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  • A Night Out To London’s Chinatown & Leicester Square Christmas Fun Fair

    A Night Out To London’s Chinatown & Leicester Square Christmas Fun Fair

    A Night Out To London’s Chinatown & Leicester Square Christmas Fun Fair – I don’t know is it that I have the Chinese/Asian traits in me, or is it that the Leicester Square & Chinatown are so fun that I’ve to visit the place almost every time I am in London. There was once 4 days trip to London that I’ve been there for like 2-3 times.

    I don’t think I am typical Asian that Chinatown is the only place I belong, I just feel that Chinatown, Leicester Square and surroundings are very happenings throughout the day and night. Of course, not to mention the great choices of Chinese & Asian food, and they are good too! Oxford Street is for shopping and Leicester Square is for food and chill. Where else in London is a good place to hangout? I need to know more about it, or else, the next time I head down to London, I’ll be heading to Leicester Square, again.

    Unlike Newcastle where the main street get deserted after 8/9 after shops close, Leicester Square, Chinatown, SOHO and surroundings are very well alive! Food, pubs, cinema and casinos are the main thing there. During last Christmas, the area was hyped out with the Christmas Fun Fair located at the centre of Leicester Square. Beautiful and wonderful, how could I not spend some times at there? Seriously, I need to explore more of London instead of heading to Chinatown when I’ve no place to go in my mind.


    The small Christmas Fun Fair at Leicester Square.


    It’s like a mini-Las Vegas at Leicester Square as you can find a plenty of mini casinos. Well, not surprised that you will find a numbers of Asian in there.


    Street food stall which just feels so Asian.


    Are you a fan of Chinese roasted meat? I am super duper am! The roasted pork belly, siu yok is good!


    Chatime – the always-good-business Taiwanese bubble tea chain-store that makes everyone goes crazy and queue for it. There’s not a time that there’s no queue in front of the shop.


    This is Chinatown, London.


    Chinese’ Pastry.


    This is a Polo Bun, unfortunately it’s not hot.


    Golden Gate Cake Shop. Sad that most of the pastries were cold, but the taste still ease my Asian’s food craving.

  • Chinese New Year’s Celebration At Newcastle’s Chinatown

    Chinese New Year’s Celebration At Newcastle’s Chinatown

    Chinese New Year’s Celebration At Newcastle’s Chinatown – Following up the Chinese New Year’s celebration in London, the Chinatown in Newcastle also had its own Chinese New Year celebration on last Sunday. The  Chinatown in Newcastle covers the stretch of Stowell Street that filled up with Chinese restaurant mostly, and a few Chinese retails and hair salons.

    Unlike London’s CNY celebration where you can find a series of performance at a main stage and a small CNY parade, the celebration at Newcastle’s Chinatown was actually just the performances of Lion Dance & Dragon Dance. Local, Geordies and students, all flocked into the street of Chinatown – Stowell Street early on Sunday morning to experience the sound of live firecrackers and ‘dong dong qiang’ of lion & dragon dances. Me and friends went at noon to join the fun and feel the Chinese New Year’s atmosphere as it was the 10th day of Chinese New Year.

    Chinatown in Newcastle has been quiet all the while, and finally, the only day of the year that it’s very happenings. Lion dance went to each restaurants and retails on the street to perform a short dance to bring luck to their business. Funny is that most of the crowds followed the lion dance team all the way from beginning to the end. There’s also a very small fun fair at the end of the street which I think that day was the most crowded day of the year. Well, the celebration was quite interesting, with lion dance, fun fair, some Chinese performance that I’ve missed it and a sea of people. This gave me a different perception of the Chinatown in Newcastle instead of being a quiet street with no Chinatown’s feeling. Anyway, the food price at all restaurants remained the same on that day, which was a very good thing!


    The crowds in front of the Chinese arch near St. James Park.


    People watching the lion dance ‘performance’.


    Live fire crackers. This just spiced up everything to make the day more festive.


    A very small merry-go-round.


    Inflatable slides that made the kids went crazy. This reminds me when I was small that loved to get on these inflatable slides!


    Some little fun CNY thingy or souvenirs or toys for the locals, not for the Asian though.


    Genting, a very familiar name for Malaysian.


    Cute little girl with a small lion head.


  • London’s Chinatown During Chinese New Year

    London’s Chinatown During Chinese New Year

    London’s Chinatown During Chinese New Year – London’s Chinatown has one of the biggest Chinese New Year celebration out of Asia, read again, it’s not the ‘the biggest’, but one of the biggest, so there’s still other great CNY celebration places like Sydney, Vancouver, NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco and more.

    Although Newcastle has a Chinatown, it’s rather quiet during normal days and during CNY too. So, I’ve travelled down to London to experience the Chinese festive season and to see how great the celebration was. The celebration venues cover the Trafalgar Square and Chinatown where the square has a main stage for performance and Chinatown is the end point for the parade. Sounds interesting?

    Unfortunately, I woke up late due to a party I had the night before and only got to Chinatown at noon! The sound of Chinese drums ‘dong dong qiang’ can be heard from far where the sign of lion dance could not be seen in any near distance. The most craziest thing was the packed crowds, where you can hardly move a bit and the worst, you can’t even see what’s ahead of the crowds. I’ve no idea where were the crowds heading to. It’s like an open-day for Chinatown, people just visit the place, for fun. Seriously, there’s not much to see in Chinatown at that time, it’s just maybe, a few Lion Dance, and that’s it. Why would people wanted to visit the Chinatown so badly during CNY but not normal days?! It’d made me so difficult to walk and look for food at that time. I wanted to have a good lunch at Chinatown, but the ended abandoning the place and head over to Covent Garden for food.

    So, Chinatown during Chinese New Year was really crowded, but honestly, it’s not as fun as I thought. Yes, there’s  the festive feeling, many people, there’s Lion Dance, and lanterns (that were not light up), but that’s it. Come at night, it would be better when the crowd dispersed, or very early in the morning, but not noon time. Now, I want to try other places’ Chinatown like NYC, SF, Sydney and Vancouver which I’ve read that it’s very happenings during Chinese New Year.

  • Oxford Street, Bond Street, Chinatown, Covent Garden

    Oxford Street, Bond Street, Chinatown, Covent Garden

    London // Oxford Street, Bond Street, Chinatown, Covent Garden – The walk continues from the British Museum to Oxford Street and beyond. Walking in London can never be bored as you are just keep walking pass interesting retail and shopping street, accompany with extremely high traffic of human pedestrian.
    You need to have the skill and patience when you are walking at the heart of London because human traffic congestion is inevitable. It’s hard to get used to it at first, you may wanna throw out some four-letter words or sending regards to people’s mother at times because of the huge traffic of pedestrian, but as you walk along, you would just have to accept and embrace the human-jam. ^$&%(*&!@)&@
    That was fun, and happenings. At least it’s mind-refreshing, the rush of people just add a little bit of excitement to life. Unlike in Newcastle, it’s just so slow, so slow that everything’s got so bored here.
    Jin was the guide of the day, he brought me and another friend, Alvin on a walk to the famous and busy streets in London.
    Theater at West End, London, somewhere very near to Oxford Street and West End is the ‘Broadway’ of London.
    Oxford Street with Christmas lighting at night!
    Lots of Nike Shoes at Nike Town.
    Starting at Oxford Street & Regent Street, the famous shopping street in London which you can find 3 Zara outlets on the same street, several Uniqlo(s) and H&Ms and more! (I would call it a Singapore’s Orchard Road-equivalent, but longer and more crowded).
    Let’s get ready for the human-jam and scream (*^(%*^$&#.
    Apple Store on Regent Street.
    Late lunch of the day at Wasabi, the Japanese fast food that floods London.
    Bond Street, where you will find a row of exclusively high end designer’s labels from Prada to Hermes to labels that you’ve never heard of. A walk in this area will suddenly makes you feel high-end for a little while if you can’t afford it like me. That’s fine, and I enjoyed flipping the price tags of the items here.
    A photo with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. Yo, what’s up.
    Bond Street of London.
    A stopover at Chinatown, Leicester Square for dinner to give the feet a rest. Had a sumptuous dinner at the famous Cantonese Roast Duck restaurant – Four Seasons and to be honest, the ducks were real darn good. Price was affordable but expect a little wait and staffs ‘chasing’ you to leave after finishing your meal. Never feel bored of Chinatown as I see it as the most happenings place in London, not because I am a Malaysian Chinese, but the place is really exciting with many nice eatery that provides a good taste of Asia. Seriously. The Chinatown just feels like Hong Kong to me, crowded, noisy and Cantonese!
    Chinese supermarket, New Loon Moon.
    Four Season – 文兴酒家. They claim they have the best Cantonese roast duck in the world.
    Cantonese Roast Duck!
    Stop-by at the M&M World. Always full of people.
    Covent Garden, the night ended here where the Apple Store caught my attention. The street performers, the Apple Market and the place where the TVB series, Triump In The Skies 2 filmed had just brought my excitement to another level. Cheers to London.
    On the way to Covent Garden.
    Covent Garden Underground Station.
    Since when Master Yoda grows to this height?
    Oh my Apple Store!
    Raw and rustic Apple Store at Covent Garden.
    As it says, Apple Market.
    Giant Christmas ornaments hanging in Covent Garden Market.
    To the fans of Chong Siong Wen Siu 冲上云霄2, Triumph In The Skies 2, you will recognise this place.
    Christmas Tree!
    Lego fun at Covent Garden.
    An outdoor cafe.
  • When Malaysian Meets Malaysian Car

    When Malaysian Meets Malaysian Car

    When Malaysian Meets Malaysian Car – Just like people coming from the village to the city; when Malaysian meets a Malaysian’s Proton Gen 2 in a foreign land, United Kingdom to be specific, surprised, not ‘wow, walaoeh, wah piang’ but most importantly, a photo with it is a must!
    Chinatown, Newcastle Upon Tyne.
  • Newcastle’s Chinatown Without The Feel Of Chinatown

    Newcastle’s Chinatown Without The Feel Of Chinatown

    Newcastle’s Chinatown Without The Feel Of Chinatown – There’s like approximately 300,000 population in Newcastle Upon Tyne and there’s 7.6% of Asian living in the city according to Wikipedia, I don’t know does it includes International student like me or not. Interestingly, there’s a Chinatown in the city. I was pretty excited cause I thought it would be like New York or San Francisco’s Chinatown where it really has a blend of East & West with Cantonese language flooding the air of Chinatown.
    This way to Chinatown!
    Here’s me and Alvin!
    Found a cemetery nearby, found it interesting and I took a photo of it. LOL.
    St James Park Stadium at background, home of Newcastle FC.
    Surprisingly, met a Chung Ling High School friend here – Matthias.
    He’s Wayne.
    Just love the post box.
    LOL. Bangkok’s Ladyboys comes to Newcastle!
    Well, it’s not what you think it is. Chinatown in Newcastle is small with mainly Chinese restaurants, 2 Asian grocery supermarkets and that’s all. The only Chinese-looking thing is the Chinese-style arch entrance near St James Stadium. Bahhh. You don’t really see many people here, people come here just for food, or just to buy Asian food.
    Siu Mei! 烧腊！
    Do you feel Chinatown? NO.
    A plate of saltish Chinese dish.
    Asian of the day, I would say, Malaysian. Kay, Eunice, Ling Er, Wayne, LC, me and Alvin.
    I went to tried out a Chinese buffet (Lau’s Buffet) here, which costs £6.75 per person and I thought it gonna be filled with good food. Oh no, it’s a place that I’m not coming back again, they are salty. Somehow, I saw a lot of local British came for their food, bring their kids and family here, maybe they like it the way it is and 70% of the dishes are chicken, fried chicken, Si Chuan chicken, sweet and sour chicken, kong pow chicken and more chicken. In short, Chinese buffet is just like mixed rice in Malaysia but it’s eat-all-you-can. Ang mo likes it, but not me.
    A1 Bak Kut Teh herbal pack. =)
    Oh MILO and it costs a bomb. Guess Cadbury Chocolate is a better choice here.
    Wing Hong Supermarket.
    After checking out the Chinese supermarket here (Wing Hong & Hiyou), I can tell you that you can find almost anything here. It’s like Cold Storage or B.I.G. (Big Independent Grocers) where you can find many imported food, just that they are imported from Asia. Spices, Asian’s vegetable, sauces, instant noodles and more are all available. It’s just that they are in £. If you happens to come to UK for study, don’t bother to bring food stuff if you have a limited luggage., you can find them all here.
  • Bangkok: Green Shirt T&K Seafood, Yaowarat Chinatown

    Bangkok: Green Shirt T&K Seafood, Yaowarat Chinatown

    Click here for more posts about my Bangkok Trip.

    Bangkok Trip: Green Shirt T&K Seafood, Chinatown (Day 2) – Do you know Thailand actually has got a lot of good food and delicacies to eat? I feel Thai food has the closest taste to our local Malaysia food because of the spiciness and the ingredient use.

    One food corner that must not miss out when visiting Bangkok, Thailand is the T&K Seafood in Yaowarat Chinatown. The T&K Seafood is also known as “Green Shirt” seafood in Chinatown because that all of their worker wears a sporty green polo tee as uniform. And what’s interesting is, located right across the street is the R&L Seafood which all of their worker wears red colour uniform.

    Obviously, both of them are competing with each other, though T&K Seafood is the original and more famous one. Nevertheless, both of them are always full-house when night falls.

    Bangkok: Green Shirt T&K Seafood, Yaowarat Chinatown
    Green shirt gang of T&K Seafood.

    A
    Red shirt gang of R&L Seafood.

    We went there with a cab. The cab charged us 200Baht at first, and after some bargain, it’s 150Baht. Upon arriving, I was pretty amazed that the number of people waiting for a place to sit. It’s very happenings, very full and very cool. It’s not only famous to the tourists, but also among local Thai too.

    T&K Seafood is like our local’s zhu char / dai chao 煮炒 in Malaysia. It’s a stall by the roadside with many table placed by the road.


    Vegetable that I don’t know #1.


    Vegetable that I don’t know #2.


    Deep fried garlic fish which is not really awesome.


    Egg and crab meet in crab shell which tasted not bad, kinda special.


    Curry crab which is nice to eat with white rice.

    The food was serve in about 15 minutes, pretty fast given that there’s so many people at there. Overall the food taste is kinda good, and price wise not that pricey, but a little bit more than affordable. I think its famous-ness explains the price.
    After our dinner at T&K Seafood, we went for a walk along Chinatown. It’s really fun to see huge Chinese sign hanging on the street, it doesn’t really feels like China to me because of the presence of Thai words and Thai people. Though, it’s pretty cool. Not many shops were open, but Chinatown in Bangkok is famous for street food like Wantan Mee, Chinese desserts like bird nest, shark fins soup, tang yuan and more.

    We actually stopped by a desserts stall by the road side and have 2 bowl of desserts. The tang yuan was pretty spicy because of the ginger soup and the bird nests was sweet and nice. Both for only 150Baht.

    So, Chinatown is basically more about Chinese food, seafood, desserts and shark fins soup. That’s all here.

    Next stop: We will go to Talad Rot Fai, a old train warehouse turn into a retro antique night market.

    [googlemaps https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=215278323465761497274.0004b80a852f7e1d51867&ie=UTF8&t=m&ll=13.74099,100.509689&spn=0.005002,0.006866&z=17&iwloc=0004b8bdb1269726521da&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

    Click here for more posts about my Bangkok Trip.

  • Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market, Petaling Street and Dataran Merdeka with Xiu Xin

    Kuala Lumpur’s Central Market, Petaling Street and Dataran Merdeka with Xiu Xin

    In the last post, I talk about the Western Market then now I want to talk to something similar here in Malaysia, an art and craft market that is located in central Kuala Lumpur, it’s the Central Market. Haha. With a little curiosity of what’s there, I went to check out the place with a Penang friend, Xiu Xin few weeks back.

    Central Market


    He’s Xiu Xin, my high school friend.

    Also because of boredness, and don’t feel like staying at home, we went for a walk in town. I am living in Bandar Sunway and I don’t really like it here, I prefer the city, downtown, where there’s more colours and life. Satelite city like these are boring, building are uglys and one more thing, Klang Valley is too big for me. I prefer a small place where everywhere is easily accessible, like my hometown, Penang! Hehe.

    We actually took the Kelana Jaya Line LRT and allighted at Pasar Seni, then we walked to Central Market. It’s actually stones throw away from the LRT station.

    The building is pretty nice, has some heritage feeling but it’s like crowded with tourists and visitors. It’s another tourist’s attraction in Malaysia, a place targeting tourists mostly, and a minority of locals. We were boring, so we went to check out the place.


    Rabbit years for the Chinese! =)

    Upon entering the place, you will see many stalls inside selling souvinirs stuff like post card, keychains and more. There’s even a few cafe and restaurant located in there and for sure this place is bigger than Hong Kong’s Western Market that I have visited recently.

    I wonder why “whatever” market has to sell arts and crafts and souvinirs stuff, why can’t they sell food? Haha.

    Actually there’s nothing much in there. Nothing fancy us, not even the toilet because we need to pay so we didn’t bother to use the toilet. Just walk a round, take some photos, then we were off to somewhere else.

    Any nice thing to recommend at Central Market? =)

    Petaling Street

    Actually I was not very sure what our trip that day was about. It was just simply walking around the town, talking with Xiu Xin and check out the area. Places came in spontaneously. After checking out Central Market, we went to walk around Petaling Street, the so called Chinatown for Kuala Lumpur. Actually the whole Malaysia is a Chinatown already. Haha.

    Xiu Xin actually didn’t really come to this place for a long time, so I brought him around the place. The last time I went was to check out a basketball competition in town. =D


    Despite all these signage saying no pirated and imitation products, but they are still everywhere on Petaling Street.


    Loong Kee’s bakgua is awesome. Hehe.


    Randomly found a Chinese temple. LIKES!

    Merdeka Square / Dataran Merdeka

    Next up we continue walking, from Petaling Street to don’t know where. Then we saw signs pointing a side to Dataran Merdeka, also known as Merdeka Square, so we walked to that direction.

    Well, this is quite new to me. I only passed by the area in car but never really walk by this place, so it’s quite fun and exciting. Luckily the weather that day was not that sunny, a little bit warm, a little bit of perspiration breaking out from the body, but it still good.

    This place is actually where the father of Malaysia, Tunku Abdul Rahman announced the Independence of Malaysia. Notice the brick building on the right, it’s one of the famous building in Malaysia, it’s Sultan Abdul Samad Building.

    Well, after that, there’s no more. We went back, but actually we went to KLCC to look for some stuff only go back to the LRT station where we came from.

    The Masjid Jamek Station is the interchange between two lines, Kelana Jaya and Ampang Line but very sucks is that they have to walk across the street to change line. What a lousy Malaysian public transportation.


    Justin Timberlake?! What the hell and notice UIA is actually stands for International Islamic University. LOL.

    Above are some extra photos taken while walking to the LRT station. Seriously, I don’t even know how we get there. If were to ask us to go back to Pasar Seni LRT, I think we couldn’t make it, cause we had forgotten the path. Haha.

     

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