As mentioned in yesterday's post, my bro and I went out on Mon. We went to check out cheap musical tickets at Leicester (pronounced as les-ter) Square, and look what we saw!!

Bumble Bee!!!

Yup, Monday was the London premiere of Transformers! Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf were in London after the German opening on Sunday. It was only 3pm and there were fans waiting for these stars behind the barricades. The general public were still allowed to walk on the pavement (ie. within the barricade) but it felt weird. Felt as if everyone's eyes were on you and as if they were irritated that you're not their idols. Weird.

Didn't get any tickets 'cos they were out of Gor's budget. Moving along now...

We walked past Trafalgar Square on our way to Westminster Abbey.
If you have time, search "T-mobile trafalgar square" on youtube to watch their semi-spontaneous ad where thousands of people sang along. Pink was there too. Go check it out. It's quite cool, actually.

Walking further on, we walked past this road/gate, which would eventually lead us to Buckingham Palace...if we chose to do so. But I've been there and so, we didn't do a detour.

Notice the flags decorating the sides? Wonder what the decoration's for...

If you're visiting London, I would recommend doing this walk. Just grab a city map. Start off at Trafralgar Square and walk towards Downing Street.

I'm sure you know who lives here....


The heavily guarded house of the Prime Minister of UK.

Before reaching here, you would have passed by the Household Calvary and if you're lucky, you might see them changing shifts. The horses are pretty and everybody's so well groomed. Otherwise, I find that its dreadfully boring to see men in uniforms on top of horses. If that's your thing....then....

By now, you'll be walking along Whitehall Road and you'll see the Cenotaph in the middle of the road, which lies an unknown soldier who died during WW2. Walk for about another 3-5 minutes and you'll see this:

Big Ben!!

Cross a few roads through the huge roundabout and you'll reach Westminster Abbey in the front and Houses of Parliament on the left.


Entrance of Westminster Abbey. As per my previous post, please check the visitor timings before going. You wouldn't want to miss your chance to view the tombs of Issac Newton, Michael Faraday, Shakespeare and other famous people. I'm sure most of you know about Issac Newton's tomb from Da Vinci Code ;).

Remember how I mentioned that some churches have mixed styles? It is not unusual for churches or any buildings to have add-ons etc. Same goes to Westminster Abbey.

These weather/wind vanes are a relatively new addition to the Abbey. They aren't very clearly seen in this picture...guess you've got to click on the picture to blow it up and view.

Above is the House of Commons, where loads of news went on for the past couple of months thanks to the MPs' expenses scandal. Btw, the Queen is constitutionally NOT allowed into the House of Commons.

Above is the House of Lords.

Well, to sum up, we did manage to get into Westminster Abbey to attend their evensong @ 5pm. It felt a little like attending mass. The choir was made up of little boys who could hit notes that sopranos usually hit (but music snobs will say that they don't sound the same in terms of voice quality; others might accuse them of being paedophiles...hahaha...).

No photo-taking is allowed inside the Abbey so...you've got to see it for yourself. It is a little like Rome. Pictures sometimes, don't do a place justice. Especially for old historical buildings. Imagine, Westminster Abbey saw the crowning of King Henry VIII all the way to Queen Elizabeth II. Famous people have been buried there and Princess Diana's funeral was held there as well.

Anyway, we had to extract ourselves from the past and live in the present. Or...we can celebrate the past in the present! Just like Louis Vuitton's pop art celebrating the many years of their Speedy bag. This thing revolves and each bag is held with a wooden hand. There are two limited edition metallic Speedies in there too.

If you're in London till July, you can take a look at this at Selfridges & Co. on Bond Street. Btw, Selfridges' sale starts today!! I'm going to check it out later this evening and smell out the goodies. Want me to help you purchase goods on discount? Drop me an email at melissa.fann@oopsiwannasay.com with the brand and model no. Cheers!

This post is entitled "Much Ado About London"...so please be prepared for a super long post. Okie dokes, moving on...I love this cereal. It's so yummy and its full grain! I can snack on this all long. I've been eating this for breakfast for the past week (except when I had scones from Waitrose - that rocks too!). Can't find this in Singapore right?

Went to watch "Star Trek" on Fri night but before that, the whole bunch of us (mix of Singaporeans, Malaysians plus 1 American and 1 PRC) met up for dinner at this Korean restaurant named Corean Chilli.

That's Pork Ribs & Veg Hot Pot on the right and a seafood pancake on the left.

You must try their fried rice cakes with fish cakes in spicy sauce. Its like those that you see in Korean dramas and this restaurant makes it SPICY!

On the right is Gor's beef bone soup. Non-spicy since Gor is allergic to chilli. Quite nice but it has a very strong beefy taste.

To the left is another hot pot. This time its rameon, rice cake, veggie and beef. I didn't eat it but it looks like a whole blob of red. When it came, the rameon was the dried instant noodles and all of us went, "Maggi Mee!" Hmms...would you pay GBP22 for instant noodles? Ok ok...it came with lots more stuff in it.

Ah..the ever popular Dolsot Bibimbab on the right.


To the left is my beef veg stew. Looks good right? There even is an egg inside.

Taste-test verdict? Um...disappointing. I'd rather you go and eat this particular beef stew at the Korean restaurant at Amara Hotel in Singapore.

That being said, the restaurant is pretty good. If you're in London, take the tube and alight at Leicester Square. Exit towards Chinatown, turn left when you come out and just walk straight. Its the first restaurant that you'll see once you cross the street. Corean Chilli.





"Star Trek" at the IMAX theatre was good!! Its a bit like watching it at the Omni theatre in Singapore just that its not half a dome but a huge screen that seems to stretch from floor to ceiling. Most certainly did make the action seem a little more exciting. The movie wasn't 3-D though. Now, I am a little thankful that I didn't win the free movie tickets to "Star Trek" before I left Singapore. Hee. =)

We watched the 11.30pm screening but it started a little late. It was approximately 2.15am when it ended.

Gor and I had to walk from the IMAX theatre in Waterloo to Trafalgar Square to catch a night bus home.

While walking past the Royal Festival Hall, I spotted this Nelson Mandela bust.

The Brits seem to love him a lot. He celebrated his birthday last year in London with tons of celebrities like Oprah Winfrey.

Pique-nique monsieur, madamoseille??
On Sat, we went to Portobello Market, which is near Nottinghill. There were loads of vintage jewellery (not willing to buy any for GBP 5 each) but I bought a miniature tea set! Keep watching this space to see how I make them into jewellery! :) Lovely weather! Sunny and temperatures were around 20 deg C?

While walking towards Portobello Market, we spotted this house, which George Orwell lived in. He wrote "Animal Farm" by the way.

I love how all the houses here were painted blue, red, yellow etc. Funky!! Bursts of colour are always nice.

That's Portobello Market in the background and it stretches far far down. We spent 2 hours just walking up and down. Gor and Sharon didn't believe I could take a nice picture of the market with me just stretching my arm out and snapping. Hah. Proved them wrong. Not blur too!
Gor and I didn't eat breakfast since we woke up at 11.30am on Sat so we decided to pop into this brunch place called "Tom's" which is located at Westbourne Grove...just a short walk away from Portobello Market. The place is really crowded and we were placed in some cosy corner and there was this stairs that led to a small garden with 2 tables. All taken, of course.

My Egg Florentine - poached eggs, with spinach on English muffins and topped with Hollandaise sauce. My bro wants me to tell all you readers that this was very expensive...it costs GBP 8. Taste-test: yummy.


Sharon's Egg Benedict - poached eggs with ham on English muffins and topped with Hollandaise sauce. She quite liked it.

Gor's 3-type omelette - eggs, ham, cheese and tomato. The taste of the ham was quite strong....but quite fluffy and yummy. Gor was grumbling cos I made him cut the omelette into half and place one half on top of the other just to get a nice shot. Sharon was laughing away and saying, "Of course...you need to show what's inside!!"

Happy munchers!! I think my shot of Gor is nicer than Gor's shot of me cos I actually said "1,2,3..." whereas my bro was taking soooo long to take this pic. My jaw was tired from just posing. =P Ooh...my top matches the wallpaper.

Tada...the famous (actual) bookstore that was used in the movie "Nottinghill". There was someone snapping shots INSIDE the bookshop but I felt that there wasn't a point as the place is already refurbished since the movie was filmed. The inside (and even outside) looks completely different from the film.
There's a small noticeboard with newspaper clippings about the movie etc.
Random self-cam shot of the new bus (neither Gor nor Sharon had the luck to sit on a new one prior to this). Purply seats...reminds me of Barney. Not a nice shot of me...but heck, too lazy to reshoot.

We took the bus from Nottinghill to Oxford Circus. Not to shop (although we ended up doing so. Sing & Moon - got your souvenirs already). We were there to meet a couple of other people for dinner at this place called "Le Relais de Venise" where they only have 1 main course - L' Entrecote steak.
Their waitresses' uniform is like the typical French chamber maids!! So cute. Like those maid cafes in Tokyo too...but the waitresses here don't act cute.

First up - salad with walnuts. I hate the mustard dressing that faintly tastes like wasabi. Yucks.

The mains!! Thinly sliced beef that is very very tender. The sauce is supposed to be the highlight and its (but of course) a secret recipe. Taste-test: sauce is made of olive oil, basil, garlic and a squeeze of lemon. Perhaps some mint inside as well. The fries were excellent as well! Before you think that this serving is small (yes, that was my initial thought too), they will come around with a second serving once you're done with your first. Their reasoning is that they want you to enjoy the steak at its best temperature etc. All of that for GBP 19.99.

Since there were 5 of us, we went all out on dessert! Profiteroles and this layered meringue thing with ice-cream. Haha...the menu's in French!! We just asked the waitress what was good to share. Well, the GBP 19.99 that I mentioned earlier doesn't include the dessert. Our bill came out to be GBP 23.10/pax.

Address as follows:

Le Relais de Venise
120 Marylebone Lane
London W1U 2QG
Tel: +44 20 7486 0878

They don't accept reservations and they open for dinner at 6.30pm. Be there early because we ended our meal at 9 plus and there was a queue around the building.

By the way, that's pronounced as Mile-bone (with a slight 'le' in btwn) Lane. Looks like Mary-ler-bone to me...but yeah...just like Leicester is pronounced as Les-ter, Covent is cor-vernt, Gloucester is glous-ter...the list goes on...I'm just as confused as you are. =P