Europe Travelogue Day 5 & 6: London, Windsor, Bath & Stonehenge

You can read my previous posts here:
Day -1, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3  & Day 4

For day 5, we went to another market called Camden market. I realized I didn't have a photo of it anywhere... The market was pretty average, but I bought some souvenirs for my friends there.

After that we headed to Tate Modern, which is an art gallery in front of the famous bridge in Harry Potter. Sad to say I don't appreciate art very much, but at least there are some explanations on the wall which helped a bit.

An interesting exhibit (must be, cus that's my only photo of the musuem lol)

The modern looking bridge!

A photo I took while on the bridge. You can see the tower bridge from this photo if you look carefully!

After that we went to watch Jerseyboys... which I didn't really enjoy. I should have known at first glance because almost everyone in the audience was >50 years old. I don't even know the group "The Four Seasons", who was really famous in the 1960s, much less their songs. We should have spent the money on Wicked or Lion King instead! But oh well...

That was the end of Day 5. It was a meh kind of day.

On Day 6, we signed up for the Windsor, Bath & Stonehenge (all of which were at the outskirts of London) tour using Viator. I thoroughly enjoyed myself because we just sat on the coach and waited to arrive at our destination instead of looking for directions everywhere. The tour was quite pricey though, as with all Viator tours, but I would say it's worth it because they managed to cover so many attractions in a day. Downside is we couldn't spend more time in each place because we had a tight schedule to adhere to.

Our first stop was Windsor castle:

Windsor castle is the Queen's weekend home. It's a good alternative to visit given that the Buckingham Palace is out of bounds unless you're a VIP of the royal family. The weather was perfect that day with a blue sky. Picturesque.

 

We were able to enter the State Apartments (where the royal family entertain their guests) and the St George's Chapel. All the rooms in the State Apartments were beautifully adorned by paintings, chandeliers and tapestries. It was all very royal looking.

We were quite lucky to chance upon the changing of the guards ceremony as well. In the Windsor 

castle, we can take photos with the guards. Meanwhile in London, it was not allowed after some tourist tried to assault one of the guards and to protect himself, the guard knocked the tourist unconscious.  

After Windsor, we headed to Bath. This town has the only natural hot spring in the UK.

Some church nearby

. 

Roman baths. It was built when London was under Romans' rule

Other than the roman bath we visited, we walked around in the quaint little town.

Then it was time to visit the highlight of the trip, Stonehenge! I was so excited!!!

Stonehenge stood somewhere out of nowhere. Our bus stopped nearby and we took another bus up to look at the Stonehenge up close.

Photo taken from my iPhone, enhanced by VSCOcam.

It's pretty cool isn't it. Some ancient people built this massive structure and now nobody knows what is it for. Some people it is to worship the gods, others say it's to tell time. But no one really knows... How did they even build such a massive structure in ancient times??

On the other side, there were sheeps grazing on the grass. The grass looks so green! Can I live there pls?

 The wind was extraordinarily strong at the site, so our hair were perpetually flying everywhere.

With that, we headed back to London...

I'm damn old

For my birthday last week, L and I headed to Pasarbella for lunch.

Pasarbella is located at Turf city and I always thought it was very far away for me cus I stay in the North-East. Apparently not! I met L at Toa Payoh and there was a free shuttle bus to Turf city. I think the bus took like 10 mins max to reach. The concept of Pasarbella is like Marche so you can buy different food from different vendors to try.

We tried out the Paella and something like "Three types of meat" dish, cant remember the name. The paella was awesome!!! The steak in the other dish was nice and succulent as well. Overall, the place gave me a very good impression and I would love to go again.

L got me a Kindle for my birthday present and I am v happy with it! I've revived my book reading habit recently, cus I've got plenty of time to myself on the weekends even if I go out for one of the days. So far I'm able to find the books I wanna read on the web, then load it in my Kindle. The loading process made me feel like I'm using iPod again cus I can choose whatever type of book covers I like!

At night we headed to Kushi Bar. It's a Japanese buffet place and I was really looking forward to it as it has been awhile since I had Japanese food.

Sashimi platter

Oysters!

The spread.

Second round of sashimi, which I loveeeee.

Us at the restaurant! Realized we don't take much photos nowadays. Will try to take more photos of ourselves instead of food lol.

So, this was how I spent my birthday. Like any other weekend...

3 things about today

1. On my wrist today.

Do you feel creeped out by the eye staring at you?! Hahaha. I took this picture at work during a brief moment when I was bored. The rest of the day was horrible. There was a cock up at work today and my manager was pretty busy trying to solve it. While he was busy, I asked him a question to affirm the decision I was about to make. He became very frustrated and ask me to just "reply and ask other people". Is it wrong for a newbie to ask just one question? I had only started handling such work three weeks ago!!!  I realized my manager is pretty impatient so I've got to tread carefully next time. Afterwards, I made another mistake and he got frustrated again. It wasn't entirely my fault, just a small miscommunication and he has to appear so FRUSTRATED? Feels like he is entitled to feel frustrated but I don't think he has the entitlement. Sighhh... When I learn everything and stop making mistakes, maybe it's time to leave.

2. Shoes I bought today at the Charles and Keith warehouse sale.

Nice?

After work, I headed to Taiseng, which is where the Charles and Keith warehouse is located. I met up with Fang and Debra and we managed to get in after queuing for awhile. I've always been picky with shoes but I guess I was more accommodating today as the prices were relatively cheaper! These two pairs set me back $47, which is pretty reasonable. Oli and Huijing joined us later and we headed to the nearby Breadtalk HQ for dinner. 

3. The birthday cake my parents bought

Tomorrow is my birthday! Nothing special, probably cause I am 23 this year. One of my impossible wishes is for me to wind back time. To go back to the time when I was perhaps 14, still a teenager. I still feel like the 14 year old girl I was, but my exterior has already changed so much. I became fatter, dyed my hair, changed my tastes... I really miss the world I had when I was 14. I only had to juggle between studies and CCA and wasted my time hanging out in school or at the mall. Back then, I felt like I had all the time in the world to waste. Nowadays, any free time I have feels so precious, maybe cause work takes up so much of my time. As I become older, the perception of "time" to me has changed from a commodity to a luxury good.

I am looking forward to the time when "time" will become a commodity again. But who knows when that will be?

Sighhh... Talking about all these makes me feel so emotional.

Financial Freedom

Been thinking about how to achieve financial freedom for awhile now... I tend to think about it when I feel tired out from my job.

Seriously, I wouldn't mind a full time job if it wasn't so tiring? Everyday, I feel so so so tired. Maybe it's because I start work at 7.30am. I took a one hour nap in the evening and the one hour went past like the blink of an eye. The nap was so shiokz max!

The tiredness I feel makes me unmotivated for work. So one thing I really want to achieve now is financial freedom. Achieving it means that I will no longer need to depend 100% on my pay every month. How to achieve that?

INVEST.

This is easier said than done. I hope to save my money and invest in some stocks which will provide me some passive income every year... It's going to require a lot of discipline & hopefully one day the passive income generated will be equal to how much I earn every month. It's a daunting task because no one can predict the stock market with 100% accuracy so far. I just hope I won't make silly investment decisions, afterall I studied finance lol. I really hope to achieve financial freedom so that one day I won't feel the need to work? Just stay at home relax... Learn the ukulele, read books I like and SLEEP IN! I mean, it doesn't mean I have to quit my job, but it's good to have an option that allows me to quit without affecting my standard of living.

I know it might never be possible... But I will try. I will be happy even if I can earn 20-30% equivalent of my pay through passive income, which I can use to fund my overseas trips every year.

 Maybe I will give an update about my progress ten years later!

Europe Travelogue Day 4: London again

You can read my previous posts here:
Day -1, Day 1, Day 2 & Day 3

For our fourth day, we woke up early and headed to Portobello market, which opens only on weekends. It was sooooo crowded.

Look at the amount of people below

Firstly, we headed to the highly raved Hummingbird bakery. It was very crowded as well, but the service is prompt.

Salted caramel and red velvet cupcakes.

Om nom nom. I want to eat it again!! Their frosting was really good, it was comparatively lighter compared to all the other cupcakes I have eaten.

We bought churros as well. What L is holding below is the best churros I have ever eaten! Sadly, the best churros I have tasted didn't come from Spain.

Afterwards, we went back to revisit the sights (Trafalgar Square, St James Park and the Buckingham Palace) in our first day as we didn't get proper time to take photos and chill around the attractions.

A lame video at Trafalgar Square

Random video at Trafalgar Square #jwenadventures


The highlight of the day was feeding squirrels at the park! They are pretty friendly and will eat directly from your hand! We bought a packet of nuts from Marks&Spencer and tried to approach them. This is what happened!

Feeding a hungry squirrel, so cute hahaha


Some photos at St James park! The weather was fantastic, it was around 18 deg so it was cooling to walk around and look at grass and trees.

Buckingham Palace, where the Queen resides.

 Westminister Abbey, where Prince William wed Kate Middleton. All the attractions were within distance so we just kept walking.

After a whole day of sight seeing, we ended the day with dinner at Four Seasons! There were online reviewers who think that Four Seasons has the best roast duck in the world. We went early and managed to avoid the queue.

Famous duck!! It was indeed awesome. Like Burger & Lobster, it will be a must-visit if I go back to London again. The sauce is awesomesauce. I think the restaurant owners came from HK, cus the way they run the restaurant is so Hongkong style. Will ask you to quickly order and when you finish, they will quickly clear it away for you.

Since Chinatown was near Leicester Square, we went to get tickets for another musical, Jersey Boys, before heading home.

2 AM ;

2AM, my favourite time of the day
alone awake
even though I am tired today I
refuse to go to bed

All's quiet
I can hear a pin drop
Watching the minute hand strut
time seems to stop

This moment
I feel
infinite

and truly alive

I want to feel "uncomfortable"

Sometimes, on my way home I'll reflect on the work that I have done. Today, I had an epiphany on the train home.

I realized how much I like to stick to a routine (or is it human nature?). For some jobs, routine is good, but I don't think it's good or essential for my job. For the first few weeks at work, I unknowingly developed a routine and I tried and wanted to stick to it. I guess sticking to a routine makes me less anxious cus I know I would be able to perform if I follow some steps. Maybe not spectacularly, but at least I would be able to meet my manager's expectations. But I realize, having a routine is detrimental because I would stick to a bare minimum and I wouldn't put in more effort to exceed my manager's expectations.

I want to excel in my job and I realized the key to that is that I shouldn't stick to a routine that much. I guess it differs job to job. If you're in operations, I guess being efficient is key so you should stick to a routine and work on minimizing the time needed to do each task. For me, it's about looking at different economic situations everyday and try to weave all of them into one "believable" story. I want to be "uncomfortable" and keep looking for ways to improve the work I do. Saying that is easy, but putting it into practice requires a lot of effort. Some days I feel so sian, I don't even bother to try. From now on, I will try and see where it brings me :)