Tag Archives: uk

Best Friend Shine in the UK

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I got two best friends who are Caro and Shine, both we have been together for more than 20 years. One thing I always feel blessing is that you have a best friend in your life and that’s all you need.

Shine and I are very close and she knows everything of me, and she is the one who will always be there for me. Since John and I moved to the UK, I miss her so much, and so excited to hear that she was coming to have a holiday here.

We drove to the Ilkey moors and Bolton Abbey, then back home to have Sunday Roast. It’s shame that Shine didn’t stay long in Leeds, but we had a good time together. Sometimes I hate growing up, because you can not spend as much time as we used to be in the University, and talked about our future and silly dreams. Life is going on, and we are getting old together.

I am a lucky woman who has such a best friend supports me in every way. When Shine is not here, John replaces her place and keep me warm and give me strength on the road.  A song to Shine and me…

Keane – The Night Sky
One day I will be back in our old street
Safe from the noise that’s falling around me…

Our New House in Leeds

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We have moved in to Leeds for two and half months now, and always add some new furnitures or decoration in the house. It feels like a proper cozy and warm home now. Compared with London, we got a lot of spaces of the house in Leeds, and it is a nice modern stylish flat with open kitchen, 2 rooms and 2 bathrooms (one for John’s office and also be a guest room and one for us with a massive wardrobe to put my shoes and clothes, which is the highlight of the flat).

We do really enjoy the location of city centre and so easy to go shopping and eat out just by walking 5 minutes. I will imagine that the house will be full of good memories for us, and we do enjoy living in Leeds so far. However, I do miss London from time to time, missing its busy,  metropolitan and my friends, and the most importantly so many choices of shopping which that Leeds can not compared with.

Visiting York for a day

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Since we moved to Leeds, we haven’t got time to explore North Yorkshire yet. It was warm and sunny yesterday, so we decided to travel to York for a day, and to enjoy the Spring weather.

York was founded by the Romans in 71 AD, so is famous of its nature beauty and historical heritage. It is a wealthy small city with a lot of historical churches, buildings, and houses in every little corner. The picture I took in the front cover was one of the churches properly had knocked down by Henry VIII in 16th century.

We also went to see the famous Jórvík Viking Centre and experienced how the Vikings’ lives were in 866 AD. It was really authentic experience and they said you supposed to smell of the Vikings’ cooking too. It was indeed a really fun experience. At lunch, I ordered a famous ‘a taste of York’ roast belly pork sandwich and was incredible delicious. After lunch and few cup of tea, we went to see the Railway Museum and to see how Britain was so powerful and rich when it had discovered the steam engines and the world was changed after it.

York is really a nice place to visit and I am sure we will return it next time to discover more castles or scenery nearby York as well. Here are some pictures we took.

从搬来利兹之后，忙于各种各样的东西，都没有时间去旅游。昨天太阳高照，我们决定去出了名历史悠久的约克城市观光下。约克大概有1千9百年历史，果然是历史悠久的城市，所以你到处可以看到很多15－16世纪的教堂啊，18世纪的房子。象伦敦一样，路上的每个砖头都有历史味道，当然，以年龄来说，约克比伦敦老很多。约克曾被称为当时的英国首都。约克是一个蛮富裕的城市，可以感觉到以前或现在都是蛮有钱人住的城市。一个蛮小休闲的城市，居然很多名牌都部落在街头，感觉游客们个个都穿得富贵华丽，街头也有很多名贵的豪华车，不愧是以前的首都。

封面的照片应该是16世纪亨利八世反对天主教然后毁灭掉的教堂。我还走过去摸了摸1千多年的教堂石头，教堂的毁灭真的蛮可惜的。我们还去体验了北欧海盗侵入约克的时期，地学研究家把海盗们在约克的生活点滴都用假人雕磨出来，假人还会动也会和你说话，虽然有点毛骨悚然，不过还是蛮真实的体验。

中午时候我点了约克最老最有名的烤肉店，我点了烤乳猪肉三文治，超正超多肉 － 真的吃肥死我了。喝了星巴克Latte充实精力后，我们去参观了英国铁路博物馆，看了许多旧的火车和汽车展览，体验了英国蒸汽时代英国的繁荣和如何成为不落日帝国。蛮有趣经历的。

我相信下次我们还回去约克玩，开车去约克周边的城堡啊，坐下小船之类的。等大家来，带你们去约克玩。点击这里我们照了有些约克的照片！

Girls’ Fun weekend + Jin Go Gae Korean BBQ

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Fun Girls’ weekend

John went to Ireland a week for his business trip, so I asked Eileen to stay my house for the weekend, so girls can enjoy some champagne and eat different food. As we planned before, we went to eat unlimited PingPong Dimsum on Friday night, then we were back home and we drunk two bottles of Rose Wine while we were chatting. It was dizzy but so much fun to get crazy sometimes.

Next morning, I cooked my new recipes Green Thai Prawn with baby spanish and Jasmine rice for lunch. It was so easy to cook and we enjoyed it so much. Then we decided to travel to Wimbledon where Eileen lives and had a walk in the park, then went to try the famous Korean Barbecue in New Malden.

Jin Go Gae Korean BBQ Review

Eileen from Soul of South Korean so she introduced to us a lot of Korean food and culture. We have been tried different Korean food in Central London. However, people say that New Malden is one of the popular Korean communities and the food from there is more authentic and cheaper. While we were in Wimbledon, New Malden is just 10 minutes by bus.

Eileen has booked the table of the famous restaurant called Jin Go Gae, and Miwa joined us for dinner as well, so we hopped on the bus 131 from Central Wimbledon and went to Burlington Road. We are so glad that we booked the table, because it was a small restaurant, and packed with Korean, Japanese Asian people eating there.

First, we were served with several compliments dishes which is impossible to find in Central London. Then Eileen ordered three portions of BBQ Beef Ribs and two portions of Pork Belly. All the meats were Marianne with delicious sauces, and you Barbecued by yourself. Then when it was done, you need to use the raw Vegetable rapped with the meat plus some spicy green onion or rice. The meat was unbelievable tender and juicy. Miwa and I was eating non-stop and Eileen was laughing at us.

It was the most delicious Korean BBQ ever. I gave it 5 stars and we only paid £15 each! What a good meal and bargain!

Place: 272 Burlington Road, KT3 4NL
Tel: 020 8949 2506
Tube: Nearest Train station: Motspur Park Rail / Raynes Park

女人周末大吃会

约翰去爱尔兰出差1周，我叫好朋友Eileen周末过来我家住，两个女的一起吃喝聊天。约了周5见面，先去PingPong喝茶吃点心。然后回到我家，两人买了1瓶香槟喝酒聊天，然后感觉还不够mood, 再去买多一瓶。聊天到凌晨1点然后睡觉。

隔天，我煮了泰国绿咖喱大虾加菠菜给Eileen，她说味道十分正宗也十分美味，全都吃完。然后我们去温布顿Eileen的家坐会，决定晚上吃期待已久的韩国BBQ烤肉料理。Eileen幸好定了位置，因为那家人十分受欢迎。美和决定加入我们的大吃团。进了餐厅，哇，烧烤肉的味道都漂入你鼻子，再看看，里面都是坐的全是韩国人和日本人。

韩国烤肉我实在太喜欢了，正宗的吃法是用碳熏肉，然后加生菜和辣葱和肉一起吃。我们点了3大份牛肉2大份猪肉。我和美和吃得太高兴，生活肉是奄过，烤完一点都不老，多汁加十分鲜甜！实在太野味了。Eileen总笑我们吃得狼吞虎咽，韩国烤肉实在太好吃了，我天天吃都没有可以。我们实在享受这次女人周末大吃会。

Jazz Cafe + Konaki Greek Restaurant

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Eileen and I went to the Jazz cafe to seeRay’s Jazz live above Foyle Book shop near Tottencourt Station. It was a small cozy cafe with Jazz Live band. It was very full and everyone went to listen their performance. Fantastic Music!

After that, we booked a table to Konaki Greek Restaurant according my research and it voted 4 of 5 Greek restaurant in town. Meet John inside the restaurant, and enjoyed our great lamb and greek pasta and wine.

Lamb is exactly tender as it should be. Eileen’s lamb shank and John’s BBQ chicken was perfect cook and very tasty. It was a good meal with friendly environment. It was my first time to try the Greek food and I absolutely love greek’s pasta.

It was a satisfied meal and chatted so much with Eileen.

Celebrated New Year Eve in London Eye

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Miwa’s boyfriend Haruki flew from Japan to celebrate New Year Eve with us, so we decided to have New year dinner, then went to see the firework in London. We took Haruki to eat the amazing fresh-made Gourmet burger because he likes beef like I do.

We managed to find some seats in one of them in Soho, and surprisingly, all the restaurants were not full at all except some of them in the tourist places in Leicester Square. After the giant burgers and chips, we walked down to the pub near St James Park, ordered some champaign and desserts to get our mood started.

At 11 pm, we stood behind the House of the Parliament, and it was so cold about minus 3-4 degrees outside with a full moon. The firework was last 10 minutes, and it was magnificent and so colourful. News said that there were about 250,000 people witnessing the countdown and the firework. The funny things is after the firework, it was snowing for 5 minutes. What else you can get in a night! We had an extremely good time in New Year Eve. Goodbye 2009, another new year has come.

Happy New Year to all of you, and wish you and me will have a lot fortune and luck in 2010. Picture of firework is from Dailymail News.

日本好友美和的男友山野春树专门从日本飞来英国4天和我们一起渡过元旦新年。我们决定去伦敦眼一年一次倒数和看烟花。春树第2次到返伦敦，这次我们带他去吃超级棒的牛肉汉堡包。一个汉堡包有7－8寸高，超级新鲜美味！

约翰老说新年一定哪里都爆满，我们6点在soho找到位置坐了下来，吃完我们就走去汉金殿后面的公园，找了间酒吧开了香槟庆祝新年，因为外面实在冷，零下3－5度，所以我们要找个温暖的地方坐下来，喝喝香槟把新年气氛调动起来。我们聊天到11点，出发去霸位置看烟花！外面已经人山人海。

烟花放了10分钟，伦敦的烟花实在不同，颜色五彩缤纷。报道说，当晚估计有25万人在这里看倒数和烟花。当晚晴空万理，也是满月。烟花结束后，最兴奋的是开始下雪。下了10分钟大大的雪，我们就各自回家了。告别2009年，走向美好的2010年。谢谢大家陪伴我度过这么多年。同时祝福大家都过个好年，祈祷2010年你我都运气连连，开心无限。 烟花照片是在dailynew网上载录下来。

Vapiano Italian Restaurant in London

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Vapiano is franchise Italian restaurant in Europe and the State. My friend Kevin took me there when we were working together. From their website page, it is described the restaurant is ‘Somewhere between the nicest of fast casual and hippest of casual dining restaurants is Vapiano’.

The interior design is clean modern, open-space, casual with high standard quality food, especially there is fresh basil plant in every single table. Pasta is home-made, and it cooks in front of you, so it makes sure all fresh. It comes with a big portion as well, and you can choose your pasta types. My favourite pasta is Scampi E Spinaci, which is king prawn with pesto and baby spinach and Salsiccia Con Fichi , which is spicy Italian sausage with fresh figs. (both £8.50,  I just made it sound so fancy, did I? ) They are the best. Pizza is making in front of you including the dough, crispy edge with interesting filling.

Price is incredible cheap and so reasonable. Pasta and pizza starts from £6. Dessert from £3 – £5. All the staff and chef speak Italian. It is a friendly and self-service restaurant, so suitable for a quick lunch and dinner place, but also somewhere you can enjoy hang out with your friends.

We have been there many times and it is always my favourite quick Italian health restaurant. You can see more restaurant picture and memu here. 4.5 stars out of 5 for sure and highly recommended. We always went to the one behind Topshop in Oxford Street, you can not miss it.

Vapiano是一个在欧洲和美国十分流行的意大利连锁餐厅，在牛津街Topshop后面是我们经常去的地方。朋友介绍我去，之后我就几乎是他们的常客。店里装修十分时尚及现代，干净又整洁。每台桌面上都有一盆新鲜的Basil香叶，随时需要随时栽放在你的意大利面里。所有的意大利面都是厨师每天新鲜制作，所以十分新鲜美味。有8－10种意大利面条给你选择，我最喜欢的2道是 ‘菠菜大虾意大利面’ 或是 ’新鲜无花果加意大利辣香肠‘ 超级是我的最爱，价格十分诱人，才8镑多，大大分量加新鲜原料。pizza也是新鲜到连馅底的面粉都是现场撮然后加下原料的。

价格实在便宜，这么新鲜好的餐厅意大利面从6镑起，甜点也是3－5镑。所有的东西都是现场炒和煮给你看，你可以学到东西又可以吃到好吃的意大利菜，当然所有的厨师也是意大利人，都说意大利话。不仅是自助式服务，健康，简单快捷的意大利餐厅。假如你赶时间又想吃个健康的意大利菜，Vapiano绝对是我首选。你可以从这里看到 菜单和更多图片。绝对推荐4.5星！

Christmas Day

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I think we did pretty good on Christmas food even though it was our first time to cook Christmas dinner. The food was very tasty and nothing went wrong, so I was very pleased with them. Then we watched some movies and went to have a walk in the park. In boxing day, we went out in Westfield, but it was so crowed, so we went to have a walk in Holland park. To be honest, we did eat so much food and I am a little bit sick of food or eating out, which is unusual for me, because I am always in love with food. (was it sound too weird?) It did remind of me so much like the Chinese New Year – family and food.

I do think I need to on diet soon. But overall, I am quite happy with this Christmas holiday. I forgot to mention that I was so excited to receive so many Christmas gifts. 2010 is coming as well as our big day. Afterwards, we will move into new house hopefully in February. Hope everything is going smoothly and well. Wish everyone had a good Christmas.

我想今年的圣诞过的还是不错，虽然是我们第1次煮圣诞大餐，但一切都准备的紧紧有条。食物十分美味，我十分满足我们的烹饪技术。圣诞当天我们吃了大餐然后就去公园散步。晚上看这电影渡过，好像就像我们的中国新年吃吃喝喝然后无所事事。Boxing Day我们去商场逛街吃饭，啊？实在太多人购减价货品，我们就走了，去另一个公园散步。圣诞实在吃太多东西了，现在看到食物再美味，或想到出去吃饭都怕。

我想是时候减肥了，总而言之，这个圣诞过得还是乐姿姿的。我们的大子日即将到来，过年后我们还要搬去新的房子，希望一切顺利和开心。祝福大家也有个美好的圣诞节。

Mew’s gig in Shepherd’s Bush Empire

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MEW's gig

My friend Syrinx had introduced Mew‘s since March, and we love every single album they produced. John bought their tickets when I was in China, and because we booked that early, we got two fantastic seats ever.I never like standing because I am too short. Beside, I don’t like people jumping and sweating on me. (lol)

It was a cold raining night. We went there earlier by half an hour queueing for good seats. It was literately only 50 meters away from the band in the sitting seat first line. The warm-up band was ok, also touring with Mew in the UK.  The concert hall was full of young people and many scandinavia fans too.

Jonas Bjerre has incredible high voice and it combines with their music perfectly. He wore a causal white shirt and jeans. Jonas didn’t say much, but said it was their last performance in the UK, and it was kind of sad. I guess UK fans were passionate and crazy about their music and properly they didn’t expect like that.  The background animation was fantastic as well. It’s said that Jonas had designed all of them –  they were scary, weird and unusual. (I heard those images were from Jonas’s dreams). It was certainly creative, and so their music.

They performed most popular and well-known songs, such as ‘ Special, 156, Am I wry, no and The Zookeeper’s boy etc’. I don’t think two hours of their performance was enough, and of course, we wish them to perform all their songs, which is impossible.

The atmosphere, the quality of their performance, and most important – their music were superb. And the enjoyment was far beyond words that could describe. Mew played ‘Comforting Sounds‘ to be their last song, which was sad and emotional, and it was a perfect ending.

I found the black and white picture from Mew‘s official website, which I can see myself and John in the first line of Level one! (haha)

La Roux – In For the Kill

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la-roux

Even I am not a huge electronic pop fan, I heard some songs from Florence + The Machine and Ladyhawke. They are ok, but not really my music taste. However, La Roux‘s new album is outstanding and it worths recommending.

I realise that some music or album you need to listen more than one time, then will love it. Or even play in in different period. First time listen maybe a little bit judgemental, second time might feel interesting. Some music you wont’ be instantly loved it, but maybe second or third time. I do remember I didn’t like Keane’s third album ‘ Perfect Symmetry’ many months, but I love it so much one day after I listened them again.

I love all the songs in the whole album, especially song called ‘In for the Kill‘ ,’I’m not your toy’ and ‘Cover my eyes‘ but the whole album is amazing.