A warm Halloween Saturday - the day before daylight savings kick in

Korean Lunch

Ten of us had a sumptuous Korean lunch at a traditional Korean restaurant off Tottenham Court Road. The food was good, the company was good, the price was good (only 7 pounds, considering the variety we had). And it always amazes me how the ang-mohs will persistently learn how to use chopsticks correctly, whereas our generation of Chinese (or younger) doesn’t really care so much. The Caucasians are really interested in Chinese culture, or Asian culture in general. Ricaldo was desperately learning how to use the chopsticks from me, without much success obviously. But it was still heart-warming to see how our culture can evoke the interests of so many people in a country miles and miles away. And then, we had a traditional Italian dessert (more specifically, it’s dessert from Sicily), with courtesy of Ricaldo’s girlfriend who brought it all the way from Sicily. So it’s like a cultural exchange, really nice.

National Portrait Gallery

Next, three guys had to head back home to work. So, the seven of us left decided to go to the National Portrait Gallery for some culture immersion. The weather was really nice and warm; the sun was bright and sunny, atypical of autumn weather. We didn’t even need a jacket to roam around on the streets. We spent about 3 hours in the gallery, good portraits as well, which includes both classic and contemporary works which gives a good overall impression of British history. It’s surprising how David Beckham is in as well. Anyway, it’s one more museum off my must-visit-museums list now. Hopefully, I’ll have the time to go to Tate Britain and Tate Modern soon.

Halloween

Then we headed back home for dinner, which was very different from the normal dinners. We had dinner in the dark, with eerie music and skeletons hanging around the dining room. And of course, we had the pumpkins as well. Yah, it’s the annual Halloween (actually it’s the eve)! We didn’t dress up in weird costumes for dinner though.

Quartet Concert

After dinner was a quartet concert, which was again really impressive. The performance was fantastic, so did the red wine at the reception. I exerted control on myself this time round, so I had only three glasses (it was two in the first place, Yoichi instigated me to have another one). :p

Hampstead Crepes (again!)

Antonio and I felt hungry after the concert and wine, so naturally we need food to satisfy our hunger, and Hampstead crepes naturally came to mind. So off we walked to the Hampstead creperie atop the little hill. And man, this was the first time I saw such a long queue, maybe it’s because it was Saturday night, so we queued for 40 minutes before it was our turn to order (at 1130 pm!!!). I had a Banana Maple Cream Dream, which was incredibly delicious. This was my fourth Hampstead crepe for the week, by the way. I had Banana Rum in Dark Belgian Chocolate, and Lemon & Sugar on Friday, and Crepe Complete on Thursday. I’m half way through to trying all the 20 odd crepes they have on the menu. Yah, I’m that crazy about Hampstead crepes now, having it once every few days. Well, before I had Hampstead crepes, I thought the crepes at Marche were good, now I think the Marche crepes are crap really. Hampstead crepes aren’t famous without reasons. And oh yah, I was told the Hampstead crepes at the South Kensington branch were crap as well, though I haven’t tried them myself. So, I guess the original is still the best.

Daylight savings

Lastly, it is the time of the year to adjust our clocks and watches by an hour again. For the next six months or so, the time difference between London and Singapore will be eight hours, instead of seven. We’ll have shorter days and longer nights in winter soon, which I really detest. Anyway, it’s time to do some constructive work after the day off yesterday, so that I’ll be able to go to Paris next week without feeling guilty.