floral;: All the things I needed to update!

I never seem to have time to reply to messages and emails because I've been keeping myself busy! Tons of errands to run when I'm in town (Dubai I mean) and plenty of things to see and do when I'm out. With my goldfish-like memory these days, I really need a to-do list so that I can keep myself on track.

Here're some insights to my cooking these days, since it's all my housemate and I do when we're home together :p

ooohh yeah, from girls who never stepped into kitchen, to these, we're pretty amazed ourselves.

Beijing
I'll continue with shots of the imperial garden in Forbidden City:

Decided that we should also do a tour in the imperial park opposite - Jingshan Park

Extracted from the wikipedia page linked above:
"Jingshan (Chinese: 景山; pinyin: Jǐngshān; literally "Prospect Hill") is an artificial hill in Beijing, China. Covering an area of more than 230,000 m², Jingshan is immediately north of the Forbidden City on the central axis of Beijing.^[1] As a result, it is administratively part of both the Xicheng District and the Dongcheng District. Originally an imperial garden, it is now a public park, known as Jingshan Park (景山公园)"

Gio finding his inner peace here with the greenery and flowers. We were elated to see so much green here as compared to the sand we have in Dubai.

Taking time to appreciate the little things around you.

Climbing up the stairs to the peak of park

The view opposite of the palaces, weather's a little cloudy that day.

At top of the peak where one of the pavilions sits, there are 5 peaks and pavilions n total in this park.
That pretty much ends our visit to Forbidden City :)

Dubai
I've so much to update about my local visits and gatherings but I'll do one recent visit to an Indonesian restaurant here. It's an authentic indo restaurant called Betawi, situated in Bur Dubai area. My indonesian chinese housemate gave it a 4 star ;)

Suy, Karen and I sat for lunch.

The girls and their avocado shake, indonesian style.

I had a bandung which was really good - ultimate milkiness. We liked it so much that I told Suy to get rose syrup from Jarkata to make one at home (as seen above in my instagram shots!)

Soto Ayam

Nasi Briyani
(favorite of the lot, this reminds me of the one I had in Bali)

Ayam Satay

Indonesian Fried Fish

Another of my UK adventures in
Manchester

One of my favorite hotels with the fluffiest pillows and bounciest beds!
There's a garden out there and the hotel looks fantastic, 2 levels like a cottage house :)

Went to town @ Piccadilly 'cos we had a private car to 6 of us :)

Tired max cos we went out immediately after the flight!

City Center with tons of shops. M&S, Primark, Topshop, Debenhams, etc!
London is indeed a heaven for shopping.

weirdest costume ever in Primark and floral shorts I didn't manage to buy cos I burst my budget at the street.

The girls and tons of primark bags, its awful how we pulled the heavy bags through the subway station.