Belgo and Bierodrome

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Friends and I went to the Belgian restaurant called Belgo last friday to celebrate my friend’s birthday and also a cheer-up for no-more exams. The restaurant is located in Covent Garden and it is really famous for the mussels and of course their beers! It is a popular restaurant and people always queue outside, but very easy to get a seat. It is an opening kitchen and you can feel the noises and smell delicious food when you walked in.

We ordered a beef with Belgium beer – dark favor, beef was tender and juicy; a chicken dish – creamy but less tasty than the beef; a classic sausages and mash – creamy and perfect mash with spicy sausages; and finally my favorite green spinish with creamy mussels – looked like a green pizza, but so delicious! Thumbs up!

Moreover, there is always a room for desserts. So we tried the Belgium chocolate cheese cake and passionfruit with white chocolate mousse. Oh dear! They were so enjoyable and definitely 5 stars.

Overall, service is not bad, environment is cool and trendy, and food price is acceptable. Each person spent 20 pounds. I definitely go there again.

The cover pictures is from their website and I re-designed them. Some pictures are ready to share with you!

比利时餐厅 － Belgo

朋友们上周五一起去吃比利时菜，一来庆祝我朋友的生日，二来庆祝考试结束。餐厅听说在伦敦很出名，到9点多还有很多人在等位子就知道名气。餐厅招牌菜就是”淡菜”，我都忘记中文叫它呢，然后就是比利时啤酒拉！进入餐厅，时尚但随意，红色装饰，开放式厨房格局，蛮不错的！

我们点了一个啤酒牛肉，超浓的牛肉味和雪梨香味，牛肉滑而嫩！再来一个奶油鸡肉，香淡但一般；还有比利时香肠加土豆泥，滑滑的土豆泥，香辣的香肠；最后来个波菜芝士淡菜，超级好吃。我一般不吃淡菜的，但这种做法我就吃。哈！我点了比利时啤酒，朋友们点了草莓啤酒。吃完了，服务生强烈介绍要点比利时巧克力芝士蛋糕和百香果白巧克力摩丝（热带果摩丝）。食物十分野味，甜品不甜而入口香滑！超级不错的介绍，我还想再去呢。这是我朋友照的几张照片！

Little Dorrit BBC

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I don’t know why I find myself really obsessing about the England in Victorian period. As I previously talked about the fashion of Favourite Work Of Art, and I guess there were many great literatures and stunning events to talk about in Vitoria time. It was a distinguished period of England’s history. Now I have to mention about the great Victoria English novolist – Charles Dickens’ one of his best stories – Little Dorrit.

I do love the BBC! The BBC has a reputation for classic dramas. As the opposite of Jane Austin, who wrote mostly middle class stories, Dickens preferred to portray the poor common people’s lifes in 19th century. BBC has presented Oliver Twist, Bleak House and Little Dorrit this year. The characters were so vivid and I am so connected with.

Little Dorrit is about Amy Dorrit who was a spirit young woman lived in the Marshalsea Prison. Life for her was hard and little Dorrit tried to pay off her family’s debts to get out of the prison. (Background: in the Victoria period, if people were in debt, The government put people into a special prison, and people had to find work and payoff their debt.)

Amy had also to look after her father William, and he became rich afterwards by inheriting some fortunes, so far, and in the end will be a twist! (I haven’t finish it yet). The story was like a puzzle and every character had their own purpose but somehow was linking with others. It was mysterious, tangle, complex and touching story. It was very Charles Dickens’s style. I enjoy every episode and hope to read the novel too.

Little Dorrit definitely worths to read or watch! Besides, I guess I will go to visit Charles Dickens Museum this weekend.

不知何时不知不觉的喜欢上英国维多利亚时代的东西，从之前写过维多利亚时尚到文学作品。也许维多利亚时期出现了很多杰出的文学家，及文学作品和其他史记，在英国历史是一个不同平凡的时代。说到文学作品，不能不提狄更斯先生 的其中一部文学作品 -《小杜丽》

太爱BBC的经典文化小说改编电视剧，之前曾看过狄更斯的名著 – 雾都孤儿和 荒凉山庄， 今年BBC将《小杜丽》也搬上荧幕。故事发生在19世纪，一个年轻聪慧的小杜丽全家人生活在监狱（在英国19世纪，假如你欠债，政府有个特别的监狱，进入自如，但你必须工作还清你的债）小杜丽要一边工作一边还清家人的债，最后家人又遗留很多家产，从下级社会突然转变到上流社会。通过描写小杜丽一家人以及其他社会等级的人物的刻画，展现了19世纪中叶英国从上层阶级到下层阶级整个现实画卷。故事刻画十分神秘，含有复杂悬念，情节感人，是一部值得看的电视剧或值得一读的小说。

我还没有看到故事的结尾，但我已经忍不住周末要去参观狄更斯的博物馆。这就是我喜欢伦敦深厚的历史文化底蕴 – 到处都是历史博物馆。约翰告诉我，他走过一条街起名为“小杜丽“和他们之前住过的监狱呢，就在靠近在近伦敦桥。阿 – 真有英国味道！

First Snow in London

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I know that London does not have heavy snow, but I have evidenced my first time – see the real snow. It was at 8: 45 am, and I looked out the window, pretty white snow has already covered over cars, our garden and the roofs. I saw the few snow flakes slowly and gentlely coming down from the sky. After few minutes, the heavy flakes like raining was flying down. There were big and chunky. Unforturnately I can’t go outside and touch them because I was still in my pyjamas. Here are some pictures I took.

However, it was only last 15 minutes, then it turned into rainning, then sunshine. That is amazing that you can always experience various weather in a day, and that’s why I fascinate about Britain – so unpredictable. I was overwhelmly excited to see the real snow, and experience the hail in the other day, because I grew up in the South of China, and haven’t seen the real snow and hail before. I am sure I will have many oppotunities to see the them, even a white Christmas in the future.

The weather is cold, windy and raining (sunshining). I was really exhausted to prepare my essays and exams and I am so glad it will be over soon, and I can enjoy my relaxing weekends again. Last week I was sick and I know many my friends in China are sick as well. Guys, take care and keep warm.

约翰跟我说伦敦很少下雪，下也可能短时间。今天我见证整这的下雪。早上8点45分，约翰跟我说外面下雪了，我猛得爬下床，看了下窗外 － 雪已经覆盖了车顶，屋檐和我们的花园。雪静静的漂着，我象个小公主在窗内，两只眼睛大大的等待着惊喜。过了几分钟，雪渐渐的大了起来，雪花大到象空心的乒乓球。我太激动了，打开窗去触摸它，可惜太冷了，还穿着睡衣，要不然我绝对冲外面感受 “雪”。我拍下了几张照片

仅仅15分钟的雪,然后雪转为雨，雨转为阳光。太惊奇了，一天有3种天气，这就是我喜欢英国的天气的原因－变化无常。我太兴奋看到伦敦第一次下雪，前几天也经历了冰雹。相信以后很多机会看下雪，在南方长大的我还没有看过真正的下雪，说不定也会经历‘白色的圣诞节’哦！

第一学期快结束了，所以很多考试和论文要准备，都快过去了，希望我可以过上轻松的周末，不用埋头苦读。累坏的我也感冒了，中国的朋友们也很多都病了，大家注意保暖哦！

Bonfire in Victoria Park

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My friend Miwa and us went to see the Bonfire in Victoria Park on 2nd of November.

It felt so weird because traditionally we only have fireworks on Chinese New Year. It made me feel that it was New Year’s night, except there was no signs of a New Year’s atmosphere. Thousands of people showed up in Victoria Park and it was fantastic that the fireworks were directly above us with no buildings to block your vision. It’s true that pretty things wouldn’t last forever, but amazingly it was a new experience for me to see my first bonfire in London.

Soon Christmas will be coming. My last Christmas was in Beijing and it is still vivid in my mind. Time certainly flies and soon it will be Christmas in London. Can’t wait.

Miwa和我们一起约在2号去看维多利亚公园看“篝火”之夜。“篝火”也包裹放烟花，总觉得超级别扭。对我而已，放烟花只在中国传统过年时在有的，传统篝火是5号正式开始的，还没有到那天，天天就听到人家放烟花的声音，气氛十分象中国过年，除了没有任何过年的味道和大家忙碌的气氛。当天成千上万的人出现在公园里，首先是燃烧一个开口常开的太阳，然后烟花正式开始。超大的烟花在你头上打着，人都被烟淹没在里面。虽说烟花刹那间而过，但却让我在伦敦留下了烟花般的美丽。圣诞节快来了，上年在北京度过的圣诞节还历历在目，时间真象流沙，过得真快。听说约翰的家人要给我一个隆重的圣诞节，迫不期待啊！

Financial Crisis

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I am occupied by my studies and I am so surprise that the amount of the reading and preparing I am involving. Even though I don’t have much time to relax, I certainly enjoy the processing of learning new knowledge.

As my major is Business and Global Politics, financial crisis which happens recently is one of popular topics that we can not ignore. I believe it really affects the UK’s economic and employment situation. We buy the newspaper everyday since Lehmen Brother announced their bankruptcy. I felt I am connected with the country – news and surprising headlines in everywhere.

I remember when the financial crisis in Asia happened in 1997, maybe I was young or either we had limit information to experience the real affects of financial crisis, besides, not all of the occupations were affected it, such as Civil Servants, so it didn’t change much of people’s life. As I know that people were tightened their belts and reluctant to spent their money. Now it’s same here in the UK. The economic is slowing down. People don’t want to spend much. The exchange rate rapidly drops. Banks are deceasing the interest rate and stock market is unstable. Frankly, I learned a lot what is the free market.

For China, I saw the news from Guardian(1/11/08) explained that due to the slow economy in the West, many exporting factories in Dongguan were shut down and the workers were forced to lose their jobs. Even the stock market in China was not promising at all. The news in BBC said that frnancial crisis wipes out billions off wealth of China’s super-rich. Sincerely hope 2009 will be getting better and better.

Regardless of all the sad news happened, a stunning good news that the Unite States has their first black president Barack Obama of democratic party, who has won the presidential election on this Weds. We are looking forwards to seeing the new leader of America.

08 经融危机

最近因学习超忙，要读很多课外书和做什么准备工作，学习不再是死记应背，是理解运用。虽没太多时间放松，但却乐在其中。因我选经济和全球政治为我的专业，经融风暴是无法不提的一个话题。英国的经济和就业状况是严重受到它打击之一。从美国强大的经融实业 雷曼兄弟 宣布破产，许多意想不到报纸头条和新闻是关注的重点。同时，我也深感和这个国家一起波动。

记得97年亚洲经融危机时，可能自己太小或有限的媒体接触，不觉得和我们生活有太大的关系。当然，不是每个行业的人都受到影响，例如在政府部门工作。但那时侯只知道，赚钱不容易，花钱也格外谨慎。现在英国经济也是一样。大家都不想花太多钱，以备雨天。英镑外汇率大跌，银行宣布减息，股市波动起伏，这些都在发生中，我也学到了什么叫做 “无制约经融市场”。

在英国看不到很多中国新闻，朋友们也说他们不感到经融风暴对她们生活的影响，但在Guardian报纸前周六报纸大副报道：南方地区东莞，很多出口的工厂被迫宣布倒闭，因西方经融危机而已导致出口订单大量减少，很多工人也被迫下岗。中国的股市也跌得很厉害，希望09年越来越景气。

这周却有好消息，美国第一非洲美国血统的奥巴马在这周3赢了08年美国总统选举，希望他的当选和新的政策给美国或全球经济带来新的刺激。

Sia Concert in Shepherds Bush

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I discovered Sia Furler while we watched last episode of the TV series “Six Feet Under” a year ago. The song “Breath Me” is unforgettable and wonderful ending for the TV series. Thereafter, I have been listening Sia’s since then. Sia was one of the vocals in Zero 7 previously and went solo in 2005.

In Shepherds Bush Empire night on 9 Oct, the concert set decorated with toys and fluorescent, I guess it matches her third album’s image – funky and cartoonish. At the beginning, surprisingly, Sia and her band members all dressed up in a halloween skeleton outfit approaching the stage. Sia sang the most from the album “Some People Have Real Problems”, including Destiny and The Pageant of the Bizarre wrote for Zero 7. Sia used her popular hit ” Breath Me” end the show. The fans were so enthusiast with big applauses and on-call, and Sia moved into tears in the end.

Sia has a gorgeous, dusky voice, sometimes it reminds me as a Jazz vocalist. I enjoyed the concert and so pleased to see her performance.

I recommend her best album “Some People Have Real Problems”to you, especial “Breath Me”, “Sunday”, “The Pageant of the Bizarre” and “Soon We’ll be Found” – they are my favorites.

Here is her amazing music video of this song in Youtube: Sia-Soon We will be Found

Go to see more pictures of the concert in Flickr by Preamble . The cover picture was taken by him too.

Yauatcha – You’ve stolen my heart

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I met some new friends in school and we planned to eat dimsum on Friday night. John suggested Yauatcha, a famous top dimsum restaurant in Broadwick Street, Soho. Previously I’ve tried Shanghai Blue and Royal China in Canary Wharf. Royal … Continue reading →

New Experience in British University – Queen Mary

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I have one week of enrollment before my classes begin at Queen Mary University of London. The University is on the East side of London in Zone 2 near Mile End tube station. The Regents canal is next to the school, with some student residences having a great view over the water. On top of this Victoria Park is just 10 minutes walk up the canal. My house is about 10 minutes walk to the University. I love walking along the canal area and visiting Victoria Pack at the weekend for leisure. The East End of London is a little poor and rough, but I found Queen Mary’s location to be great and very well connected – you can reach both Canary Wharf and Central London in 15 minutes.

Most students are undergraduates, although a there are plenty of postgraduates like me. There are maybe 4000 international students in the school and we all registered and received our student card and then chose our modules. I expect this will be a very new learning experience and I’m sure will be a lot of hard work. I hope I can handle it well. Our programme director is great and has provided us with a lot of information. Each of the module teachers took time to explain exactly what their module involves so you can choose the one that suits you most. I think it’s great! You get to know the teachers and what you will expect in the class. Fantastic. Moreover, I just paid 5 pounds to join the Fashion Society Group. I’m not sure what is it, but it sounds my style. I also joined the Asia group to meet more friends. We will see.

离正式开学还有几天，开学前个星期是搞登记注册啊，学生证和选择课程之类的东西。皇后玛利伦敦大学坐落在市中心的东部，学校有一条运河刚好坐落在学校里面，位于学生宿舍正对面，学校还蛮大的，维多利亚公园离学校10分种。我们家离学校也是10分钟路程，学校的位置去哪里都蛮方便的，去Canary Wharf 金融中心15分钟巴士，去市中心10到30分钟地铁，去伦敦塔骑自行车15分钟就到，Sainsbury超市10分钟就到，十分方便。

大部分学生都是17－24岁，读本科的，少部分学生读硕士的；大概有4000多个国际学生，我是其中之一拉。第一周老师给你介绍学校和英国的东西，接着注册，选择课程。我觉得蛮好的是在你选择课程之前，老师简单介绍10分钟，介绍课程的内容和你要学习些什么东西，让你自己多点了解哪个你最感兴趣的，再做决定。（开学前每人还要考机算机测试，读金融的还要数学考试，幸好我不感兴趣金融）考不过不要紧，你就要学习计算机拉，更好。

我已经交了5磅参加时尚社团，不知道干什么，不过我喜欢时尚，也登记了亚洲的社团，看看认识多点朋友吧。我要好好努力学习，天天向上。

Come Rains or Come Shine

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The weather in the UK this summer has not been fantastic and it’s been reported that this year has been the coldest summer on record. It seems that the weather around the world is pretty bad too – New Orleans’ has another hurricane, there are floods in some areas of the UK, and Guangzhou has been continually raining.

UK weather is very variable and can be raining one minute and then sunshine the next. The temperature is currently about 15-26 degrees, which is not bad actually; I perfect it cool. Talking about the weather, there is a silly question but fun to mention is that many of my friends always refer to London as a foggy town (like A foggy Day in London Town). We are even taught this in University!

Actually, it was only during the coal mining time from 18th century to 1950 when the UK suffered these problems. Coal made the UK famous, but it also produced serious air pollution. Due to these environmental issues the UK government has changed the image of the Britain, and now London is the 7th greenest city in the world (according to this article in 2007), and this news claimed that (London to be the ‘greenest city’) in 2005.

Well, London definitely had changed and there are so many beautiful royal parks, as well as other general parks. As well as this a lot of people have gardens, so you can imagine how green it is in London. After my friends read this article, hopefully they will change their image of London – it is not a foggy town anymore; it’s a busy but green city in the UK. I often hear people complaint about weather in the UK, I think there is not fair because its location in the world and coastal seasons, but if you choose to live here, my attitude is be part of it and enjoy it; nothing is perfect. When there is a beautiful day, you will treasure it more.

英国今年夏天的天气时而下雨，时而阳光明媚。不要说很typical哦，英国四季很分明的。报道说英国今年夏天是最冷的夏天，我想整个地球今年的气候都怪怪的：象新奥尔良也遭受了多一次龙卷风，英国很多地区水灾，广州暴雨连连。

虽然伦敦天气蛮清凉的，气温在15到26度之间，还不错，我喜欢凉爽的感觉。说到天气，很多我的朋友（甚至我曾以为）伦敦是个雾城，爵士歌曲也唱到 ” 一个雾天的伦敦城”，甚至我们大学的教科书里的故事也提到伦敦是个雾城，但实际是因为我们课本教的是经典的故事，故事发生在18－19世纪人们的生活，或是有些已过时了。爵士歌曲是黑白年代了，可想而之有多久了。原因是 Continue reading →

Travelled in Yorkshire

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We went to visit Sheffield, Derbyshire, and Leeds last week and drove to see the famous Chatsworth house, owned by Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. This house is famous for appearing as Mr Darcy’s house in the 2005 Pride & Prejudice movie, as well as the upcoming calledThe Dutchess (featuring Keira Knightley).

Unfortunately when we were there they were holding a country fair so I didn’t get chance to visit it properly but I’m sure I will do so in the future.

We also drove to Bakewell in Derbyshire and the Peak District. It’s a small, peaceful, and very pretty market town. It reminds me of Europe a lot.

Another day we drove to North Yorkshire from Leeds to visit Harrogate . It is a very large and wealthy city, we enjoyed our time there.

Sheffield a city of many hills with views into the city centre or out to the countryside. There is a National Park next door and it was famous for producing steel. It’s quite a small city (could be like Shantou, not sure), but the hills remind me of Hong Kong.

Leeds is not bad, got a lot of young modern buildings and restaurants near the canal.

Here is some pictures I took.

The picture of the cover is from www.theage.com.au (Chatsworth House at sunset.)

我们上周去了谢菲尔德， 德比郡， 利兹，去看了很多周边的小镇，去参观了电视剧 /电影－达西先生住的房子（傲慢与偏见），还有9月5号即将上映的电影（女爵）也是在这个房子拍摄的，来头不小啊！听说那整片地区包裹房子都是属于一个公爵的，太富有了！但因为我们刚好碰见公园在举行活动，人山人海，没有仔细进入里面，以后再去罗！我们也去了利兹，利兹还好拉，蛮有小伦敦感觉的。谢菲尔德也不错，到处都是树木花园，国家公园也就在隔壁，居民的房子都建在山腰上，感觉象香港的半山腰。这是最新的照片和大家分享拉。