Today I joined a dozen other people and trekked up to Oxford and through the Cotswolds with London Walks. It was a foggy morning but turned into quite a lovely, warm, sunny afternoon. I took tons of pictures and now that I'm home and looking at them, I've never been so pleased with the lot. Everything seemed to have worked today, so it's going to take me a while to sort them out and post them up. In the meantime, just relaaaax.
I made sesame-seed crusted seared tuna with mashed yam last night. I'm enjoying the sesame seeds, but the tuna wasn't as good as the salmon was. I ended up drizzling soy sauce on the tuna to get some flavor. It was a bit dry.
So I was cleaning the bathroom a couple of days ago, and after scrubbing and bleaching like a mad person, I was just about to finish up when out of the corner of my eye runs this FREAKING HUGE SPIDER! The largest spider I've ever seen in real life.
Today Tamryn (flatmate) and I headed down to Camden Market. We didn't get down there until about 2 p.m. - we wanted to make it a late day since she had a bellydance thing she wanted to go to at 7 p.m. Camden market was as packed as ever, but we had a lot of fun walking through the stalls. It's been a while since I went through the market in such detail - I usually hit my favorite stalls and move on.
So far we've got a knife, a towel, cutting board, tub of water, sushinori, sesame seeds, soy sauce, avocado, sushi rice, rice vinegar, plates and chopsticks, a damp cloth, my bamboo spoon thing and my rolling mat. Yay! You'd best take a look while it's nice and clean, since it doesn't stay like this for long...
Oooh yes, look at that arrangement.
First off, I started by rinsing out 1 cup of sushi rice. Yes, I wrote down instructions off the internet and you can see those to the left.
I put 1 cup of sushi in the pot with 1 and 1/4 c of water. I will add less water next time, because the rice was slightly too wet. Left that to boil, the covered and let it simmer for another 6 minutes.
I then sliced up my slimy avocado (gross!), as well as the cucumber and some spring onions for good measure.
For fish I have some smoked salmon trimings (will buy whole salmon next time, the trimming were a bit too small), some pre-cooked shrimp and some fake crab logs.
So, after the rice cooled, I added 1/6 c of rice vinegar, 2/3 tbsp of sugar and 2 tsp of salt - miced it all together and got ready to go! I was making inside-out rolls (I like those better!), so I coated the outside of the rice with sesame seeds. I would've liked to use a bit of roe, too - but didn't see it at the store and I'm not sure I'd use enough roe to make it worth my while.
After that I flipped the sheet over, added the crab, avocado and cucumber and rolled it all together! The only hitch in my plan was that the knife we have in the house is horribly dull! Like, so dull I probably couldn't even break my own skin. Boo! So I may have massacred the sushi a bit trying to cut it, which was too bad since it looked so pretty as a log!
But, despite the auful cutting, they turned out rather good! The crab ones were my favorite, since the salmon bits were a bit odd. The shrimp were also quite tasty.
Don't mind the mess. Sushi-making is a complicated procedure, after-all. heh. Cleanup wasn't nearly as much fun as the making-of.
But all in all it was a very sucessful (and TASTY!) adventure. Next time I made sushi I will break out the eel, although I will definitely need a new knife. I'm sure I can get a cheap one at Sainsbury's, and then I can save it just for those events where I need a super-sharp knife. 
Tamryn had popped into a shop and left me outside to stare aimlessly at the little hotel across the street. It was quite lovely.
This little blue plaque was stuck on the wall on one of the adorable pastel houses along Portobello Road, yet I'd never seen it before. Usually I don't recognize the names on these places, they are all Duke of something or Lady whatever, but this time I knew who he is!
I just love the colors of these houses. So fresh.
You can tell its England - all these signs for beer! Heh.
After Portobello Road Market, we went to Westfield Shopping Centre, which is a huge fancy shopping mall in West London. We shopped and ate some fancy food, but I didn't snap any photos - frankly its not that exciting. 
We tried to feed the ducks, but I think their bellies were already full. They pretty much ignored us.
I spend most of Monday wandering through London. I started at my usual spot at Westminster Abbey, where I could't resist snapping yet another photo of Big Ben. I'm trying to mix it up, I swear!
After Westminster I made my way through Hyde Park, where the trees are just beginning to flower. It smells wonderful.
After that the sun started to set, so I made my way back home. I love all these flowering trees, though. I wish the trees flowered back home. Everything just smells lovely here. 
I decided to stop by and see what was going on. Mainly it was just a bunch of people with cameras taking photos of pretty much everything.
Some of the protesters were quite young. Hee hee. This fellow was sitting on his dad's shoulders snapping away with quite an expensive camera. He seems to have a good handle of it.
More than anything it was amusing to see tourist buses drive by and watch the tourists go nuts because they assumed that we were taking photos of a celebrity or something, when it fact we were snapping away at nothing at all.
And, really, I found the guys pile of crap a lot more interesting.
This is the new peice of art in Trafalgar Square - it's called 'Hotel'. It was originally called 'Hotel for the Birds', but they re-named it since they don't welcome birds in Trafalgar Square anymore.
Either way it is colorful.
It's all very pretty. Trafalgar Square is starting to get quite crowded now, especially in the weekends. I'm sure it'll be crazy busy come summer!
Here's a tree that overhangs our little man-made (I think) lake where all the birds live.
And the dock. I'd like to sit on it and relax, but it's usually covered in bird crap...
It's been a looooong time. Yikes. Oops. My bad. Heh.