Author Archives: Grace

Tay Do Cafe

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Its been a long time since I’ve had me some Vietnamese. Proper Vietnamese that is. I loooove the Vietnamese grilled pork and there’s no better place for Vietnamese in London than in East London. I met my brother for a meal at Old Street. There are an abundance of Vietnames restaurants in the one street so we went to one I’d not been to before – Taydo Café. Its pretty casual so don’t let its façade and the initial impression put you off. It delivers where it counts – taste and value for money!

Service was a bit hit and miss – friendly when we got it but a bit lacking in terms of checking back with us and very relaxed!

We ordered way too much tonight and as a result I’m struggling with a very painful stomach now … not that I regret it too much. Food was delish.

Bank Holiday in Lakes District

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Traditionally I dislike traveling away from London on bank holiday weekend – I think its something to do with the whole hassle of trying to get out of London along with tens of millions of other people. However, when Rita suggested a weekend getaway to the Lakes District I found myself saying yes straight away! I love the Lakes District even though technically I’ve only been there like once and the one other time I tried to get up there we were flooded before we could even get within a hundred miles … or something like that anyway! Initially we had a few people up for the trip but by the time the bank holiday weekend rolled around we were down to Rita, Laney and I. I could have been due to the fact the weather was not looking to promising as we were apparently leaving the sunny and good weather behind in London for once!

Friday Night

Rita and I decided to take an early-ish train up to the Lakes which left London sort of mid-afternoon and arrived in Windermere just about dinner time. If there is one hint for train users is that you must make sure you reserve your seats on the train for any long-distance travel such as this, especially on a bank holiday weekend if you can get away with it, otherwise you will end up fighting for a seat or even fighting for a spot on the ground!

After checking in to our B&B we took a short stroll to find somewhere for dinner. There were a few places that caught our eye but we ended up at Francine’s which on one of the main roads. Interestingly it was probably one of the most posh restaurants in Windermere with the food being unexpectedly sophisticated.

After dinner Rita and I decided to try and make our way down to the Lake though we had no idea which direction to walk. We’d actually hired a car for the weekend but as it was a manual neither of us could drive it! Ha ha! Well, we kind of got side-tracked trying to find the Lake and ended up at our hire car instead trying to start it and get it moving. Fair to say we were lucky to have moved the car even a couple of inches and that was probably more from momentum than anything. I don’t know how many times we started and stalled the car but it sure had us cracking up with laughter. Laney was due to arrive an hour or two after we’d finished dinner and do you know where she found us? Yes – still in the car park trying to get the car moving! Rita was well miffed that between the two of us we couldn’t get the car started without stalling! It really was a funny way to spend an evening!

Saturday

We’d picked up like a million brochures to find out what you can do in the Lakes District. We certainly new we wanted to do activities which were fairly active but the weather wasn’t exactly co-operating. Lots of grey sky and plenty of rain promised. A lot of people come to the Lakes District for walking but due to a combination of aforementioned weather and the other activities we ended up doing the most walking we did was the “climb” up Orrest Head which, at 784 feet above sea level, is not high at all but also not to be laughed at with sweeping views of the Lake District Fells, Lake Windermere, Morecambe Bay and the Pennies. It was a very easy 20 minutes walk to the top. Hardly comparable with Scafell Pike! Still, it was the best we could do with our limited time and the not so great weather.

Our big highlight for Saturday was the horse riding with Cumbrian Heavy Horses! The last time I went horse riding must have been in Iceland when Sandra and I took the Viking Horses for a ride. More pony than horse they were a lot different to the Clydesdales we were riding. For a start I had to climb up on this giant stool (for which I nearly needed a separate step itself to get up on to it!) just to even get my foot near the stirrup!

I was amazed to hear the history of the horses that were with Cumbrian Heavy Horses – most of them actually travelled over 400 miles from Scotland in what they call the Great Clydesdale Migration! On foot! It took like nearly a month I think. Amazing.

Although trained horses all our horses had quite distinct personalities – my horse Ben was a bit of a follower. He was happy to always be up near the lead but liked to follow the other horses, like our trip leader Robin’s horse. Though ironically for a follower Ben would often speed up whenever he sensed any other horse taking him over. Rita’s horse Gypsy seemed pretty independent and keen to take off . On the other hand Elaine had, if not trouble controlling her horse, had trouble getting Rocky to move! Apparently Rocky was a bit of a loner in the stable and would often be bullied, can you imagine, by the other horses!

Robin was a great trip leader. It was obvious he really loved the horses and he gave some really good advice to teach us to ride our horses. We rode for over two hours though mainly walking with trots now and then. Rita and I actually got Gypsy and Ben to get into a gallop when we found some wide open spaces. The most painful bit of the ride was actually when we were going through bushes of berries. It was a very narrow passage and whilst the blackberries I think they were, were delicious, the thorns were sharp and strong enough to get through our thick jeans!

The funniest moment was when we stopped to water the horses near a field of cows and we came across a few horny cows – they were mounting right in front of us! I thought all cows were female! Just goes to show my ignorance of animal anatomy I guess. It was well amusing to us city folk.

The only drawback to taking the horses out – stinking of them afterwards! And the promise of pain tomorrow … LOL.

After the horse riding we were pretty worn out if I’m to be honest but we headed over to Ulverston and from there searched for a beach or some sort of water. But we got lost (mainly because we couldn’t get a sat nav signal) and couldn’t find it and then Elaine was just driving around trying to get us back home when we stumbled upon it. Tell me if you think it was worth the search … heh heh.

We still had some daylight by the time we got back to Windermere and Elaine suggested that we get into the car park and practise driving a manual car. She was AMAZINGLY patient with us but I’m pleased to say that I actually managed to get the car into third! Though I could hardly I have mastered manual driving I am much closer now than I was from the Friday night attempt! We were all dying of laughter though because of firstly our captive audience (there was a worker in an office just off the car park who actually left her desk to come stand at her window to watch us drive in circles around the car park …) and secondly when we saw the car park gates shut on us! We thought we were trapped! Luckily there was an exit round back …

Sunday

Sunday proved a little on the wet and a little windy so we designated it museum day. We had planned on visiting quite a few of them actually but only ended up at one – the Pencil Museum! (And though the Car Museum promised to be a cool museum we didn’t go into it because we couldn’t take photos inside! Ha ha!) We were also supposed to be going to a Michelin starred restaurant for lunch but turns out smart jeans would just not get past the dress code plus it ended up being miles and miles drive away which would have interrupted our important museum time. 😉

The Pencil Museum was shall we say actually a brief visit to the museum itself (the main highlights for me were the biggest pencil in the world and the video showing how pencils are actually produced) however we spent a looooong time in the drawing room of the shop attached to the Museum. Heaps of fun. I haven’t drawn, or technically, coloured in since I left Australia over five years ago! I must bring my sketchbook back out again.

The rest of the day was basically spent driving around. We dropped in to Grasmere to pick up some of their legendary gingerbread and a quick visit to the Wordsworth family graves and then we drove all the way to the other side of the Lakes District to Kendal to get to the Chocolate Shop. To Rita’s disappointment it was shut. 🙁 All that was left really was to grab a late lunch … which turned into our dinner too as once got back to our room from Kendal we ended up settling in for the night with Rita and I playing a hilarious game of travel jenga!

Monday

Monday’s weather didn’t prove to be much better than any other day but the activity we lined up for our last day in the Lakes was gorging. Since we’d be in the water anyway it didn’t matter if it rained! The company we were doing the gorging with was High Points and the guy taking us up the gorge was Alyn Griffiths, the founder of the company (I sense its still growing.)

Alyn was fantastic! Patient and really good at taking care of us to make sure we didn’t get swept down the gorge. Gorging or gorge walking, for those that don’t know, basically involves walking up a gorge or a small canyon. It involved some diving, lots of slipping and sliding and also tackling a lot of white water. We even got to sit under a mini waterfall! Because of the rains the gorge was heavy with rapids and it was very fast-moving. It was good we had our wetsuits, fleeces and waterproofs on as it would have been freezing otherwise.

We walked for a couple of hours and managed to do about two miles of I think it was called Tilberthwaite Gill which doesn’t sound like much but the journey was very hard work. A heck of a lot of fun though! Then, ridiculously I thought, we actually climbed up out of the gorge and up to the top of one of the surrounding peaks to finish it off. It was kind of scary because were were up in the grass which came up to our chest and the trails were unmarked and most definitely not fenced. All said it was a good all body work out – someone’s going to be well sore and bruised tomorrow … I’ve already got a shiner developing on my knee from slipping over so many times.

The only task left for the Monday was making our way back to London. Unfortunately delays on the trains for all sorts of reasons (including cows on the lines, trains hitting other trains, trees on the line not to mention the giant storm and lightning going on a the same time!) meant we were stupidly delayed getting back. It almost felt like I was in an episode of the Amazing Race with everyone running around trying to be on any train getting back to London. Train after train after train was delayed. In another example of the world being small I ran into Catherine at the station! Finally, we got on to a train direct to London and so many people had been disrupted and displaced that though we ended up in first class we ended up camping on the floor! At least we had the whole space to ourselves … and luggage and Junior – this cute toy poodle.

This weekend proved that you don’t need good weather to have fun – just a good attitude and good company. I have to give a shout out to Elaine though for driving us around the whole weekend.

HK Diner

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It was time for another duck date with Sandra – tonight’s venue was HK Diner – mainly because I was desperately craving a black sesame milkshake. Sandra didn’t care where we went to as long as we could have duck pancake!

The duck at HK Diner wasn’t too bad but the star of the duck pancakes was the sauce. It was really good! We didn’t get that many pancakes with our half duck though so we ended up with a bundle of duck and zucchini etc. left over. Not that it stopped us from almost practically licking up all the duck … heh heh.

The black sesame milkshake at HK Diner wasn’t as good as I remember the one at Cafe de Hong Kong being but it was still pretty delicious. It was clear that many people who came to HK diner were coming for the drinks and the cheap quick meals. Sandra and I must have been a bit unusual as we went the whole starter and mains – they’ve probably never seen a table eat so much! LOL.

Royal Day Spa with Sandra

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Royal Day Spa in Tunbridge Wells was apparently voted best day spa in the UK by the Professional Beauty Awards 2009 and shortlisted for the West Kent Business Excellence Awards 2009 in the Tourism and Leisure category. Rewards are well and good but there is nothing like an actual experience which allows you to judge how good a spa is.

As I mentioned in an earlier post Sandra gave me a day at the Royal Day Spa for my birthday. It also included a 55-minute treatment which involved a Ko Bi Do facial and hot stone back massage. Use of the facilities at Royal Day Spa is called a confusing “Royal Password.” Basically a Royal Password gives you full use of the spa facilities throughout the day – facilities which include a gym, a pool, a sauna, a steam room, a jacuzzi, and bedroom with a giant bed!

In addition to the facilities the Spa also offers a number of classes throughout the day but as we went on a Sunday the morning classes (there are normally three or four offered) were replaced by a Brunch! So instead of working out we got to sit around on giant beanbags and indulge in orange juice, pastries, toast and cereal … even if we’d already had a not fried fry up for breakfast. Ha ha!

We thought that we’d spend the whole day at the Royal Day Spa so we booked our treatments for the end of the day and arrived at Tunbridge Wells for about 10.30. In hindsight this was probably a bit longer than we needed at the spa but at the time it felt extremely relaxing indeed.

So, this is how our day looked at the Royal Day Spa: Brunch, Swimming, Jacuzzi, Sauna, Swimming, Jacuzzi, snooze in the Bedroom, Brunch, Swimming, Jacuzzi, Steam Room, Swimming, Jacuzzi, snooze in the Bedroom, Sauna, Jacuzzi, shower, Gymball class, 55-minute treatment. Or something to that effect. Basically we ended up using most facilities a few times each! Heh heh.

We spent most of our time in the Jacuzzi which was moor mud infused whatever that means. It wasn’t literally filled with mud but clearly had the benefit of the minerals from the moor mud and was meant not only to be relaxing but help with your skin. We loved it! The other thing we fell in love with was the bedroom – I have never lain on anything so perfectly comfortable. The mattress was soft and hard at the same time. I could have slept there all day.

The great thing about the Royal Day Spa is the fact that it was never overly crowded. I understand that there are local members who come here to use the facilities like it was their local gym but they were few and far between today. At any one time there was only ever a few people in the people, a few in the Jacuzzi, a couple in the steam room/sauna and a few in the bedroom and as we all sort of moved in a routine circular manner you never had to wait really to use whatever you wanted to. Overall the most people I saw an any one time was probably eight – and that was in the pool room which had the pool, the Jacuzzi, the sauna and the steam room!

Although our treatment was not a full body massage the hot stone massage combined with the facial was amazing. I don’t think I’ve ever had a deeper more satisfying massage of my back. Not unexpectedly I think I fell asleep halfway through it! The strange thing was that my masseuse didn’t really exert that much pressure yet it felt like a very deep massage. Once we were done it was all I could do to stand up! And by the time I got home I was ready for bed though I’m thinking that was a combination of the whole day and the treatment.

The Royal Day Spa wasn’t perfect – for example we were supposed to have a half hour gymball (or fitball) class but our instructor was about 15 minutes late and as we had a treatment soon after the class we only fit in about ten minutes. However, that’s not to say it wasn’t challenging. He had us doing all sorts of things which I’m keen to try out … if only I had space for a giant fitball in the shoebox! I also thought the changing rooms were a bit small and not particularly well laid out. If there were more than four women in the changing rooms (which strangely happened quite a lot) it got quite crowded. Oh, yea, they only give you one towel for the day. We’re not sure if you could have requested more but water got absolutely everywhere – which could have been avoided if they’d at least given you two towels – one for the pool and one for your shower.

Otherwise it was a lovely way to spend the day.

Julian’s not fried fry up

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Nothing I loooove more than a cooked breakfast. This morning, before we set off for the Day Spa, we had a bit of a not fried fry up – something that came out of one of Julian’s triathlon mags:

Tasty!

Preparations for a Day Spa

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For my birthday Sandra surprised me with a day spa at the Royal Day Spa in Tunbridge Wells. Being in Tunbridge Wells Sandra thought it would be better if I stayed overnight with her and Julian so we could set off early tomorrow morning for the drive. She promised me a delicious, and filling, dinner which she delivered on both counts! It was a lovely Prawn and Asparagus Risotto. She piled so much on to our plates that I couldn’t even finish my meal for the first time in a looong time!

To walk off the meal we went for a short stroll around Denham to try and catch the lovely sunset and the horses in the paddocks. We were a bit late as both sun and horses had already gone down for the count for the evening! Well, we caught a bit of the last of the sunset over the airport. It would have been a marvelous sunset.

Trying to find the horses in the paddock

After the walk we then had space for Sandra’s fruit juice jelly and strawberries:

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

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I didn’t grow up with GI Joe as neither of my brothers had one (probably because its more an American toy or something. We were more about Lego and Transformers etc.) but my point is that I’m not familiar at all with the story. However I still thought it would be a fun movie to go watch. The trailers made the movie look suspiciously like the Transformer movies that have recently passed through our screens but I didn’t really care – I just wanted to watch something that allowed me to park my brain at the door, watch some eye candy, enjoy the action and laugh at the pun-ny jokes.

GI Joe delivered on all counts. That’s not to say that GI Joe doesn’t try to be a bit mysterious and build up layers of intrigue and surprise but I’d figured them all out by about a third of the way into the movie! And I’m sure I’m not the only one who could see where it was leading … to a sequel! Ha ha!

This is one of those movies that I suspect is going to be panned for the fairly average story, ridiculous action sequences (not necessarily in a positive way), average acting and all around corniness which I guess is one of the reasons I actually liked it! Its not often that I agree with critics.

Hard to explain why I liked the movie. Yes at times it took itself a little too seriously but otherwise it was just so much fun to watch. From the truly over the top costumes and weapons to the non-stop action and even to the average acting it was just a joy for me to watch.

Good fun if taken for the movie it was intended to be – a summer blockbuster, not an Oscar contender.

Avatar: The Trailer

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I applied to get free tickets to something that read like this “Free Screening: Avatar – Exclusive Free Footage.” I didn’t even think of what exactly I was applying for presuming it would be a preview screening of some new movie. To my surprise I’d applied for free tickets to go see a … wait for it …. trailer! You like me are probably wondering what the big fuss was – wouldn’t you just see the trailer as part of the next movie that you saw? Well, apparently not quite. This was an extended 15 minute trailer, in 3D and with an introduction by the director himself, James Cameron. I would have happily gone to see it myself but since I had two tickets I dragged Rita along as well.

When we got to Wimbledon Odeon we were surprised to see a giant queue of people waiting get into our screening. There were some serious hard core geeks in the line I tell you. Very defensive of their position in the queue as well! It was all rather amusing and almost worth turning up just to observe the actions and reactions of the people in the queue, and that was even before we got into the cinema.

There was quite some excitement in the air in the cinema as we all sat and waited for the preview to begin. Rita and I couldn’t help giggling at the audience.

Finally, after a quick introduction by some production manager the preview started …

… and exactly 15 minutes later finished!

Avatar, just in case you’re wondering, is a very weird story. Its set a couple of centuries into the future and a group of marines land on a very strange jungle planet called Pandora with all sort of weird and wonderful, and truly scary at times creatures, and sentinent beings. Somehow the minds of the marines are transported into the sentinent beings though its not entirely clear why they are set to occupy the planet.

I was quite impressed with the excerpts we saw. The 3D technology was very impressive. I would say almost seamless though characters on the screen still had a sort of stilted not quite real feel to them. I’m looking forward to seeing the full thing … though I was clearly not as keen as one diehard fan who actually started clapping at the end. No one joined him though …

Such a small small small small world

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Rita, Rache and I caught up over dinner tonight at the Big Easy near Sloane Square. So there we were happily gorging ourselves on the food – Rita and Rache on giant hamburgers and me on lobsters. We could barely talk amongst ourselves despite the fact we were sitting pretty close to each other because the music and the talking at the bar was so loud. This is is something I’m really starting to dislike about some London restaurants.

Anyway, like I said, we were eating away and then someone tapped Rita’s shoulder or something to get her attention and she looks up and its a guy she used to know from Brisbane. He used to be her manager at Coles where she worked for five years. I was astounded to see that it was Gerrod! A friend of my bro’s! Then I noticed my bro was with him too! Entirely unplanned!

So, Rita running into someone from back home whom she hadn’t talked to since leaving Coles here in London was amazing enough. The fact that she knew Gerrod AND that he was a friend of my bro’s was even more amazing! I should have bought a lottery ticket or something tonight!

Instead … we went to a cake place on Regent Street and I had strawberry JELLY cheescake.

Hmmm ….

Very unsual. I would have preferred an actual strawberry top to the cheesecake but at least the biscuit base was pretty nice.

Hamstead Heath

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London has been experiencing some absolutely awesome weather of late and with the long summer days it seemed a waste to simply go home after work or even to go out but still be stuck inside some building. Rita thought it would be a great time to get out to Hampstead Heath.

Its been quite some time since I’ve been to the Heath. In fact it may have been years ago that I came here! My most lasting impression, right or wrong, was of some giant chair. Oh, actually, the chair and the fact that the Heath was a large sprawling mess of uncut grass which was perfectly high enough to … er … have privacy to do … er … whatever you felt like doing! Heh heh.

Since the decision to go the Heath was a bit last minute we hadn’t really made proper plans on how to get there, I didn’t even print a map!, and we kind of met up late because we’d both gone home to get changed and Rita pick up the makings for a picnic. In short this lack of planning meant we firstly got lost trying to find the Heath from Hamstead station on the Northern line and then when we hopped on a bus, purely because it was heading to Jack Straw’s House (it made us laugh), we were dropped off somewhere totally random. We spent the next hour and a half or so trying to make our way to some sort of look out point and we were being directed all over the place. The Heath is not easy to navigate and though it felt like we walked for ages we later found out we hadn’t even moved beyond on eight of the place. The pond was the prettiest thing we saw!

The area we were in had all these trails where it wasn’t always obvious that the path actually lead somewhere. We started walking down a couple but it got quite narrow and treacherous. Quite creepy too in the falling light. The fact we were lost and couldn’t find a hill for a view of the sunset cracked us up however. So close to wetting myself I was laughing so hard!

We finally settled down on a bench to have our dinner at about 9.30! Rita had made some delicious roast chicken baguettes, bought some crisps, fruit and sundried tomatoes with feta. Dellish!