Time flies...

The days have simply flown past. Mostly spent in Joan's cosy living room, madly pounding our keyboards or putting the postcards with Rinpoche's quotes into the lovely wooden frames which Lily ordered for us.

On Wednesday, after finishing preparations for the launch, we managed to pop out in the afternoon. I had to go get some money from Abbey while the others went to Oxford St. I had wanted to take Bill to see Liberty's and asked them to meet up but he had a migraine, Yek Yee's shoes were ripped and Ms Han was feeling tired. We still went to Liberty's though and had a quick tour. We then went to Queensway for dinner at Magic Wok before heading back.

Yesterday evening was spent trawling Soho, looking for Busaba, where Gabrielle, my niece, said she was working. But when i got there, they said she wasn't working there anymore! Oh well. I'll try to meet up with her on Saturday. Busaba looked popular though, with a queue round the block! Amazing. What recession? Sio Chian, Susan, Han and I ended up at a Scotch Steakhouse for dinner and got back early.

Today, JP and May arrive from KL and we have planned a lovely dinner tonight at Joan's.

More later.

First day in London...

Flying Air Asia isn't that bad after all. Flight time was 1am Malaysian time which meant I just got on the plane and slept right through for almost 10 hours. The seats had an incredible way of reclining when you pressed on the button on the side of the chair but it would slowly move back up to the normal upright position. And the others on the trip seemed to have experienced the same thing so it wasn't just me.

The food was great though, even though I skipped the earlier meal because I slept through it! A cup of tea was RM3 though, which is a bit steep for a tea bag in a styrofoam cup of hot water but when you need a cuppa, you'd pay it!

We arrived at Stanted EARLY. Amazing. And we breezed through immigration and baggage reclaim. We met up with Jean Mei briefly as she whisked her mum, Ruby, off in a cab whilst the rest of us plebs (Susan, Sio Chian, Bill, Jamie, Han and Yek Yee) piled onto the Terravision bus. The bus was reasonably priced - GBP14 for Stansted-Victoria return while Jean Mei paid GBP25 for a one way to Stansted on National Express!

The bus also had a jolly driver who pointed out the sights as we trundled through London. The first timers, Bill, Han and Yek Yee, even had a glimpse of the Tower of London, Big Ben and we even got to go over Tower Bridge.

We arrived at Joan's lovely flat by 10.30am, which was quite amazing, timewise. Joan cooked a lovely minestrone and Bill prepared some bruchetta and we went off to see 11, Cadogan Gardens - the venue of our KMP celebration next week. It's a lovely quaint place near Sloane Square, with gilded frames and rich velvet.

Next stop was Piccadilly by bus, with our new oyster cards. We popped into Fortnum & Masons, a lovely department store and then to Hatchards, the oldest bookstore in London. As it started to drizzle, we decided to hop into Tesco for a few groceries and headed home.

My cough was still as bad as ever so Joan promptly dosed me up with some kind of three day wonder drug and I hope it will do the trick.

Tomorrow will be busy preparing for the book fair. It's 8.45pm in London now but 3.45am in Malaysia so I'm feeling a bit pooped... guess I'm going to hit the sack and hope my snoring doesn't keep Jamie awake!!