An English Christmas - Guest post by Bel

The famous London eye at night

Loved seeing the red London double-decker buses

We went to London over Christmas last year. It was our maiden trip with 2 kids-in-tow and it was so lovely! We stayed over at my friend's Bel's place and she came up with the brilliant idea of guest posting in each other's blogs. 

So, here goes! The first guest post on my blog.... Warning: long post ahead.

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Hello!  I've known Priscilla for more than 10 years now.  I remember how we met in University - we were in the same discipleship group when we both joined Campus Crusade for Christ, and later on it was the 4-month student exchange trip to Canada that cemented our friendship.  We were there with 3 other girls from NTU and we all witnessed how Pris and Stephan ("the other exchange student from Germany") got together.  

Fast forward a few years we graduated, they got married and soon they moved to Germany. Little did I know that I was also headed this way to Europe and Pris has been so welcoming and kind, inviting me to join her and her German family every Christmas since I moved to London.  

Pris: 13 years after Canada, just before flying to London

Not only that she put me in touch with her sis-in-law Sabrina who was also working in London at that time. We hit it off and became good friends.  I've never felt more comfortable (adopted even!) in the company of another family such as the Tews and I really do owe them a lot, for their kindness and hospitality.  When Pris suggested visiting us in London this Christmas, I was a little worried that they were breaking the Tews family tradition! 

It's been more than a year since I saw everyone and oh my how grown up are the two boys! Sammy is adorable as usual and I loved being able to hold a proper conversation with him. He no longer calls me "Linda" but "Belinda" instead, hurray to that.  Oh and little Gabriel (Gabe)!  He is so chilled out and is learning quite a few English words ("look, moon!"  "blue! red! yellow!")  I found something in common between us - we both love cleanliness haha *high five Gabe*.  The only unexplained thing was that he kept calling me "Tina".   

The Tews spent one week with us in total over this Christmas and my hubby K and I had a little taste of how life is like with two boys.  I always wondered how Pris and Stephan do it. And guess what - I STILL WONDER! :)

Beautiful English fireplace

K and I were working on the days leading up to Christmas and New Year's but we tried to spend as much time as we could with our guests.  The boys loved the stairs and kept sliding down on their bellies screaming and laughing as they went along.  There was never a dull moment from the time they are awake.

For our big dinner on Christmas eve, I decided on the traditional English way, i.e. Turkey.  

Pris: Our Christmas eve spread

Pris: Obligatory family photo before tucking in

Our menu for the night:

For starters, we had salmon blinis and K's signature salad.

Our mains were Turkey breast with pork, onion and sage stuffing topped with a bacon lattice, with roasted honey parsnips.

Dessert was supposed to be Vienetta ice cream (a Tews tradition) but guess what?  We were so full at the end of it that we had no space for any desserts.  Plus Sammy was too excited to open the presents!

Presents time!

Pris: Sam got English flashcards from Aunty Bel

Pris: Eating Mummy's Tim Tams that Bel got from Singapore

Pris: BINGO! 6 smiling faces at the camera! We hit the jackpot!

Pris: Crazy shot!

As part of an English tradition (they are visiting England after all), I bought some Christmas crackers to go along. We popped them open before dinner which explains the gold crown for each of us.  That was a good dinner I must say and of course, presents galore after that which Samy was the happiest amongst all of us.  He wanted to open every single present.

One of the reasons Pris wanted to visit London was that she's missing all the Asian food big time.  Before they arrived, we whatsapp'ed each other frequently, compiling a list of the different food places they could visit, admittedly mostly surround Chinatown in Leicester Square.  
 

They tried a few places on consecutive days that I told her "Pris you guys are visiting Chinatown more than what we visit in 3 months!" lol  Well I'm glad she's had her Asian food fix.  In fact on the night they arrived, I suggested bringing them to eat one of the best Peking ducks here in London.  K and I love the ambience and the quality of food at Grand Imperial in Victoria.  And then finding out Stephan doesn't like ducks.  oops!

Pris: Having the famous Beijing duck pancakes at Grand Imperial

Pris: Having Singaporean food at Rasa Sayang (Chinatown)

Pris: Having authentic bubble tea and Gabe was a huge fan of the "bubbles!" My little Asian boy!

On days where we couldn't bring them around, Pris and Stephan visited some museums which are kids friendly. Having no kids of our own, I had to admit I did struggle on where to suggest they could go with the boys!   

At the Natural History Museum

On Boxing Day, we went for a walk in Greenwich Park where there was a big playground so the boys were well entertained and I witnessed Gabe's love for swings.  That sad look when he had to give up his seat for another kid in waiting - lol.  

On another day K packed all of us in our car and drove to Knole Park in Kent where we saw free roaming deer.  It was nice, but because it was raining so much on the preceding days, it was all a bit too muddy for our liking.  It soon got too cold after 2 hours and we decided to head indoors to Bluewater, this sprawling shopping centre in Kent which K and I visit ever so often as it is not too far from our place.  

Pris: Roaming deer in the background

Pris: A snoozing Gabriel

The week did pass by so quickly for us.  It was nice to spend time with this lovely family of four (soon five!), catching up with both Pris and Stephan and reminiscing on our good old exchange days.  We agreed it would be ideal if we could all visit Canada again together - that would be so meaningful.

Pris - you super mom - I pray that God will continue to bless your little family and give you and Stephan the grace and godly wisdom on being the best parents you can be.  Thank you for being such a blessing to me, embracing me into the Tews family and I thank God for our friendship.  Love ya lots xxx 

Belinda blogs at www.belindagoeslondon.blogspot.com
 

Pris: We loved Christmas with B&K so much, we didn't want to leave!

Things we did in London

1. Watch a Musical!

I love musicals but don't really watch them often, as they are usually in German here. So when we were in London, we happily splurged on one musical. You can get heavily-discounted tickets when purchased at short notice. We got ours at a ticket outlet near Picadilly circus. Phantom wasn't much cheaper than the original price though, supposedly because its such an immensely-popular musical.

Her Majesty Theatre where we watched Phantom of the Opera. There are so many concert theatres in London, one is spoilt for choice

In the theatre, waiting for it to start. Our verdict: Very well-written script, strong vocals, amazing props and lyrics were easily understandable (inspite of the English accent). Overall, highly-recommended to watch!

See what I told you about being spoilt for choice? I had to take a photo of the musical with my name. Nope, we didn't watch "We will rock you" but we went to church in the same theatre!

Hillsongs Church - The interior of the theatre. I must admit that I wasn't used to having church in a theatre but the cool thing is that the acoustics were awesome! The live band sounded very good.

2. Go for awesome Chinese food!

After church at Hillsongs, we went straight for some Dim Sum at Chinatown (about 15mins by foot away). Dim Sum, a Cantonese meal is really popular among the Chinese. You get small portions of basically anything steamed / fried, ranging from the usual egg tarts and barbecued meat pastries to more exotic porridge (rice with a lot of water) with fish / chicken. I miss Dim Sum soooo much!!! Oh boy. And the price was reasonable too!

One clue on how you know that the restaurant is good. The smell....ok, the second I stepped into the restaurant and took a whiff, I knew that I was at the right place! There was this dim sum smell! Ok, for those without a "chinese" nose, you can just observe the customers there. If majority of them are Chinese, you know that chances are that you'll get authentic Chinese food there and not just the westernized, watered-down Chinese cuisine.

Stephan indulged in his favourite fried beef hor fun (flat noodles). Its pretty difficult to replicate the same taste at home, because one needs really strong fire to ensure that the frying of the noodles does not break it into little pieces.

Obviously the food was sooo good that we had to go back to Chinatown for another meal. This time we went to a different restaurant that is supposedly world-famous for their roast duck. Rumour has it that Singapore's prime minister goes there for his duck too....don't quote me though!

And guess who we bumped into? Ok, guess who Bel. bumped into while on her way to meet us for lunch? None other than one of my bridesmaids and schoolmate, Charissa! She happened to be in London at the same time with her hubby. What are the chances of that happening???

Where you go for great Dim Sum: London Jade Garden Chinese Restaurant

Where to go for great roasted duck: Four Seasons Restaurant (photo above)

3.Go to the many museums they have in London

Well, I must admit that I'm simply not a museum person. Try as I might, I really can't say I consider time in a museum well-spent.

Hence, it was an accomplishment in itself that we managed to spend a few hours in Winston Churchill's War Memorial museum and I read through 90% of the exhibits there! It was really interesting, I must say. I was reminded of history lessons in school, which I took between the ages of 13 and 14, but just more interesting.

Apparently, he was a workaholic who clocked 14-hr work days and expected his cabinet to be just as dedicated to their jobs as he was. The museum was located in the actual basement of a house from which Churchill led his military war strategic operations. He was apparently a foodie, who despite war rations, was served pretty good meals 3 times a day. Another interesting to note is that if Churchill died a few years before he became Prime Minister, he would never have gone down the history books. He apparently had quite a few major failures in his life that categorized the early part of his life. Yay, there's hope for us!

Our best days are still ahead of us! In Jesus Name!

A portrait of Churchill and on the right, a guy trying to de-code secret messages from the Nazis. Churchill had a team of people who managed to de-code these messages such that he knew how to prepare / warn other countries of impending attacks

4. Try a restaurant!

We decided to try Jamie Oliver's Italian restaurant, the world's most famous Naked Chef. I liked what I ordered - some beef steak dish, but don't expect "Jamie Oliver" quality. After all, the food isn't cooked by him, but by a team of chefs trained by him. Our favourite Italian restaurant in Stuttgart easily beats the standard of the food at Jamie Oliver's. Still, its worth a try, if you want simple, home-cooked fare at reasonable prices. Its a nice place to hang out for most Londoners after work, since its located smack in the middle of Canary Wharf.

Our thank you and see-you-again dinner. We stayed over at Bel's place so we wanted to express our gratitude at her allowing us to mess up her living room and bathroom while we were there.

Some of the food we had

5. Go shopping!

There were 3 guys and 1 girl. Needless to say, shopping wasn't on the agenda. However, I managed to go shopping with Bel and my sister-in-law, Sabrina one afternoon. Boy, there's sooo many stores and too little time! Great thing that we managed to pop by Primark where things are like dirt cheap! And pretty good quality too!

Ok, I think that's all I have for our London trip! Hope you liked the photos and captions! Still have my Paris one to tackle! Hmmm...I wonder if I can do that before I leave for Singapore in exactly one week's time!

Legendary sights of London

Most of the time when I go travelling, I'd need to research on the tourist attractions, since I wouldn't have a clue of what's worth seeing.

London, on the other hand, is different. Without being there, I knew that I had to see the Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, red buses, red phone booths etc.... Ok, so I don't sound like the travel guru, but you get what I mean. There are so many world-famous sights and landmarks .This post is dedicated to these landmarks.

Hubby went to London 10 years ago, so he was our default tour guide - which is a great thing, because I'd rather be a follower than a leader. Of course if I got lost, I'm pretty sure I know how to use a map or navigate my way through the London underground network.

We covered some of the sights overselves while others were covered on a free tour from  http://www.neweuropetours.eu/ The tour guides are native English speakers who give very interesting portrayals of the history and quiry stories of London. 

The thing I liked about these tours is that one is able to savour the "product" first before deciding how much it is worth. Plus, there's no need to make any reservations. So one is not tied down to going for the tour if / when the weather is bad....which is I must say, is a pretty important criteria in the ever-rainy London. The weather stereotype of London is really true! Stuttgart does have better weather than London.

We stayed over at our friend's place, in Canada Waters. Its about 10 minutes away from the world-famous London Bridge. Actually its called "Tower Bridge", but most people think its the London Bridge. It is every bit as beautiful in real life as I had imagined it to be.

Evidence that I'm a tourist

Look at that massive volume of intertwining lines...

If public phone booths ever become obsolete, I'm sure these red boxes would continue to be on the streets just because they are so iconic. After more than 4 years of marriage, I'm always tip-toeing whenever I'm posing next to Stephan. He's just too tall!

Left: Standing next to some random guard. Right: In front of some random museum

Buckingham Palace - Really not impressive at all. It used to be a rich guy's house and the king just bought it over from him at a mediocre price.

The famous London guards with their huge mop of hair. We went for the changing of guards. Huge crowds of tourists for some 15min-marching ceremony. Worth seeing once, but not more.

In front of Big Ben, which is next to House of Parliament. Apparently, it is illegal to "die" in the House of Parliament because anybody who dies there has to be given a "royal death burial" in Westminister Abbey.

In front of Westminister Abbey, where Lady Diana was buried, together with other prominent people. I don't know why my brother was bending forward like that, looks like I was strangling him. Hah

House of Parliament. Its really huge! Apparently it survived an attempt to burn it down, because this guy tried to overthrow the government by placing bombs in the basement. This attempt was obviously foiled and the guy died a gruesome death.

Harrods!!! The Queen's playground.... Ooh, the signature green colour and their famous green bags. Nope, I didn't buy any of those green plastic bags to "show off". My Dad did buy me my first branded bag there though! None other than from Burberry...I'm waiting to go to Singapore to get it. Dad had to "export" it out of the EU to claim his tax refund.

In front of the London Eye, which Singapore "copied" too. The winds are sooo strong in London! And cold! I'm appalled at how women in London can walk around in super mini-skirts without any leggings! But then again, they are English after all.