Manisha

Life in London (update!)

on 30 January 20171 February 2017 By Manisha 2 Comments

Exactly one month ago I arrived in London and I must say: time’s flying so fast! Sometimes I still need to pinch myself for the fact that I’m actually living and studying here. It feels like a dream. I’m kind of surprised that the city already feels so familiar to me, even though it hasn’t been such a long time that I’m here. One of main reasons why I fell in love with the city right away is that it’s so cosmopolitan. At my university, in the streets, shops, restaurants, basically everywhere you look: people from all around the world are present. London feels like a miniature world to me: getting in touch with so many different people, cultures, languages and cuisines is what I love the most.

Living on my own is going quite well so far. When the semester at my university started, I slowly began to create a routine. My lectures are from Tuesday till Thursday, which means that I can enjoy a long weekend every week. I’m trying to keep a good balance between studying and exploring the city. London has got so much to offer, which makes the list of places that I want to visit endless.

I already met a lot of wonderful people here and last week my sister came to visit me for a long weekend. It was amazing to show her around and let her experience London through my eyes. We had a lot of fun and as you can probably guess, a lot of pictures were taken that weekend… 😉

Chinese New Year in Chinatown

on 28 January 20171 February 2017 By Manisha 1 Comment

Last week the preparations for one of the biggest festivities of the year started: Chinese New Year. To experience this event, we went to Chinatown, the best place to get a good impression of the celebrations in London. Not many of people know this about me, but my grandmother is Chinese so that makes me a quarter Chinese. This is one of the reasons why I was even more excited to visit Chinatown. I was totally amazed by the huge amount of red lanterns which were spread all across the streets. People were selling all kinds of fortune decorations and snacks, said their prayers and I even spotted someone in a big Pikachu costume (very Chinese, I know..). We had dinner in this area and it was definitely a good choice. After strolling along a lot of restaurants, we finally picked one and ordered fried rice and pancakes filled with roasted duck and veggies. Yum! To everyone who is celebrating this weekend: Happy Chinese New Year // Gong Xi Fat Choi!

The Southbank area

on 14 January 20178 February 2017 By Manisha 2 Comments

It was on a cold friday morning at 08:00 am that I decided to spontaneously visit the riverside of West-London. The advantage of being an early bird is that you can take pictures in peace, without ten other tourists trying to steal the best spots. It was pretty quiet in the area, so the perfect chance to take a good stroll and enjoy the surroundings. I stumbled upon the London Eye and later on the Big Ben, the absolute highlights of this area. Just when I wanted to cross the Westminster Bridge, it suddenly began to snow. I began to wonder if I would transform into an icecube once I made all the way to the end, but still decided to do it. And yes, it was worth it.