London 30th June

Woke up really early to meet up with Melissa and her friend Catherine at their hotel in Knightsbridge.

The first thing Melissa said to me after we hugged was, "You've gained quite a bit of weight, huh?"

Heh. Ah well...

We went straight to Harrods, where we met up with a friend of their's, Jenny was her name, from San Diego.

Melissa spotted a gorgeous black evening top with diamantes from Max and Co and a pair of white jeans and tried them on. Ugh, btw, the chaging room at Harrods suck big time... its like some tent thingy where you gotta group change and all that. That totally put me off trying on anything. There's noooo way I'm gonna change in front of a bunch of strange women and let them see all my jiggly wobbly bits (although I'm sure they couldn't be bothered to look anyway).
She declared that she liked them both and went to pay for them. The customer service at Harrods suck as well, we had to like wait so long when there was only one other customer in front of us.

So we decided to go look at shoes instead. I fell in love with this pair of boots from Stuartz Weitzman, it was marked down to about £65 from £245 but they didn't have it in size 37!! Kek sei... I've been looking for boots like those for a looong loooong time. Melissa didn't really like the selection there cos she bought better stuff from Lafayette in Paris, so we quickly paid and left Harrods as it was getting crowded. One thing good that we all agree on: We HATE shopping in crowded places.

So we decided to hit the individual boutiques instead. Mel and Katherine were walking together in front of us, so Jenny and I noticed that they looked like sisters in their identical Prada knapsacks, sandals, and coats. Haha. So cute!!

Our next stop was Burberry. Katherine tried on a pair of black pants she really liked but Melissa reminded her that she's got too many black pants already, and to get something else instead. Thats the best part about shopping with friends, innit? They know what you need and what you don't need, and save you loads of money buying stuff you already have. So Katherine went looking for other things instead. Jenny was indecisive about 2 coats, a blue one and a white one with gorgeous details. I thought the white one won hands down the moment I looked at it, and was proven true when everyone in the store agreed on the white one looking a lot better than the blue one. So she bought the white one. The coat is absolutely gorgeous!!!


Melissa and me


Melissa, Catherine and Jenny

We left Burberry for Harvey Nicols. By then we were all rather hungry and so immediately commenced to the fifth floor restaurant there. The food there is excellent! I had monkfish, Melissa and Katherine had the lamb and Jenny ordered corn fed chicken.









The interiors remind me a bit of Frangipani in KL, and the food? Better than Shangri La's Lafite! It was quite French-y. I think its one of the best food I've ever had here in UK, anyway. Good stuff, that.

We went for a little bit of shopping around Harvey Nicols later, Melissa asked about the price of the Cartier watch she bought in Paris and the guy told her that it was around £950 pounds, without the bracelet and she got it for a bit less in Paris, with that gorgeous bracelet thrown into the deal - shouldn've seen her beaming! Nothing like bagging a good bargain, eh? But other than that, we didn't see anything we liked. We all agreed that we didn't like departmental store-like shopping, cos its so much easier to browse through things in individual boutiques.



So we trotted around the little boutiques around the area. Melissa bought a Hermes tie for her husband, so sweet of her... And we later went to Anya Hindmarch, where she also bought an orange leather bag like the one at Tods and a matching organiser purse.

Anya sounded sooo familliar until I remembered Bespoke Ebury bags. In case you don't know what it is, they offer custom made bags to fit your every specifications, whims and fancies, and you can even engrave personalised inscriptions in the linings. Alex Yoong bought one for Arianna Teoh and it was sooooo romantic!

Jenny was getting tired and wanted to see how her son and husband were doing, and so declined Melissa's invitation for tea and left soon after.

We later walked back to the hotel (we stayed at Sheraton Belgravia, so less than 5 minutes walk away) for yummy English high tea. Had smoked salmon sandwiches, scones and clotted cream, and miniature pastries and cakes. Very the fattening la!!! I love love love love scones and clotted cream though... I can have those for tea everyday. But the tarts and cakes were a bit too rich for my liking, I could feel myself putting on weight! hehe.



We had a great time catching up over tea. Talked about men, about marriage, about having kids and shared news about our mutual friends. I think the people who saw us must have thought we were sisters or something, never suspecting that they're old enough to be my mothers!

But they are soo sooo soo cool that talking to them is like talking to a bunch of girls around my age. But with loads more wisdom to impart. We talked about life, we talked about friends, we talked about the importance of girlfriends, the importance of the decisions we made in life.

One advice that I thought was really cute: "lam yan chui pha ke hai chou cho yer, lui yan chui pha hai ka cho yan" meaning that the worst thing that can happen to a man is to get into the wrong career, while for a woman, is to marry the wrong man.

I guess who you marry does make a difference, doesn't it? If you marry someone totally different from you, who doesn't share the same aims and goals as you, you're never going to see eye to eye, and you're never going to be happy. And if you're not ready to get married or stable enough to support your children, for goodness sakes don't have them!

I know a someone who just got married recently. Her husband had just graduated and was earning around RM1500 plus, most of which went to the rent, car payments and food, leaving very little left to buy additional stuff. They can't afford regular visits to the gynae, or good supplements for the pregnancy, and they've been quarrelling a lot since. Its really sad, come to think about it. There's a Chinese saying that goes - "when poverty walks through the door, love flies out of the window".

And its true, isn't it? You can't live on fresh air and sunshine. Love alone can't keep you, or your children alive. And children these days, they're not easy to take care of now. Its different now. Children are more demanding, and you need to at least give them a foundation for them to ever get the upper hand in life. If not they'll have to struggle all their lives. And do you want that for your children? For them to have the brains and the potential, but having to hold back because not everyone is fortunate enough to get a scholarship, and you cannot afford to pay their tuition fees? For them to look longingly while their friends and cousins get the latest Sega and Playstation for their birthday, while they only get a Lego set? And ask you, mummy, mummy, why can't I have it, when all my other friends can?

How would you answer that kind of question?

Marriage is serious. It makes a difference in your future happiness and that of your children. And I wish people would just wake up and realise that. Me? I'll never get married or have kids until I'm financially independant enough to support myself and my children should anything happen to my marriage/husband.

Cynical? Perhaps. Materialistic? Maybe. But I think mostly this is just plain being practical and realistic. Such is the world we live in today, we'd be fools to to think money isn't important. I don't demand the luxuries in life, but I do want a life relatively free from financial worry, where I wouldn't have to worry that a £5 purse would mean that I'd have to starve the next week or something, where I can buy my son that Star Wars milennium set for his birthday without digging into his education fund.

Growing up is hard. Suddenly you have to think about all these things. And its S-C-A-R-Y! I'm lucky I've got wiser and more experienced people to guide me though life, and I'm very thankful for that.

Anyways, after that we walked back to Harrods to buy souvenirs for family and friends back home and they bought 6 boxes of Krispy Creme doughnuts to bring home to Malaysia! And we saw something really disgusting as well.. there was this kwailo sitting there with a dozen donuts eating them ONE AFTER ANOTHER! We each had one and was already reeling from the sweetness of it, for the guy to eat 12 at one go... omfg!! Scary! We felt like we could get diabetic watching him eat it. Ugh ugh ugh.

We then took a cab to drop off the purchases and headed straight to Chinatown for dinner at Mayflower. Great place for good authentic chinese food! We had wat tan hor, soft shelled crabs, scallops and some other stuff. And to think that I've almost given up on finding good chinese food here in the UK.


Dinner at Mayflower


lovely scallops, cooked to perfection!

Grabbed another cab back to the hotel where they had to start packing. They showed me all the stuff they bought from around Europe and I went ooh-ahh ing at the shoes! Those shoes are GORGEOUS! and oh so comfy! I think maybe when you buy good shoes you actually pay for the quality and comfort. And maybe you do save more in the long-run... cos the heels don't keep on breaking! I hate it when heels break. I almost got crippled once when my Lewre straps broke when I was climbing down some stairs. I only bought it the day before, and they wouldn't give me a refund for those faulty shoes. I actually went to the Tribunal Tuntutan Pengguna and sued them. And WON. Damn satisfying. NEVER BUY LEWRE SHOES.



Ferragamos don't look that nice (actually I think they look a bit old working women kind) but by god, they're of so comfy, they actually don't pinch the toes and the contours actually fit the heels, so can walk and walk and walk in them for hours without complaining of painful feet. And Catherine's Chanel ballet shoes are soooo sweet and pretty!

Haish, nevermind la, I'm still quite happy with my Dolcis, Vinccis and Crocodile shoes. They're not as comfy or as lasting though. I go through a pair every 3 months. Wear and tear is quite bad. Actually come to think of it, buying quality instead of quantity would probably save me a lot more money in the long run. But I get bored easily... and like variety when it comes to shoes.

But maybe I should invest on one good formal pair... the Aldo one I have pinches my feet like hell and that puts me in a bad mood the whole day. -_-

Ooh, and they also bought more identical stuff other than those Prada knapsacks and sandals. They bought the Vuitton ALMA bag, as featured in Sex and the City!!! I was in such reverance when I held it in my hands - oh my god, such exquisite workmanship! Hand made linings, not a stitch out of place, flawless leather and just the right amount of pockets. Its just soooo... Sex and the City.


sooo sex and the city, hor?

We went for supper with Catherine's brother and sister in laws, Charles and Michelle. We went to Mayflower again and had porridge, noodles, and lobster mein. The lobster was delicious! I think somehow or rather the chinese way of cooking lobsters tastes so much better than the english way of cooking it in butter and cheese. Just my opinion, anyways I'm partial to chinese cooking. -_-

We also had bubur chacha tong sui... but I was too full to take more than 2 spoonfuls.

Charles and Michelle bought us on a tour around London at nighttime. Seeing London at night is so so so different compared to seeing it in the daytime. There's something haunting about London by night... a 'what once was' kind of feeling, I don't know how to describe it.

Went back to the hotel, watched 'Somethings Gotta Give' on the tv, and talked a bit more. It was fun, and cute listening about them go on and on about how cute Keanu Reeves was and how she shouldn't have chosen Jack Nicholson over him. They talked and laughed about their age, their husbands, their sex lives... it was so amusing, the way they laugh at themselves and not take life too seriously. Heh.