walking..covent garden & along south bank

last september (i know...i have been really lazy in posting new entries :p) i thought i'd go and visit one of my fave. places in London...the convent garden :)

why you  may ask, just cause...just cause it's where you will find the royal opera house and where you will find the royal ballet :p that's why :D

anyhoo the story for today is more of covent garden and a lovely walk along southbank..when i got there i got a treat with a nice display of ice sculptures of London's attractions (brought to you by smirnoff, in case you didn't see it in the photo :p)

the gherkin (maybe i'll take a photo of this..one day :p) it's basically a skyscraper in London's main financial district...the name refers to the plan's highly unorthodox layout and appearance (tidbit taken from wikipedia again :p)

below you will see the big ben clock...

and the london eye :) some of the other attractions i'm not too familiar with :p

i walked a bit more and did some window shopping or more like 'stall' shopping? anyway there were some nice knick knacks hand-made (that's what it says on their signs) that are really nice :) but as we don't really need additional 'junk' i just took photos (or the stalls that allowed for you to take photos, some of them doesn't like it when you take pictures and you buy nuthin :p)

after walking around a bit i thought i'd catch a bus and have a lovely walk along southbank..mind you it is september and the wind are starting to feel crisp and a bit cold (i dunno if i said that right oh well :p) but it was still a nice walk despite the cool weather...

the lovely canopy of trees made me think of my home...how pinoy's will just love places like these...young lovers holding hands and whispering loving thoughts...or friends just hanging out and spending some quality time...but most of all just an image of me spending a day there reading a book and enjoying the sights and sounds (like this man over here :p)

and i kept walking and stumbled on this creation...felt like i was in wonderland haha

especially when i stumbled into this bit of heaven... (ok ok, it may not be but it's pretty close for me :p)

under this bridge is the southbank book market of used books from really old to more current ones...i did say to myself i'll go back and get my new reads from there (when i have the budget to do so :p hehe)

after spending a lot of time browsing through the books i discovered some little thoughts on the benches :) 

this one made me want to sit down and ponder on things :p 

and the one below just simply made me smile :)

see, i reckon you just have to open your eyes and appreciate the little things in life..you'll discover things that are usually overlooked cause we're just too busy  :)

after taking a moment to ponder on things and breath the nice crisp air, my walking led me to this nice little cove of shops at southbank with some wood carvings in the middle of it :)

there was a small family with a young girl playing with the wood creations, i wanted to take a photo but was a bit scared her parents won't like it so i just made sure it's the wood i captured :)

these were just some of the creations with different shapes, figures or stories that was purely for design or something you can use like a table or a chair :)

after the wood creations i thought i'd capture the things that gives character to 'southbank/river thames' 

a lone bridge, unused but tells a story...

okidoki :) done with wondering what the history of this broken bridge is? that's how it was for me anyway, just looking at these things fires up my imagination on what they've gone through and that..ahh history :)

as we near the end of my walk i give you blackfriars bridge and my usual tidbit of facts...

Blackfriars bridge is the third bridge across the Thames in London which took 9 years to build and opened to public in 1769. This bridge serves as a supplementary to the ancient London Bridge and the Westminster Bridge. (again credit goes to wikipedia :p)

i sure hope you like our trip to southbank today...i leave you with a lovely photo on the other side of blackfriars bridge with London Eye :)

till next time! :)

a windy day in the museum

it was a very cold and windy day...

and so i decided to make the trek to a modern art museum...

across the millennium bridge i go...

into the massive building of tate modern...

to be continued...

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i know i haven't made a blog entry for a long time, to put it simply it's all because i've been lazy :p

i thought before i make another entry i want to make sure my photographs are 'prettier'

for a long time i've said i won't use photoshop too much but just the basic, and then i found the most amazing thing...photoshop actions! thus the photos from here on...

(above is a 'comic' transformation of my photos to tell a more entertaining story of my adventures, hope you like it)

(below is a more 'accurate' representation of the things i see in my explorations)

for those of you are harry potter fans this bridge might look a bit familiar, that's because it is in the movie when a bridge has collapsed this is that bridge. the millennium bridge.

you might also remember it from a blog post early on (our first day here in london).

i met up with adam for lunch and went straight to tate modern after that. it's just a few minutes walk from his office.

you will hear this advice from me again and again...museums this size should never be undertaken in just one day if you really want to appreciate it. 

get ready for a bit of history here...(credit goes to wikipedia)

The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. The building was converted by architects Herzog & de Meuron and contractors Carillion,^[3] after which it stood at 99m tall. The history of the site as well as information about the conversion was the basis for a 2008 documentary Architects Herzog and de Meuron: Alchemy of Building & Tate Modern. The southern third of the building was retained by the French power company EDF Energy as an electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).

alrighty that was probably a bit boring for you, for those not interested its pretty much a big building as originally it was a power station. now it holds more modern/contemporary art/pieces/installations... 

for those of you who are art enthusiast some of the names may be familiar to you such as Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko...and the list goes on...

personally i've never been that much of a lover of these kinds of works...but after my visit to the museum i can say it has definitely changed me in how i understand/see contemporary art...

comparing my visit to the national art gallery (again check my previous entries) where i felt in awe that what i am looking at has so much history and wonder what the paintings that hung there has gone through...

with tate modern, i left with so much emotions it was overwhelming...works which made me feel inspired, in awe, weirded out (trust me there some pretty weird stuff in there), disgusted, scared, freaked out...what i'm trying to say here is that no words can express what i felt there, you should really go and visit and see for yourself...maybe you'll feel the same way as i did or maybe you'll just say "huh?" and come out thinking that was a waste...

but even if you don't like 'contemporary art' or 'modern art' you would definitely like the view from the top of tate modern (As the photo above) specially on a good day :)

some have said it's a good place to be (as they have a restaurant on top) when the city welcomes the coming of the night and lights starts to come on...

if you want to look at/read more about tate modern here's a link for you... tate modern on wikipedia

and after a very emotional day, i spent the night at a really nice london pub 'blackfriars' with adam and his workmates :)

*side note about the pub... from pubs.com

This narrow wedge-shaped pub is jammed against the railway line at Blackfriars. It was built in 1875 near the site of a thirteenth century Dominican Priory, which gives the area its name and was the inspiration for the pubs design. The exterior of the building has jutting wrought iron signs for each bar and the pub's name is proudly displayed in mosaic tiles. 

[i promise to try to post more often :p i have so much backlog of posts/photos it's not funny hehe]

goodnight again!

i haven't posted for quite awhile...been lazy :p i will try to post soon


for now i bid you all goodnight :)


*view from our window of kings cross/st. pancras :)

back to our regular program :)

a few posts ago I mentioned something about buying skates, i was looking through my photos and i missed some pics of that day so I thought I'd post them here :)

when we were looking for skates (we started around lunch time) we eventually got hungry and thought to grab a lunch and have some chinese...where else but in London's very own chinatown! :)

it's not as big as Sydney's chinatown or even Manila's but it has all the signature of a 'chinatown' :D

after our yummy lunch of duck, dimsum, noodles and bbq pork we headed of to make our purchase (if you were paying attention before, we decided to get them from a store at picadilly. photo below)

for those of you who has watched bridget jones diary, picadilly was quickly shown there and of course London news (tv) and some other movies i have yet to discover :)

below adam got upset cause i slowed down (turned around) and took a photo of them, party poooper! hehe

but anyhoo because i've done a post about this before i though i'd include the more fun bit of this story....

us actually USING the skates for the first time hehe

that's amy, and below with adam doing their moves. they both were pretty good, got the hang of it after an hour or so

while i on the other hand was just stiff the whole time, didn't know how to stop so i had to try and catch a pole (more like run into a pole) to stop me from going all the way down the sloping road hehe

i think i'm more of a leisurely skater, it was really lovely that day. couples, kids, families out on the park with the warm sunshine :)

i had loads of fun just cruising around with my groovy skates and watching the sights go by :)

normally there's a road dedicated to skaters at hyde park but they closed it due to an event so we tried to share with the people who rides their bikes in the bike lane...after a few side shouts (this is a bike lane! watch it!) one of the guys on the bikes suggested we go to one of the other parks cause there's a bigger lane that we can skate on

we started walking towards kensington gardens we chanced upon this lovely cottage (can't remember the history of it now)

oh and of course here's us :)

more scenic areas trying to find the garden

at this point we all were starting to get REALLY tired, hauling skates on your back, after doing 2-3 hours of skating and LOADS of walking...doesn't really help with the everyone's mood

but somehow the beauty of the place helps lighten the load...here adam is trying to find the gardens with his new iphone :)

and finally we have reached kensington gardens...

this area is called the round pond which has been used since Victorian times to sail model boats and now a popular place to see water birds (taken from www.royalparks.org.uk). it was created 1726-1753.

perfect way to spend a lovely summer's day reading a book and enjoying the peace and quiet. *sigh

after a long (but fun) day of skating and walking we set off for home...kris & amy

adam & i :) see you on your next skating adventure! :D

Borough market

some lovely, yummy food from borough market :)

we originally planned to go to the tower of london today, but with my great planning skills i didn't research how to get there :p so we decided to do it another time and just shop around at the borough market

It's been there since the 13th century, it didn't look like it is now but has grown over the years as a testament of British' love for food.

here you can choose from a wide range of food, drinks and other stuff...

plants & flowers...

chocolates, fish market, meat market...

good bread, olives, olive oil...

fresh fruits & vegetables, organic food...

and lovely, lovely cheese...

this is definitely one of the places and things I'm going to MISS when we leave *sigh

for now we enjoy the good food and bought ourselves some yummy cheese, sausage, good bread, olive oil & vinegrette and wine :)

i love london! :)

toys, toys, toys :D

i've been dreaming of a polaroid sx-70, it's been so hard to get i've almost given up

and then i stumbled upon the polaroid back for a diana f+ so i thought i'll get that and the 35mm back of diana f+ as well...but because it's under the lomography umbrella they are way too commercialized and really expensive :p

lunch today i walked around spitalfields market (it's my fave. place now :D) thursday they sell antique stuff...and i found this stall that sells old/antique cameras

just my luck! :) it made my heart race and i couldn't believe how retro and old school they all are! unfortunately i forgot to take a camera that time, would've been so awesome to take some pictures! (such irony, sigh*)

why the fascination with old school cameras when all the brand new digital ones are out?...it's something new to me, everything now is instant, sharp, precise...i don't know, i just like the feel of old things, how the photos come out when you take them & the waiting for them to actually develop...we'll see how we go...

anyway, enough of that... here are my new toys :)

the first one is a polaroid land camera 1000

yes, yes...they have stopped making the film for polaroid cameras but at the end of the year with the 'impossible project' they're bringing back the polaroid films! :)

the second one is a pop-out camera...it looks really fun (and complicated) and i can't wait to play with this one!

a little trivia...these cameras were made in the 1936 to 1942 period by Balda-Werk of Dresden, Germany. The format of 3cm x 4cm provided a total of 16 exposures, but note that this format is different from the usual 4cm x 4cm superslide format.

and the grandfather of all lomos (so they say...)

Voigtländer is an optical company founded by Johann Christoph Voigtländer in Vienna in 1756 and thus the oldest name in cameras. It produced the Petzval photographic lens (fastest lens at that time: f/3.7) in 1840, and the world's first all-metaldaguerrotype camera (Ganzmetallkamera) in 1841, also bringing out plate cameras shortly afterwards. It set up a branch office in Braunschweig in 1849, moving its headquarters there later. The company issued stock in 1898, and a majority of the shares were acquired by Schering in 1925.

i can't wait to try them out!

and while i was taking photos of my toys, i thought i'd take one of the beautiful orchid that amy gave me for my birthday :)

i wish the blooms would last forever...

summer in london is really lovely i reckon :)

a walk around angel :)

There's this place they call Breakfast Club which apparently is really good...unfortunately they always have a long line to get in, it gets worse if you come around 10/11 (which is what we did :p) so we ended up just having bfast somewhere else...

here's the place...

walking around angel, disappointed we didn't get into the cafe...

above is a stall selling antique shops

more shops that sells knick-knacks and that

oh, and here is a failed photo of me cause the focus wasn't right (adam & I are still getting the hang of using the lomo so you will see a lot of not properly focused photos :p)

i like summer here in london, it's really nice :) here are flowers in the middle of the street

all photos taken by my lomo cam, my next few posts will be more lomo pics :)

picnic at hyde park

a while back amy & kris invited us for a picnic at hyde park

it was definitely a perfect day for a picnic :) we had fun just relaxing, talking and watching pro skaters do their moves (too much fun actually, story on this next time :p)

another first for both adam & i we saw a squirrel run past..next we'll try to bring some nuts :)

and whoever said london is nothing but miserable weather...summer here is pretty good :) so far :p

lovely day to buy skates :)

and because we had fun watching the skaters at hyde park..we though we'd buy some for ourselves! :p

it was a long day trying to find some good ones that we like...good thing it's such a lovely day

we started at oxford street, went to covent garden, then to picadilly circus and back to covent garden again

and finally we decided on which one to get and where to get it...more on this on the next post :)

Something really cheesy

Our video is taking a while to be completed and I thought I won't do a post on our wedding just yet until it's been finished...

But as I was listening to the song sung by a Filipino singer (Nyoy Volante) I thought I'd do my own clip of the photos we got from the wedding...

i had the time to kill, i wanted to try out this app Imovie (it's really cool, I love it) and I'm feeling a bit senti :p

I know it's cheesy and really corny but... oh well here it goes :)