Avril Lavigne - The Best Damn Tour 2008

Venue: London The O2 Arena
Date: 4 June 2008
It was my first live concert that I attend and it was my first time seeing Avril Live, again and it was my first time sitting in The O2 Arena London which is the most popular venue in the world!!
Unfortunately I went alone.... which was a little disappointing, but I met a Greek Avril fan who sat beside me. He was a nice guy though. Anyway....
The concert is made up of 2 parts. First part was Jonas Brothers' performance which was only around 30minutes. There were lots of Jonas fans as well who went there but of course mainly for Avril.
After their performance for around 30 minutes, preparations for the REAL concert starts... more people started to gather up and I'm not very sure if all the people down there were using the right tickets... but anyway... it was hell lots of people down there... I got my seat this far from the stage!!! which is a shame as I was hesitating too much before buying tickets so in the end I only got my tickets around April which is 5 months after the tickets were released...
30 minutes later.... The Best Damn Tour London officially launched!!! And of course the first song is the hit single Girlfriend in her latest album "The Best Damn Thing". Well... spot Avril yourself.... it was too far away... urgh...
Image on the big screen beside the stage...Avril on piano for the song "When You're Gone". Avril on acoustic guitar... forgot which song was that...
Avril on drums... also forgotten which song was that... :(
Avril on electric guitar...
And the ending song... "Sk8er Boi" which is one of her famous songs in her first album "Let Go". It really stirs up all the fans....
And there goes 2 hours... it really felt shorter than ever... good times really flies...

In the end, I edited a video of some footage which I took with my camera... As I only had 512Mb of memory, I didn't took longer videos. So... enjoy...

CCK Visits London

Date: 18 May 2008

CCK came down south to London from Sunderland by coach to visit me. I actually forgotten how many days had he came down as I only actually accompany him to come out for a day as I was working back then. It was Sunday. I brought him around London to visit various places and did crazy stuff.

At first we went to Brick Lane which I thought should be nice to show him but in the end he didn't really liked it so I cancelled my plans to bring him to Borough Market. I brought him to the O2 then the fun begins. I didn't actually took photos for the journey we walk from O2. At first I thought it was not far to walk from O2 to Cutty Sark but in the end we keep on walking according to the sign boards at the side of River Thames for more than 2 hours!! Passing by old docks, smelly factories, streets and etc we finally reached Cutty Sark, we went down to the under river passage to walk across River Thames and took DLR to Central London. Weather that day was not fabulous as it was cloudy and drips were falling all the way when we were walking.

Anyway, reaching Central London, CCK wanted to visit 30, St. Mary Axe a.k.a. The Gherkin, which is one of the landmark in London.
It is a commercial building which is very expensive to rent and the companies in it are all very big organisations.


It was so quiet at that area as that day was Sunday. Some visitors were around there as well visiting this marvelous architecture.
Just around the corner, there is the other special building, Lloyds Tower. It really does look like a factory but in fact it is an office building. As far as I know Lloyds is a big souvenirs company and there is one small shop at the building.

And just down there a bit is the Leadenhall Market which is featured (if not mistaken) in Harry Potter movie.



After visiting Gherkin, I brought CCK towards London Stock Exchange (LSE) at St. Pauls Cathedral which he really really wanna see. I didn't took any photos of LSE myself, so, can't show here. We went towards the cathedral at the back of LSE.

Just down the cathedral, we walked towards the Millennium Footbridge.
It is headed towards south bank which the Tate Modern with the tower is situated. From south bank, St. Paul's Cathedral looks stunning.
Continuing our walk at south bank, we walk towards Big Ben to end our day out...
This place is quite famous among the skaters...

I definitely like this photo. It's well taken with the Parliament House as the background.

After that day, CCK didn't really had a good time as I didn't have time to accompany him and he went out alone, with long and tiring journeys, so he decide to go back to Sunderland 2 days later. Then, I decided to visit him that weekend.... which will be mentioned in the next post... stay tuned...

Borough Market London - Part 2

Date: 3 May 2008
Venue: Borough Market, London Bridge
Tube Station: London Bridge
Camera: Canon Powershot A430 4.0MP

Related Post: Borough Market London - Part 1

Bakery

Bread, baguettes, cakes, cookies, pastry. The traditional food for European people. It has lots and lots of history and they are still eating now. There are too many types of bread that I still can't recognise them all.

Baguettes, Croissants...

Tarts, cakes, etc...

Oat cookies

Traditional Gingerbread man

If not mistaken, the brown bread with square on is call sour dough.

Cheese

CHEESE~~~!!!!! It is so so popular here that it has tonnes of cheese available in too many sizes and varieties. I really am not an expert in cheese so I just try to capture some of the special ones. I just know that some of them like blue cheese smells very strong and other cheese... I have to no idea... there are cheese tasting at nearly every cheese stall so I tried some. Not bad at all but it is really not cheap.

Blue Cheese?? Is that Fungus??

Goats cheese, for goat milk lovers...

What kind of cheese is that?

What do you think of the price?

This thing here, is one of the new stuff that I know only after visiting Borough Market. That 2 yellow thing is cheese while the grey metal machine is something like a stove, it melts the cheese from the top. When the cheese melts, they scrap it off and spread it on either bread or potatoes... Trust me, it taste really really nice. People are queuing up for it... again... not cheap. 1 portion of toast cost £3 which is so small that you can finish in 3 mouthful. Potatoes and pickles portion will be £4.

Seafood

Seafood, a must for a market. It is exotic usually but you can find cheaper seafood here as well depending on your budget. Alive or dead, they all have.

There we have, clams. They open it and customers just grab it straight away, eaten raw with some lemon juice on it. Many Asians eating though. When I was there, a Hong Kong family was there eating as the clams were opened up. I really lost count of how many they eat but in the end they pay £25 for the 'meal'.Slurrrrrrpppppp......................

Look at these lovely fishes and prawns.... mouth watering.....

XXL Madagascar prawns.... £39.60 per kg... maybe 2 prawns per kg?

Sea Urchins...

Sweets

British people loves sweets and desserts. Their chocolates and sweets are so sweet that you will choke by it.

Chocolate truffles stall....

Cranberry, quite famous around. It sells sweets and dried fruits and nuts... Everything you can think of...


Specialties - Salt

What can I say... Salty!!! Even salt has so many varieties and mixtures... I wonder how they use them.... it's not cheap....

Normal French sea salt....

with herbes de provence...

with seaweed....

with hot spices....?

....and with Oregano and wine???? my goodness.... salt with wine....

Ostrich....

There is 1 stall which is specialized in Ostrich. As under the meat category, I already introduced Ostrich meat... and here.... Ostrich Feather Dusters!! £6.95 for one!! I wonder who's gonna buy and use it.... that price...

and this!! What for??? £14.30!!!!
Ostrich Grill..... Doesn't really taste interesting though... £4.. damn...

Well, that is all about Borough Market... A very interesting place to visit.