Tate Modern

Patrick London To Do, UK Life

After having a delicious breakfast at 202 again and meeting up with Kath from Oxford, we went to visit the Tate Modern down at Southbank. It is a huge warehouse building directly opposite the Millenium bridge and located next to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. Entry is free except ot some special exhibits, but the rest of the collections are free to view. The gallery shows some interesting collections such as the Embankment structure by Rachel Whiteread pictured below.

Tate Modern

Other collections were a little disappointing to me, but mainly because they were far too abstract for me to understand or even try to understand. A good example is one in which red paint was “violently” thrown at a canvas so that it would achieve some message which I couldn’t quite get immediately out of a canvas simply covered in red paint. My most favourite of the collection was the Andy Warhol room that showed a number of his works (including the Elvis Presley and Jackie Kennedy ones) and described his interesting motivations behind them.

The V&A Museum and the National Portrait Gallery

Patrick London To Do, UK Life

Victoria and Albert Museum

I ventured out to visit the Natural History Museum at South Kensington today but the drab wet weather the long queues that formed outside made me decide that the wait was not worth it. Instead I took the opportunity to cross “Museum Lane” to the side that houses the Victoria and Albert Museum. This museum displays probably one of the largest collections of decorative arts including contemporary and historic, and just like most other museums in London entrance is free.

The museum itself houses apparently 146 different galleries and regularly hosts a number of seminars discussing various topics in contemporary art. The building itself is massive composed of several floors each with different parts displaying various works such as ceramics, glass, metalwork, furniture, photos and paintings. Though some of the selections are not always relevant or functional, many of them you would still appreciate as being impressively decorative.

After a while of walking around I caught the tube and visited the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery is yet another free institution most well known for the large collection of busts in paint, picture of photos on display. Its prime location between Trafalgar Square and Leceister Square makes it extremely popular and definitely worth the visit. Being Britian’s national gallery, you should find it no surprise that many of the busts inside are mainly English people. On the first floor that I visited there was a eerily life-sized portrait of Dame Judi Dench and even more amazing 3D display of JK Rowling (the author of Harry Potter) in a setting that truly looked life like. Of the exhibitions that I visited, I definitely enjoyed the “Look at Me” the most. This exhibition was commissioned and took a close look at the lives of teenagers from around England, some of which were predictably amateurish but others that were both powerfully relevant and presented magnificently.

A Visit to Leeds Castle

Patrick Travel, UK Life

Leeds CastleThanks to the great organisation prowess of Laura, I got to visit Leeds Castle today with a great bunch of people including Team BaM, Jamie, David, Laura and so many others. It was officially my first visit to a castle of any kind and I found it surreal walking around on the grounds all day and enjoyed the good but albeit frosty English winter day.

Despite its name, Leeds Castle is not at all associated with the city of Leeds that lays north west of London. Instead this historic building was named after the village of Leeds in Kent with the closest major city being Maidstone. The trip is excellent with an hour and half coach trip departing from Victoria, dropping you off, and picking you up at the bottom of the castle grounds. I highly recommend you book in advance, as it is a popular destination for locals and visitors alike.

The castle itself is surprisingly small, surrounded by on all sides by a lake and only accessible on one side through its bridge. The castles grounds are massive and are home to a fantastic aviary and falconry, a decently sized hedge maze and grotto, a vineyard, a unique but bizarre dog collar museum and the rolling green parklands, some of which visitors use as a golf course.

After first meandering through the castle looking at some of the lavish decorations and richness of recreations of room settings we spent a bit of time in the aviary. The last former owners apparently established the most exotic British collection of birds that the caretakers maintain even today. Birds form all over the world fill the 40 something cages, providing a closer look at some amazing birds including the majestic toucan, colourful macaws, noisy galahs and cockatoos. There is even a demonstration that involves the number of birds kept in the falconry, displaying their flying and hunting abilities. The hedge maze was probably my most favourite part of the day, as we split into several groups and attempted to race each other to the middle of the maze where its grotto is. All in all, a fantastic day and visit to another part of England.

More pictures can be seen if you click on the picture above or here.

When Kiwis Invade…

Patrick UK Life

A View From my Room I think that today most people around London, both locals and tourists are going to be puzzled after witnessing hundreds, if not a couple of thousand of New Zealand people descending on pub after pub at every single station along the circle line. It was certainly the last place I thought I would find myself after trying to catch up with a kiwi friend of mine.

The Circle Line Pub Crawl is an infamous event occurring only once each year on the weekend closest to the 6th of February, also celebrated as Waitangi Day for New Zealanders. Although no one seems to know the entire history of this event, the rules are fairly well known. *Only* the circle line shall be taken in an anti-clockwise fashion for up to the full 27 various stops along the circle line. Half pints and shots are acceptable as alternatives to full pints during the 12 hour ride (for those with stamina at least anyway). You cannot hold onto anything whilst riding the line and everything is all about having fun. Another part of this tradition is the 4pm gathering outside Westminster where a crowd of up to 5000 New Zealanders congregate to perform a haka.

Not wanting to entirely crash the party, I hung around for a few stops along the circle line but not before it got entirely messy at certain places. I think the pictures posted speak for themselves.

More chaos

Two-oh-Two!

Patrick Restaurants, UK Life

202 Westbourne Grove

Westbourne grove is a trendy street in Notting Hill, stretching from Ladbroke through to Bayswater and crossing Portobello Road, most famous for its diverse markets. This street is a joy for strolling along, with wide paths that are relatively quiet for the area and filled with dozens of nice stores and cafes. One of the more kitsch places to visit on a Saturday or Sunday is 202 Westbourne Grove, a place that is both a fashion store and café in one.

The polished wood floors host the decently numbered marble and wood topped tables that are all set in the back half of this large store. They have a nice garden out back, filled with six tables as well as the sidewalk tables out the front of the store, under the terrace and Italians heaters that people no doubt enjoy the most during the summer months. Depending on what time you arrive, you are most likely to be waiting for a table, particularly if you are with a party more than two, but fortunately our party of four (consisting of Karl, Caroline, Nathan and myself) managed to beat the busy lunch period and secured ourselves a table within ten minutes of arriving.

The brunch menu is simple with no more than, maybe, eight different choices that you can also compliment with a number of sides. The items are modern breakfast dishes and you pay standard prices for them (up to about £8), as is the decently made coffee at £2.50. The prices for the juice and bottled water on the other hand, are especially steep with a large (i.e. standard tall glass) OJ costing you a hefty £4.24 and a 750ml bottle of water costing you just over £6. The 12.5% service charge is actually quite worth it in this place, with the white shirted and jeans clad staff being prompt and efficient without the over bearing or intolerable attitude you can find at just as trendy cafes. Take for instance, my situation this morning when I accidentally spilt a little bit of my coffee onto my plate of French toast and extremely tasty bacon. Although the incident was not too loud, a staff member upon witnessing the incident promptly offered me a napkin to soak up the coffee and a clean plate for me to transfer my now, slightly soggy toast. It was a lovely way to spend the morning and fill up on food for the day.

TheKua Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Happy Chinese New Year

Patrick Restaurants, UK Life

Al is having a brief visit, and what better way to welcome him to London than to take him to the heart of the Chinese New Year celebrations in Chinatown. Ben, Michelle and my sister accompanied us to tuck into a great dim sum feast, even though it took us a long time queuing to get a table. Service was poorer than normal because of the crazy number of people that just continually flowed through the restaurant’s doors but was made up for easily by the traditional dancing lions entering the restaurant to bring good luck to the place.

Chinese New Year

The Longest Running West End Play

Patrick Theatre, UK Life

The Mousetrap

Last night, Kath and I watched Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” play at St Martin’s Theatre. London has been showing this play since 1952 and it is the longest running one out of all west end plays.

The story is a combination of elements to form a typical Agatha Christie murder mystery – a guest lodge isolated from the rest of society by deep snow drifts, filled with guests, most anticipated and another who turned up out of the blue. There is a murderer on the loose and a policeman shows up predicting the murder of two more people, both linked somehow to the person who was murdered the previous day. A character finds the phone line cut and tension builds as the play slowly unveils a common thread linking several of them together in these suspicious circumstances. As per predictions, another of the characters finds one of the members of the household murdered and further hostilities ensue, as each member’s potential for being the murderer is uncovered.

The play introduced each character marvellously and you get a strong idea of the nature of each character very early on. The entire cast performed brilliantly in each of their roles, with perhaps the only misgiving being the stronger English accent coming from the man that was supposed to be Italian. I could not guess the ending of this play, and in true murder mystery fashion, can also not give it away. The Mousetrap is a legend on London’s west end and despite being the butt of many jokes and comics is definitely worth watching when you get a chance.

The Kua.com Rating: 9 out of 10