Two weeks in situ
June 11th, 2005- Bendick’s bittermints! Real peppermint oil and 92% cocoa chocolate!
- Lindt dark chocolate with hazelnuts! (Normally you can only get hazelnuts with milk chocolate.)
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Taken at about 8pm just outside the restaurant Cantina Del Ponte where we had dinner along the Thames.Tower Bridge at Sunset (10 Jun 2005)“>
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Taken at about 11pm after dinner. Notice the crescent moon in the sky. Aren’t we blessed?Tower Bridge by Night (10 Jun 2005)“>
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Last night I went to dinner with Laurel and practically all of the Singaporean King’s College medics (and their attendant significant others) at a lovely restaurant along the Thames. Afterwards some of us went to see Mr & Mrs Smith (very commercial, very entertaining). It’s nice to be able to step into a ready-made community as familiar and comfortable as this; I’ll kind of miss them when everyone leaves. And what can beat having a ready panel of people to answer my biophysiopsychochemical questions? 
Can you believe it’s already been two weeks??
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To market, to market! The crowds are often said to be very bad on a Saturday, but despite the glorious shopping weather, I found Portobello Market considerably less crowded than Chatuchak Weekend Market in Bangkok or a pasar malam in Singapore.Portobello Road Sign (11 Jun 2005)
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Today I went to Portobello market and had a great time walking around, poking through the stores and investigating their wares. I got a Brioni blazer, a pair of Victorian mother-of-pearl opera glasses, postcards, and three scarves.
A fairly typical street scene at Portobello Market during the weekend. This is one of the little side streets just off Portobello Road. The whole area is filled with interesting, sometimes warren-like antique shops, cafés and boutiques with lots of character and fascinating merchandise, and the market stalls along the street sell everything from antique scientific instruments worth thousands of pounds to fresh flowers and the sort of trinkets you would find along Ladies Street in Hong Kong.Portobello Market Street Scene (11 Jun 2005)
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And of course Portobello Market is an produce market as well, so there’s a lovely stretch of stalls selling fresh vegetables, luscious fruits and fragrant bunches of seasonal blooms.Portobello Market Fruit Stall (11 Jun 2005)
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For lunch I had a serving of Singapore noodles (heh, but it was so tasty!), and some lusciously sweet English strawberries (just one pound for a hefty punnet!). Fun times.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Glad you enjoyed Portobello market. I live near there and it’s where I get pretty much everything that I eat (although being a vegetarian helps).
A good tip is to wait till the end of the day, say, after 4pm, where boxes and bowls of just about everything can be had for a pound. Honestly, I can, well, could if I wanted to, feed myself for 15 quid a week just from the market!
October 11th, 2009 at 8:34 am
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