October 22-23, 2011 - Weekend Visit to London

After an amazing Friday night, I was definitely surprised at how even more awesome my weekend turned out to be. Waking up in the morning was definitely hard, especially since my alarms didn't wake me up in time so I had to rush out super fast. It was also cold as usual and so motivating myself to get to the train station would have been hard had I not been so excited! The train station was packed when I got there - the queue for tickets went out the door, so I ended up leaving a lot later than I had originally planned.

I met Megan (Caltech) once I got into London and then we went to Chinatown. I loved spending the day with her and reminiscing about all the things that we miss! And using Caltech terms that no one would actually understand here was also tons of fun. We stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant where I had some amazing noodles at a very reasonable price too - only 3 pounds! I can never find anything nearly as cheap in Cambridge. Even McDonalds costs at least 5 pounds. Its almost like they took the dollar sign off and replaced it with a pound sign.

She had previously visited this Chemistry Boba place, and after seeing her pictures for it, I really wanted to go check it out. I also haven't had boba in SO long, but it tastes kinda different here since the tea had a stronger hint of herbs in it than I am used to. I still enjoyed it a lot though. It took us awhile to find it since she was mostly working on memory and we decided to not pull any maps out so that we didn't look like tourists :P

Then we decided to head over to the Tate Modern, after hearing so many amazing reviews about it. We had to cross the Millennium Bridge to get there, which has some pretty spectacular views of London in the background, in addition to being a pretty cool looking bridge. They were selling some caramelized, roasted  almonds on the bridge that smelled absolutely delicious, but we really wanted to get pastries afterwards instead so we had to control ourselves, much to our dismay...

I really liked the Tate Modern, more than I have liked other museums (although the British Museum is still pretty cool). I find modern art more fascinating than the classical, stereotypical paintings of people because its more interesting and very unique. Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds is composed of what appear to be millions of sunflower seed husks. Yet although they look realistic, each seed has been individually hand-crafted from porcelain. This combination of mass production and traditional craftsmanship invites us to look more closely at the "Made in China" phenomenon, and the geopolitics of cultural and economic exchange.

Here's Megan reading about the piece of work pictured partially to the right, which is a pile of dirty clothes and a Greek goddess (a very interesting juxtaposition)...

A gauzy red staircase floats high up in a gallery at Tate Modern, the latest installation by artist Do Ho Suh. His piece is supposed to be representative of not only a physical space, but an intangible, metaphorical, and psychological one as it is based on his personal memories of architectural spaces, both of his parents' traditional Korean house in Seoul and his own Western-style apartment in New York.

After the Tate Modern, we finally went to a pastry shop where I had some amazing carrot cake since I haven't had it in SO long. We really wanted to watch a musical in the evening, but looking for theater tickets in London for a Saturday night earlier that evening was probably not the brightest idea. Now I have to go back and visit her again so that we can actually watch one :) I don't mind too much :P

Then I headed over to my cousin's apartment in East Croydon, which is twenty minutes out of London. I apparently met her when I was pretty young (but I don't really remember), and I had also met her when we visited London two years ago. I had some amazing Indian food and a great night. My cousin had even baked some brownies for me :) We stayed up pretty late playing cards and just talking. The following day was pretty relaxed too, but made the weekend even more perfect. We spent a few hours the next day playing Wii. I destroyed them both at Mario Kart, but we were more evenly matched at Wii Party. We also went for a very pleasant walk outside so that we weren't complete bums all day. OH the best part was for breakfast, she made some amazing chaat for me since that's my favorite food! I'm so glad that I have family in London. I definitely needed this being so far away from home.

Then to top off the day, we had our first InnoWorks Officers Meeting (which I skyped in on)!! It felt amazing to see everything coming together and took so much pressure off of me knowing that I have a great team backing me. I'm really looking forward to coming back and getting this camp running! I tried not to look too ridiculous during the meeting since I was SO happy. After the meeting, I returned back to Cambridge my 11. My cousin's were way ridiculous since they made me call them up every time I switched from a train to another train, etc, since it was pretty late (I guess they are like my parents away from home).

It was a wonderful weekend! And now to get through the week, especially since work is finally picking up quite a bit....