i digress.

as a slight side track...

has anyone seen this cartoon on the evil SCGS girl? it's hilarious.

my mother used to tell me she pulled me out of said school because i was becoming a materialistic tike at 9. and the barbie reference is ALL TOO TRUE.

(there's an RGS feminazi one after that comic so don't jump on me yet.)

i'm just back from a friend's place, where we had bak kut teh and it was all rather jolly. she and her bf had invited over an australian-english couple from church and we discussed food eating habits of singaporeans and the english, amongst other things. i am afraid i may have set my friend off on another culinary adventure when i mentioned that making apple crumble was really easy; she had apparently completely forgotten that we had learnt to make cakes using the rubbing-in method when we were 13 and we had to describe to her what that entailed.

this morning at breakfast, i ran into my taiwanese neighbour who called me over to her table. so i joined her and her taiwanese friends whom she met on her course, and it was nice nattering away in mandarin. although i have to say - i couldn't exactly catch the nuances. (orangeblossom probably will know what i mean??). it was this slightly dry witty humourous thing going on behind each statement they made - and i just couldn't join in even though i had this idea that it was... dry, wry and witty.

it's amazing but when i got back, i found our common kitchen invaded by a bunch of happy taiwanese folks, just finishing up their late dinner. they had xia1 ren2 chao3 fan4, and a many other dishes, and i noticed that my neighbour was the one who had lugged over steel pots (spied them drying out yesterday). she also had paring knives!!! yes, the hall does not provide knives, and i haven't been able to find any to buy...

so what did i do on my first day off? i took the tube down to St Paul's, and went across the Millenium bridge to the Tate Modern. This was a repeat of my trip last year, in which i got lost along fleet street and somehow got myself two gigantic blood clots on my toes... er, never mind. so yes, millenium bridge. St Paul's in the background.

note general london weather. (i'm now obsessed about the weather - i check the bbc weather page at least once a day).

the main purpose was to get to the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Tate, where finally - i could use my student card to get the concession. the exhibition was quite good i must say - nicely curated, with a good selection of her works from her early sketches to her many self-portraits. she peers at you somewhat imperiously from them, but you got a sense of her true self only in the last portrait in the self-portrait series - the one where she covers her face with the mask of La Malinche - and here it struck me quite forcefully that she was at the end of the day, a broken woman.

i spent three hours at the Tate. in between my back gave out, and i had to sit down a few times to curl up and also head to the toilets to attempt to stretch. sigh.

to your right is an overhead shot of the herzog-de meuron architects exhibition. the gigantic blue thing you see in the right of the picture is a life-size mock-up of one of the decorative beams of the beijing olympics main stadium. there were other mock-ups and it was quite fascinating seeing them and various plans and even materials used in the projects.

i made it to St Paul's later. Finally. in all my trips to london, i've somehow left out going to St Paul's, but thanks to a membership card provided by friend, i got in for free and it is really quite - stupendous. i even made it up to the Whispering Gallery, although half way up i realised this wasn't exactly the best idea, in light of back/bag.

wandered off to the crypt later, where i found arthur sullivan buried there. i also found this plaque in the crypt. a poignant note.

after i got out, i decided to walk back to holborn. it was 3pm, i was tired, and i had only had a muffin to quell the rumbling tummy. i needed hot food. (where's a hawker stall when you need one huh.)

i figured fleet street would have a mcdonald's somewhere, and lo an behold - somewhere half way down i found it. i had my order taken by a lady who started chatting to me. she asked me whether i was chinese, and i later found out she was too - a mainland chinese who was studying accounting and working at macca's part-time.

i shall end this frighteningly long entry by showing you a purchase i'm rather pleased about. thanks to daryl's pertinent reminder the other day, i'm now the proud owner of a pair of campers. (CUTE RIGHT?) summer sale some more, wheeeee. it helps greatly that the camper store is literally in my backyard. to a person with paddle-like feet, nothing quite beats finding shoes in my size and having no sales assistant blink when you ask for size 41 shoes. *grin*