Ascot!

A super sunny and super hot day at the race course! I managed to win the first race by betting a grand total of two pounds on Humungous, at the odds of 7 to 1! With no prior racing knowledge the decision is simply made upon the jockey's kit colour - which was very much in season!
Boxi and her friend was on a massive winning streak - by placing two pounds on a 50 to 1 horse that managed to beat 26 other horses they managed to get over 100 quid!! I can see why if someone has no self control can end up betting their entire savings on this adrenaline rushing activity.
So tired...from having on 4 hours of sleep from previous night. This is going to be short blog. Fun weekend indeed!

Henley Music Festival

Going back to Henley with Andy certainly brings back nostalgics, after all it was where I used to go with her for exeat weekends!
Literally 10 years later, we return to Henley (having nearly missed the train, running bare footed through paddington) for the music festival.
Slightly disappointed by the supposedly 3 star Michelin food, we nevertheless indulged ourselves in the lovely Lauren Perrier honey champagne, ultra brute and new world red.
Mrs Guo has such a wonderful character, and it is definitely a different experience to be amongst the top classes of Taiwanese people. Everywhere I look I can identify Marc Jacob, Fendi handbags, Chanel and Dior earrings. Everyone seems to have some form of tie with either the ex president or the current president. It is definitely a different world to what I am used to.
Haley Westenra is my new love! At the age of 21 she sings amazingly, and to be pitch perfect means she doesn't sing a note out of tune! Will definitely look into her albums at some point. She is apparently top selling young artist in Japan, a quick wiki-ing shows she has also released a single in Japanese...that should be quite interesting.
One thing I have noticed - nevermind how strong an artist has during their colloquial speech, when it comes to singing they lose all accents previously owned and just sing with proper English - why is that??

Butterfly House

Such a busy weekend!
First of all, in denial of one's age, we decided to visit the Butterfly House outside the Natural History Museum. Built for age 3+, one must first walk through this giant tent made in the shape of a caterpillar into an artificial maze made out of posters. Reading fun facts on butterflies (catipillars have 4000 muscles comopared to human of 629) we collected stamps along our way until the entrace of this greenhouse.
Having marched into this not-so-large green house it was a truely pleasant suprise to see so many different types of tropical butterflies flying around. There were giant moths the size of my palm! Got very snappy happy taking pictures of the butterflies, and nearly beaten up this foreign kid who was trying to kick and stamp the butterflies on the ground. Talking about ill education of children. I would so have had a word with the parents if only they could understand English and what I was muttering.
Being London Architectural Month we quickly went to the V&A and saw Zara Hadid's chandelier, the beautiful herbiscus in full bloom and was unfortunately short of time to see the China Deisgn Now exhibition.
So want to be a designer!!

Vinotech

A cosy restaurant that is good for sampling wine with a few close friends. The place can become quite busy as the evening develops thus booking is a must. Alternatively turn up at 6pm and start drinking...
Menu is regularly changing to include the seasonal ingredients, each menu items has a recommended wine. Once you tasted you can also buy a case to take home - a very interesting and enjoyable concept!

Wimbledon

If tennis were a religion then Roger Federer would be God.

I don't care what everyone else thinks =p

I have temporarily lost my voice through screaming at a TV for the duration of the 5 sets. Arguably one of the best wimbledon games in modern history. Brilliant!!!

Working hard, and no travel :(

My travel guide has been abandoned for such a long while. Partially due to laziness and partially due to lack of travelling.

The speed of ticking the countries travelled off the list has slowed with study and work but alas, don't despair as I reangle my travelling guide to more UK based adventures. Hopefully we will not lose too much glamour compared to previous. Let's wait and see.

So, how am I going to catch up on the previous year lost...haha, the lazy way ofcourse. See below snippets of excellence :)

May bank holiday at tate modern
Saw this picture in a story book once, general concensus is that such thing does not exsist. And behold, that after when I went for a stroll look what I found...
Below zero ice bar with yummy vodka mixer
Cans festival
Henry Moore at Kew Gardens