(am listening to the soundtrack of sweeney todd now, lol)

the tower bridge and typical english weather

so here are the things i did when i had the entire day to spend in london:

went to king’s cross st. pancras station

picture of a picture (i think my current film pack is faulty :/)

went to camden market – it was rather disappointing, a little more than a super overpriced petaling street. (i guess one should not trust travel guides written by people who have not been to markets in this part of the world too much -_-)

bubble

headed down to covent garden – the heart of street theatre in london. loafed around watching and laughing at corny street performers.

not very friendly plastic man

did something really british:

they don’t look it, but these were humongous

2 pounds for a rather huge box of strawberries. in retrospect i should probably have bought cherries -_- they (the strawberries) were very juicy and sweet but by the seventh or eighth strawberry i did not want to see another strawberry for at least two months.

i then explored covent garden and stumbled upon a familiar site (sight? both apply here):

this guy was really, really good. he had me after he sang knocking on heaven’s door and with or without you.

it was very nostalgic.

i hung around some more and then i saw a person that made my heart stop.

(please read this. it is essential that you do so because it is very important to me. the picture in that post is the picture (ironically, not taken – but fully edited – by me) is the picture that kickstarted my passion for photography. i was nothing but a person who lugged a digicam around only to take pictures of people solely for the sake of photographic proof that i was at certain events. actually – i didn’t even bother with a camera most of the time -_-

if anybody is interested in knowing exactly which parts of the photograph triggered my desire to own a dslr – they are the way the light reflects off the mic stand, and the detail of the busker’s guitar neck.)

so ANYWAY

i saw this very street musician walking towards the “stage” and i was so excited because i couldn’t believe my eyes . i thought he was going to perform soon but i ended up waiting 2 hours before he finally came back to sing.

and i did not regret it one bit. i was wrong in the blog post. he sounded good. he sounded very good. he was the musician that sounded the best among all the musicians i listened to. there was just something about him.

i was, at one point, so overwhelmed that i almost cried (out of happiness and excitement and sheer disbelief).

anyway you know what people do when a missed opportunity comes along again – they grab it and they milk it for all its worth. i was really sad writing that blog post and words can barely describe how i feel now to have been able to be standing in covent garden, with my dslr and polaroid camera in hand, fully appreciative of photography and armed with much more experience and practice than i had back then, and to have taken this picture

this is my version, 21st June 2009

haha, some of you might probably be thinking that i am dramatising this entire thing. well then i guess you don’t know how much photography means to me; either that or you are a cold bitter dead fish and i shouldn’t be bothered with your opinions anyway. haha. omg now i sound like one of those pretentious bloggers. eyeroll.

anyway. what else i did in london is now inconsequential because the entire purpose for this post was to blog about covent garden anyway.

i went to starbucks for a dark berry frappuccino. fyi, i do not support commercialised coffee (or coffee and any of its derivatives in general). i guess the day must have taken a big toll on me.

sorry – that was random. what i wanted to say did not come out right. haha.

anyway that’s about it, i guess. :)

there really is no place like london.

–

(insert caption)