London Semester – Page 5

FREE cover Wednesdays @ Notting Hill Arts Club

I just explained one of the main reasons why we all love going to Notting Hill on Wednesdays… Free cover. Usually, if you are trying to hit up this dance club/bar on weekend nights, you would have to pay anywhere from £5 to 10. On Wednesdays, however, it is free!

We first discovered this small, semi-grungy, semi-hipster, semi-basement-like venue all thanks to Michael Oliver. The infamous M.O. is our student affairs director, and he recommended we ALL go check out Notting Hill as soon as we can. And we did. And we fell in LOVE.

See? Pure joy and love.

The drinks are fairly affordable although I wouldn’t say mad cheap. But alas, strawberry cider (£4) is irresistable. The bartenders are nice. At times though the bar gets way too crowded and you have to wait quite a bit for your drinks. I believe, however, one of them now knows Garrett? Hmm…

And there’s the music… Oh man, where shall I begin?

Lady Gaga (Standard… duh. Roma romama Gaga ooh lala), MGMT (Bros…), Johnny Cash (Yussss), Hot Chip (Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it…), Miley Cyrus (Really? But even then, love), Elvis (I’m serious), British bands I don’t know (Still good), Katy Perry (Once again, standard?), Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, etc. etc. etc. I can go on for years.

As you can see, it isn’t just the house music, or just the pop music, or just the techno. It’s got a great variety!

Honestly, I’m usually not the type to pay a once-a-week visit to hard-core mega-overwhelming dance clubs. Fist pumping all night long wtih some crazy, almost eurotrash peeps to some techno music isn’t exactly my scene. Chilling at a pub with a few drinks is cool, but sometimes, a girls gotta dance!

Notting Hill fits in right in the center of that club spectrum – great dance music, but not too insane, not too big, oh, yes you can fist pump and a section with couches and tables where you can relax for a bit.

All in all, Notting Hill Arts Club, we give you thumbs-up!

-Yoojin

A Picture Diary? Only Because I Can't Spell ANY of the Spanish Names…

Madrid, Spain: Mid-Semester Break! What a great vacation. Jack and I left at the crack of dawn to catch a bus to Liverpool St. station, then to get on the Stansted Express, and finally to hop on a plane to Madrid, Spain. But the whole week was absolutely worth all that trouble.

I have to say, I definitely enjoyed fratting out with my favorite bro/friend, Alex, and not having to worry about waking up early. In fact, almost every day, we slept in till 2 p.m. – and no one frowned at us, enjoyed lunch till about 4 p.m., took a nap at 8 p.m., and woke up at 10 p.m. for dinner, annnnnnd the nightlife began at around midnight. FANTASTIC!!!

Despite not being able to communicate at all, thanks to Jack, we got around just fine. It did make me a bit sad to find that though I speak English & Korean fluently and can hold basic conversations in German, it was as if I was a total alien. Does that mean now I need to go learn some Spanish? Anyways…

Here is my 5 days in Madrid picture diary:

Day 1

– Here we are… Madrid!

– Velazquez @ Prado Museum

– Look what I found at Plaza de Mayor!

– Paella and Mussels at an AWESOME restaurant whose name ended in …Volcano. 6 euro Paella, can’t beat it

– Hard to explain… Went to this cave bar and they had some sort of a milk-type drink from its ceiling. Didn’t have the guts to try it though.

Day 2

– Visited the Royal Palace of Madrid and Cathedral

– Unfortunately, no photographs allowed inside the Palace. Also, the royal family does not live there anymore. Nevertheless, very pretty!

– Possibly one of the best finds in this city. The biggest pick & mix store I have ever encountered.

– A big blurry, but Plaza de Espana.

– At Kapital. A club with seven floors (with the top flooring being this wonderful lounge). You can find anything from a crazy dance to karaoke. Of course we dominated by singing Bohemian Rhapsody. Win.

– Just to give you an idea of what the dance floor was like… Yeah?

Day 3

– A GORGEOUS day out by the park by Arguelles metro stop

– Look what we found on our way to Reina Sofia! Obviously I HAD to get an iced coffee… Yum!

– One example of some interesting, rather weird, modern art at Sofia.

Day 4

– A day trip to TOLEDO! A quaint Spanish town with great food, plenty of sunshine and wonderful sangria.

– A 2-hour long lunch with sangria. Do not regret it.

– Could spend hours and hours wandering around these narrow streets.

Day 5

– Last day in Madrid… Managed to get by with 20 euro left between Jack and me, all thanks to this wonderful place with 60 cent sandwiches!

– And let’s not forget, 50 cent wine boxes. They also come in forms of small juice boxes! Great portability!

– Of course, ended the trip with a bag of Haribo candies and headed to the airport at 3 a.m.

Overall, I loved spending time in Madrid. I have to say, though, staying there for a long period of time might not be too suitable for me. It was fantastic for a week when I definitely needed some break from London and classes. Now, I am so happy to be back in London. 🙂

Next up, my stories from Notting Hill Arts Club.

-Yoojin

A Tribute to… None Other than Hing Loon :)

Located at 25 Lisle Street, Hing Loon has quickly become our favorite Chinese restaurant in London. It all started with us lazying around in our flat one random day, thinking “Where can we get some sweet-and-sour chicken?” Trust me, after going a month or so without my regualr dose of some orange chicken, the craving for Chinese food only gets worse.

So, Christina, Gabby, Jack and I adventured out to China Town (in Leicester Square) one night, with high hopes of finding some affordable AWESOME Chinese food. Well, honestly, we would have settled for any sort of sweet-and-sour, but alas, lucky us, we stumbled upon Hing Loon.

We passed by a few restaurants on our way to Hing Loon (we had no idea what we were about to discover, obviously). Too expensive. Too fancy. Too crowded. Oh, and we also passed a very interesting club called the Ku Bar. No, not interested in half naked men, thanks. Chinese food > Ku Bar.

We then approached the window of Hing Loon. Not too crowded. We see an empty table. Price? £3.75 for fried rice? £4.00 sweet-and-sour chicken? Oh man, we found the perfect place! For all four of us, after ordering two bottles of wine, four appetizers and four dishes, the total came out to £65. Amazing.

Ever since then, we went back twice (I would say once a week…) and further discovered Hing Loon’s aromatic crispy duck with hoisin sauce (thanks to Garrett) and wonderful shredded beef. Absolute favorite!!!

Alright, done talking about food, seeing that I still have about 5 hours left at internship and dinner time won’t be till around 7:30 p.m. today. Yikes.

http://www.timeout.com/london/restaurants/reviews/9310.html Check out the TimeOut review. It’s wonderful.

-Yoojin

My diet for the 3 days in Brussels = Waffles and Chocolate

On Sunday, I experienced the “Chunnel” for the first time. Chunnel = Tunnel + English Channel = Eurostar to continental Europe =My journey to Brussels, Belgium. As part of my European Business class (IP 405), we hopped on the train to go check out the capital of Europe. Really, not a big deal. 😉

This was my first weekend trip since I arrived in London, so needless to say, I was extremely excited. Not that I’ve run out of things to do in London, but the thought of escaping the cloudy, dreary, misty weather for three days seemed appealing.

Eurostar, the train with particularly comfortable seats, travels at 208 miles per hour, thereby reducing the travel time to only 1 hour and 25 minutes to Brussels and 2 hours and 30 minutes to Paris. The only time I’ve been to Brussels in the past was when I stopped by for about 3 hours while driving from Paris to Amsterdam. So spending 3 days this time was definitely a different, more fun and exciting experience.

When we arrived Sunday evening, I was at first disappointed to find everything closed at 7 p.m. Apparently, stores in Brussels like to close early on Sundays. We ended up rushing to the first restaurant we saw (The Cheesecake Cafe) for a quick dinner. After all, we were all starving. After a wonderful burger and a milkshake (YUM) we went on an adventure.

Brussels is a fairly small city. In fact, you can see everything you need to in less than a day. We got a Belgian waffle, obviously, and experienced a super-smokey Irish pub. Yes, an Irish pub in the middle of Brussels. With live bands. Walking out of the pub with my sweater reeking of cigarette smoke isn’t exactly my favorite activity, but I enjoyed hanging out for a few hours and listening to live bands.

Monday was filled with “educational” sessions at NATO and the European Parliament, and we ended the day at Delirium. Oh, Delirium. This place carries over 1,000 kinds of beer – their beer menu is a binder. Between about 6 of us, we had just about everything from cactus beer to honey beer. Definitely a must-see if you’re planning on visiting Brussels. http://www.deliriumcafe.be/. That is the website! Check it out!

And here are the pictures:

-Waffle #1!

-European Parliament

-Waffle #2! Obviously…

-Oh, and did I mention we acquire a DAS BOOT??? Really, NBD 😉

-And the last waffle of the weekend. Miss the waffles. Oh man.

Overall, what a great trip! My mouth still waters when I think about those waffles and loads of Belgian chocolates. 🙂

-Yoojin