Like most cities that are cold enough to have outdoor ice skating rinks (unlike Brisbane), every year London sets up ten or so different ice rinks in various locations with the most popular including the Tower of London, Somerset House and the one situated in front of the Natural History Museum. Each session is limited to an hour, and even though they operate from early in the morning until 10 at night, with the sheer amount of people in London it can be quite hard getting tickets the week you want to go. Yesterday I ended up going ice skating at the rink situated in Greenwich, a perfect location smack bang in the middle of the Royal Navy Academy.

Everyone’s ice skating boots are blue, shiny and look extremely new and even have a little bit more of an edge than other places I’ve been to, but like most hard shelled boots can still cause a little discomfort. The ice skating rinks are not the biggest in the world, so really the most dangerous things you have to be aware of are the other ice skaters.

Our session was not as packed out as it could have been, but you certainly had the regular types of skaters in attendance including The Moving Wall (a series of people linked by the hands ready to take anyone out in their way), The Centipede (a line of people behind one another with one person who can actually skate dragging everyone else along), The Indestructible Child ( that kid that keeps falling over but just gets back up over and over again, this time even equipped with a helmet), and The Ice Walkers (those people that don’t go anywhere fast but there’s plenty of leg movement).

Outdoor ice skating rinks are fantastic when its cold and Christmas music pipes through the air. It is a completely different experience and even if you can’t skate, it’s quite something to stand amongst everyone and just take in your surroundings (while having a good laugh at yourself). I think I wouldn’t mind trying one of the other ice skating rinks if I can manage to get a ticket.

In May this year, Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of virtual band Gorillaz won the ‘Designer of the Year Award’. While refurbishment of Royal Festival Hall is underway, an exhibition showing a mural of his band’s characters is up until February 2007. The series is not large but some of the artwork is nicely detailed and quite large.

If you’re in London I suggest taking a look if you’re in the area, or check the rest of them out here.

On Tuesday, my team and I finished our second and final phase of my current project, so what better way to celebrate with the customer than by visiting the Absolut Ice Bar? The inside ice bar looks like a very trendy freezer maintaining a cool -5 degrees Celsius and loaded with various furniture and sculptures all made of ice. The drink concoctions are created out of Absolut vodka and more colourful liqueurs and dispensed to you in large glasses also made of ice. Thankfully it’s easy to stay in the cold for the limited session of 40 minutes since you’re given a warm furry poncho-like coat equipped with a gloves and a warm hood.

The outside bar is as trendy as the actual ice bar, equipped with modern decor and funkily lit tables. Their drinks menu offers a limited selection of beers but makes up for it with its extensive range of spirits, martini and cocktail mixtures all at equally trendy London prices. We had a fantastic night out on the town and though it’s not an every weekend experience, I think the Ice Bar has a lot going for it.

London’s temperature has dropped significantly over the last few weeks and I can’t help but think that the end of summer is truly gone. Thankfully yesterday’s weather was quite good despite the cold temperatures with generally cloudless blue skies and so I thought it would be nice to take a trip out to the London Zoo. I have heard many great things about the zoo so it was off to Camden for the morning.

The Zoo is nestled inside Regent’s Park with the entrance walking distance from the Camden Town tube station. The zoo is not as big as many other ones around the world, but considering where it is located and the number of animals they have on show, it still occupied a good part of the day and you could easily spend more time here if you lazily walked around.

We managed to see almost all of the animal enclosures and I think that next time I would skip the Aquarium part, especially considering it is nothing like Underwater World back home, or that the London Aquarium is on the other side of town.

I really enjoyed the caterpillar-shaped butterfly enclosure that was filled with so many of them that more often than not a butterfly would land on you. The pink flamingos were also quite a nice site, and even more so, the strangely pink-tinged White Pelicans (who apparently turn pink in spring).

The zoo even has a couple of native Australian animals such as the Kangaroo and the Emu, but like at most zoos I’ve been to, the Kangaroo was simply nestled comfortably in one corner of the ground soaking up some rays.

They also run a number of shows throughout the day, and we caught the ‘Animals in Action’ one where we could see animals doing all the things that they normally do, including a South American Macaw, a Vulture, a number of rats, and a Lemur. Each of the animals involved obviously looked extremely well trained with a couple of them even really taking to all the attention and the limelight of the stage.

The trip to the day was a great thing to do when you’re in the middle of London and feel like escaping all the people (though be prepared to be surrounded by screaming or crying children instead). There’s even in the middle of building the Gorilla enclosure that will be finished in 2007 sometime which is already looking quite impressive.