wet kew gardens with friends

lavender pillow spray and strawberry and marmalade jam from kew gardens. woohoo!!!
all free courtesy of yunli whom i met at kew gardens on 5 june 2011 with her hubby.

love her. she took an early train and we met there around 10a.m. i was the late one. it was a very very cold day and it was wet! gosh. hated it so much. imagine admiring flowers and trees all under umbrellas. luckily it was no thunderstorm but only drizzle the whole day. but i was still glad i made it there because this garden is in my to-visit list.

those who have time in london should go and visit this place. you can spend one whole day there just enjoying the beautiful flowers and plants. worth a visit.

victoria gate entrance. there is another main entrance but i dunno where. we took the bus there because the gardens is outside zone 2. our oyster tube ticket is only valid for zone 1 and 2.


palm house

we joined a guided tour and went to visit cactus gardens and mediteranean plants.



temperate house, the bigger greenhouse here and is the world's largest surviving victorian glass structure.

rocks or plants?? plants which look like rocks ;)

inside temperate house
the pagoda erected in 1762.

the japanese gateway.



treetop walkway. just a small one and you can finish in a few mins.


like the reflection of the swan's head on the water.



sackler crossing.






we left kew gardens at about 5 and headed to chinatown to meet one of my colleagues' friend from bidor who has resided here for years. she owns a malaysian/thai restaurant and that was where we had our meals for 2 nights. well my colleague had more nights there but another one and i walked our own way and explored london on our own.

well, the unmistakeable chinatown's arch. look how wet it was. it was wet the whole day!!! brrrr!

went to a pastry shop in chinatown. mouth-watering eh? but i did not get anything because i still had the croissants i bought from portobello. too bad.

the roast pork i had at orangery in kew gardens. it looks tough but it was actually very tender and succulent. reminds me of our chinese's roast pork but this is slightly different. it is not as oily and the meat is slightly firmer than ours here in malaysia. i heard that the pigs there are not castrated. could that be a reason?

finished on 6 july, 4.15p.m.