clapham common fun fair & london marathon

last weekend was quite active after having moved into my new home!  after having a slow saturday (thanks to the birthday fun on friday), we headed to the clapham common fun fair that was taking place with the roomies and some friends.

clapham is in south london and has a huge common, basically a huge field that takes you around 20ish minutes to run around the perimeter.  yes, that is speaking from experience.  it's big.

so in one part of it, they were having a fair where you paid for a wristband for unlimited rides. besides, it was only £9.  turns out my stomach isn't quite what it used to be and i can't handle these spinning rides anymore--not to mention the slight hangover i was still feeling.  hangover + spinning rides = no bueno.  i went on two rides then proceeded to watch everyone else go.  this thing below is the first one i went on.  it was awful.  the chairs spun in addition to that arm spinning.  i had my eyes closed about 75% of the time as i screamed my head off :)

the death of me

after that we headed to a really cool pub called the windmill.  it is a really large pub with tons of sitting rooms and tables.  i couldn't resist and ordered some fish and chips!  unlike the states, they do one big fillet here instead of multiple pieces.  it was pretty tasty though the mushy peas didn't leave much to be desired.  the brits also LOVE mayo.  i don't get it.  it weirds me out.  

fish and chips!

sunday was the london marathon which is a pretty big deal around here.  it's not easy to get into the marathon!  you don't just register.  you have to raise money for a charity to get a spot.  everyone that ran sported a jersey for one charity or another.  pete, zoë and i rented some cityshare type bikes (only £2/day!) and biked into central london to catch zoë's friend who was running over by westminster.  let me just tell you how uncomfortable i was biking on the OTHER side of the road SANS helmet on streets that had no bike lanes.  there may have been a few times i had to bike around double decker buses that were starting to pull out from their stops...that was not fun.  thankfully we all returned our bikes unharmed.  

tons of these stations around the city

marathoners

harrods!

after the marathon, we biked over to green park which is by buckingham palace and hung out there for a few hours basking in the sun.  people here love parks.  there are a lot of them, and on a nice day, everyone is out picnicking.  the mentality here is very much like the PNW in that as soon as the sun's out, and it's semi-warm, there is pressure to be outside!

i'm getting ready to head to dublin tomorrow!  today is a bank holiday so we had the day off, and then we get monday off for easter even though it's on sunday...yea.  anyway, i figure it's time to take advantage of the time off so i booked this last minute.  i fly out very early tomorrow morning and fly back early monday morning so i'll have two full days to explore.  supposedly guinness tastes better there.  i'll be the judge of that :)

week two!

i can't believe it's already been over two weeks since i've been here!

my first week of work was...frustrating.  even though i have been with the company the longest out of everyone here, i was still (and still am) the new kid that is ramping up.  ramping up on how digital works over here, and how adap.tv uk does things in general.  ramping up is simply the worst, but everything will seem normal in a matter of time...i hope.

working in san mateo made it tough for there to be much of a social scene after work because almost everyone drove.  it's a different story here!  the office is located conveniently next to pubs and the ever so exclusive no. 5 cavendish.  on fridays, no. 5 cavendish has a 2 for 1 drink special and is located right next to our building (i work at 4 cavendish).  at about 10pm it becomes this nightclub that people wait in line for to get in.  we just so happened to stay long enough that they stamped our hands so we could come and go as we please!  i called it at night at 12:30.

i'm still trying to decide where to live so i headed up to north london on saturday to walk around and get a feel for the neighborhoods up there.  i took the tube up to finsbury park then walked south.  i passed by the arsenal football team stadium and eventually ended up at the islington area.  north london is a place i could definitely live in because the commute to work would be amazing!  the housing in north london is what i think of when i think 'london.'  very cute, quaint, and clean.  after that i headed over to east london to check out the hackney area.  hackney has this reputation of being hipster, but it didn't seem that way to me at all!  perhaps it's because i'm used to all hipsters in sf!  i could definitely live there.  they had the broadway market going on, on saturday which had tons of food stands. everything looked so good!  it is also located by this park that reminds me of delores.  the perfect place to picnic on a sunny day.

flower stand at the broadway market 

saturday night i went to a rave.  i know...right?   tish (my coworker) had an extra ticket so i said, why not!?  it was a bunch of djs playing deep house music in two rooms followed by some standing-in-place dancing.  it was fun, and i'm glad i went, but it's not something that i'll be doing often.  i was the lame grandma who called it at night at 1:30am while the others left at 5:30!  i don't know how they do it!

entrance to the rave

sunday i bid farewell to my airbnb and moved into an empty room in james's flat.  james is one of my coworkers who happened to have a housemate move out before their lease ended so i'll be staying here for the next two months before moving into something permanent.  it felt really nice to finally unpack my suitcases even if it's short term.  i finally feel semi-settled and it sure feels much homier than where i was staying before.  james also has two other housemates (zoë and miles).  they are all great!  i really lucked out.  they have been wonderful.  we went out for a steak dinner on thursday night then went to the pub and had a few drinks before heading home to surprise cupcakes they got me for my birthday which was on friday!  zoë played stevie wonder's happy birthday song and serenaded us with the karaoke set :)

zoë singing her heart out

then i turned 28 on friday!  i was a little sad to be away from all my friends and family but i felt the birthday love from everyone around here and online!  tish had everyone sign a birthday card for me at work and gave me a some play jewelry as a gift.  adam surprised me with a package of chinese condiments to make me feel more at home, a dinner reservation at restaurant gordon ramsey when he comes to visit (three michelin stars!!!!!!!) and then the most beautiful bouquet of flowers showed up for me at work.  he spoiled me big time.  after work, tish organized a drinks for my birthday so we headed out to a bar in oxford circus and stayed there for several hours.  finally james and i called it a night and bussed home at 2am.  i was truly touched by how thoughtful everyone was.  having all these great people surround me is certainly helping me adjust to life here.

the flowers that adam sent 

phil and i at happy hour

some of the adap.tv crew after several hours of drinks.  (no, my face didn't have ish on it, it's the camera's fault!)

london town

i'm finally here!

big ben & westminster

what a process it was to get over here. 4 months late, but here i am.  i'll be here soaking up london and adap.tv uk for the next year before i return back to my lovely rent controlled apartment in SF that adam is willingly paying full rent for (you're the best, babe!).

i arrived in london last friday around noon and it felt strange.  i already felt homesick and could've gotten on a flight immediately to return, but clearly that didn't happen.  i had arranged for a car service to come take me and my three very heavy suitcases to the air bnb flat that i have been staying.  i've been staying in south london in clapham.  i would equate the area i'm in to noe valley.  one day i walked down the main strip and there were 4 strollers in sight at all times.  i'm by a large common so there are active people everywhere.  for whatever reason, i had this impression that the brits didn't exercise as much but i was clearly very wrong.  

not too bad, right?

i spent the rest of that day feeling like a zombie forcing myself to stay awake so that i'd beat jetlag.  i finally gave up at 9:30pm and slept till 9am.  success!  on saturday i took the train & tube into central london to walk around.  mostly i was trying to get my phone figured out, which ended up being a four day ordeal but i'm all sorted now.  gotta start working on my lingo here.  haven't used cheers at the end of an email yet, but i'm sure that'll come soon :)

i walked down regent street (tons of shopping), stumbled into chinatown (surprisingly clean, uncrowded and calm), and then walked through st. james park to buckingham palace.  before leaving, i decided i would not be crazy and bring a bottle of sriracha because that is obsessive and why wouldn't an intl city like london have it?  turns out i should've listened to my gut.  i walked into a store in chinatown and there was no sign of that familiar green cap.  what's making me even more nervous is that my coworkers said 'what??' when i asked them if they sell sriracha here. sigh.  i even googled 'can you buy sriracha in london' to find that online i can buy a bottle for 4.50 GBP.  you have got to be kidding me.  there is no way in hell that the asian in me would let me pay $7 for that hot sauce!  perhaps i can sweet talk one of my coworkers to bring me back a bottle back after he goes to nyc next week...

the tower bridge

moving on...i'm not living anywhere permanently yet so i've been scoping out neighborhoods slowly to see where i want to live.  apparently my coworkers live all around london so everyone is quite opinionated on where to live, but assure me i can't really go wrong.  haha helpful, right?  london is big with tons of boroughs and most people live outside of zone 1 (central london) because it's more affordable.  public transit is so frequent here, it's really not a huge deal to live further out because you can get to the center of town in no time.  

i started work finally on tuesday which was great!  i was getting restless and lonely by myself and homesickness was really starting to set in since i didn't have a routine going on yet.  i take the tube to work and if everything is going as expected, it takes 35 minutes which includes walking to the station, changing lines and walking to work. people told me that the northern line that i take gets very busy, but i didn't really anticipate what that would mean.  i can handle crowds.  the commuting gods must've taken it easy on me because as soon as i walked down the escalator on my first morning, the car was there, the doors were wide open and it wasn't crowded at all.  i thought to myself, "i can do this...this isn't busy at all...i don't know what they're talking about!"  i changed lines (also uncrowded) and got to work in no time.  no sweat.  then there was the next day.

yesterday i walked down the escalator again anticipating a similar experience and boy was i in for a treat!  there were crowds of people everywhere and every train that came by was packed to the gills.  i watched four trains come and go before i finally said 'fuck it' and forced my way onto a train which is literally smashing your body into the others and hoping that the doors don't close on you.  it's ok...i watched enough people do it before i got the courage.  this morning was much easier (only three went by and i jumped in when two other people forced their way on leaving a little room for moi) and luckily people don't really get upset because it's just how it is.  everyone's just trying to get to work.  luckily this should just be temporary until i move!

as for work--it's been great!  i work in a lovely square right in the middle of everything and our office is on the top floor of a cute brick building.  the team here is small, so it's quite a change from working at the hq in san mateo.  everyone has been extremely welcoming and super helpful since i've been bombarding them with questions.  the environment is pretty relaxed and no one takes themselves too seriously.  i'm going to be working on biz dev for two large clients so that will keep me nice and busy.  i already went and met some clients today, so they are wasting no time!  i'm excited for the challenge because i didn't have the opportunity to work in this capacity back home.

adap.tv uk!

i'm moving out this sunday from my airbnb to an empty room that just opened up in my coworker's flat (see! getting better).  i'll be there for 2 months and then will figure out something permanent.  i'm still living out of the suitcases so it will be nice to finally unpack.  i've already written a novel so until next time!  xoxo

comfort food

now that the weather outside is in full fall blast, i felt like it was time to bust out the chili and cornbread.  i love love love making chili because it's super easy and pretty healthy for the most part.  now that i've gone on and on about chili, i should let you know that the focus of this post is actually on the 'zesty corn muffins' i made to go with the chili! (recipe here)

i found this recipe on tastespotting which was introduced to me by my cousins.  it's more of a visual recipe search.  it's genius!  you type in something and then you get these pictures as results from people who are anal about their food pics (i take mine with my trust 8mp HTC incredible...) and it always looks delicious!  for the most part it links you back to other blogs, but hey, food is food no matter where you source it.

this recipe was great to make because it was super easy and it baked very quickly.  i had it all done in under 30 minutes and they tasted delicious.  with the corn and scallions that are added in, you don't really need butter (hooray less calories!).  i forgot to put in the jalapenos because i already threw them all in the chili, but i'm sure with that addition, these corn muffins would've tasted even better!

some fotos of the process:

dry ingredients

 wet ingredients

 all mixed up

 in their happy little homes

 fresh out of the oven!

 finished product! so pretty. i should note i greased the pan so no need for paper cups.

bon appetit!

the chinese way of eating

i'm still not quite done with my eating adventures in china so bear with me!  one of the last nights we were in guangzhou, my cousin treated the whole family to a new way of eating in the huangsha area that i had yet to experience!  if you don't like seafood, then this isn't for you (and what's wrong with you?? i kid, i kid!).

in huangsha there are a few restaurants around that allow you to go to the seafood market below, purchase the seafood that you want, and then they'll cook it for you!  i can see how it is fun every once in a while, but for the most part when i go to a restaurant, it's cause i want to pick out something i want to eat, and then not do any work for it.

so after seeing our HUGE 22-seater table (with the largest lazy susan i've ever seen) equipped with our own couches and television, we headed down to the market to get some grub for dinner.

see. baller room.

snapshot of the market

sashimi grade salmon we purchased

geoducks! we didn't purchase...but i had to snap a photo

flower crab

mantis shrimp (aka 'peeing shrimp' in cantonese) and yes, the chinese have a different standard of cleanliness in their 'markets'

more crab

the goods for dinner! the waitress took note of everything we bought

the end result!! the best green onion crab i've ever had

 scallops--one of my favorite kinds of seafood ever!

shrimp

HUGE table

the cooked flower crabs

raw salmon. SO good. oh, and this was 1 of 3 trays...

pissing shrimp--probably least favorite dish of the night

there was SO MUCH food that night we didn't know what to do with ourselves.  this included a lot of supplemental veggie dishes that i didn't snap pics of.  having the huge lazy susan for 22 people didn't work out so well either.  essentially if the food passed in front of you, you exercised those ninja chopstick skills and grabbed what you wanted or waited for it to make the rounds in front of everyone else and hoped there would be something left on the plate the next time it came by you.  you can bet that i grabbed a piece of raw salmon every time!

international junk food

it's no secret that i like food.  but i LOVE junk food.  especially chips.  i'm a savory girl so i'll take chips over cakes, cookies and cupcakes anyday...unless they're red velvet ones cause those make me weak at the knees.  that was also quite the alliteration!

so whenever abroad, i look forward to the chip selection because the flavors you find are so exotic!  i can still recall the thai chili flavored pringles i had in angers, france that may be the best chips i've had yet.  i haven't seen them anywhere else though i haven't looked very hard.

this isn't my first time to china so i'm pretty familiar with the selection, but people are always inventing new flavors so i had to scope it out.  low and behold i found two verrrry interesting flavors:

yea...cucumber and cheese lobster.  how could i not get these?  who in this world makes cucumber flavored chips?  the chinese do.  i mean...lemon tea and blueberry were also in the running.  those flavors really exist i am not making this up.

the cucumber flavor did not taste like cucumber.  in fact, i made several family members eat the chips too and none of us could figure out what it tasted like.  i spent half the bag eating very slowly and occasionally trying to 'cleanse' the palette somehow to figure out but i gave up.  however, true to the bag's statements, there was an odd cooling sensation which just threw me off.  let me make that mistake for you and don't ever buy this flavor.

now onto the cheese lobster.  how could i not resist?  look at that saucer pouring thick velveeta-looking cheese onto the lobster?  the chinese can also take things a little too literally.  this bag was much more enjoyable than the cucumber one but this one didn't particularly taste like lobster either.  they nailed the cheese part, but the lobster bit just kind of tasted like some sort of seafood essence if that makes any sense.  in any case, the fam bam couldn't get enough of this one so there wasn't too much left for me.

if i wasn't so lazy, i would've gotten lemon tea and blueberry purely for curiosity purposes.  maybe next time ;)

FRESH food

i'm baaaack!  despite my good intentions to blog while visiting the fam bam in china for the last three weeks, i failed and i blame it on the strict communist internet, my laziness and generally just feeling lethargic from the heat/humidity.  i felt like i was being cooked in an oven.

but with that said, i want to turn your attention to the chinese's definition of fresh food.  while we in the states get most of our produce and meat from grocery stores, the chinese go to their local markets and ish there is fresh.  SO fresh that you can see the hearts still beating on the poor fish that have just been decapitated.  it was when i witnessed this that i knew that what we'd be eating that night was fresh.

it may be gross for some, but it's just how it is.  my cousin at dinner told me it must suck not being able to have 'fresh' chicken for dinner.  and by fresh she meant go pick out a live one from the market and promptly have it killed for that night's meal.  to which i replied, frozen really isn't all that bad, i swear ;)

anyway, some videos & fotos for your enjoyment.  i use that term loosely...

blue crab

 gutting fish

 true chinaman. gotta make sure that cig is lit.