Europe – missruslee

Why do we travel?

January 28, 2023 missruslee1 Comment

It’s to see the world, surely. After having been stuck in an island for almost three years (thanks Covid!), the need for it is even stronger.

At the height of the pandemic, I used to watch tons of travel YouTube videos, just to imagine how it would feel to be out there travelling again. Oh, the sights I would see and the food I would try!

I went to Europe in October 2022, finally. Well, Germany and Scandinavia to be exact. It has been a long time coming, what with the pandemic and me feeling too scared to travel again after all these years.

But over the years, I realised that the best memories are always in the little fleeting moments.

It’s when someone unexpected enveloped you in a tight hug after not seeing each other for four years.

It’s when you sneaked into the kitchen together to have some crackers because you were not full from dinner but too scared to accidentally wake the kid in the house up.

It’s when you met your best friend’s son for the first time, and he smiled shyly at you that you knew in an instant that you would get along.

It’s when your friend brought you hot chocolate in bed.

It’s when you sat with your friends at the cosiest cafe to hide from the cold.

It’s when the shy kid came up to you while you were reading to ask you to play with him.

Or even when you somehow ended up sitting by the lake on a freezing night under a full moon…

It’s when you realised that you had a bigger sense of adventure than the past few years led you to believe.

Some memories are special but hard to put your finger on why. And it’s all I can do to not let it slip through my fingers and remember it forever.

And to think that I was almost too scared to travel halfway across the world again. If I ever say that to your face, I’m giving you a free pass to tell me I’m a complete moron and just pack my bag and go already.

Because travelling makes me happy. Because to travel, for me, is to live.

Catching the tail end of Copenhagen summer.

Copenhagen, again, always.

September 30, 2018 missrusleeLeave a comment

I have been away from this blog way for way too long.

What started out as a one-month break from writing to “collect myself together” after somewhat traumatising few months has turned into a ten-month long case of a writer’s block.

My last post was 1 January this year.

In my defense, I did try to come back at the one-month mark. I have an unfinished draft from February as proof – and by “draft” I meant that I clicked on the “new post” button and failed to come up with a title nor a single word to write. I even tried writing about my writer’s block in May, which was supposed to help writers get the words flowing again, but that didn’t help either.

I have even travelled to London (and Birmingham) in the meantime, but even they didn’t inspire me to write again.

It took a trip to my most beloved city Copenhagen to get things started again. The moment I landed at Kastrup Airport, I was miraculously already itching to write.

I have lost count of how many times I have been to the Danish capital. Yet, every single time, Copenhagen still finds new ways to charm me.

I came right at the end of the summer. Or as some people told me when I was there, summer returned for a few days just to greet me.

cph1 — You’re welcome the inhabitants of Copenhagen, for the extra days of warmth and sunshine.

Continue reading “Catching the tail end of Copenhagen summer.” →

The fine city of Norwich.

A city I never thought I would visit, and love.

November 18, 2017November 20, 2017 missruslee2 Comments

Some of the best things in life come when you least expect it. The same goes for travelling. Sometimes some of the best places may not be listed on a Lonely Planet guide – you just happen to chance upon it while being lost on your way to somewhere and voila! you couldn’t stop talking about it to anyone who would care to listen.

But if I keep relying on that philosophy in life, I would never have discovered Norwich, a city in Norfolk, of which one travel journalist has labeled to be “on the way to nowhere”.

It sounds harsh, but there is some truth to it. Norwich is located in East Anglia, that little bump in the east of England. It is not easily accessible from any major cities, and there is nothing but barren land between London and the place. Moreover, train prices in Norfolk are generally more expensive than the rest of the kingdom, which only further discouraged people from visiting the place.

So my decision to visit Norwich had to be completely deliberate (there is no other way I would have ended up there otherwise) although it did take me almost a year to board that Greater Anglia train from Liverpool Street.

norwich3 — The Greater Anglia train, with a cheeky Telegraph advertisement.

I never doubted that Norwich was going to be lovely, but the comments by some people about the place kind of got to me…

“What is there in Norwich?“, “Why would you go there?”, “I mean Norwich is lovely, but why?” and a few more things along the line.

… that when I got off the train, I was wary and wanted to take the next train back. I was even hiding behind a pillar at the station, trying to hide from my host but he somehow still managed to find me.

And it was a good thing he did, since I proceeded to have one of the best weekends I have had in a long time.

I fell in love with the city right at the first stop, an area at the outskirt of the Mousehold Heath. It was a hill overlooking the whole of Norwich, and I took to calling it the “Prison Hill” since it was located right across the street from the HM Prison Norwich.

It was wise of him to bring me here since I love hills with a view.

Apart from the stunning view, there is something else to be said about the prison: a lovely cafe called Cafe Britannia located at the former Britannia Barracks, which is now part of the prison. It served affordable brunch (and yummy-looking desserts) that I wished I got to eat more. But the most amazing thing about the cafe (apart from its cosy atmosphere and good food) was that they employ offenders. I couldn’t remember a much better feeling than eating a cheese scone and drinking tea with a great company while contributing to a good cause.

Continue reading “The fine city of Norwich.” →

A rebellious day trip to Oxford.

In the name of getting inspiration for our thesis, or so we claimed.

October 22, 2017October 23, 2017 missrusleeLeave a comment

“You are running short of time.”

“I’ve got a plan.”

“Serla, let me repeat this once again, you are running short of time.”

I was two-and-a-half weeks away from my thesis deadline, and I was ~~slightly~~ behind in my progress. Sitting in my supervisor’s office, I was surprisingly calm for someone who only had 2,000 out of the 12,000-word requirement that I was supposed to churn out to graduate with my Master’s degree.

As for my supervisor, he was freaking out.

The good man, bless him, was so convinced that I would become the first student he supervise to fail the Master’s thesis. Yet, no matter what he said to jolt me awake, he simply couldn’t invoke that sense of urgency that he so hoped to see in me.

“Why don’t you tell me what your plan is for the coming week then?” he said.

“Well, I’ll be working at my part-time job three full days next week and…” I stopped as I watched his eyes widen in horror. “And I assure you I’ll have 6,000 words ready the next time I see you,” I blurted out quickly.

What I had wanted to say was that apart from my three days of work, I had also planned a trip to Oxford on that coming Saturday. But I was pretty sure if I had told him that, he might have disowned me as his student right on the spot, so I decided that it was best if he was kept in the dark about it.

I don’t dispute that travelling while you have a MAJOR deadline looming is irresponsible, but it was necessary. Because you see, my dear readers, thesis writing can be such a chore. After several weeks of sitting in front of the computer, words simply couldn’t flow anymore, and wouldn’t it be even more irresponsible had I done nothing to get rid of the writer’s block?

That was why my friend C and I decided to spice things up a little. What started out as a mission to try out all the different libraries in London turned into something slightly more ambitious. We decided that sticking to one city was not enough and we needed to try out libraries outside London as well.

We picked Oxford for several reasons. First, because even we were realistic and we knew that going all the way to Edinburgh wasn’t an option. Second, my friend C had not been to Oxford previously and I couldn’t let her leave the country without seeing the place. And third, because Oxford is full of intelligent people, we were hoping some of their brain cells might rub off on us – we clearly needed all the help we could get.

Plus, come to think of it, it wasn’t as if we would be spending so much more time getting to a library in Oxford. The journey from Paddington took just over an hour. On a bad day in London, your commute could take as long.

Or so we thought.

When we got off the train, we realised immediately things wouldn’t be as simple as we had predicted.

First of all, we did not know what the University’s main library was called. Whenever I googled “Libraries in Oxford University” several options popped up, and I couldn’t possibly visit every single one to see which one was meant for us?

Luckily, we figured out pretty quickly that it was the Bodleian Library. However, a second problem immediately occurred to us – we did not actually know whether students from other universities were allowed to use the facility. We had just assumed it was open to all students from other universities.

Once again, we got lucky. After cajoling the librarian, we were allowed to make a one-day pass to use the facility.

These unexpected logistical problems had certainly set us back by an hour or so. By the time we were done getting ourselves admitted to Oxford University for a day, it was time for lunch.

Continue reading “A rebellious day trip to Oxford.” →

In defence of Birmingham.

The weekend I got dragged to appear live on the television.

September 4, 2017October 11, 2017 missrusleeLeave a comment

“You are going to Birmingham this weekend? I’m sorry.” – Informant #1

“There is not much to do there and it’s not the nicest place.” – Informant #2

“Birmingham is certainly not the prettiest city. Haha, even without knowing which area you were talking about I would say yes, it’s likely to be dodgy.” – Informant #3

No one I spoke to had anything good to say about Birmingham.

Having been at the receiving end of such comments from three people who didn’t know each other, I was understandably not thrilled about visiting Birmingham.

The city was in the spotlight a couple of months ago after the horrid attack at Westminster in London. The police raided a flat at Hagley Road in Birmingham and arrested three men there who were allegedly related to the atrocity. When I looked up the address, it was just a few blocks away from the Airbnb that I had stayed in a couple of weeks prior.

So what brought me to Birmingham you asked?

The All England, the oldest badminton tournament in the world (or the Wimbledon of badminton for those of you who have made a grave mistake in your choice of racquet sports), was held there in March. As a testament of how little the city has to offer, apparently the badminton tournament no one outside the badminton world had really heard of constitutes what would be “the busiest week in Birmingham” in the whole year. Hotel and accommodation prices skyrocketed as tourists flocked to the city from all over the world to witness the battle for one of the most prestigious badminton tournaments.

Had I not been a student, I would have jumped at the opportunity. But having almost no income at the time, I just had to be prudent with my spending; taking a train ride up north and staying at an overpriced Airbnb (I’ll come to this later) seemed to be rather… imprudent.

After a thorough deliberation, I still went anyway. Because badminton.

But I clearly wasn’t as excited as someone who had once travelled all the way to Copenhagen from Singapore to watch her favourite badminton shuttler retire should have been.

I booked a 7AM train on a Saturday morning – that alone had made me slightly grumpy. Add to the fact that my Airbnb host was giving me a lot of problems, asking for 20 quids extra for that one night I was staying because it being the busiest weekend of the year meant that he could have easily found someone who would be willing to pay much more than 30 quid a night for a room in a dodgy location – I started to question my sanity for deciding to go in the first place.

But after my week-long rant to my flatmate and anyone else who would listen, Birmingham, bless the city, was really pulling all stops to prove me wrong.

First, they impressed me right away with their breakfast. Or rather, how cheap their amazing breakfast was.

allengland4 — This plateful of goodness for 3.55 quid.

Although to be fair, before the food even arrived I already knew that the trip was worth it when I was greeted by this awesome friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen in 3 years.

And if there is anything that I should know about myself by now, badminton tournaments excite me to no end. Just being in the stadium, surrounded by like-minded dorks who actually care about the sport, is exhilarating in its own right. Let alone the adrenaline rush of trying to interview the athletes after their matches, running up and down the steps of the stadium to reach the press room in time – the motion was all too familiar and reminded me so much about all those years reporting at the Singapore Open.

Continue reading “In defence of Birmingham.” →

The Sutton Hoo Collection at the British Museum

How these Suffolk treasures and my museum company taught me how to appreciate the history of human civilisation, and museums in general.

August 14, 2017August 14, 2017 missrusleeLeave a comment

I am rubbish at museums.

I don’t know why I always end up going to them. During my first month or so in London, I even had a museum-and-cake buddy – we made a pact to visit a new museum every weekend and have a cake afterwards. I secretly only looked forward to the cake, but I didn’t know my friend too well back then to admit that most museums bored me to no end.

(I suspected he realised that pretty soon, and our museum-and-cake meetups transformed into anything-but-museum meetups after a few weeks. Which suited me very well and we became much better friends after that.)

I think it boils down to the fact that I don’t understand much of art and history. Later on, I realised that having the right company – one who appreciated the artefacts way more than I did and were willing to explain the history patiently to me, would make all the difference to these museum visits.

I have been to the British Museum several times, but I remember enjoying my last visit the most. During the first few visits, I mostly just admired the structure of the building and the immensity of the place.

suttonhoo1 — If you look really closely, you can see the cakes at the bottom right hand corner.

Continue reading “The Sutton Hoo Collection at the British Museum” →

The first (and hopefully not last) English summer.

Some change in the weather, and a little more.

August 3, 2017August 6, 2017 missrusleeLeave a comment

Summer was in its full force the past few weeks in London. The temperature went up to a whopping 31C, and the East Asian roots in me would soon take out my purple and flowery anti-UV umbrella out of fear of getting tanned (and wrinkles).

londonsummer3 — Guess whose umbrella is that.

I took advantage of the rare glorious weather to do a lot of walks all over. I explored the streets of the City of London, from St Paul’s churchyard to little alleys filled with bars and cafes often overflowing with lawyers and bankers in their work dresses and suits, beer in hand. I also ventured further into my neighbourhood, up to my favourite Primrose Hill and then went as far as the Parliament Hill at Hampstead Heath (finally).

Continue reading “The first (and hopefully not last) English summer.” →

The Muffin Man & Co., Primrose Hill Market.

May 26, 2017May 27, 2017 missrusleeLeave a comment

The world is a terrible place at the moment, and most of the time I feel helpless about it.

When there is nothing that I can do about a situation, I normally turn to my good old trustworthy friend – food. During my thesis writing period where I felt mostly helpless about not panicking as much as other people thought I should, I consumed some scary amount of chocolate that could make anyone rethink their friendship with me for fear of contracting diabetes by proximity.

But now that I have no more excuse to lead a sugar-clad lifestyle, I stopped doing irrational eating and started consuming healthy stuff again. As I’m writing this, a tray of grilled courgettes are in the making in the oven, drizzled with some conservative amount of olive oil and salt plus a generous dash of black pepper and cayenne pepper.

I know, I almost can’t recognise my own reflection in the oven glass sometimes.

(Nevermind that I gobbled down a big cup of frozen yoghurt after lunch earlier today because that is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to this story.)

Ahem.

So what I’m trying to say is, because I can’t consume irresponsible food for the time being to pacify myself about the world crumbling down, I try to do the next best thing, i.e. recalling some of the delicious food that I had and writing about them. The first guilty pleasure that comes to mind is the pork belly muffin from the Muffin Man & Co. at the Primrose Hill Market.

During my second visit to the market, I vowed not to have breakfast before visiting so I could taste one or two of the stalls piled with delicious looking delicacy.

Continue reading “The Muffin Man & Co., Primrose Hill Market.” →

Primrose Hill Market, London.

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 missruslee5 Comments

I was recently introduced to a friend of a friend who went backpacking around South East Asia last year. When I spoke to her, I felt a familiar feeling of shame creeping into me, the same one that always appeared whenever I spoke to travellers like her.

She, after a few weeks in my side of the world, has visited more places than I have the twenty six years I was living in the region.

Usually, a few minutes into the conversation, the name Cambodia would come up and I would have to reluctantly admit that I haven’t stepped on that country’s soil even once.

“I have been to Myanmar though,” I normally added in a bid to present myself as a more appreciative South East Asian.

I attribute this shameful phenomenon to what I call proximity ungratefulness. When a place is so close to where you live, you will naturally find it less exciting and will not go out of your way to visit.

I am thus careful of not letting the same thing happen to me here in London. I try to appreciate things around me, even stuff that is within walking distance from my flat.

One of my most recent finds was the Primrose Hill Market.

Primrose Hill is world-famous, and I have been there countless times. It has a beautiful unobstructed view of London and is equally charming during the day and night.

But today I’m not here to talk about the Hill. I’m here for something that happens at the foot of the hill every Saturday, unbeknownst to many: the Primrose Hill Market.

Continue reading “Primrose Hill Market, London.” →

Hackney City Farm, London.

March 5, 2017March 18, 2017 missrusleeLeave a comment

At the start of this year I ambitiously declared that I have found a magical way to slow down the time.

Yet 2017 has simply been ramming itself like a charging bull on steroid, and I’m at loss once again on how to make the time stop. With a blink of an eye, it is already March. The weather got a lot warmer, the daylight stayed for a couple of minutes longer each day, and flowers start to blossom; spring is just around the corner.

It is strange to think that just a couple of weeks ago I was trying to ease back into the chilly weather in London, having spent December and January back home in the tropics. And on one of the coldest days of February, we visited the Hackney City Farm.

Being surrounded by friends who grew up close to the nature, I have often behaved like an ignorant city girl in comparison. I remember asking someone, to both his bemusement and amusement, whether the flowers on the flowerbed we walked past were real (they clearly were).

Don’t get me wrong; I love the nature. I really do (except for those crawling insects that come with the nature in the tropics, and maybe snakes. And a couple more weird looking animals). And I have a weakness for cows – I think they are one of the cutest creatures alive. I am just never exposed to them very much.

So imagine my excitement when my friend told me about Hackney City Farm, which was set up for people like me: so I don’t have to drive (not that I can) for hours to see cows and horses and donkeys, and I get to immerse myself in the earthy smell of manure right at the heart of the city.

We agreed to meet right around lunch time so our first stop was brunch at Cafe Frizzante, which was located inside the complex. It being located inside the farm added a nice touch to the location.

It sounds barbaric now that I think about it, but the first animals that we encountered at the farm were this.