London Aquarium

A couple of weeks ago my sister came to visit me with her husband and my 10 year old nephew. Unfortunately I had to work for most of her stay. But the weekend she was here we managed to hang out a lot.

The first day we headed out to Borough Market. I had never been, but really enjoyed it. It's basically a fresh food market. Though they have some amazing food there. You can get oysters, German sausages, fruit & vegetables, fresh juice and smoothies, chocolate, bread etc. It is really amazing.

Right next to the market they are building the tallest building in Europe. I'm sure it will be finished for the Olympics. It's called 'The Shard' and looks pretty ridiculous.

The next day we made our way to the Sea Life Aquarium. My nephew absolutely loved it there. They recreated different bodies of water. My favourite was probably the mangrove tanks and rainforest ones. Bear with me here. I took a ton of pictures. But it was really hard to get good ones. Most of them are a bit blurry. But I love the colours.

Big sea turtle bang in the middle. They were moving slowly, but it was still hard to get them on the pictures properly.

There are blowfish in these tanks (at least that's what I think they are called). They were behind big magnifying glass. And they were quick buggers. But very cute.

Yay, got the whole fish on there. But blurry again. Sigh.

I can see you!

Penguins! It was really cold in the rooms with the penguins. They loved it, but we had to move on quickly as we had no sweaters with us.

Lots of pictures of water. I really tried to get the penguins on film while swimming. They look beautiful. But again, they are too quick. It's really a shame.

We spend about three hours in the aquarium. It was a great experience. If you are in London, go check it out. Especially if you are here with kids. They will love it!

High Tea

One of my favourite activities to do in London/Britain is the afternoon tea. I'm not doing it often, so whenever I go out for tea it is a rather special event.

Look at all those treats!! The cupcakes where amazing. One was vanilla base with raspberry cream, the other was chocolate base with peanut butter cream and caramel sauce. Both were fantastic!

The squares you can see on the top left were some kind of nutty cake, the white squares were marshmallows with coconut flakes. In the top back are some fudge squares: chocolate, chocolate-nuts, and vanilla. Also in the back (you can catch a glimpse of them on the left) some mini meringues with raspberry sauce.

On the bottom back are some scones with clotted cream and jam. I love the clotted cream.

Little pig sugar cup. Isn't it cute?

 

Even the sandwiches were amazing. Cabiatta bread, one filled with mozarella and pesto, the other with ham, rocket and mustard.

For tea I had a nice Oolong. Everything was presented really nicely and super delicious. The staff were a bit slow and absent. We were sitting on the first floor and they hardly ever came up there. Which usually didn't bother me too much. But this time they were really bad, forgot to give us napkins. Ok, I can live with that. But they also brought all the food without taking our tea order! Took forever to get their attention to get the tea. And really, what's the point in an afternoon tea if there is no tea...

After work fun

Couple of weeks ago my bf finished an incredibly busy period at work. He remembers the exact time he handed in the project papers: 11.27am. It was on a Friday and he basically ran from the office that second to go drinking. I met up with him later in the day and we had some celebratory drinks. His workmates came out as well and we had a lovely evening.

I actually managed to take some pictures while out with my camera phone. Not the best pictures in the world. 

I like these newly developed areas. Especially when they randomly plant a few trees in them. You have these modern straight line buildings broken up by lovely trees.

London night sky anyone? 

 

 

 

We headed out for one more drink after I took the pics. Or let's say, the boys had one more drink while I had juice. My old bones can't handle the alcohol that well anymore. Have to stop drinking early if I want to feel like a human being the next day.

But otherwise it was a lovely evening. Hope you enjoyed the (blurry) photos!

Brighton Japan Festival

I meant to post these much earlier. This are some photos from the Brighton Japan Festival. I went there almost a month ago. I didn't spend a lot of time there. Just enough to buy some mochi and enjoy the atmosphere.

Brighton Pier  that burnt down a couple of years ago.

 

The mochi were delicious! Especially the one with the strawberry in it. Should have bought more. Maybe next time.

Sorry for not writing a lot about this. I really didn't spend a lot of time at the festival. I spent more time exploring Brighton as I'd never been, but forgot to take pictures of that. It was a great city so much to see and take in. Next time I will be better at taking pics!

I am a winner!

I won something! First time in forever! Ok, it was also the first time in forever that I tried to win something. But that's not the point.


Haikugirl's Japan had her first give-away last week and I ended up winning. So a big thanks to her. She posted the ticket to me and I am eagerly awaiting it. Makes it even more fun to come home from work every night ;-)

I am super excited that I won a ticket to Hyperjapan. It's on in two weeks here in London and I wanted to go anyway. But now I don't have to buy a ticket and instead can spend more money at the actual event. Pretty sweet. Can't wait to go!

Houses of Parliament

Finally managed to pull the photos of my camera from my visit to the Houses of Parliament. I met up with a good friend a couple of weeks ago. Through her I got 'access' to the Houses and her husband was so nice to give me a tour. It's a really amazing place.

Once I got the pictures on my computer I noticed that most of them are a bit shaky. I'm just rubbish at taking photos with my phone. Just can't hold that damn thing still enough. Need to buy a new camera.

This is the oldest part of the parliament. The monarchs are usually put up here when they die and the public can go past them to pay their respects. Or you know, make fun of them...

The middle plaque commemorates the place where William Wallace was sentenced to death. Pretty cool, heh.

I'll leave you with the rest of the pics. Enjoy!