Second-Day-of-Summer Outing

All ready for our outing, in front of our apartment

Friday was officially the first day of summer and to celebrate, we headed to downtown London on Saturday to jalan-jalan (strolling). But of course, this being London, the dawn of summer does not mean anything - it was in fact cold enough to warrant all of us to don our jackets and equip ourselves with an umbrella each.

On the only day when we manage to persuade the super-reclusive Popo to go out, we ended up stuck in the stuffy Tube for one hour because of a person-under-the-train incident. Someone jumped, and the tragedy had widespread repercussions. We "lost" YL and Sophie because they could not get into the crowded train that Aileen, Popo & I managed to squeeze into, and by the time the entire group was reunited, our lunch date who was waiting for us at the agreed meeting point had left.

We made up for it by treating ourselves to a nasi lemak lunch at the canteen of the Malaysian Hall. It was a very familiar setting - gaudy super-plasticky table cloths, no-frills metal chairs, the chatter of Manglish (Malaysian accented-English mixed with a healthy dose of Malay and various Chinese dialects) in the air, the soft-spoken tudung-clad young waitress, and of course, teh tarik with our nasi lemak. The experience was complete with - no kidding here - a dodgy pirated DVD seller who stopped by each table and fanned out his wares, "DVD?"

There is no before shot, but we were quite famished and attacked our dishes immediately.

Sophie and her Teletubbies friends at Hamleys on Regent Street. Actually Popo was more excited at seeing them than Sophie. She can even remember all their names.