The period of time leading up to a Northern hemisphere winter is filled with anxiety about how cold the upcoming season will be. Around October, the level of sunlight starts to dip, autumn leaves clog up the footpaths and when the clocks change out of 'summer time', the reality check hits that winter is almost here. The upbeat spirit of the Olympics had well and truly passed by and the city's mood had been dampened by consecutive days of rainfall, single digit temperatures and the wholesale buying of thermal clothing. And whilst the sky darkens around 4pm, at least there are plenty of Christmas lights appearing to brighten up our evenings.
London Sightseeing
To keep ourselves in a more perky mood, we discovered not only Vitamin D tablets but more activities in the City to fill our days. As we were no longer tourists, we cut down the number of sightseeing attractions on our London weekends, spending more time visiting local markets, hanging out with friends and watching more football.
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| Whisky barrel tree, Covent Garden |
Guy Fawkes Night
Our highlights of November included hearing the pyrotechnics of Guy Fawkes (Bonfire) night. This event is enthusiastically celebrated by our neighbours in the housing estates with the popping sound of little explosives continuing all night long.
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| Fireworks at the Southwark Council sponsored event |
Southbank Christmas Markets
November also marks the return of the Southbank Christmas markets that are full of stands selling Bavarian goodies. And although we stuffed ourselves silly with currywursts, we still adore the Polish lunchbox meal (sausage, pickle, potato, coleslaw), from the Real Food Market around the corner to Festival Hall.
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| Bratwurst by the river |
Indian Food in East Ham
Other food related highlights included travelling to East Ham to experience authentic south Indian cuisine cuisine with Roopa;
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| Colourful drinks |
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| Different types of curry |
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| Full of tasty spices |
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| Different types of dips |
Prix Fixe, Soho
We visited a French restaurant
Prix Fixe that made great steak and snails in Soho with friends Rob, Meei, Nara and Gav;
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| Buttery garlic snails |
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| Yummy dessert |
Brazilian Grand Prix, Birmingham
We took a side trip to Birmingham over a weekend that coincided with the Brazilian Grand Prix. We watched the race from a big screen that was near the Christmas Markets. This allowed us to keep warm with plenty of mugs of mulled wine whilst cheering on our favourite F1 drivers on the last race of the season.
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| Warming up with mulled wine |
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| Watching the Formula 1 |
Kerb Street Food
Once a week, Mei headed down to the Gherkin in the Square Mile to buy lunch from the street food vans that were organised by the company, Kerb. The tasty treats included Yum Bun, Kimchi Burger and Pork Rib Roll.
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| Yum bun |
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| Kim chi burger |
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| Tasty ribs |
Home Cooking
One weekend whilst walking around Islington, we found a cheerful supplier of fresh prawns and razor clams from the small street market next to Angel Station. Razor clams taste amazing when lightly grilled with soy, ginger and spring onions and we had never eaten them before in Australia. Another home-made foodie moment was perfecting the recipe to make beer can chicken.
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| Beer can chicken |
Watching Chelsea FC
Our interest in watching football (known as soccer to the Australians) increased after the AFL season ended. Our first Premier League game was watching Chelsea v Manchester United. Mei had arranged for tickets to this event for Olie's birthday. Premier League tickets for matches between two top four clubs are usually difficult to buy and seats are generally reserved for season ticket holders. However the curious tourist wanting to take part in the experience can use seat exchange websites or corporate package deals (Mei choosing the latter) to buy tickets.
Olie was very excited to attend his first "big game" at
Stamford Bridge. The day began with a gourmet 3 course lunch at Restaurant 55 within the Millennium and Cophorne hotel. Prior to the game, the atmosphere was already building with devout fans, tourists and corporate ticket holders filling the restaurant with shades of blue.
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| Enjoying his birthday present |
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| At Stamford Bridge |
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| Sitting with all the fellow supporters |
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Champions League trophy, the match
we watched during our wedding reception |
After lunch we made our way to our allocated seats at the Chelsea members section. Olie then began snapping away with his camera as the players began to warm up - taking photos of the well-known names including Torres, Oscar, Hazard, Terry, Van Persie and Rooney to name a few. It is difficult to imagine that a single years salary for some of these players is more than the average person will ever earn in their entire lifetime - simply for kicking a ball!
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| The big teams line up |
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| Rooney |
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| RVP |
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| Luiz |
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| Oscar |
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| Torres |
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| Cole |
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| Mata |
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| Cech |
Soaking up the atmosphere
Chelsea fans are an interesting bunch and we never understood why our work colleagues would cringe when we told them we had chosen to support The Blues. When Chelsea scored their first goal, the crowd went wild and a complete stranger sitting in front of Olie turned around grabbed his hand and started to wave it frantically from side to side. This of course would have been perfectly fine except Olie was holding an open bottle of water; that ended up showering over the excited hand-grabbing fan and the elderly lady next to him.
The second Chelsea goal followed not long after and this time the fan sitting from Olie's left was unable to contain his excitement and decided to give Olie a hug whilst in the process accidentally whacking Mei in the face. He was apologetic but Mei was unimpressed as it left her with a sore nose. Throughout the match the same fan continuously dropped some colourful language aimed at the referee but then after each profanity, turned to apologise to the elderly lady in front of him. He must have had a memory of a gold fish as we lost track of the number of times he apologised! The game ended 3-2 to Man United and although our team lost the game, we walked out of Stamford bridge with an urge to watch more Premier League games.
Royal Albert Hall
On a completely different cultural scale, we headed back to the Royal Albert Hall in early November to watch the London Philharmonic orchestra play a collection of well know songs from Broadway musicals including Les Miserables, Evita and Cats. The performance of the song "Memory" from Cats was special as the conductor recalled a personal story of being present when Andrew Lloyd Webber was asked to include this song to impress a new member of the cast - a well known actress. Less than a week later we also watched Les Miserables in the West End courtesy of Michelle and Marius's wedding present.
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| In the acoustically amazing RAH |
Go Karting
Socially, we got out and about in London with Mei's first attempt at go-karting with a number of friends at
The Raceway (Greenwich Docklands) using a Groupon deal;
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| Not the actual finishing positions |
Climbing onto the O2
Mei participated in a work 'away day activity' that involved
climbing the top of the O2 arena in Greenwich.
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| On top of the O2 facing Canary Wharf |
The Millwall Den
Olie visited the
Millwall FC Den (and survived) and watched them play against Leicester, experiencing the heavy police presence and how they segregate the fans not only in the stadium but on the train platform, alternating passing trains with home and away team supporters.
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| At the Den |
We caught up with our London friends at drinks for Wendy's birthday at the Piano Bar in Kensington where the audience can request a variety of songs for the talented musician to play - including Eye of the Tiger; and some cheery Christmas melodies.
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| Sing us a song you're the piano-man |
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| Will, Olie and Wai |
Movember
Olie participated in Movember with two of his work colleagues and helped raised £1,100 pounds with his "Pencil Mo".
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| Would you trust this face? |
Chirstmas Party
The Christmas party season is also a highlight of winter. Mei was brought into the Christmas cheer with a pub event at the Jam Pot (Jamaica Wine Bar) where she learnt the hard way to never mix "grape and grain". That experience thoroughly dampened her mood for red wine at subsequent nights out at Abbey Bar (work team) and Folly (Christmas lunch).
Olie's Christmas party was held at the
London Aquarium which is rather underwhelming in comparison to the size of the Melbourme aquarium.
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| Shark tank |
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| Beautiful and tiny seahorse |
Christmas inspired Lunch
Christmas in London is also best enjoyed with friends and a pub style Sunday roast lunch was organised to catch up with the expat group and share stories on our favourite topic - travelling.
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| Photo courtesy of Mayling's facebook photos |
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