deeply shallow: chevening

Showing posts with label chevening. Show all posts

Saturday, 19 August 2023

#mycheveningyear: Anna's guide to #tea in London

Everyone knows about the British and their tea. What not everyone realises is that most of the tea drunk in England, especially in local homes, is either black sludge or milk with a dash of tea.

Okay, that's a little harsh, but it's also mostly true--at least in my experience. I don't really know why, seeing they have so many great local tea brands. Maybe I just meet the wrong people lol.

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ANYWAY, I apparently abandoned this post in January 2020, but after talking to this year's batch of Chevening scholars, I felt like maybe I should finish it. This isn't a definitive guide! This is just a list of the places I went and the teas I liked. (I favour fruit/floral + black tea blends.) Also, I mostly buy looseleaf because it's cheaper and lasts longer, so everything I mention is probably looseleaf unless stated.

Twinings

This was from my 2016 trip. I didn't take a new photo in 2018.

This is number 1 on my list because the two "famous" English tea brands you get in Malaysian shops is Twinings and Ahmad Tea, so you're likely to have already heard of this, or tried it before. Many cafes do use Twinings. You can probably get many of their teas in shops around London, but their flagship store is worth the visit because it's "the oldest tea shop in London". (I was just gonna say bla bla bla history, but they do mention it on their website)

What I especially liked was the mix and match section towards the front of the store where you can buy a bunch of individual teabags to see whether you liked it instead of having to commit to a whole box of like 15-20 teabags. (I used this to test the ones I wasn't sure about.)

Favourite teas: Nutty Chocolate Flavour Assam Tea; Lady Grey (teabags)

Whittard

You'll see that I also had a couple of Whittard teas in that big first tea splurge. I discovered Whittard at Covent Garden in my 2016 trip, so that's where I went back to. There's a bunch of shops in London, so it's not hard to find. Also, for continuity's sake, there is now a Whittard shop (tiny little island) in One Utama, and they do ship Malaysia-wide, so it's not impossible to find here. (Which can't quite be said of the others.)

I don't know if they're still doing this post-Covid, but what I liked about this shop was they always had various testers out so it was fun to try new stuff and consider whether I should get them.

Favourite teas: Piccadilly Blend; Baked Apple*; Lucky Lychee**

* They still don't have this in Malaysia booooo. Turkish Apple is NOT THE SAME.

** Not sure if this is a CNY special?

Bird and Blend

This is my recent favourite, and it's sad that I only discovered them in my last few months in the UK, in the middle of Dissertation Summer. I wish I'd discovered them earlier! The most convenient shop is the one near Borough Market (which also has a few independent tea shops inside, but those have quite a limited range.), and it's probably on the way to one of the tube stations, because my association is something to do with Shakespeare's Globe + tube + Borough Market.

I literally just stumbled upon it while walking, but the reason I noticed it particularly that day (instead of just following Google maps and walking by) was because someone in the Sheffield group mentioned "Bird and Blend" while we were there on our road trip so the sign caught my attention.

Unlike the first two, Bird & Blend does not have a Malaysian store so I have been relying on people to hand carry it back to Malaysia haha. In previous years, they used to have free international shipping on Boxing Day but that's been discontinued. I mean you can pay for shipping but...

Favourite teas: Tea & Toast, Earl Grey Paradise (might be a special now?)

Also, the advent calendar is worth looking out for <3. I had a lot of fun with this!

TWG

Okay, TWG is is a Singaporean brand so you don't particularly NEED to go there, but they have a fancy shop with quite a large range of teas downstairs and a cafe upstairs at Leicester Square. If' you're in the area to catch a play, it's just a nice place to stop and have afternoon tea and feel a little atas lol.

Favourite teas: I used to quite like their French Earl Grey but I don't know anymore. I don't think I have any repeat buys from TWG, especially not from London.

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Main Takeaways

These are the bigger tea brands in London that are easy to get and have quite a wide range of teas. But I also enjoyed walking into tiny little teashops just to see what they had. Here are some:

From a random market stall in Scotland:

From random shops in Bath and Stratford-upon-Avon:

From some tourist shop in Dublin:

One thing I ended up regretting was not getting a tea subscription when I arrived. They usually do this as an annual thing and could either be a subscription to a tea that you like, where they send you a new batch every quarter or so, or one of those tea boxes where they send you random new stuff every month for you to try! I kind of knew vaguely about stuff like that before, but just thought it was out of my budget. By the time I looked at how much tea I was buying and figured out what the options were, it was kind of too late to get a year's subscription. I'm not sure if they do shorter term subscriptions, but it's worth checking out if you know you're going to buy a lot of tea.

Final thing to note: London has funny-tasting water, which sometimes translates into weird-tasting tea. (California had that as well but at least London admits to it.) I inherited a Brita water filter from Evelyn, which really helped haha (she was leaving, I was arriving).

Anyway. This is all. I'll leave you with a tea stash from when I visited Europe.

Saturday, 29 June 2019

AAAAANNNNNDDD Draft 2 is done

Technically, it was done on Wednesday, but I was too lazy to write a blog post.

Here are the stats in all their beauty!

I should write more but I am lazy. And hungry.

Next steps: send to betas, start edits.

Thursday, 20 June 2019

Day 36: Not that far behind the #wordcountgoals, also #shakespeare

Writing comes in spurts.

I find that if I write for long hours and get about 5k to 8k in the day, I can't really write much the next day unless a) I'm under a really tight deadline, or b) it's a really exciting part of the story and I just have to keep going.

Right now I'm in the "I know what's supposed to happen but I don't know how to write it" stage so everything is just SO HARD. So I'm in procrastination mode.

Therefore, behold the great plateau.

It's getting better, though. I think. Because I HAVE A DEADLINE, so I'm panicking myself (needlessly) to actually get through writing it because once it's down I'll be able to actually edit it and make it work but as long as it's not written, it's just this nebulous cloud of idea. Or something.

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To date I've watched three shows at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, because you can get cheap £5 tickets and stand like a peasant for 2 plus hours. It's not so bad. I have strong legs. haha.

The Merry Wives of Windsor was slightly confusing because I went in without any idea what the play was about. The second act was pretty good though. It's not quite the kind of comedy I like, but eh.

Comedy of Errors was much better, or at least I liked the storyline better, because it's more due to chance and honest mistakes rather than being... lewd. This is probably the most accessible of the plays so far. The cast for this was also very brilliant--better than the first.

Pericles was an aesthetic choice due to having read The Porpoise. If you did not have background knowledge of the myth or the source story, you'd just be very, very confused, especially since it jumps from royal family to royal family. There are also long bits of narration in between, in classic Greek drama style, so it's different, I guess.

Friday, 10 May 2019

My April/May West End spree

Right after formal classes ended last month, I went a little crazy and decided to buy tickets to as many shows as I could afford. Obviously, I'm also rather cheapskate and I need to save money, so I ended up buying cheap, upper circle tickets to three shows (altogether less than GBP100, so yay me).

My selection felt rather eclectic overall so I thought I'd talk a little about why I picked the shows and also what I thought about them.

The first show I watched was Betrayal on 15 April, for two reasons: I've still regretted missing the PenangPAC run with Marina Tan and OHLOOKIT'STOMHIDDLESTON. Lame? Maybe. But I'd heard that the story is amazing, and it has a famous actor, so why not?

Well, the show was fantastic. I do have to admit that I didn't always pay close attention to the acting, mostly because I was fascinated by the staging as well as the moving pieces of the stage. (This might be a thing with me; I remember being super distracted by the moving stages in Lion King too LOL). I was waaaayyyy at the back so I might probably have missed some frontal projection cues if they were blocked by the overhang (and maybe super close facial expressions), but it was a really good vantage point to see the lines between the actors, the use of space, that revolving stage indication of going back in time. It was a really minimalistic staging (except for that revolving thing) that played a lot with lights and shadows--the silhouettes were so sharp you could actually just watch that instead of the actors.

I loved Tom Hiddleston's and Charlie Cox's performances, but Zawe Ashton just gave me the feeling that she was trying a little too hard? I don't know what it was but somewhere between the tone of her voice and some of her actions/reactions, I just got a little annoyed at her. I might probably be judging her a little too harshly (always that but *I* wouldn't have made those acting choices) but I could just be disliking the character, though (which by implication would mean Ashton did a great job, so idk).

The next one was The Phantom of the Opera on 29 April. A classic choice-- loved the songs, wanted to see it because I'd seen the movie and wanted to see how they could do all that on stage. Realised that I have fuzzy memories of the plot, so there were some bits where I was like, eh, did that happen? Not sure if there were substantial changes in the movie version, though. (I have read the book, the book is 0% like the musical. Well, 20%. The characters and the basic setup are the same-ish. If I recall correctly (it's been decades), it was very much focused on the phantom, I think, and Christine was really a side note. But reading the book you'd be like, how did this become the musical?!)

Anyways, mixed feelings about this. I'd been pre-warned by Choon Ean that it might not have aged well, seeing it's a really old show and it's using the same original stage, so whatever was new/fresh/impressive then would seem kind of old-fashioned now.

I liked all the dungeon scenes, with the moving bits and the lights and the smoke and the candles and the tilting walkways and the boat! (See, moving stages gets mentioned again haha). The singing was impressive, the staging and the acting and the mirrors and illusions... everything was AWESOME, except the one key bit that spoiled everything.

When the chandelier "fell", you could literally SEE THE STAGE HANDS WALK OUT THROUGH THE CURTAINS AND CATCH IT.

Another thought that struck me though, was that my memory of the Raoul-Christine-Phantom triangle seemed rather romantic? The Phantom had a sort of sad romantic vibe, like, aww you like this girl so much but she doesn't love you in return, poor puppy let me give you a hug. Seeing it again, the Phantom was all kinds of creepy. Like the friendly neighbourhood dad/teacher/helpful uncle/starstruck fan, who suddenly turns into a perv. And I was going like, NO THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC. The Phantom is AWFUL. And then the songs don't seem so romantic anymore. lol.

Finally, I caught Fiddler on the Roof yesterday! This was 100% nostalgia and throwback to the time when we were stuck in a house in Sweden and had the movie on replay until we could sing all the songs word for word. I can't do that now, but I *know* all the songs.

It was fantastic! No moving stages for this one--it was flat and static boo--but the scene changes were as interesting to watch as the show itself, so yay. I might decide to watch this one again from a better vantage point--the place I was sitting had a bit of a restricted view, so there was this corner/angle of the stage that I couldn't quite see. Idk yet though, if it comes down to it, I'd rather watch a new show than to re-watch one. We'll see.

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As a minor writing update, this is today's stats!

I didn't do all this today, it's just that I didn't update my stats yesterday, being out and all. Things will seem more slowgoing from now on though, since I've reached the end of my pre-edited stuff. From now on, it's actual writing and slogging!

Wednesday, 8 May 2019

Deep dive into the novel: Day 2

So. The plan is to go into a deep dive from May 6 - June 30 and write 10K per week to reach 80K (and the end of the novel) over 8 weeks.

Unfortunately, due to events over the last week (last minute plans, unexpected laziness), I did not manage to clear up all the things I wanted/needed to do before the start of the week. Which meant all of yesterday and half of today was spent catching up and finalising consignment statements and accounts, chasing people to reply emails and generally a lot of hair pulling. Which means I'm starting off 1.5 days late.

The good part is that I've already got working drafts of chapters 1 - 3, approx 8K-ish words, so I do have some time to get into the groove. I've thus spent most of my time reediting chapter 1 today. And googling the Malaccan sultanate as well as church hierarchical titles. (This will make sense eventually. hahahaha)

So I'm still sorta on track!

I don't know how often I'll post updates (I might do a dailyish blog, but I might not) so if you want to keep tabs (and push me on), here's my goal tracker.

Note: The dissertation actually only needs max 40K, but well, I might as well get the whole novel done, no? The other goal is to get an agent before I leave, for which I do need a completed novel. lol.

Sunday, 27 January 2019

Inside Voices: exploring feminism, faith, and freedom

Photo from the Inside Voices facebook page

INSIDE VOICES

Described as ‘witty, enchanting and poignant’ (Global Voices Theatre) and “funny, energising... a charismatic ensemble piece” (Nick Hern Books), Inside Voices blends dark comedy and magical realism to shine a spotlight on Southeast Asian Muslim women, exploring feminism, faith and freedom.

The production is presented by an all-female, all-Asian cast and creative team. The play will be published by Nick Hern Books as one of seven best new plays at VAULT Festival and is a selected festival highlight of renowned theatre critic Lyn Gardner.

Inside Voices also interrogates larger conversations about intersectionality, Islamophobia and the #MeToo movement.

WHEN: 23 Jan - 27 Jan (Wed-Sun: 6.20pm, Sat 3.20pm)
WHERE: Pit - The Vaults, Leake Street
TICKETS : £12.00

For more info, visit https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/inside-voices/

It's funny when you think that you've moved into white spaces but the things you make an effort to go to are things from your side of the world. Eh. Homesick la kan.

(Also had a nice banana leaf rice with kari ikan before the show. lol.)

Inside Voices was held in the Pit at the Vault, which was all very underground indie cool, except the part that it was a bit hard to find. You have to go through this graffiti-ed tunnel passing by various artists spraypainting the wall.

The Pit itself is a small space, probably a little smaller than PenangPAC's Stage 2, and it was set up as a theatre in the round. The first thing I noticed when I entered was a tray full of food, because food. (They were props for the show.)

Official descriptions of the play uses the term "Southeast Asian Muslim women", but I don't know if that's really the best term to use because it's really very Nusantara, in the older (non-Malaysian/Indonesian nationalistic) sense of the word. Maybe I'm just being pedantic about it; SEA includes a much wider range of identities who may or may not be Muslim, but who don't fit into the conversation here. The dialogue is unapologetic about its use of Malay phrases, exclamations and sentence structures. It's something I would expect in a show back home, not one in London. But well, the playwright is Singaporean as are most of the cast and crew.

Inside Voices starts off with a very normal domestic scene: three women getting ready for a meal. From the beginning, their identities are established: the motherly, dependable one; the wild, sexual one; and the newly married, childish one. Actually, I struggled with that last one--her identities seem to run all over the place, as does her accent. Kak Fatimah (played by Nur Khairiyah Ramli) is the most secure in her identity--she is the most comfortable in her skin and her language. Lily (played by Siti Zuraida) fits her flamboyant, wild-child role quite well--her language is sharper, more upper class, as befits one who's educated, urban and sophisticated. Nisa (played by Suhaili Safari) seems to switch between a local Malay-English patois to something more articulated--I don't know if these shifts are intended since her character is insecure and naive, the one who is asking the questions that need to be answered. It just seemed a little confusing somehow.

Using the idea of a safe space, the narrative then delves into their backstories, the things they struggle with as Muslim women--domestic abuse, societal expectations to marry and have children, miscarriage, the politics of wearing the hijab. It veers into the mystical and the superstitious as well, with this hilarious (but also slightly gross) segment on Nasi Kangkang, that plays on Shakespeare's three witches. I can't seem to find an English translation for this, but it's basically black magic, where a woman mixes bodily fluids in food (rice) to gain control over her husband.

It's the location (for the want of a better word--situationality? Story world?) of this play that is its weakest point. Is it the real, physical world? Is it happening in their minds? Is it a dream world? Is this a mental hospital? The scene shifts clearly mark changes in the mental and emotional landscapes and the themes covered, but there seems to be a lack of rootedness as to where it is which is never fully explained. For the first half of the play, I assumed it was a real-world situation, where three friends have taken time off together, like an all-girls holiday. But later on, they talk about not remembering these conversations, about hiding from yourself, as if they were psychotic episodes, and then they plan to leave together, if each of the others are ready.

I highly enjoyed the play (it's more drama than dark comedy, I feel, but I'm not that good in segmenting stuff). There is enough raw emotion and truthfulness to tug at your heartstrings (I had to tell myself not to cry).

#AnnasMA: Tea, Nando's and a lot of literary stuff

It's coming up to a month since I've been in the UK. Nothing has changed, everything has changed.

... and that was just being dramatic for the moment. haha...

I suddenly feel like I'm posting so often, but it's just that I'm in the middle of a few blog tours (extra posts) and I *actually* have stuff to post for #fridayflash (because, oo look! I'm writing) and I figured if I'm going to do this blogging thing, I should actually blog, instead of saying I'm going to but never doing it. LOL. Does that sentence even make sense?

We've had two weeks of classes which, I think, went pretty well. Excepting for the fact that when we start discussing novels and people are like analysing the structure, and the bits that worked and didn't work and this technical something something, and I'm just going... well, I liked (or didn't like) the book? Probably gotta read more critically from now on.

This weekend, I attended the Uxbridge Library Open Mic and the Hillingdon Lit Fest, so I'm pretty sated with literary stuff for the next few days.

Hung out with some Chevenors + a lit student at Nando's (heh heh heh heh) before the open mic so that was pretty cool. One of them, Inga, is from South Africa, the HOME OF NANDO'S. Note colour differences in the Wild Herb. It tastes slightly different too.

Other than that, I've sorta joined the CU (or what we usually call the CF) and we'll see where that leads. (Also, today's church experience was much better than last week's.)

And that's it for tonight. :)