The Captain's Cabin

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Restaurants
Cuisine:	British
Location:	Norris Street, London

Well, we cannot leave London without visiting a pub can we??
This is the first one we found between the Royal Academy and the National Gallery. It looks great so we were quite happy to enter (even if we hadn't been hungry and thirsty and this was the first one ;-p).

As the name suggests the pub looks like a decent enough place for captains but I'm pretty sure at night the pirates come in to party ;-)
There's nice old pictures on the walls and the four chairs at our table don't match eachother.
We ofcourse want to eat something really British so we order jacked potatoes. They are delicious and as we're pretty hungry gone in seconds.

Next time we're in London we'll try some of the other British pub dishes ;-)
Maybe even in this pub because it has a pretty nice atmosphere (and is near a lot of the sites you usually visit in London).

Edvard Munch by Himself (Royal Academy of Arts), London (5-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

This exhibition started october 1st so we
are here at the perfect time to go
and have a look ;-D


I've always been a big fan of Munch's work so the chance of seeing any of his works life is something I jump at (literally ;-p).
And this exhibition is rather brilliant because it features a lot of works normally in the museum in Oslo (where I have not been, ever, sadly).
You can see the works very well, there's interesting info and it's a perfect overview of his life (you can see how the light in his works changes when he gets older; how his psyche slightly changes and influences his paintings).


The exhibit runs untill december 11th so any-one who has a chance to visit it should definitely do so! It's not cheap (8£) but a trip to Oslo is more expensive ;-)

Magic Wok

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Restaurants
Cuisine:	Chinese
Location:	Queensway, Bayswater, London

Yes I know, we ate Chinese the day before but it was so nice we wanted Chinese again ;-p

This restaurant is frequented by Chinese themselves and people that obviously have eaten here before and some tourists (that would be us ;-p).

The service here is very very fast (finish a plate and it's gone already), the food is quite delicious (the sweet and sour sauce is more traditonal Chinese, reminds me of the ones in Berlin), the prices are reasonable and you get fortune cookies and for some weird reason orange slices after your meal...

A bonus star is added because of the brilliant name. By the way there are several other Chinese restaurants in the area but this one gets very high marks: see http://www.london-eating.co.uk/2973.htm
So it seems we made the right choice in choosing for the nice name ;-)

St Paul's Cathedral, london (4-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

Here's a tip for all of you! If you ever want to visit St Paul's but do not want to pay the high fee of 8£ because you don't want to visit the crypt anyway, go to the church at 17h when they have a service (evensong): you can see most of the church for free and you get music as a bonus ;-D

Personally I think it's even better to visit this church during a service because it adds so much to the atmosphere of the building. It was built for this kind of worship right? You can just sit on a chair and enjoy the sights and sounds.
And the sight is impressive! Well, you can see that on the picture yourself ;-)

Next time we'll be on time so we can watch the whole service (I've never been to an Anglican service yet and we saw only the end this time and I'm interested in what happens before the last song) ;-D

Tate Modern, London (4-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

We are ofcourse here for the special exhibition of Frida Kahlo (80 works! most from Mexico!!) and it was extremely brilliant but the the Tate Modern also has an impressive permanent collection of modern artworks.
The permanent collection is free (the special exhibit's quite expensive but if you live in London you can become a friend of the Tate for something like 55£ a year and see most of the exhibits for free!).
The view from the musuem and the museum itself (an old factory) are pretty impressive too!

So after seeing brilliant Frida Kahlo works for one hour we decide to go and have a look at the other artworks. Luckily we have a map because finding your way around isn't evident: elevators stop at every floor but there's a big escalator that misses one floor totally...

Highlights of the Tate Modern collection 2005:
- Joseph Beuys (some smaller and one big work => The Pack)
- Anselm Kiefer (woohoo three paintings I have not yet seen!)
- Christian Boltanski (dead swiss)
- hey they have a Marcel Broodthaers
- Andy Warhol
- Gilbert & George
- Bruce Nauman and many many more well known and interesting works ;-)

One of our favorites was a work by Mark Dion. He collected all the stuff on one of the banks of the Thames (near Tate Britain). Very interesting collection of trash ;-) (see pic)

In the gallery on the groundfloor and outside there was also an exhibit by a young Belgian artist called Jan De Cock. He makes installations from plywood that look like models for modern houses but... different, absurd.
Check the Tate site for his work ;-) => http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/

Natural History Museum, London (4-10-2005)

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Other

What can I say? Natural History museums are a must-see in every city and country I visit!

This one in London is one of the best (Berlin is the best ;-p). The building looks like a perfect church of science and is by itself already worth a visit.
Oh and the best thing ofcourse: it's free!! (except for the special exhibit but that's about diamonds and we could care less)

What to see:
- dinosaur and other extinct animal skeletons (especially the Diplodocus who is here for 100 years this year!)
- the skeletons of the all the whales (sooooo big)
- the stuffed bats, pangolin, owls
- the living leaf-cutter-ants (they are soooo cute!)
- the extremely big room of gemstones and meteors and every other stone you can imagine (they can look so tasty!)
- the marine fossils (sea creatures are just weird!)
- the piece of a giant sequoia
- the shops: loads of books, toy animals and other fun stuff!

Well this will keep you busy for an hour or two so have fun ;-)
For more info (on current exhibitions for instance): http://www.nhm.ac.uk/

Miso Noodle Bar

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Restaurants
Cuisine:	Asian
Location:	30 hawley crescent / Camden Town

We went to Camden Town because it's well known for it's cheap(er) restaurants and shops and we stumbled upon this recently opened hip and Japanese looking restaurant quite near the metro station.

The menu looked delicious and reasonable so we went in. And we were perfectly right!
My deepfried chicken with sweet and sour sauce was very delicious. I have eaten this dish in every country I've visited so I'm an expert on it's taste ;-) The sauce was a bit lighter and a bit more sour than usual, the chicken was perfect.
Mark's Curry Chicken looked very tasty too and he enjoyed it very much ;-)

In short: reasonable, hip, tasty and their chopsticks are easy to eat with (for me at least ;-p)

Info: www.misonoodlebar.co.uk