Wimbledon, and its little surprises.

In London, even the most quaint of all places hold surprises. And this is one of the reasons why I love the city so much.

This time round, Wimbledon, a suburban district in Southwest London, caught me off guard.

I was fortunate enough to have a really good friend of mine and his lovely family host me at their house in Wimbledon for a week. Apart from being able to get an authentic English experience with all of them (and having delicious traditional English dishes prepared for me by my friend’s mom who is an excellent cook), I also got to explore a new part of London that I have always wanted to visit.

Ever since I was a kid, I only knew Wimbledon as the tennis tournament. It was not until four years ago when I first came to London that I realised it is a name of a place and that the tournament was named after the town.

And Wimbledon is indeed more than just about tennis. It is very residential, away from the hustle and bustle of Central London but has pretty much everything you need in the area. If I were to describe it as anything, it would be that it reminded me of Privet Drive in Harry Potter.

wimbledon1 — Obviously my favourite place in Wimbledon.

It’s really got everything you need, like a fire brigade turned shopping mall…

A nice little pub that closes at midnight…

An Italian restaurant called Al Forno that doesn’t take itself too seriously but serves one of the most delicious pizzas I have ever had…

And of course the world renowned Wimbledon tennis stadium, which my friend has kindly driven past but I did not take picture of.

So the place is as English as it can be with its brick houses and chimneys…

Until we stopped by a Thai Buddhist temple smacked in the middle of it all.

It felt really odd, as if I was being transported 6,000 miles away South East in a few seconds. We tried so hard to find out why it was there, but as far as I could gather, a Thai person just decided to build it there. So the most logical thing for me to do is to enjoy the familiar serene feeling of being in a Buddhist temple complex in London.