Yan

Unlike pre­vi­ous ses­sion, which lec­ture ends at 5pm, classes end up early at 3pm this week. I got plenty of time to go to National Gallery for the “Corot to Monet” exhi­bi­tion this Fri­day after­noon. Been here in Lon­don for 5 weeks already and it was not until today did I step in to National Gallery…what a shame. The exhi­bi­tion is excel­lent, it includes paint­ings from ear­lier land­scape painters to bar­bi­zon school to impres­sion­ists. If time allowed, a sec­ond visit is def­i­nitely on my schedule.

After my visit to National Gallery, I went to Spi­tal­field with Chloe for a restau­rant named Can­teen. It has been rec­om­mended by both Lonely Planet and Wall­pa­per City Guide. We thought it’d be pretty good…yet it’s just aver­age to me, at least for its sig­na­ture fish and chips. Don’t always rely on rec­om­men­da­tions, (though I love Mango Room, another restu­arnt rec­om­mended by Lonely Planet), just like cam­era some­times lies.

Located in Spi­tal­field Mar­ket, Liv­er­pool Street, Can­teen is a British chain restau­rant with very clean and min­i­mal logo, reminds me of designer shop at first sight.

Min­i­mal­ism in the menu design. I like it.

Canteen’s sig­na­ture fish and chips, eaten in the tra­di­tional way — vine­gar and salt. Fish was good, but chips were really dis­ap­point­ing — nei­ther fresh nor crisp.

My first time to try Scotch egg with pic­calilli, very inter­est­ing, and the sauce is pretty good.

Rhubarb com­pote and fresh straw­ber­ries, I have to say rhubarb resem­bles cel­ery to me!!

We had a steak and Chloe ordered a choco­late sun­dae as desert (play it safe, for the sake of my vir­gin Bloody Mary with cel­ery the other day). A good meal, but aver­age food. Plan after the meal was to see Adam, the movie. But turned out to be a Plan B a tour near Thames. We stopped by the Big Ben, West­min­ster, and went to South Bank for Lon­don Eye, and Mary-go-around!

Some archi­tec­ture of today

Liv­er­pool Station

RBS at Liv­er­pool Street

Inte­rior of LSE New Aca­d­e­mic Building

Only one week left in Lon­don, will leave this charm­ing city on August 15th. Then it’s time to say HELLO COPENHAGEN!

晚上回家路过Waitrose，进去抱了两把花儿回来，刚好在搞特价。一束spray car­na­tions, 一束kenyan rose。其实就是康乃馨和玫瑰。回家后很没创意的把矿泉水瓶剪了个口当花瓶用。放花的时候一直在好奇这个kenyan rose到底是月季啊还是玫瑰啊。于是就搜了一下，发现这肯尼亚玫瑰的“肯尼亚”商标，原来还是很有故事的啊。

2008年2月14日新华社今晨电在情人节来临之际，英国政府建议国民购买肯尼亚玫瑰，帮助肯尼亚渡过难关。

英国国际开发大臣亚历山大说，购买肯尼亚玫瑰有利于帮助穷困的肯尼亚农民，使这个国家尽快从政治争端和暴力冲突中恢复过来。亚历山大说：“肯尼亚鲜花不是在温室中生长，所以这些玫瑰消耗的能源比欧洲产玫瑰少，记住这一点很重要。”

亚历山大说，肯尼亚是欧洲的第一大鲜切花供应国，在肯尼亚全部出口花卉中，玫瑰占70%。在英国，玫瑰多在情人节和3月2日英国母亲节用于礼品赠送。

房间有了花儿之后就更有生活气息啦，每天晚上看着伦敦怎么都不黑的天和远处的教堂，整个人就更加懒了.… :S

买完花出来的路上碰到了一群法国夏令营小朋友，又一次看到了那几个熟悉的拼音字母 “F-E-I-Y-U-E”…

飞跃在法国真是红啊！