The Wonderful, Tasty Burough Market

I wanted to devote a sole post to the beautiful, fantastic, mouth watering, lovely, awesome, crazy good Burough Market. Located in the London Bridge District, it is open Fridays and Saturdays, and boy, did we scope this place out. On our second day we went to this magical place, then, when we got back to London, we stopped by two more times! Why, may you ask, did we devote so much of our time and energy to this particular attraction? FREE FOOD SAMPLES.


Lots of fresh fruit and veg!




Cheese!


Yes, yes you did.


:-)


Yummy indian spices.


Cause you can't just have fish and chips . . . they must be proper, I say!


Cool.


Open wide!


I have just purchased a very expensive bottle of truffle infused olive oil. At 6 pounds for a tiny, itsy-bitsy bottle, it was definitely a splurge- but worth it. Fyi, though it was delicious and I enjoyed it, I found a bigger bottle for about $7 here in the states- maybe not as high quality, but still delicious, and I highly recommend trying some!

London: Part 1

This summer, I made my way to England with my ramblin' compatriot Tebben to visit with friends from our gap year (Tebben in Ecuador, mine in Cambodia) and explore this exciting and beautiful country. We went in mid-May for two weeks and had almost perfectly sunny weather everyday (very much contrasting the dreary English weather stereotype- guess we got lucky!). Since there is a lot to blog about, I decided to split the trip up into parts by city, starting with our first adventure in London. We only stayed for a two days upon arrival to England, but they were fun filled and we covered a lot of ground. We came back to London after exploring Oxford and Bath, so I'll make the next post Part 2, when we came back to London for another week, then parted ways, as I continued on to Germany and the Netherlands.

Also, some of the photos were taken by Tebb. You can check out her photo website at http://www.tebbenworld.com/Foto_Phables/Zoning.html. I'll put a provided by under her photos. She wants to be (but really, already is) a photojournalist and takes some way cool shots.


On the way to St. Peter's Cathedral with Lizzy, who I met in the wilds of Cambodia, who generously let us stay with her the first night :-).


My first proper english tea on the steps of St. Peters- black tea and milk, yum! I kind of got addicted over the course of two weeks . . .




Tate Modern- way cool exhibits.


. . . And way depressing/funny, too.


So much construction was going on for the upcoming Olympics 2012!


Yeah it is.


Cool book sale we found. One of Tebb's photos.


Double Decker bus! T's photo.


Feet :-). T's photo.


I have an addiction to tree hugging. T's photo.


Garden near Lizzy and Julian's (Lizzy's boyfriend) apartment in Richmond- so pretty! T's photo.



Tebb should have gotten it for the Royal Wedding- she would have fit right in.


?


The shard a.k.a. the ugliest creation known to man, according to Alex (Tebb's friend from her Ecuador trip). Also, the shard is supposed to be the largest building in London upon it's completion.



View from the top of a staircase at Kings College. It was a beautiful campus and Alex snuck us into the science building ("we're students we swear, just forgot the IDs" *cough cough*) and we saw preserved samples of human diseases- from deformed fetuses to lung cancer to giant penises- it was pretty cool and totally old school as they were in jars along old wooden shelves- it was like something you would see in an 18th century lab.


London Bridge.


Tebb and Alex in the underground.


Picadilly Circus.

 
We went to St. James Park for the afternoon before we heading to the bus station. It was a beautiful day and everyone wanted to enjoy it- especially these people who brought out their bean bag chairs!

 
Cool duck thing. Anyone know what it is?

 

 
Buckingham Palace- unfortunately we didn't have the time or desire to bother the guards that day.

Money, money, money . . .

   So before I start belting out ABBA lyrics, I'll write down some musings from work today:

   I feel so conflicted about cash. It has such high value in our society, yet it's just PAPER. People say you need it for security, but how can you rely on something that can be destroyed by a single tear, flame, or one good cycle in the washing machine?
   Money itself is not valuable. It's the value we put into it that makes it of value to us. It's value is man made- illusion.
   Even people who believe money is not the most important thing to them (including myself) believe that on some level it's necessary for things to function. But really . . . was money here when the world began to play it's game? It's such a recent, but powerful phenomenon.
   I love traveling, but I constantly get feedback that it's an expensive endeavor. But, even on "expensive" trips (like my one to Europe earlier this year) I managed to keep costs to a minimum, yet have an amazing time, everyday. Maybe quick fix vacations, though, are expensive because they are meant to be . . . meant to keep you on a system of punishments and rewards. "Hey, I've been working 50 weeks of the year doing something to earn money so I can blow it all now on these two weeks that are supposed to be pure relaxation and bliss- so, what's the easiest, most typical thing I can do?". . .
   Maybe, if you want to stay in the system, you DO need money, even if it's not a lot of money. But what if you want out?
   There's still so much to think about. There is still so much to experience.

   So, in my not-so-sure about money state, I looked up websites that catered to people looking to reach out and give without using money as a tool. So here's some stuff I liked:

WWOOF: World Wide Opportunities in Organic Farming http://www.wwoof.org/
   Work on organic farms around the world and you can stay there for free, meals included. You help the farm, they teach you sustainable farming. Awesome. I really want to do this soon . . . and by soon, I'm thinking SOON.

Couch Surfing http://www.couchsurfing.org/
   I've never tried it, but I think I definitely will one day. You basically contact people who offer their couch up to travellers for free. No strings attached.

Hitch Hike! I found a great article on hitch hiking a few years ago . . . I'll try and see if I can find it again.

Free Campsites http://freecampsites.net/
   Offers a directory of campsites you can stay at for free or very little cost.

Dumpster Diving and Freeganism http://freegan.info/
   Dumpster Diving is so much fun! I've done a bit this summer and it's been a blast as well as very fruitful. Our local Trader Joes throws sooooo much stuff out that is perfectly fine- I've gotten packages of veggies, melons, bananas, pre-packaged foods, salads, dips, flowers . . . it's pretty insane how much is thrown away that is perfectly good for consumption.

Freecyle http://www.freecycle.org/
   Awesome, awesome site.

Might add more soon . . . but these are all fun and useful sites I've found over the years that I definitely check quite often.

Cup Cake Fest!

Way back in June, I was purusing some baking blogs, when I found a link to Cupcake Fest. My oh my, how happy I was to find that this beautiful festival was happening only an hour and a half from home. So I called up my partner-in-cupcake, Maggie, and we drove down to Jersey with a twinkle in our eyes and a desire that could only be met by a worthy cupcake. And, oh, did we find a worthy cupcake (or, many, many worthy cupcakes, I should say). Only downer- the drive there ended up being 3 hours down and 2 back equalling 5 hours total! (Compared to the three it was supposed to be). Lesson learned: Never, ever drive through the city unless it's from 1am to 5am . . . and even then I give you my blessing.
Oh, and here's the link to cupcake fest; it was pretty awesome!: http://www.cupcakefest.com/


Sweet Avenue Bake shop- they were the one who sponsor the event-- and they are vegan too :-)!


So after our 3 hour ride, we kind of looked at the festival, then walked down the road to a sushi joint. Man were we HUNGRY! And this veggie sushi (avocado, mixed veggie, and japenese squash- which is ridiculously good, we found out) brought us back to life.


Maggie digging in.


Hey there!


So. Beautiful.




Cool band called Bern and the Brights- they were pretty spectacular.


YAY! Fun! Yum!

NYC

The city that never sleeps. Grasshopper and I took the train in one Sunday to wander around and support our friends perform their second show! Jenny, Carlos, Ricky, and Charles (aka Canue) put on an awesome performance. We also got to listen to some great hip hop after their show. For some reason I neglected to take pictures of the performances (perhaps because drinks started coming out almost immediately ;-) but I'll try to get some for a later update.


Curious George spotting on the way to the train station!


Chris decided to take his shirt off because it was too hot . . . then a bunch of cheerleaders pleaded from their carwash post for him to put it back on . . . harsh.


Geico now apparently has sky advertisements . . . fucking ridiculous.



The nuthouse a.k.a. a place with too much testosterone.


Woman and man tailors . . . too bad they only have two customers.


Peace mon.


We found the dinosaur! On the train, I told Chris I really wanted to have a dino day . . . either go the the museum and check out the exhibit or anything we could think of dino related. This mural made my day.


Dumplings! We were hungry when we got to Saint Mark's place- the alternative, punk area of nyc- if you want to get a tat in the city, you only have 20 places to choose from here.




Hungry!!


Yum yum buddah delight.


TKettle in St. Marks- apparently the best boba in the city. It was pretty baller; I got red bean tea with boba and Chris ordered honeydew but ended up with honey green tea . . . still pretty baller, we recommend.


Goofing off on the ride home.