Second day in London

Saturday

Today I headed to Notting Hill's Portobello Road to pay homage to one of my favourite movies on an Easter Saturday, surely one of its busiest days of the year.

I passed George Orwell's former house and followed the crowds to arrive at a lively, packed, stimulating outdoor food and antique market. After a creative people-watching and photography session in which I overuse the colour accent function on my camera, I meet Yanin who has kindly taken the day to accompany me around London.

For lunch I tried some Ghanaian spinach and agadashi stew with rice, plaintain (fried battered banana slices), carrot slices, and some epicly-fiery chilli sauce. I also wanted to buy a genuine blue UN peacekeeper helmet but it costed 60 pounds. The Travel Bookshop, a landmark in "Notting Hill" (the movie), was visited and touristically photographed.

From Notting Hill, we rushed to Bishop's Park next to Putney Bridge, but missed the annual Oxford-Cambridge boatrace. I was later happy to hear that Cambridge had won.

From there, we strolled to Kensington South, and missed the Natural History Museum; we only wanted to see the dinosaur skeleton in the foyer but the museum had just closed.

Next, we found ourselves in Kensington Park and its adjacent Hyde Park. I noticed a sign pointing to the Serpentine Gallery and recognised that familiar name from a recommendation by Aimee. But again this museum had just closed 10 minutes earlier.

However, as always, for all the little disappointments there is always something else to make my day: like the busker singing "Streets of London" at Kensington South tube station. A great song that really evokes this city, I find myself singing this song when walking through the streets of London.

For dinner, we went to an American-style diner for a comforting cheeseburger and root beer float.

Cultural generalisation based on 3 consistent sightings: in London, there are many short guy-tall girl couples. Perhaps this is due to the monarchical tradition of the British.

There are also many establishments featuring names of a random animal followed by a random object, like the Elephant & Castle borough, the Slug & Leaf, Bear & [Yanin?], and Lamb & Flag.