Clara's Travel Tales: The London Edition (Part 1)

It's that time of the month again, and as usual, your friendly (interweb) neighbourhood ajala is here to recount her travel tales. I have done a lot of short trips this year, and even though I have sometimes felt tired and frankly often a bit poor, I realise that I do really love travelling, and I enjoy the interesting things that happen to me on my travels. I mean at the moment, I am both child and husband free, and even my job and relationship permit me to travel, however deep down in my mind I know it's going to change at some point and I'm going to have to reduce my ajalaing one day. So yeah, I tell myself I need to make sure that I enjoy my current situation for as long as possible. Anyways, on to this month's story :)

Denise, one of my best friends, was coming from Singapore on holiday to London for two weeks, so I decided to meet up with her there, as it would obviously be much cheaper than going to her home to visit her. She kind of made up her mind a bit last minute and by that time the train tickets were exorbitantly expensive, so of course as a cheapskate with limited resources, I had to find other alternatives and decided to take the coach. As usual, I had a weird experience, but I'll talk about that in the second half of the post...

I had a really lovely time with Denise and got to see 4 other really close friends, and as London is kind of my hometown, didn't do any tourist things, instead the trip was based mostly around boy talk, general catching up, eating, laughing and re-visiting some of our old favourite haunts. It's going to be a picture-heavy post, but please enjoy!

At one of the many restaurants we visited, 

the theme of the (long) weekend

 Friday afternoon lunch at a correct 

Nigerian restaurant #thingsimissaboutlondon :(

 

 Refuelling with a delicious risotto and chicken/chips 

while wandering through Spitalfields

 

Nandos!

 Hanging out in bookshops, so much laughter 

(and hours wasted ahem!) on some of the content

 Tea, desserts and Denise's crazy impromptu sketch 

of a Chinese/Nigerian man. 

Click to enlarge.

Quick anecdote, as we walked into one of the art shops around Camden, Annabel suddenly cried out "but you're half Chinese and half Nigerian!" Some poor lady next to us took a look at me and became really confused. I guess the poor thing could see that I was with 2 Chinese girls, and that we seemed really close, but my face clearly contradicted all the information she was receiving! In my mind I was like gbeborun, mind ya own business lol.
 

Wandering round Brixton market with Vicky, 

and eating delish Thai food, 

for which the lady gave me crazy super hot chillies. 

Love love love this part of London because it's vibrant, 

cheapish and the food is always on point!

Riding the tube which I hadn't done in aeons, 

and going to my uni/old neighbourhood

 

 At the Southbank with the girls, 

seeing my old neighbourhood/hangout spots.

Southwark Bridge from the Southbank at night.