Ushering 25 in Style

I wanted to do something different for my 25th birthday this year. My previous birthdays were spent splurging on books (23rd), working on assignments (21st and 22nd), having dinner with friends (24th), etc. So this birthday, I went to London. On the morning of my birthday, I went to the temple in East Ham, then wandered around Oxford Street, had scrumptious lunch at Wagamama and finally dinner at Nobu.

The sheer thrill of walking around Oxford and Regent Street on your birthday is wonderful. Of course, earning Norwegian currency also helps ;) Yes, I did a bit of shopping. I have two weddings to attend this year and being a non-dress person (I'm just not the girly type, someday I hope to have enough confidence to wear a dress, but just not now...) I bought a pair of slim fit "cigarette style" slacks from Topshop. I was going to buy a pink/fuschia-ish loose blouse to tuck into the slacks but I was running late for dinner...so I thought it would be alright to not buy the blouse because I have something similar in aubergine purple (unworn, thanks to the cold weather that came way too early, end of Sept 2008). I bought a bronze quilted clutch from French Connection, and patent black heels from Clark's to go with the look.

Back in Oslo I realized that my aubergine purple top had not gold but silver beads on them. So, the clutch is going to clash :| Now I might have to buy the blouse online, have it shipped to Germany (half the online stores do not ship to Norway, I don't know why :() and then pick it up when I go there to attend the wedding. Tedious? Definitely, but I do this type of thing quite often to be honest because when you live where I do, there is very little variety in shopping and dressing up so I tend to shop a lot when I am away/traveling or buy it online, ship it to a friend's place, etc.

I bought a reasonably-priced pair of Kurt Geiger flats:




*** Photograph borrowed from KurtGeiger.com

Yes, whoever thought I would wear pink shoes ;) Oh well, time for some fashion experiments, right?

I bought a few scarves, lots of stuff from my favourite skin care boutique, Lush, some accessories from Dorothy Perkins, and some clothing from Marks and Spencer. I was craving a leather jacket, but unfortunately none of them were within my price range. I tried to convince myself that a leather jacket is one of those timeless pieces that go with everything..but buying a leather jacket and having to starve afterwards did not bode well :)

So what else did I do in London? I stumbled upon this restaurant known as Masala Zone and had two meals there (on two separate days). I also went on a guided tour of the Tower of London. It was beautiful to see a building so old and full of history in the middle of London, surrounded by new buildings. It was very strange to hear about all sorts of things that took place, who was buried where and so on. Cobbled stones well trodden by horse-drawn carriages...were the same cobbled stones that I was walking on. Catapults that were used to throw ancient weapons of destruction at enemies now had water balloons in them :)

I also visited a few other places like Madame Tussauds, London Eye, etc. I watched "Wicked!" the musical. It was excellent. The sheer amount of hard work that must have gone in to make the props, costumes and so on was visible. Watching stage actors sing and dance in their own voice kind of makes Indian movies less special as the actors have playback singers ;)

I think the reason I like London so much is because of the variety and the language. When you live in a country with little knowledge of the native language, you pine for a surrounding where you understand almost everything you see/hear around you. London is that place for me. It's the place where I do not feel like a foreigner because there are so many people around me with Indian or Sri Lankan heritage. Fortunately, there is still so much left to see in London, warranting another visit in future ;)

I probably should upload photographs from my camera to Flickr at some point :)

Have a great week ahead!