Happy Birthday JenChiu!

FIRST AND FOREMOST: HAPPY 21ST BIRTHDAY JEN CHIU!

Ahh Finally up at 4pm today to begin the day off...we'll need to start changing our nighttime habits in order to get into the swing of things and to see more of daytime London...but last night was my friend Jen Chiu's birthday so we had to stay out till club closing and then happen to be right next to china town where we had an incredible meal of egg fried rice, noodles, and chicken with chili sauce (orgasgums in the gums. it was deliciosos)

But here's a few updates on some other things we've been doing:

Besides experiencing more clubbing, we had:

an alternative type of night on Friday where we ended up at a place called CLUB KOKO which was a ways away but well worth the journey. The venue alternated club music and new bands which turned out to be phenomenal, I'm adding a video clip below to illustrate this European hot spot we discovered. Reel Big Fish is playing next week Thursday so we might go check it out! (video clip did not work so I'm putting up a picture instead, look for it in a future post perhaps)

Anyways, we got to visit some of the British Museum which had some fantastic treasures in it including: THE Rosetta stone, Cleopatra's mummy (she was a small lady!), and a BUNCH of ancient artifacts. I love history so this was a lot of fun to walk through and learn, I'm still fascinated by the ancient Greeks and Romans who were so sophisticated with their societies. Below is a short clip of the Rosetta Stone room and a couple of other pictures.

Cleopatra (is a tiny lady!)

Canopic Jars of Egypt

examining the "fake" Rosetta Stone

WE're planning on getting out to more museums soon so stay tuned but our main accomplishment today (besides reading all of Oliver Twist sparknotes) is that we booked our trip to Amsterdam next weekend! Watch out Dutch, here we come in full force!

My next entry will probably be down the line a bit until I can work up some more good experiences but until then, CHEERS!

'Ello London--New Home--Spring 2010

Ello World! Here I am! Yes, right here from "flat" #42 that I share with my two roommates Gretchen and Cara, I shall report these "travels, adventures, encounters" and occasional "parties" (what is that?) throughout this semester abroad. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the posts, like I do for posting pictures! Speaking of pictures, here's one of us in front of The Crofton on the first day:

[Me Cara and Gretchen in front of the Crofton]

Since getting in on January 10th after a 22 hour journey from Hawaii, it has been an ongoing carnival of fun, late nights, some school, and little site-seeing..but that will change soon as we go out exploring tomorrow (granted London doesn't shower on my hopes and dreams). For this semester I am studying History of British Popular Culture, International Business, and finally International Marketing with a local internship at a firm called Caxton FX (more on that later on in the semester when I start full time late in February!)

In a week, you can get a lot done...or you can just go clubbing! So far we have done the latter fortunately (or unfortunately?) but we will get cultured either way!

We HAVE done the following::

1. Partied at Boujis with miss kristen kjoseth & other fab girls, little did we know this was a place where the princes themselves, lady gaga, and other celebrities once went to! how fabulous without even knowing! It was filled with a bunch of lads who were into the dance especially one young whipper snapper who whipped out the most entriging dance move: Danced like a chicken while descending in front of us then raised the roof to ascend back up-GENIUS! haha it was great entertainment for the night.

2. Went on the school sponsored Boat Trip down the River Thames:

Video of the London Eye (ferris wheel thing!) and Tower of London..and US!

3. Went to these clubs so far besides boujis: oxygen, metra, zoobar, the langley, chinawhite (OO la la this one!). It's been very convenient to finally be legal but don't worry elders, we are being safe and smart out there. Won't tell you the sketchy story which we were very smart about from the first night but since then we've been A-OK!. . .!

4. Experienced 1/2 of the SOHO TopShop.MUST cut out an entire day of just ooing and ahhing on all the great things I can't afford although their wicked sale allowed me to purchase a black sequence skirt and a scandalous sequence low cut back dress for a mere 20 pounds. Although yesterday I did find my new purse for the season, which I am LOVING:

http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=&catalogId=19551&storeId=12556&categoryId=169014&parent_category_rn=130031&productId=1563413&langId=-1

CHECK It out.

5. Finally, I've had class a few times this week, one of which was a walking tour of London through the stories of Charles Dickens (we're reading Oliver Twist for class) that was a nice chance to see some of the spots in the city, we walked for about 3 hours around town! More fun to come from this class..and a lot more reading ugh!

Last Thoughts:

I'll end with a quote by our dear Charles Dickens:“Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many - not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some”.

Cheers,

Cory