattle class, where the food is not that great) and I was served three rounds of cut fruit (pineapple, winter melon and watermelon). Amused by this, Si was nice enough to share his breads with me.

The flight path was over China and Russia. It was fascinating leaning over Si to peer out the window at the metallic instant cities and then in the country, the little towns and wonder about the people who lived there.

When we arrived at Heathrow we were dehydrated and tired. Going through customs we were interrogated “Why are you here? Where are you staying? How long for?”. This freaked me out a little, "They think we're terrorists!" but Si claims that was just a customs officer making small talk.

We rescued our suitcases (which are nice and obvious as I have customized them with yellow duct tape) and took a 70GBP taxi to our hotel. We stayed at the Hoxton in Hoxton, which is a kind of grungy neighbourhood with galleries and bars that’s being gentrified.

After a quick shower we got changed and wandered off to meet JP and Lynley for a glass or two of champagne. Of course, I dragged us off in completely the wrong direction and we didn’t work this out straight away as London charmingly has decided that clear street signage is uncool. We found that instead of street signs being on streets corners they’re usually half way down a street and not immediately obvious.

Thanks to Si’s fancy iphone GPS we got back on track, though a little bit late to find L & JP tucking into a bottle of champagne on the 42 floor of tower 42. It has an amazing view of LDN city and we had a lovely time catching up over some champagne (even though I had the black lung and was on anti-biotics, I might’ve indulged in a flute or two) and watching the sun set. Lynley is still cheeky trouble and she was telling us all about her imminent knee surgery, Andy’s new hobby photography (“He has 8 cameras and a million lenses. We went to a wedding the other weekend and the official photographer was put out because he thought Andy was the competition.”) and their bike collection (eight and counting, Lynley has a bright pink bike with pink wheels and she’s been known to air guitar at the lights to The Killers).



Around 10 or 11 we all shuffled off to Covent Garden to meet Andy who was valiantly holding the fort and had got us a table for dinner at a yummy pizza place. Andy was his usual charming, slyly funny self and it was as if we'd only just seen Lynley and Andy the week before.

As it was the equivalent of 5am in HK, we were starting to feel a bit hazy and called it a night after dinner.