being here at times it feels suffocating.

in london i could go outside. i would be alone, and i would feel a sense of emancipation. the largeness of nature, of the outside would swallow up everything else. there would be perspective to be gained, and escape.

it could be a vastness of green grass lined sparsely with trees. a solitary bus ride where the destination didn’t matter- only the journey did. it could be standing on a bridge over the thames. learning lessons from a plastic bottle being tossed about and displaced by the current, only to find that, really, nothing of significance has changed in the larger scheme of things.

but here one feels almost trapped. there is no larger space to which this intensity can dissipate.

here are some pretty random london pictures, most were taken using my handphone camera, during my last few weeks there.

this is lancer square, just off kensington church street. we pass by it on the number 70 every single sunday on the way to church and back, i’ve lost count of the number of times i’ve said to melissa that we should go there someday soon. it has a very very pretty entrance and facade, with a very red cafe rouge right by its main entrance. the arcade itself, in terms of shopping, leaves much to be desired. off the top of my head i can only remember starbucks as one of the tenants there. oh but i do love these uber-cute open-air shopping arcades so much! like this one on carnaby street, kingly court i think it’s called. it houses mainly independent labels, lots of vintage stuff too. very very charming.

strictly speaking the borough i live in is the royal borough of kensington and chelsea, but south ken happens to be on the border between the city of westminster borough and kensington borough. in the background, beyond the signboard, is the edge of hyde park. so we’re very central and yet it’s very green and leafy which i really like. i was feeling shutter-happy the day i took this picture.. was walking across the park to bayswater (something i very rarely do thanks to the aforementioned number 70) and it was such a gorgeously sunny day. london climate isn’t terribly generous with those, but when they do come, they come bedecked in their fullest glory. (=

the royal albert memorial. any more upclose and it won’t be so nice to look at anymore. the first thought that came to my mind when i saw it for the first time four years ago was, what is such a gaudy and awful looking thing doing amidst all these pretty red-bricked buildings (royal albert hall and its immediate surroundings). but i didn’t dare say so because i didn’t want to seem like i didn’t know how to appreciate a fine piece of art or something. haha.

and this is the very famous warwick avenue tube station!! haha. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, you probably haven’t heard the song by duffy (in which case you really should stop listening to whatever you’re listening to and start listening to the proper stuff! haha). a bunch of us made our way to east London on one of the weekday afternoons to see the canal and little venice. wes made us detour to warwick avenue tube station for this shot! sadly though, the spot wasn’t quite as poignant as the song had promised it would be, i think you can tell from the picture!

this is the millennium bridge across the river thames, i love the views from on the bridge. i also like that the bridge connects old london and new london, represented by st paul’s cathedral (which you can see in the background) and the tate modern on bankside, respectively. took this photo on the day i walked along the stretch of the river thames from the southbank centre to bankside. i am very very fond of this part of london. with its galleries, exhibition centres and theatres aplenty, there seems to always be a buzz of activity permeating the air, without being too busy or congested. there is no better way to wake up in the morning than to look out the window, see the lively crowds and feel like you can’t wait to go out there and begin the day yourself! there, it almost feels like it’s the weekend everyday.

we saw the remnants of 2007’s autumn in december, just outside beit hall. i love the changing of seasons, but unfortunately have never had the chance to experience summer mellowing into autumn. hopefully someday in the not-too-distant future…

jun and i went to see a free performance at the royal festival hall during the london jazz festival. the name of the band is five funky fellas, they play a very upbeat and funky brand of jazz, with african influences. there was a tuba player too, now how often do you see a tuba player in a jazz ensemble! the london jazz festival was definitely one of the highlights of my fourth year in london, this gig was only one of the many free jazz performances i got to see throughout the two weeks.

well, by now i would perhaps be stating the obvious if i were to say i’m missing london. i’ll be moving to kl next weekend to start work on the 1st of august, and i do wonder if i could fall so much in love with kl like i have with london. just reminiscing about london makes me want to wax lyrical all over again. but i think i’ll save that for another day.

in these my final weeks in london it seems i have at last come a little closer to living with the kind of abandon that has been absent from my life all along. i’m not too sure what it is a manifestation of – the need to prove myself to myself, the realisation of the irreversibility of age and time, or a quiet denial masquerading as something else.

and then i have shoved into a corner the things that truly matter. unlike with packing away my belongings into boxes to be shipped back home, i fail to compartmentalise and organise. and strangely enough i am deriving some sort of comfort from this haphazard scheme of things. i suppose it clouds out like a smoke screen the things i’d rather not face.

tate modern to see the street art exhibition
gelato place in south ken which even gordon ramsay recommends
jamie oliver’s fifteen since i can’t afford gordon ramsay
karaoke at 113
htb big summer sunday!
window-shopping at carnaby street
spitalfields and a snapshot of east london
606 club for the tribute to tom jobim night!
a stroll around little venice in maida vale
watch the sound of music
and agatha christie’s mousetrap
sip good coffee at ray’s jazz at foyles, with a good book in hand
southbank

will be striking things off the list as i complete them!

london i miss you already..

Perhaps the one thing I will miss most when I leave this place (besides the people) is summer. Don’t tell me it’s sunny and hot all year round in Malaysia – there is simply no comparison to be made, and as much as I love Malaysia, the tropical climate does nothing for me. Summer here is when people are friendlier, children livelier and everyone’s just generally more good-looking and well.. happy. Which makes me happy too.

I’ve been sitting here at my desk for far too long. Believe me, time CRAWLS when you’re indoors and you can hear children’s laughter, chatter and reggae music blaring from cars with their tops down. I am longing to feel the burning sensation of the sun’s rays on my nape again. It’s time for my exams to stop distracting me from enjoying this gorgeous weather! Think I shall go down the road to Pret and get me an early dinner. Laters. (=

the sun has melted every last drop of ice that fell to the pavement.

three-and-a-half years ago i stopped living vicariously through characters in stories and poems and movies. it was as much my dream as it is any starry-eyed child’s dream. and now, it is an apt closure.

because after all this time, this is the one quintessential thing that tells me i have made it here – that i really am here at last. here in this country where snow falls.

And this is a pause worth savouring, because the world will soon be complicated again.

-excerpt from if nobody speaks of remarkable things by jon mcgregor

It’s a lovely, lovely Saturday today. It is days like these – gloriously clear blue skies and a sun generous with its rays – that bring pangs of sadness when I realise I will be leaving this place for good, so soon. How I will miss watching London from the upper-deck of the Number 14, watching artists sit by their array of paintings along Green Park, people walking their dogs and joggers weaving through the strolling crowd on the sidewalks. The effect of good weather is felt so much more here in London than it ever is back home.

I’m writing because I figured if I don’t do it today, I won’t do it til the Easter break begins, which is more than a month from now. Final year design project has taken over my life of late, to say the least. This past week saw the completion of the Interim stage of our design project and that’s why we’re ever so slightly more laidback this weekend. It’s the first weekend in 5 weeks that I don’t have to be in uni at all! But then.. this is only the tip of the iceberg. The eye of the hurricane. The calm before the storm, as it were.

Expect this space to be a little lonely for the next six weeks or so. I know I’ve been very characteristically lousy at keeping in touch. It’s the only reason I’m resisting the urge to complain that playing one Scrabulous game after another doesn’t quite count as keeping in touch. d=

of course we’d never watched the new year’s eve fireworks together. our time together was up before the year was. in a cruel twist of events today i found myself tracing with my index finger our footsteps along those streets and paths we’d so many times ambled down together. past that intersection point between wardour street and piccadilly which was often the point at which we’d bid each other goodbye and go our separate ways, all of us. you and your flatmates on foot back across the river, and us on our number 14’s. later on things would change. traversing strand, we would somehow end up in front of charing cross station – i could never remember the way. it wasn’t very much further, but just so we could hold hands a little bit longer before i got on the tube, we would walk. some days we walked all the way back to the other side of the river. you’d ask if i’d like to walk along strand or embankment.

and i would invariably pick embankment.

which brings me to the fireworks. the ones we never saw together.

this year as i witnessed the lavish display on the tv screen, you crept into my thoughts again – unexpected and uninvited, as was always your style. in an uncanny way it is your absence that ultimately reminds me most of your presence. who knows when these jarring recurrences will cease? until then i will go on living from one maudlin recollection to another. until then fireworks will always only mean one thing.

It’s been one turkey, one leg of lamb and many mince pies ago since Christmas day and I am still feeling fatigued from the festivities. Yew Vern observed – and I couldn’t agree more – that I’ve grown a habit of going into stoning-mode after meals. I believe they call it food coma.

The up-side of it is that, looking back at photos, I think I’ve managed to regain some of the weight I lost over the past three months.

Hot chocolate with marshmallows, a couch and a tv are the perfect combination for lazy wintry nights like these. Last night Amal, Isya and Alvin Soosay slept over. We spent the night watching clips of dumb blondes/Americans/Malaysian ministers on Youtube, and playing Taboo into the wee hours of the morning.

BBC forecasts light snow on Thursday. I’m looking forward. (=