Welcome to Carnaby Street

welcome to Carnaby, my dear lads..

it's a nice place to do some street wear shopping.. and there are some interesting blokes hanging around here, stuck back being the 70s Mod rather than being one in the revival..

anyway.. i guess soon i'll post up some of my opinions regarding the Mods revival..

but for now.. i just got back from London this afternoon.. and was a very nice trip.. especially coz i managed to catch up with an old friend after so many years..

London is cold still.. and gloomy as it normally is.. and it rains.. like how it always rain in London..

itz normally is at an average of abt 5 to 8 degrees in the day.. and it will remain being chilly till abt May..

arrived in London on Saturday morning.. and slept thru the day till abt 6pm.. when itz already dark..

itz my first time in the new hotel that the company put us up in.. and itz a really really really beautiful hotel.. with a very modern design and layout..



the hotel lobby.. this new hotel is located in a very convenient location, in the heart of london.. which is along Oxford Street.. right in front of Marblearch..

in fact, Marblearch is just across the street.. abt 30 seconds dash across the road..

the first thing that runs thru my mind when i see that i'm rostered for a London flight..

Roasted Duck Rice..

my fav food of all time.. especially the ones from Bayswater.. with really hot chilli oil to go with it..

and so.. on the day of arrival.. itz a custom for me to do just that.. get my long awaited and beloved Siew Ngap Fun..

so I headed down with another steward, Omar, to Bayswater, which is abt 20 mins walk away from the hotel.. which, at 3 degrees at night, seems more like 2 hrs..

we had our dinner at Kam Thong Restaurant.. which, in my opinion, has the same quality of roasted duck rice compared to the famous Four Seasons Restaurant across the street.. and MUCH MUCH MUCH better compared to the rudeness of the staff in Four Seasons..

basically.. thatz it for the first day.. was wasted with sleep, coz we landed from a 14 hour flight in the morning..

the next morning, i called Omar out for a late breakfast at Pret, which is just next door, and bumped into 2 other crew, Christine and Ida.. and had breakfast with them..



thatz Marblearch across the street..

I had made plans to meet up in the afternoon with my old friend, Raihan, who is now flying with her husband, Azim, with Emirates..

after breakfast, the girls headed down to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum.. and me and Omar headed to Marks and Spencer to have afternoon coffee with Rina..

from that point, we split, Rina with her shopping at M & S, Omar headed down to Picadilly's and i headed down to Carnaby Street, just slightly off Regent Street, which is off Oxford Street...

heh..



Oxford Street.. this is the main shopping street in Central London.. another place of shopping interest would be in High Street, which is located in Kensington..

or u could go down to the flea market at Portobello Market at Notting Hill on Sundays..

yes.. Notting Hill.. where Hugh Grant lives..

yeah rite..

i managed to catch the Notting Hill Carnival last year.. itz really really interesting.. and itz an annual event that spans thru several days.. with parades and stuffs..

and girls baring their chests..

oops..

maybe that didnt happen all the time.. but i managed to catch a glimpse of it.. but they were not pretty girls.. and i somehow have doubts that they are girls anyway..



Cafe Zeynah along Oxford Street.. so now.. Zainah.. does it gives u an idea?

and so..



Welcome to Carnaby Street..

Carnaby Street is where the fashion street for the Mods would be..

in fact, i think this is like one of the rare places now that have shops that specialise in the Mods, Skinheads and Rudeboy fashion and culture..

the Mod shops would have the sign in front of it.. so therez no way of missing it..



The Face..

another Mod shop that might be of interest would be Sherry's.. and there, u could get some information of gigs and clubs and pubs that would still be playing some 2Tone sounds..

along the streets of Carnaby's, u could get Mod brands like Merc, Lambretta, Ben Sherman, Fred Perry..

but to get real Mod stuffs sold by a Mod.. go down to The Face..



Merc.. used to be the low quality end of the Mod fashion.. now a boutique with worldwide name..

this sounds just like an advertisement..




Lambretta.. and no.. they dont sell scooters here.. just the clothes..



and Ben Sherman..

after going around and spending time in the rain.. i met up with Raihan and Azim at Oxford Circus tube station, before heading back to Carnaby Street for coffee at C'est Ici, in Kingly Court..



the couple..

really had fun catching up with the old times.. like what had happened since, the friends in between.. the gossips and the gossips and the gossips.. abt a mutual friend whom i ended up dating for a while years ago..

sigh..

times when we were young..

now everyone else is still young.. heh.. and i'm ancient..

but itz ok.. i still have more fun in my week than a lot of ppl have in their lifetime..

Raihan was a teenager back then when we met.. and now she's a happily married mid twenties woman..

how time flies..

and itz a good thing that she met with a nice guy to settle with.. Azim.. jangan kembang..

anyway.. wish all the best to the both of u and it had been great meeting up with u guys..

so we split up coz the couple had to go back to fly back to Dubai.. and i headed back to the hotel, again.. walking from Carnaby's to Regent to Oxford to Marblearch..

and if by now u guys dunno how to get to Carnaby's.. hmm.. nevermind..

stopped at HMV for a while to get some DVDs.. one of which is Quadrophenia for my 14 yr old nephew who'z getting into the Mod culture..

AND HE CALLS ME LAD

wahahaha.. fancy a 14 yr old calling his UNCLE a lad..

but itz ok.. itz better to be British-influenced rather than Americanised i guess.. coz Americans are too commercialised and everyone wanna be a hiphop star..

yo.. wassup.. me calling for ma homies to read ma words i wrote from ma crib..

yeah.. whateva..

i aint got no clue to how they really speak anyway.. so i can never be a hiphop star.. freestyling aint ma style..

i'd stick to Ska..



u aint gonna get lost here ma bro..



ok.. a typical English street.. with the typical London cabs and the typical London Buses and even a typical Bobby walking along the street..

and so.. basically.. thatz it..

i headed back to the hotel after getting the DVDs and slept thru the nite..

i got back this afternoon.. and managed to catch up on several hours of sleep..

i'ld be on annual leave for 2 weeks soon.. right after my Bombay trip, and for that 2 weeks.. i can catch up on lost times with my beautiful princess.. my niece.. whoz now in Johore.. so i'll be heading to Johore on Thursday to fetch her back..

see u blokes around..

till then.. piss off..