just dropped down in londontown

My old blog was on Tumblr (click here if you want to check that one out) but I felt like the design and everything was to blegh and blah and not cool enough so I decided to move to WordPress. I’ve worked with WP before so I’m happy about that.
October Break has finally started! I think a week isn’t going to be enough but it’s fine. I’m staying in London with some family friends (whom I hadn’t met before this break actually) and it’s been quite fun. I went to bed at 00:45 last night and woke up at 10:45. It was absolutely fabulous and I slept on a roll-out couch that was basically a queen-sized bed… huge difference from the tiny, narrow single bed we have back at the College
For lunch, we ate at Hind’s Head Bray, which was created by Michelin chef Heston Blumenthal. It’s a gastropub, and seriously everything was so insanely expensive it’s ridiculous. I’m sorry, but I have no idea why I even thought about paying 3.25 for a freaking Scotch egg. It was pretty good but I’ve eaten better eggs that costed like 2RMB. Which is 20 pence in British terms. And this small pot/bowl of wild mushroom macaroni was pretty good (and cost over 16 pounds), but I can see myself getting the same satisfaction from eating, like, mac and cheese or something which would’ve cost 2 pounds. And for goodness’ sake, one slice of chocolate tart with a spoonful of vanilla ice cream was 7.25 pounds! 7.25 POUNDS!! That is so ridiculously expensive. In Beijing I could have gotten a three-course meal for that. What is earth.
We got back to St. John’s Wood (where I’m staying) at around 4:00 and we went to St. John’s Wood High Street where I got some reaaaaaaaaaally good gelato. I should take more pictures. It was biscotto (basically Italian cookies ‘n’ cream) and this hazelnut chocolate one, which was like nutella in ice cream form. Then we went to Tesco, where I bought a pain au chocolat and a maple pecan plait… and I ate that. And I ate an apple, and a lot of cookies and chocolate covered pretzels. Following that, I ate 3 soy sauce and honey-glazed chicken thighs with some rice. A lot of food. At least it’s good food now.
I’ve gained 3kg since I’ve gotten to the UK and it really needs to stop. I’m reading a book called Intuitive Eating and I’m really trying to integrate its concepts and ideas into my life. There’s something that messes with my psychology when I’m at AC, especially when I’m around food. It just always feels like a competition to see who can get the most amount of food in the least amount of time, and even though I know in my mind that that’s not really the case, I can’t stop myself from thinking that way. Whenever there’s free good food (which usually amounts to just… junk food, really) everyone goes insane and sees how much they can get. And I don’t know, that just doesn’t sit right with me, and I can see myself becoming someone whose whole life is centered around food and making sure that I got the “best deal”. As in, it’s like I’m trying to get bang for my buck – I get free food, so I’m going to make sure that I got the best deal out of everybody here. And that’s not exactly what I should be doing. My nutrition has become absolute shit, and ugh… it’s just terrible.
Anyway, I’ve just been watching TED talks the entire night. Tony Robbins is an insanely charismatic and inspirational speaker, and watching Matthieu Ricard makes me want to lead my life in a different way… and he makes me want to meditate. It’s good that there’s meditation every morning at Asbjorn’s house. I’m planning on meditating on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from now on, as long as I can get enough sleep. I run 10k on Tuesday mornings with Abenezer, an Ethiopian second-year in my house.
Anyway, I’m pretty tired from everything today. It’s already 00:15 here so I’m probably going to go to bed before 1. At least I hope that’s going to happen. I should really try to establish a good sleeping pattern. I’ll probably upload some pictures of the castle soon.